Monaghan Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

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in the town of Ardagh, where she dropped them

at “the little church of Lasair.” As Brigit was a

goddess connected with fire, it is possible that

Lasair and Latiaran were originally titles or local

names for her.

Sources: MacNeill, Máire. The Festival of Lughnasa,

Parts I and II. Dublin: Comhairle Bhéaloideas

Éireann, 1982, pp. 268 ff; Ó hÓgain, Dáithí.

The Hero in Irish Folk History. Dublin: Gill &

Macmillan, 1985, pp. 20–21.

Latis Continental goddess. Little is known of

this obscure goddess, who has been interpreted

as a goddess both of beer and of holy WELLS.

Latobius Continental Celtic god. A few

inscriptions bear the name of this obscure god,

whom the Romans associated with their warrior

divinity MARS. His name has not been translated.

Laudine See LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN.

Launfal (Sir Launfal, Lanval) Arthurian

hero. In the works of the 12th-century French

poet Marie de France we find many Celtic

motifs, perhaps derived from the folklore of

Brittany. In one of Marie’s most famous compo-

sitions, a puritanical knight of king ARTHUR’s

court, Launfal, hated the beautiful queen GUIN-

EVERE, to whom he felt morally superior even

before she fell in love with the glorious knight

LANCELOT. At her wedding feast, Guinevere

snubbed Launfal, prompting him to pack up and

move back to his own castle, where he soon

spent more than he had. He was in despair of

what to do when a FAIRY LOVER named

Tryamour came to his rescue, providing him

with all the riches he needed in exchange for his

love. Her one demand was that he never boast of

her. He agreed, and they began to enjoy them-

selves together, he providing love in exchange

for a great white horse, a hard-working squire,

and an inexhaustible purse.

After seven years, Launfal returned to

Camelot. To his surprise the hated Guinevere

flirted with him. Once again Launfal became

morally indignant and rebuffed her. Infuriated,

Guinevere snarled that Launfal was so ugly no

woman would ever look at him. Stung, the

knight forgot his promise and began to brag to

Guinevere of his lady’s beauty and wealth.

As soon as he returned to his quarters, Launfal

realized his mistake, for all his wealth had disap-

peared. To make matters worse, Arthur returned

home to discover Guinevere, her clothing

disheveled and torn, accusing Launfal of rape.

When he explained his side of the story, he was

set free for a year, with the demand that he pro-

duce his beautiful lady; after a year, Launfal had to

return and await condemnation. Unlike every

other story of a man who breaks his pledge to a

fairy lover, Launfal was saved when Tryamour

appeared and took him away to FAIRYLAND.

Source: Briggs, Katherine M. An Encyclopedia of

Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other

Supernatural Creatures. New York: Pantheon

Books, 1976, pp. 366 ff.

Lavaine Arthurian hero. A minor character in

the tales of king ARTHUR, he was ELAINE’s

brother and a friend of Lancelot.

Law of the Innocents Celtic custom. One of

the oldest extant laws in Scotland is the Law of

the Innocents, which provides protection for

unarmed civilians during warfare. Written in ca.

700 C.E. by the Christian cleric Adomnán, ninth

abbot of IONA, the law penalized men who took

advantage of war to rape women; some scholars

have used this part of the law to argue that Celtic

society, far from being fair to women, put them

at grave risk with its warrior ways. Others, how-

ever, argue that women in Celtic lands did, in

fact, have considerable power, which began to

decline after Christianization and the arrival of

Saxons and Vikings. In either case, the Law of

the Innocents was used in the late 1990s by three

284 Latis

women who protested against nuclear arms in

Scotland by dismantling a Trident submarine

control center; they were acquitted by an order

to the jury by judge Margaret Gimblett.

Laying the Fairies Folkloric concept. There

was only one way to get rid of FAIRIES: give them

something. When fairies, especially

BROWNIES,

helped human beings, they did so for their own

reasons, not to gain money or clothing. Some

went naked and departed immediately upon

being handed clothing (or hand-knit tiny

sweaters). When fairies were driven off by this

kind of misguided generosity, the former owner

was said to have “laid” them.

Leborcham (Lavercam,Lebarcham,Levarcham,

Lebharcham) Irish heroine. The nurse of the

tragic heroine DEIRDRE of the Sorrows, she was

born a slave but rose into the ranks of nobility by

her wit and strength and finally became a BARD.

