the nine gates of the dark being described as Yspaᵭaden Pencawr, 'Hawthorn chief of Giants,' in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen;[1] also the Nine Witches of Gloucester, who, like the brothers Maini, were aided in their ravages by their father and mother: it was, however, all in vain, as they were vanquished by the hero Peredur, who afterwards completed his military education under the care of one of their number.[2] We have the same idea, with the malignity of the witches replaced by the teaching of the muses, incorporated in the nine maidens who feed with their breath the fire beneath the Cauldron of the Head of Hades (p. 256), which is matched in Irish by the nine sacred hazels growing over the Well of Wisdom. The other treatment is reserved for Maine mac Durthacht, who is not mentioned in company with any brothers of his: he was the owner of the brooch on which Aitherne set such value, and in that brooch some ninely characteristic like that of Woden's Draupnir may be supposed to have resided. Moreover, the manner in which Maine son of Ailill is mentioned by himself in the Táin epic,[3] would suggest that under that name the myth originally contemplated but one personage, who was only multiplied into seven or eight under the influence of the Christian week and its Latin name, the Maine of the older treatment being made into a Maine said to contain all the others. Irish literature makes mention of other Maini, one of whom was styled Maine the Great, and also Maine Muineamon, or M. of the Rich Neck, as O'Curry has suggested, the surname being explained by
