who is also stated to be the son of a sister of Tethra king of the Fomori. Now the dusky father discovers that his daughter has been wooed by the Riastartha: he is displeased and resolves on compassing the death of his would-be son-in-law. So he sets out in disguise on a visit to Conchobar's court, and he persuades the king to have Cúchulainn's military education perfected by sending him to be instructed by certain friends of his, from whom he expects him never to return alive. The first of these is represented living in Alban or Britain, but his country, though given that name, belonged to the geography of the other world. He was called Domnall, and was probably the same mythic being as Domnall[1] the terrible chariot-god, associated with the bards to whom allusion has already been made (p. 323). His name fits in with what is said of him in the story of Cúchulainn; for Domnall, the genitive of which is well known in the Anglicized form of Donnell, would seem to associate him with the deep; and in Welsh it is, letter for letter, Dyvnwal, a name borne by one of the mythic legislators mentioned in the Triads, one of which, iij. 58, associates his name with the beginning of bardism. He has usually the epithet Moel, 'bald,' or Moel-mud, 'bald and mute, or bald-mute,' in harmony with a common habit of representing the dark gods as bald, cropped of their ears, deprived of one eye, or in some way peculiar about the head, and occasionally lacking the power of speech. When Cúchulainn had learned all the feats that Domnall could teach him, he proceeded to leave
- ↑ In the Ashburnham MS., fol. 82c, he is called Domnall mil de mal, 'while Harl. 5280 gives the name as Domnall milde mon.
