The God of Tailltiu.
Among the conquering gods brought by the Celts from Europe, the most illustrious and attractive was Lug Lamhfada, “the long-handed,” the source of all light, physical and mental. Traces of his worship are found in Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain and Britain, as well as in Ireland. At least fourteen places bore his name, as “Lugodunum” (Lyons, Leyden and Laon among others) and one “Luguballium,” or Carlisle.[1] In Ireland[2] we find “Lis Loga,” or Naas, “Cro Loga” at Tara, “Long Loga,” a sandbank in Dublin Bay, “Lugmod” or Lowth, “Luglochta Loga,” near Lusk in Co. Dublin, and “Lis Luigdech,” or “Lis Loga,” near Tara. His name was a favourite with his worshippers, though I only find a “Lug,” son of Finn,[3] and another ill-attested “Lug” among the crowd of mythic sons[4] assigned to Oilioll Aulom by tribes striving to affiliate themselves to the great line of the Dergthene princes of Munster. We have, however, Fir Loga, Cuchulaind’s attendant, Mucoi Loga, Lugucrit, or Lucrit, Lugaid or Lugudex (genitive Lugadeccos, or Luigdech) in Ireland, and in Britain Lugubelinus or Llewelyn, and Lugueslis or Llefelis the last apparently after a brother of Ludd or Nudd Lamereint, i.e. Nuada, “silver hand.” When Caesar calls Lug (under the name of “Mercury”) “inventor of all the Arts,” he may be repeating a hymn, perhaps recited by his friends the Aeduan druid, Divitiacus, which has many an echo in Ireland and elsewhere. We have a votive tablet to Mercurius Cultor
- ↑ Holder. “Alt Celtische Sprachzatch,” under Lugdunum.
- ↑ British Academy, 1910, p. 254, see also Hogan’s “Onomasticon Goedelicum,” s.v.
- ↑ Irische Texte, iii. p. 277, from Acallamh. We have a “Loga” on an ogham.
- ↑ Like Delbaoth the fire god and Cian, probably Lug’s father (see Coir Anmann, Irische Texte, iii. p. 359). I find, however, that St. Iarlath’s father is called “Lug” in some documents, though usually “Iren.”