Leborcham was so fleet of foot that she could

run the entire length of Ireland in one day and

be back by dawn to deliver news, a talent that

brought her to the attention of the king of

ULSTER, CONCOBAR MAC NESSA. When the

doomed Deirdre was born and Concobar deter-

mined to raise her to become his concubine

despite predictions that she would cause the

downfall of the land, Leborcham was put in

charge of the girl’s upbringing and education. It

was Leborcham who told Deirdre, struck by the

sight of a RAVEN’s blood against snow, of the man

whose coloring resembled that sight: NOÍSIU,

Deirdre’s fated lover.

Leborcham remained loyal to her charge,

and she tried unsuccessfully to warn the girl to

leave Ireland after she and her lover had been

tricked into returning from their Scottish exile.

Unfortunately, Deirdre was already home and

unwilling to go back into exile. Leborcham then

tried another route: She went to Concobar and

told him that her hard life in the wilderness had

destroyed Deirdre’s beauty, although she

remained as radiant as ever. Alas for the girl, the

king chanced to see her again and so realized

Leborcham’s deceit. When her lover was killed,

Deirdre chose death over remaining as the king’s

enslaved consort.

Source: Dillon, Myles, ed. Irish Sagas. Cork: The

Mercier Press, 1968, pp. 53 ff.

Lebor Gabála Érenn See BOOK OF INVASIONS.

Leherennus Continental Celtic god. Believed

to be of pre-Celtic origin, Leherennus was wor-

shiped in the mountain range of southern

France, the Pyrenees; the Romans identified him

with their warrior god MARS.

Leinster (Laighin, Galian) Irish province.

One of the five ancient divisions of Ireland (with

MUNSTER, CONNACHT, ULSTER, and MIDE),

Leinster is the eastern PROVINCE, where today’s

capital city of Dublin is located. It was tradition-

ally associated with prosperity and commerce, as

well as nobility, good manners, and hospitality.

Leinster has historically been the richest of

Ireland’s provinces, constituting the “pale” of

Anglo influence during the English occupation

(the source of the expression “beyond the pale,”

which referred to regions that remained more

Celtic). The name derives from an early Celtic

people called the Lagin (Laigin, Laighnigh).

Today, Leinster includes the counties of Dublin,

Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford,

Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wexford,

and Wicklow.

Len Irish hero. This obscure figure is known

from several legends as the SMITH to the great

magician BODB DERG. After him, the scenic lakes

of Killarney in Co. Kerry are called, in Irish,

Loch Lein.

Lén Línfiaclach Minor Irish hero. One of

the several craft gods of ancient Ireland, Lén

Línfiaclach lived in a LAKE where he devoted

Lén Línfiaclach 285

himself to crafting beautiful objects for FAND,

daughter of the wilderness goddess FLIDAIS and

one of Ireland’s most powerful FAIRY QUEENS. To

do his work, Lén Línfiaclach threw his anvil

every night toward the east. As it traveled, it left

three trails: one of water, one of fire, and one of

purple jewels, which Lén Línfiaclach gathered

for his creations.

Lenumius Continental Celtic god. Equated

by the Romans with MARS, who was god of both

war and agriculture, Lenumius is known from

some inscriptions, but we have little other infor-

mation about him.

Lenus Continental and insular Celtic god. In

Gaul and parts of Britain, Lenus was invoked as

the ancestral god of the Treveri tribe. Statues

show him standing next to a large BIRD, perhaps

a GOOSE; the juxtaposition may indicate his own

powers or his partnering with a goose goddess.

Leodegrance Arthurian hero. This otherwise

obscure character was the father of the great

beauty GUINEVERE, who became the wife of his

ally, king ARTHUR.

leprechaun (leipreachán, lùracán, luchramán,

luchragán, luchorpán, lupracánaig, lurikeen)

Irish folkloric figure. The most familiar Irish

FAIRY is today depicted as a dwarfish man with

GREEN clothing who knows the location of the

pot of GOLD at the rainbow’s end. One of many

species of Irish fairy, the leprechaun was a soli-

tary sort (see SOLITARY FAIRIES), encountered far

less frequently than the more common TROOP-

ING FAIRIES, who danced and sang and led trav-

elers astray. Finding the leprechaun was only the

first step to finding his treasure, for then one had

to extract that information from him. The only

way to do so was to trap and hold the little man,

keeping him clearly in sight. The leprechaun’s

favorite trick to get out of such a trap was to

claim that a monster approached, prompting his

captor to look up momentarily, whereupon the

leprechaun disappeared.

The leprechaun’s name comes from leith

brogan, the maker of the brogan or shoe; he was

the fairy’s shoemaker (sometimes tailor), an

industrious being rather like the Scottish and

British BROWNIE, except that he rarely worked for

anyone but himself, whereas the Brownie was a

volunteer farm laborer. Of a somewhat surly

disposition, the leprechaun could become down-

right malicious when crossed, so it was considered

important to be polite when dealing with one.

