point is the fact that the picture he projects of the devil reproduces exactly two characteristics of Cernunnos, in that he was supposed to sit cross-legged guarding the treasures in his cave. That a divinity like Cernunnos should end his career by being absorbed into the incongruous character of the devil, seems just what one might have expected.
With the aid of the Welsh instances, one is enabled to identify the Head in Irish literature likewise, where it is called that of Lomna, Finn's Fool, who is treated as an imbecile and as a poet or prophet: I allude to an article in Cormac's Glossary,[1] where verses ascribed to Lomna's Head are quoted. The story, strange and obscure as it is, may briefly be summarized thus: Finn and his men had set up their hunting-booth in Tethba, Anglicized Teffia, a district of considerable extent in the modern counties of Westmeath and Longford; and while Finn was busy with the chase, Lomna lurked about home, where he came one day across Cairbre, champion of the Luigni, with the Luignian woman who was Finn's wife in that district. She entreated Lomna not to tell Finn what he had seen; but unwilling to be a party to the disgracing of Finn, he wrote an Ogam couched in quaint metaphors, which Finn on his return did not fail to interpret. The result was that Cairbre, coming again at the suggestion of the Luignian lady when Finn was away, cut off Lomna's head and carried it away with him. Finn in the evening found a headless body in the booth and soon convinced himself that it was Lomna's; so the hounds were let loose, and Finn with his Fiann, as his men were called, tracked
- ↑ See pp. 129-30 of O'Donovan's translation (ed. Stokes), s.v. Ore Tréith.
