to be more exact, the Welsh version may have compressed into a triad the stories of several thefts from Hades, so that one woild be left to compare the bird alone with the cranes of the Irish tale. One of the accounts of Arthur killing the infernal giant residing on Mont S. Michel (p. 91), represents three baleful birds turning his spits for the giant; but another makes them into three maidens forced to cook for him.[1] One is tempted to interpret the association of the three with the terrene powers as a reference to their supposed wisdom and knowledge extending over time in its three divisions of future, present and past; and the 'come,' 'go' and 'past' of the cranes' cries readily lend themselves to such an explanation. We might perhaps go so far as to bring the three maidens into comparison with the Norns or three weird sisters of Norse mythology, and even with other threes in our mythologies. Be that as it may, one may venture to hint that the story of Aitherne stealing Mider's cranes was the echo of a more ancient story with a far deeper meaning; one, in fact, which represented him procuring knowledge and wisdom from the powers of the nether world by stealth. But the Leinster euhemerist was bound, so to say, to construe everything relating to Aitherne in pejorem partem.
You might now be left to think the best of Aitherne in his reformed character; but one cannot dismiss him without giving the tale of his death. Irish story
- ↑ See Thornton's Morte Arthure, ed. by Perry for the E. Eng. Text Society (London, 1865), p. 31, line 1029: 'Thre balefulle birdez his brochez they turne;' and Wright's Malory, i. 176-7: 'Three damosels turning three broches whereon was broached twelve young children late borne, like young birds.'