There is some evidence that this fairy figure

had a mythological antecedent: the important

and all-talented god

LUGH, sometimes called the

shoemaker Lugh-chromain, “little stooped

Lugh.” As patron of the arts and of treasure,

Lugh was diminished after Christianization (see

CHRISTIANITY) and remained in this folklore fig-

ure. The BOOK OF INVASIONS also mentions a race

of small-bodied monsters begotten by the bibli-

cal Noah’s son Ham because his father had

cursed him; these may have provided a mythic

template for the leprechaun.

The leprechaun appears in some literary

works, most notably the early 20th-century comic

novel Crock of Gold by Dubliner James Stevens,

which was the basis for the popular American

musical (and later movie) Finian’s Rainbow.

Sources: Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in

Celtic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe

Humanities Press, 1911, pp. 241, 242;

Keightley, Thomas. The Fairy Mythology.

London: H. G. Bohn, 1870, pp. 371 ff;

Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of the Irish

Celts. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, p. 130;

ilde, Lady. Ancient Legends, Mystic Char

ms and

Superstitions of Ireland. London: Chatto and

Windus, 1902, pp. 56 ff.

Leth Cuinn, Leth Moga Irish geographical

divisions. Along the EISCIR RIADA, the great gla-

cial ridge that divides Ireland from Dublin to

Galway, the land was once divided between the

286 Lenumius

leaders CONN of the Hundred Battles to the

north and EÓGAN MÓR (under his name of Mug

Nuadat) to the south. The northern region was

called Leth Cuinn, while the southern region

was Leth Moga. This is one of several ancient

divisions of Ireland, the most common being the

division into the five PROVINCES.

Lethderg Irish heroine or goddess. This

name appears in the DINDSHENCHAS, the place-

name poetry of Ireland, as the daughter of the

great king of the province of ULSTER, CONCOBAR

MAC NESSA. She was carried off by a party of war-

riors in the service of a minor king, Fothad. The

obscure tale points to a form of the goddess of

SOVEREIGNTY, who establishes a man in KING-

SHIP when he mates with her. The name also

appears as a compound name for MEDB, the great

warrior queen whose connection to the sover-

eignty goddess has been well established.

Leucetius (Loucetius, Leucetius) Continental

Celtic and British god. Known from a few

inscriptions in continental Gaul and Britain,

Leucetius was the consort of a better-known

divinity, the goddess of sacred groves named

NEMETONA. An inscription to the pair was found

at the healing shrine of BATH, called by the

Romans AQUAE SULIS, suggesting that Leucetius

may have been a HEALING god. In Gaul, Leucetius

was considered a form of MARS, perhaps as a heal-

ing divinity, for the warrior Mars was sometimes

pictured fighting off disease. Leucetius’s name

includes the syllable for “bright” or “shining” and

has been interpreted to mean “lightning.”

ley lines Folkloric belief. The belief that

there are invisible lines of power that run

beneath the earth and connect ancient sites of

power is a modern myth whose beginnings can

be traced to the works of the writer Alfred

Watkins, who charted in 1925 what he dubbed

“the old straight path.” Watkins believed that he

had discovered an ancient form of geomancy or

earth-energy tracking, indigenous to Britain.

There is no mythological or other folkloric evi-

dence of such a belief. In addition, the sites are

so widely disparate in both time and place that

few real “straight tracks” can be traced. There is

no evidence that ley lines, under any name, were

part of Celtic belief.

Liadan (Líadan, Liadhain, Lídain) Irish

heroine. The BARD Liadan came from the Irish

region most connected with music and song, the

southwestern province of MUNSTER. Another

poet, Cuirithir, fell in love with her while she

was making a poet’s circuit of the island, but she

refused to interrupt her tour and declined his

advances, instead inviting him to visit her at

home in Co. Kerry. When he did not appear, she

entered a convent. She soon regretted her deci-

sion but then found that Cuirithir had become a

priest. This ended the possibility of consumma-

tion of their love, although their confessor sug-

gested that they sleep together chastely as a

proof of their holiness. When Cuirithir was

exiled for seeking out Liadan, she died of grief at

his praying stone. The story, although Christian,

has many Celtic echoes, including the position

of women as poets and the testing of the virtue

of the lovers (also found in the story of

LANCELOT and GUINEVERE) by having them

sleep together without giving in to their passion.

