that there was a distant time when religion and mythology were at one as to the character of such divinities as Duben and Arianrhod. Even Lugaid appears to have been once the object of worship: you may take the name Mo-Lugaid as evidence, and note the fact that the ancient centres of Irish paganism, left 'waste without adoration,' are compared to the site of Lugaid's house.[1]
In connection with my attempt to show that Diarmait, Corc and Duben were intimately associated with Kerry, it is worth while to observe that the inhabitants of that part of Ireland were probably among the least purely Celtic and the most thoroughly Ivernian in the island. Though nothing conspicuously different from the legends of other districts seems to characterize those of Kerry, it is not impossible that a closer examination of them would result in the discovery of non-Celtic traits. That is, perhaps, the light in which one should regard the attribution to Diarmait of a mole, described as a love-spot, on his face, and curly hair on his head of a dusky black colour,[2] the Ivernian race being, as it is supposed, itself of a dark complexion.
- ↑ Stokes, Calendar of Oengus, Prolog. lines 205-8.
- ↑ See The Pursuit, i. § 5, and pp. 61-2; also the poem referred to in my note, p. 504, which seems to give Corc or Diarmait the epithet
besides 'white,' it may mean 'respected, holy, felicitous, blessed,' with a variety of nuances which no single English word will convey: thus the poets speak of Duw gwyn, 'holy or blessed God,' and nef wen, 'the blessed or blissful heaven,' while their lemans have not unfrequently been addressed by them as fy nyn wen, 'my heavenly maid;' and my father used to call his respected step-mother mam wen, a term in common use in parts of Mid-Wales, and best rendered by the French belle mère. These and the like uses of the adjective are paralleled by the Lithuanian treatment of baltas, 'white:' see Nesselmann's Dict. p. 319.
