The gods' winter indisposition, inactivity or death, which led me to make this digression, must not be confounded with their voluntary visits to the nether world. Of these we have an instance in the Ultonian cycle of Irish stories, where Conchobar, who here stands in the position of a Celtic Zeus, goes with his men, including young Cúchulainn the Sun-god, to the house of Culann the smith to be entertained for the night (p. 446). Culann is to be regarded as one of the forms of the dark divinity or Dis of the Celts, and in Greek mythology he has his counterpart in Hephæstus, excepting that, owing to the departmental narrowing of the latter's characteristics, Culann was somewhat wider; for he was not only smith, but diviner and prophet, the owner of herds and flocks, and of a Cerberus that guarded his house and chattels until it was killed by Cúchulainn. That Culann is a form of the dark divinity is favoured by the fact that his name has sometimes become synonymous with that of the devil. He is sometimes associated with the Isle of Man, where he manufactured a sword, a spear and a shield, of such transcendent excellence for Conchobar, that he was invited by him to dwell in his realm: Culann, accepting the offer, settled on the Plain of Murthemne,[1] where the story of the Táin represents him living.[2] But that Plain was fabled to have been formerly situated beneath the sea, which reminds one of the Homeric story about Hephæstus working for nine years beneath the sea unknown to gods and men, excepting Eurynome
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VI. GODS, DEMONS AND HEROES.