Lia Fáil (Lia Fal) Irish mythological object.

One of four great magical implements of the

TUATHA DÉ DANANN, the people of the goddess

DANU, the Lia Fáil or Stone of Destiny was a

great STONE pillar that shrieked when touched

by the true king. It came from the OTHER-

WORLD, from the magical city of Fálias. (The

Tuatha Dé’s other magical objects, each from a

different Otherworld city, were a spear that

never missed, an invincible sword, and an inex-

haustible CAULDRON.) The Lia Fáil was said to

stand on the great hill of TARA in Ireland, where

it was used in INAUGURATION ceremonies of the

HIGH KING. A stone still stands on Tara hill, but

Lia Fáil 287

there is some dispute as to whether it is the true

Lia Fáil. For one thing, legends claim that the

true Lia Fáil has been long resident in the OTH-

ERWORLD, where it was taken when its owners

were banished from the surface world, and that

the stone in this world is a substitute. Other leg-

ends state that the true Lia Fáil is now in

Scotland. In the sixth century C.E., Tara’s king

MUIRCERTACH MAC ERC loaned the Lia Fáil to his

Scottish brother, FERGUS MÒR, who then refused

to send it back; it became the Stone of Scone

(Sgàin), which was stolen by the English king

Edward I after the fall of Macbeth (1057) and

installed under the throne at Westminster Abbey,

serving for centuries as the INAUGURATION STONE

and authorizing symbol of English monarchs

(though not, reportedly, shrieking). The stone

was returned to Scotland in 1996 after several ear-

lier attempts by Scottish nationalists to recover it.

Still other versions of this story have it that the

Scottish Stone of Scone is not the Irish Lia Fáil at

all but a stone that came from Egypt. It had its

own magical power, having been hallowed in

ancient time when the biblical Jacob slept upon it

and dreamed of angels ascending to heaven.

Lianan Sidhe (Liannan-Shee) See FAIRY

LOVER.

Liath Irish hero. There are several figures in

Irish mythology who bear this name. One was a

member of the race of NEMED, who cut down all

the trees on the hill of TARA so that corn could

grow there, after which the hill was called Druin

Léith in his honor. The other (who may be the

same figure) loved a woman named BRÍ but was

prevented by their deaths from wedding her; their

names live on in the double name of BRÍ LÉITH,

given to one of the great FAIRY MOUNDS of Ireland.

Liath Macha Irish mythological animal. The

“gray of MACHA” was the name of the favorite

HORSE of the ULSTER hero CÚCHULAINN; the

steed, which magically arose from a LAKE, was a

gift from Macha, the primary goddess of Ulster.

Lí Ban (Liban) Irish heroine. The story of

the MERMAID Lí Ban (“finest of women” or

“beauty of womanhood”) was first recorded in

the ANNALS OF IRELAND in the 17th century but

was said to date to the 6th century. Variously

described as the daughter of the king of Tara,

AÉD ABRAT, or of the obscure Ecca (her mother is

not named, but may have been ÉTAIN), Lí Ban

was swept away by a flood that resulted from

someone’s failing to cover a sacred WELL. As a

result, the well swelled and overflowed until it

destroyed the kingdom of Aéd Abrat, drowning

him and most of his family. Only Lí Ban sur-

vived, together with her little lapdog, both of

whom were caught within an underwater bubble

where they lived for a year. Watching the playful

SALMON, so comfortable in the element that

trapped her, Lí Ban prayed to become a FISH.

Her wish was granted: She was turned into a

mermaid with a salmon’s tail and a woman’s

torso and head. Her pet dog became an OTTER,

and together the pair swam in the waters of

LOUGH NEAGH for 300 years. During that time,

Ireland became Christian—a common folkloric

motif also found in the stories of another trans-

formed maiden, FIONNUALA, and in that of OISÍN

who lived in FAIRYLAND with the queen NIAMH of

the Golden Hair.

At the end of three centuries, Lí Ban called

out to a passing boat, entreating the men she saw

to capture her and instructing them to meet her

on the shores at Inver Ollarbha. In that boat was

a priest, Beoc, who first went to Rome on an

errand, then arranged for the mermaid’s capture.

She was hauled up and kept in a half-submerged

boat, so that she could swim until it had been

determined what should be done with this mirac-

ulous maiden. At first the local kings and priests

argued over who had the right to claim her, but

angels instructed them to wait until two

OXEN (or

STAGS) appeared—and then to trust that the

beasts would haul the maiden to the territory in

which she belonged. The miraculous oxen did,

indeed, appear and carried Lí Ban to the church

of the priest who had first found her, Beoc. There

she asked to be baptized so that she might die

288 Lianan Sidhe

immediately and ascend to heaven, whereupon

her wish was answered and she was named

Murgen, “sea-born.” Dying immediately, she

became a SAINT and was regarded as a holy virgin.

