Note (return) — Chapter V
Reading edition
Ler, whose name means "sea," and who was a god of the sea, is father of Manannan as well as of the personages of the beautiful story called The Children of Lir, from which we learn practically all that is known of him. He resented not being made ruler of the Tuatha Déa, but was later reconciled when the daughter of Bodb Dearg was given to him as his wife. On her death, he married her sister, who transformed her step-children into swans.304 Ler is the equivalent of the Brythonic Llyr, later immortalised by Shakespeare as King Lear.