worked for him and watched his movements: presently he took out of the fire a glowing rod of iron, which he adroitly thrust into Balor's evil eye, and out through his skull on the other side. This was at the forge at Drumnatinnè, though others will have it that the scene of Balor's death was at Cnoc na fola, or the Bloody Foreland.
Such is the modern version of a very ancient story, in which one cannot help seeing that Lug, saved from drowning with his anonymous brothers, and brought up by Gavida the smith, his father's brother, is the same person as Morann, rescued from drowning with his monster brothers, and brought up as the son of Móen the king's smith. The parallel between the two stories may be drawn still closer if one take into account that Cairbre may be inferred to have been the brother of Móen. It seems to be fairly established by the fact that Cairbre, in the person of the satirist of that name, who disturbs the reign of the Fomorian tyrant Bres, is called, the son of Etan the poetess (p. 253); and that Móen the seer, in whom we doubtless have Móen the smith, as every great smith was chiefly famous for his spells and divination, is also called Móen son of Etan.[1] It occurs, be it noticed, in the legend showing how by cunning and craft Cairbre—there called Cairbre Musc—got the first lapdog from Britain (p. 246). The story ends with the statement that after the dog died, its bare skull was one day shown by a
- ↑ In Cormac's Glossary in the Three Irish Glossaries, ed. by Stokes, p. 30, and the Stokes-O'Donovan translation of Cormac's Glossary, p. 112, the genitive is Edaine, of Edáin or Etáin; but in the Bodleian fragment, Laud 610, also ed. by Stokes, it is Etnæ, the gen. probably of Etan, while the Bk. of the Dun, 38b, has Etan, gen. Etaine.
