the Indra-like repetition of Govannon's interference, which makes Dylan die every day and as often plunges the sympathizing billows in loud grief. But the defeat of darkness means the victory of the sun's light; so the story of Dylan, in its most modern echo, may be said to give the contest that iteration which Gwydion's action in bringing Llew back to life a second time fails to express.
This leads us round to where we were before setting out on this digression; we were then occupied with the story of Llew, and we must now say something of his Irish counterpart, whom it is impossible not to recognize in Lug Lám-fada, or L. of the Long-hand, though the stories about the two seldom coincide; but that is owing in a great measure to the important difference of treatment, which lets Lug act for himself instead of under the ægis of his father, as is mostly the case with Llew. The Donegal story of Lug's birth is perhaps the one that comes nearest to that of Llew: according to the former he was, as it will be remembered (p. 314), the son of Mac Kineely and Ethnea, a name more correctly written Ethne, with a genitive Ethnenn, also written Ethlenn (or Ethlend); so that Lug is not unfrequently called Lug mac Ethlenn, with the usual predilection for the mother's name. But there is another account of Lug's origin, which gives him for father one who would seem to have been himself a personification of the sun. His name was Cian, which appears to be no other word than the Irish adjective cian, 'far, distant, remote:' in that case the fitness of the name needs no remark, the Sun-god being not unfrequently represented as coming from afar. On the subject of Cian's identity there were different opinions, one of which makes him son of Dian Cecht, and says, contrary
