habit of doing most things for him. If it should here be objected, that while Indra brings the sun back everyday, Gwydion is only made to bring Llew back once, our answer would be, that this has already been met, at least in part, and that now its force may be still further broken. For, to begin on Irish ground, we there find stories which mention several births of the Sun-god, that is to say, the Sun-god's father and the Sun-god's son may both be termed Sun-gods as well as he. This agrees well enough with an idea which seems to have once been prevalent in Ireland, that an ancestor might return in the person of one of his descendants. So far as I know, the ancient Brythons were less familiar with the idea of a series of Sun-gods than that of a group of them; not to mention that they are found to have less dwelt on the antagonism between day and night than that between the summer and the winter; but Welsh mythology is nevertheless not wholly without a sort of analogue to Indra's daily exploit in bringing back the sun; for Llew had a twin-brother who reached sudden maturity and rushed off into the sea. The nature of that element became his; he swam about in it like a fish, and never did a wave break beneath him, whence his name Dylan son of the Billow. He fell by the spear of the Culture Hero Govannon, Gwydion's brother the smith; and his deed came to be recorded in a triad[1] as one of the Three nefarious Blows of the Isle of Britain. A pathetic touch, associated with the muse of Taliessin,[2] introduces an Æschylean chorus of outraged spectators, consisting
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V. THE SUN HERO
