dependence of fertility on him; but the result is precisely that which everywhere marked the golden age. As elsewhere, too, gods instituted festivals, one myth telling how Lug first cele- brated that of Lugnasad, not in his own honour, but to the glory of his foster-mother.16
The mythic trees of Elysium were not unknown on earth, though there they were safely guarded; and another instance, besides those already described,17 is found in the oak of Mugna. "Berries to berries the Strong Upholder [a god?] put upon it. Three fruits upon it, viz. acorn, apple, and nut; and when the first fruit fell, another used to grow." Leaves were always on this useful tree, which stood until Ninine the poet cast it down.18 What is perhaps a debased myth of a world-tree like Yggdrasil is found in the story of the tree in Loch Guirr, seen once every seven years as the loch dried when its enchant- ment left it. A green cloth covered the tree, and a woman sat knitting under it; but once a man stole the cloth, where- upon the woman said:—
"Awake, thou silent tide;
From the Dead Woman's Land a horseman rides,
From my head the green cloth snatching."
At these words the waters pursued him and took half of his horse and the cloth from him.19
Few and fragmentary as these myths are, they, with the classical myths already cited,20 prove what a rich cosmogony the ancient Celts must have had.
