（外文电子版资料）Chapters 1 - 4.pdf

THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN AND IRSELAND C H A P T E R I THE CELTS AND THEIR MYTHOLOGY ‘ THE Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland.’ This title will possibly at first sight suggest to the reader who has been brought up to consider himself essentially an Anglo-Saxon only a few dim memories of Tiw, of Woden, of Thunor (Thor), and of Prig, those Saxon deities who have beclueathed to us the names of four of the days of our week1 Yet the traces of the English gods are comparatively few in Britain, and are not found at all in Ireland, and, at any rate, they can be better studied in the Teutonic countries to which they were native than in this remote outpost of their influence. Preceding the Saxons in Britain by many centuries were the Celts-the ‘Ancient Britons ‘-who themselves possessed a rich mytho- 1 Tiwesdreg, Wddnesdsg, Thnnresdceg (later, Thurresdsg), and Frigedsg. Sster(n)esdzeg is adapted from the Latin, Saturni dies. A I MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN logy, the tradition of which, though obscured, has never been quite lost. In such familiar names as ‘ Ludgate,’ called after a legendary ‘good king Lud’ who was once the Celtic god LlQdd; in popular folk and fairy tales ; in the stories of Arthur and his knights, some of whom are but British divinities in disguise ; and in certain of the wilder legends