Note 161 — Chapter XIV · The World of Our Ancestors
Reading edition
In the Cuchullin Saga Lugh is "a lone man out of the north-eastern quarter". When the cry of another supernatural being is heard, Cuchullin asks from which direction it came. He is told "from the north-west". The goddess Morrigan then appeared.
[162] In a Cuchullin saga the hero, addressing the charioteer, says: "Go out, my friend, observe the stars of the air, and ascertain when midnight comes". The Irish Gaelic grien-tairisem is given in an eighth-or ninth-century gloss. It means "sun-standing", and refers to the summer solstice.
[163] Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, Lib. I, cap. 30.
[164] Of course it does not follow that the reasoning originally took place in these islands. Complex beliefs were imported at an early period. These were localized.
[165] In Gaelic these are called "friction fires".
[166] According to some, Isis is a rendering of a Libyan name meaning "old wife".
[167] This connection can be traced in ancient Egypt. The sun and fire were connected, and the sun originally rose from the primordial waters. The sun's rays were the "tears" of Ra (the sun god). Herbs and trees sprang up where Ra's tears fell.
[168 So was a whale. The Latin orca is a Celtic loan-word. Milton uses the Celtic whale-name in the line