through the mist," But in Irish literature he figures mostly as the chief of the fairies in the Land of Promise (p. 355). Of course his character was as self-contradictory as that of Cronus, for he appears mostly as the tricky druid of the other world; but, on the other hand, things were so managed at his court that no one's food there would get cooked if, while it was on the fire, one told a story which was untrue;[1] and it is to Manannán we are perhaps to ascribe the banishment of three men from fairy-land to the Irish court of Tara: they were, we are told, to remain there for the space of three reigns as a punishment for lying or acting unjustly.[2] In the Welsh Mabinogi, bearing the name of Manannán's counterpart Manawyᵭan, the latter is not much associated with the sea, excepting perhaps his sojourn with Brân's Head in the lonely island of Gresholm (p. 90). It makes him, however, take to agriculture, especially the growing of wheat,[3] which reminds one of Saturn. He is also called one of the three Golden Cordwainers of Britain, owing to his having engaged successively in the making of saddles, shields and shoes, and taught it to Pryderi, son of Pwyỻ Head of Hades.[4] This may perhaps be set over against
- ↑ Kilkenny Soc. 1852-3, pp. 32-4; Manx Soc. xv. 134.
- ↑ See the story of Bruden da Derga in the Bk. of the Dun, 96a, b.
- ↑ R. B. Mab. pp. 52-3; Guest, iij. 175.
- ↑ R. B. Mab. 47-9, 52; Guest, iij. 167-9, 174; Triads, i. 77 = ij. 58. The first of the Mabinogion passages referred to contains a mythic account of the origin of the Celtic art of enamelling, for some references to which, see Elton's Origins of English History, p. 305. The great place given to certain of the useful arts in the Mabinogi of Manawyᵭan is in some degree due perhaps to a false etymology associating with his name the Welsh for an awl, which is mynawyd (Breton ménaoued,