This mixture of pagan and Christian ele-

ments shows how ancient divinities were

brought into the domain of the new religion. Lí

Ban was probably once a goddess like BÓAND and

SÍNANN, two other divinities whose myths

involve a well magically overflowing. Her origi-

nal myth, however, is probably hopelessly lost

under the accretion of Christian motifs.

Another (perhaps originally the same) Lí Ban

was a FAIRY QUEEN, consort of the ruler of MAG

MELL, “the honeyed plain,” and sister of the

great fairy beauty FAND; she and her husband,

beset by monstrous FOMORIANS, set in motion

one of Ireland’s greatest love stories when they

asked the hero CÚCHULAINN to save them. He

did so, but he fell in love with Fand—the only

love affair that threatened the durability of his

marriage to the paragon of womanhood, EMER.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.

London: Parkgate Books, 1997, pp. 97 ff.

Licke British fairy. Licke is named, in several

texts, as a small FAIRY who worked as a cook in

the OTHERWORLD.

Lífe (Liffey) Irish heroine. The goddess of the

River Liffey (see ANA LIFE) and of the plain (Mag

Lífe) through which it flows, Lífe was described

in the place-poetry of ancient Ireland, the DIND-

SHENCHAS, as a sweet, hardworking, pleasant

woman who died giving birth at Port Agmar in

Aran, whereupon her consort, the otherwise

unknown Deltbanna, son of Drucht, died of grief.

Another story says that Deltbanna was her

husband, and that Lífe was a Pictish woman who

crossed the lovely plain through which the

Liffey now flows. The river was called at the

time Ruitheach, “the flashy torrent,” and Lífe

said that its prospect was the most beautiful

thing she had ever seen. Deltbanna immediately

named the plain for her, and the river took its

name from that affectionate act.

Sources: Gwynn, Edward. The Metrical Dindshenchas.

Part II. Vol. IX. Royal Irish Academy, Todd

Lecture Series. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,

Ltd., 1906, p. 61; Healy, Elizabeth, with

Christopher Moriarty, Cerard O’Flaherty

. The

Book of the Liffey: From Source to the Sea. Dublin:

Wolfhound Pr

ess, 1988.

liminality Cosmological concept. The Celts

saw this world as impinging upon or existing par-

allel to an OTHERWORLD of spirits, FAIRIES, and

divinities. Places that were not quite one thing,

not quite another—twilight and dawn, the turn-

ing days of the year, geographical sites like BOGS

and LAKES and misty ISLANDS—were the points

of exchange between these two worlds. Such lim-

inal (literally, “shadowy”) places and times were

very important in Celtic myth and ritual. On

SAMHAIN and BELTANE, the year’s most powerful

days on November 1 and May 1, respectively, vis-

itations from the Otherworld could be expected;

passing at twilight near a FAIRY MOUND on either

day amplified the liminality and thus made one

subject to FAIRY KIDNAPPING.

Lindow Man Archaeological find. In the BOG

near the British town of Lindow, one of the most

important and baffling Celtic archaeological

finds was made in 1984: a human body, pre-

served by the bog’s tannic water, which appeared

to be that of a HUMAN SACRIFICE who had suf-

fered the THREEFOLD DEATH of Irish legend.

Whether this man died in ancient times because

of some offense or as an offering to remove

famine or plague is impossible to determine, but

the find has given rise to significant research.

Source: Ross, Anne. “Lindow Man and the Celtic

Tradition.” In Stead, I. M., J. B. Bourke, and

Don Brothwell. The Lindow Man: The Body in

the Bog. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,

1986, pp. 162–169.

Lindow Man 289

Linton Worm See DRAGON.

Lionel Arthurian hero. This minor knight of

the ROUND TABLE was a cousin of the superlative

LANCELOT.

Lios Irish mythological site. The term lios is

often used to describe HILLFORTS and STONE

CIRCLES in Ireland. One site of that name is

especially renowned, as it is the largest stone cir-

cle in the land, with a circumference of almost

160 feet. Near the mythologically significant

LOUGH GUR, the huge circle dates from as much

as 4,000 years before the Celts arrived in

Ireland. Like many such structures, it is astro-

nomically aligned, in this case to the setting of

the moon at MIDSUMMER.

