his hand more heavily on the Irish narrative than on the Welsh one. For, while Conchobar and his Ultonians annihilate Aitherne and his house, Mâth only punishes the two brothers by transforming them into beasts for three years, at the end of which he restores them to their previous form and position. Lastly, the two stories agree as to the motive or, more correctly speaking, the lack of adequate motive, attributed to Gwydion and Aitherne in their lawless conduct towards Goewyn and Luain respectively. In this particular, both stories, together with that of Cairbre with Finn's Luignian wife (p. 98), may justly be suspected of having undergone serious distortion or blurring: the original myth, I doubt not, supplied some such an intelligible motive as that attributed to Woden in his guileful treatment of Gundfled (p. 288) the mead-giant's daughter, or such a one as may be detected in the scandal whispered about Prometheus and Zeus's daughter Athene.
Pwyll and Others visiting Hades.
There remain to be noticed in this lecture certain tales which show a general similarity to that of Gwydion and those that are inseparable from it, namely, in that they turn mostly on the dealings, whether hostile or friendly, of their respective heroes with the powers of the other world. It is, however, to be premised, that owing to a blending, especially common on Irish ground, of the characteristics of the Culture Hero with those of the Sun Hero, and to another source of complication to be touched on later, some of the tales I refer to ought in strictness to find their places elsewhere in tin-so lectures; but the arrangement about to be here followed has in its
