served not only—perhaps not chiefly—to represent the nine nights of the week, or even the dawns or dusks of the same, so much as that which allowed of being measured by the limits of the week, that is to say, that metaphorical kind of space which we call time, and time for the most part contemplated as the bringer of boons and the teacher of wisdom. It was a sort of Athene with nine forms of beauty; so in the Ultonian cycle of Irish tales she is the daughter of king Conchobar, and known as Fedelm of the Nine Forms,[1] who will come under our notice later as she who sends her handmaid to comfort Cúchulainn at night and to give him his bath in concealment.[2] In Welsh, the nine forms of the mythic beauty have been effaced by the blanching hand of oblivion; but one recognizes her person in the Lady of the Fountain who becomes Owein's wife, after her handmaid Lunet had rescued him from death by giving him a Gygean ring to conceal him from his enemies. In the case of Fedelm, the reference to the nine nights of the week is involved in the nine forms of her beauty, and in that of Lunet they are symbolized by the ring which makes its possessor invisible whenever he pleases. The rest of the parallel is still more obvious, for Lunet is described not only giving Owein refuge and food, but also administering to him such services as that of washing his head and shaving his beard,[3] somewhat in the same way that Athene is represented weaving a peplos for her favourite Heracles, or causing springs of warm water to
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IV. THE CULTURE HERO.