Lir (Lear) Irish hero. The great Irish sea god

MANANNÁN was called “mac Lir,” meaning “son of

Lir,” but it is not entirely clear who Lir was. Some

have described him as an earlier sea god who was

absorbed into an invading people’s mythology by

being named as the antecedent or father of one of

their own gods. Despite the similarity of names,

Lir has nothing to do with the Shakespearean

King Lear, who may be based on the Welsh god

LLUDD, whom Shakespeare may have confounded

with LLYR, another Welsh divinity. Lir may be the

same as or distinct from the king of the same

name, whose children were turned to swans (see

CHILDREN OF LIR) by their evil stepmother, in one

of the THREE SORROWS OF IRELAND. The story,

one of the most familiar in Irish legend today, is

not ancient but arrived from Britain or France in

the Middle Ages; however, it has many motifs and

themes that are typically Celtic, such as SHAPE-

SHIFTING and magical incantations.

Lis (Lios) See HILLFORT.

Liscannor Irish mythological site. In the

small town of Liscannor near the renowned

Cliffs of Moher, a holy WELL dedicated to the

goddess turned-saint BRIGIT gathers the faithful

on February 1, Brigit’s feast day and the Celtic

feast of IMBOLC or spring’s awakening. A PAT-

TERN of circular transits up and down a hillside

precedes a visit to the well itself; the well’s waters

trickle down the rocky wall of the well house,

which penetrates to within the hill, an unusual

location that has led scholars to theorize that the

original figure to whom the well was devoted

was a goddess, rather than a saint.

That goddess was probably not Brigit, for the

dedication of the well to her is relatively recent.

Until the 1950s, the pattern day was on

LUGH-

NASA, the old Celtic harvest feast on August 1.

That day is associated with goddesses like

TAILTIU who died while giving birth—a repre-

sentation of the vegetation’s death to provide

life—and to the HAG of harvest, the CAILLEACH.

The nearby cliffs are called, in Irish, Ceann na

Caillghe, “the hag’s head,” reportedly because

the hag MAL leapt from their top to her death.

Some local legends connect this hag with the

monster called the OLLIPHEIST.

Litavis (Litavus) Continental Celtic goddess.

Not much is known of this goddess, whose name

seems connected with words for “earth” or

“broad,” suggesting that she was a deity of the

wide world. She was sometimes described as the

consort of the god CICOLLUS, whom the Romans

saw as similar to their god MARS, but she was not

herself renamed by the invading legions.

liver Symbolic food. Scottish Highlanders

historically had a superstitious aversion to liver,

which was considered inedible. Not even mon-

sters like WATER HORSES ate their victims’ livers,

which were sometimes the only trace of the

unfortunate human meal left at the scene of a

disappearance.

Llacheau (Lohot) Arthurian hero. This

obscure figure was said to have been an illegiti-

mate son of king ARTHUR.

290 Linton Worm

llamhigyn y dwr See WATER-LEAPER.

Llassar Llaesgyfnewid (Llassar Llaes Gyfne-

wid) Welsh god. A relatively obscure Welsh

GIANT, he owned a CAULDRON that figures impor-

tantly in the collection of Welsh myths called the

MABINOGION, for it had the power to regenerate the

bodies of slain warriors. The evil Evnyssen

employed the cauldron’s power in his people’s

great but ill-fated battle with the Irish. Llassar’s

wife,

CYMIDEI CYMEINFOLL, was a cauldron of war

herself; every six weeks a fully armored warrior

sprang from her womb. Some interpreters claim

that the cauldron belonged to Cymidei rather than

to her husband.

Llefelys (Llevelys) Welsh hero or god. In

Welsh myth, this king ruled on the Continent

while his brother, LLUDD, ruled Britain. He came

to Lludd’s aid in ridding Britain of three plagues.

Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Llew Llaw Gyffes)

Welsh god or hero. When the goddess ARIAN-

RHOD sought to become king MATH’s foot-

holder—an office previously held by the maiden

GOEWIN, whose rape rendered her unsuitable to

perform the sacred duties—she was tested to

ensure her virginity. To Arianrhod’s surprise and

horror, as she stepped over Math’s magical rod,

she bore two children. One,

DYLAN, disappeared

immediately into the sea; the other, an unformed

ball of flesh, was snatched up by Arianrhod’s

brother, the poet

GWYDION, who put it in a mag-

ical chest where it formed finally into a child—a

boy, who may have been Gwidion’s own son,

born of his love for Arianrhod.

