Note (return) — Chapter V
Reading edition
Equally influenced by Märchen formulæ is the story of Oengus and Etain. Etain and Fuamnach were wives of Mider, but Fuamnach was jealous of Etain, and transformed her into an insect. In this shape Oengus found her, and placed her in a glass grianan or bower filled with flowers, the perfume of which sustained her. He carried the grianan with him wherever he went, but Fuamnach raised a magic wind which blew Etain away to the roof of Etair, a noble of Ulster. She fell through a smoke-hole into a golden cup of wine, and was swallowed by Etair's wife, of whom she was reborn.287 Professor Rh[^y]s resolves all this into a sun and dawn myth. Oengus is the sun, Etain the dawn, the grianan the expanse of the sky.288 But the dawn does not grow stronger with the sun's influence, as Etain did under that of Oengus. At the sun's appearance the dawn begins