the division of the day into three parts—morning, noon and afternoon or evening. In any case, three is also the number of the Horæ as given by Hesiod,[1] who calls them Eunomia, Dike and Eirene respectively; and I am not sure that the Χάριτες or the Graces[2] of Greek mythology were not, in point of origin, the same as the Horæ: be that as it may, the latter were supposed to watch over men and prosper their works, presiding chiefly over the changes of time and the seasons. Whether they were not confined originally to the narrow limits of the day I cannot say, but we have no grounds in Celtic literature for extending their domain beyond it; and after the analogy of myths relating to the sun and to light, we may naturally expect them, whether three or twenty-four, to have been regarded as the offspring of parents more or less allied with darkness. This is borne out on Irish ground by the description already alluded to, of Dóel Dermait's daughter and brother, and by that of Custennin's wife in the Welsh story, not to mention that the father of the twenty-four sons was brother to Yspyᵭaden, the chief of the giants of the dark world. Now Kulhwch's mother was sister to the wife of Custennin; what then are we to make of her name, with its unmistakable reference to the light of day? The only answer which would seem to satisfy these conditions is, that she was a representative of either the dawn or the gloaming. In case we fix on the dawn, the Sun-god, whose spouse is a dawn-goddess, is himself the son of a dawn-goddess,
- ↑ Theog. 902.
- ↑ The relation between the Charites and the Sanskrit Harits will be found discussed in Max Müller's Lectures on the Sc. of Language8, ij. 408-11, 418.