It was a mother’s right to name her children,

and Arianrhod angrily refused to name the pre-

mature babe born through trickery. So Gwydion

tricked his sister again, forcing her to grant the

name Lleu Llaw Gyffes—”bright one of the skil-

ful hand”—to the boy. Similarly, it was her right

to arm him with weapons, and here again

Gwydion tricked Arianrhod so that Lleu could

be outfitted as a warrior. Finally she cursed her

mysterious son, declaring that he should never

wed a human woman. Once again, Gwydion

tricked his sister, this time with Math’s help. The

two men formed a woman out of flowers, and so

Lleu was married to BLODEUWEDD, the aptly

named “flower-face.”

Unfortunately, Lleu had no happiness with

his wife. She soon took a lover and began to plot

how to be rid of him. Because Lleu was pro-

tected from harm by the strange fact that he

could never be killed when inside or outside,

while on horseback or afoot, Blodeuwedd chal-

lenged him to stand under a thatched roof by the

side of a river, with his foot on a deer. Lleu took

the dare. Standing in this unlikely position, Lleu

received his death-blow and sailed away in the

form of an

EAGLE. His murderer did not go free;

she was turned into the nocturnal OWL.

Many scholars have seen Lleu as a parallel

divinity to the Irish LUGH, although the com-

plex story has little in common with those told

of its alleged Irish cousin.

Lludd (St. Lludd) Welsh saint or goddess.

Christianity, employing the same adoption of

native divinities that the Roman legions earlier

practiced, “converted” many ancient divinities,

calling them SAINTS but keeping their symbols,

and sometimes even their narratives, intact.

Thus we find that when Lludd was decapitated

for her holiness, her head rolled down a hill;

where it stopped, a healing SPRING gushed forth.

The motif of the miraculous HEAD is typically

Celtic, as is the power ascribed to healing

WELLS. Behind this Welsh saint, therefore, an

early goddess may hide.

Lludd Welsh god or hero. Several figures in

Welsh mythology bear this name; they may be

aspects or echoes of each other or distinct fig-

ures, although it is difficult to disentangle them.

The most important is Lludd Llaw Ereint

(NUDD), an ancient British king whose brother

LLEFELYS ruled on the Continent; the two were

Lludd 291

sons of BELI, god of death. According to the early

historian Geoffrey of Monmouth, it was Lludd

who built London, but the god behind this

alleged king can be detected by Geoffrey’s

description of a temple dedicated to him (on the

site of today’s St. Paul’s, near the old entrance to

the city called Ludgate).

Three plagues struck Britain while Lludd was

king: a race of demons called the Corianiad; two

DRAGONS; and a GIANT magician. With his

brother’s help, Lludd defeated all three, setting

poisonous insects lose on the Corianiad, getting

the dragons drunk so that they were easy to kill,

and killing the magician in mortal combat. It is

believed that this ancient royal character

inspired William Shakespeare in his play King

Lear, but he confused Lludd’s name with the

similar Welsh figure LLYR.

Llwch Llawwyanawc (Llwch Lleminawc,

Llwch Llenllawc) Welsh hero. This minor

character in Welsh legend bore a flaming sword

as he led king ARTHUR through the dim OTHER-

WORLD.

Llyn Tegid See TEGID.

Llyr (Lear) Welsh god. Not much is known

about this ancient god, who may be the same as

the Irish sea god LIR. Some scholars interpret

Llyr as an underworld or OTHERWORLD divinity,

but as the Celts often described the Otherworld

as an ISLAND in the sea or as a land beneath the

waves, these two interpretations are not neces-

sarily in conflict. The Welsh Llyr was father of

the hero MANAWYDAN, with the great mother

goddess DÔN’s daughter PENARDDUN; he also

sired the warrior BRÂN THE BLESSED and the

love goddess BRANWEN, with the queen named

Iweriadd (Ireland).

In some texts Llyr appears as a human king,

Llyr Llediath, “Llyr of the foreign accent,”

while in later folklore he was Christianized as a

SAINT who was buried under the River Sahr, an

appropriate site for an ancient water divinity.

Geoffrey of Monmouth mentions a King Leir,

on whom Shakespeare is assumed to have based

his memorable mad king.

Loathy Lady Arthurian heroine. The foul

and ugly HAG who appears in some Arthurian

tales is a form of the ancient goddess of SOVER-

EIGNTY, who becomes a blooming young woman

when kissed by the rightful king; she also recalls

the great pre-Celtic figure of the CAILLEACH, the

weather-controlling GIANT. In some legends of

the sacred GRAIL, she appears as the figure who

asks candidates the mysterious questions that

test their purity. Variously known as Cundrie

and as lady RAGNELL, the Loathy Lady inspired

the medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer in

his “Wife of Bath’s Tale.”

lob British folkloric spirit. Like HOB, the sylla-

ble lob appears in many British FAIRY names.

Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire was a big BROWNIE who

did hard farm labor despite his lazy name. The

term lubber (as in “landlubber”) descends from

this term and was used to describe people who

were so distracted from ordinary life that they

were clumsy and foolish.

Lóequre Búadach. Irish hero. Minor figure

in the story of the feast of BRICCRIU.

location of Otherworld Cosmological con-

cept. The Celtic OTHERWORLD was a place of

the dead, the gods, and the FAIRY people, but it

was neither above nor below our earth, where

the Christian description locates heaven and

hell. Rather it existed in a parallel universe, not

entirely separate from our world but not within

it either. This contiguous world was believed to

be reached through portals in either time or

space (see LIMINALITY). Temporally, the dates of

SAMHAIN on November 1 and its opposite feast

of BELTANE on May 1 were considered to be

open to the Otherworld; in this world, border-

land places like BOGS and ISLANDS served as the

same kind of doorway. Within the Otherworld,

292 Llwch Llawwyanawc

time moved differently than in this world; peo-

ple who spent a night there might return to dis-

cover a hundred years had passed on earth.

Locha Irish heroine. Handmaiden to queen

MEDB of CONNACHT, she was killed in the great

CATTLE RAID on ULSTER described in the Irish

epic, the TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE.

Lochlann (Lochlanns, Lochlannachs) Irish

mythological site. In some texts, this appears as

the name of the northern land of the FOMORI-

ANS, the opponents of the magical TUATHA DÉ

DANANN and several other mythological Irish

races. Occasionally the Fomorians are called the

Lochlanns or Lochlannachs. Some scholars have

interpreted Lochlann as Denmark and lower

Scandinavia; the Fomorian capital city of Berva,

mentioned in some tales, is otherwise unknown

and believed to be entirely legendary.

Source: Joyce, P. W. Ancient Celtic Romances.

London: Parkgate Books, 1997, p. 430.

Loireag Scottish folkloric figure. This water

FAIRY of the Hebrides, like the similar HABETROT,

was a spinner, an appropriate skill for a matron

spirit of a region where tweed-making was an

important economic role for women. Loireag

was small and plain but fierce, giving trouble if

any rituals connected with spinning, warping,

weaving, or washing were neglected. She was also

a musician with a sweet voice—again, something

to be expected in a region where women sang as

they performed their textile labors, as can be seen

in the famous “waulking songs” of Scotland,

whose heavy rhythm accompanied the equally

rhythmic work of preparing cloth.

lone sod See STRAY SOD.

Long Man (Long Man of Wilmington)

British folkloric site. On Windover Hill in East

Sussex, a figure of a man holding two immense

staffs is carved into the white chalk soil. At 226

feet, it is even taller than the CERNE ABBAS GIANT

(although it lacks that figure’s notable sexual

organ). The Long Man may represent some

unknown god of the Celts or a pre-Celtic peo-

ple. Local legend has it that the outline was

traced around the body of a real GIANT after he

was killed on the hillside by pilgrims; the tale

may recall Christian opposition, which may also

have resulted in the figure’s emasculation.

Source: Newman, Paul. Gods and Graven Images:

The Chalk Hill-Figures of Britain. London:

Robert Hale, 1987, pp. 134–154.

Lorois Arthurian hero. A young knight of

CAMELOT, Lorois encountered a court of

mounted women while riding through the

woods one day—beautiful damsels, entirely

nude, with flowers in their hair. Riding beside

them were their lovers astride strong HORSES.

Behind that splendid party came another, more

pitiful one: a hundred thin women dressed in

black and riding scrawny horses, who were

accompanied by thunder and snow as they rode,

followed at a distance by a hundred men of sim-

ilar appearance. The first group were those who

had opened themselves to love, while the second

group had refused it.

losses of the year Scottish and Irish ritual. At

SAMHAIN, the Celtic festival on November 1 that

marked the end of one year and the beginning of

another, many rituals and games of DIVINATION

sought to discover the “losses of the year”:

whether the coming year would be a happy one

with few losses, or a difficult one with many

losses. In Scotland the tradition moved to HOG-

MANY on January 1, when the evil of the past year

was expunged by a thorough cleaning and the

FIRST FOOTER foretold the coming year’s luck.

Lot Irish heroine. A fierce WARRIOR WOMAN

of the unearthly FOMORIANS, Lot led her people

in their war against their enemy, the people of

Lot 293