the interpretation here suggested of the term Lugnassad is in the main correct; and it agrees with the fact that after Lug's death—for euhemerized gods must die—the husband of Erinn is represented bearing the significant name of Mac Greine, or the Son of the Sun.[1] Nor is evidence of a more indirect nature altogether wanting, for if the Lugnassad recalled the marriage of Lug, it might also be expected to have been considered an auspicious time for their own marriages by his worshippers. This is borne out by tradition. Dr. O'Donovan, after briefly describing the position of Tailltin or Teltown, goes on to say that there were in his day vivid traditions of the Lugnassad extant in the country, and that Teltown was, till recently, resorted to by the men of Meath for hurling, wrestling, and other manly sports. This is not all, for 'to the left of the road, as you go from Kells to Donaghpatrick, there is,' he adds, 'a hollow called Lag an Aonaigh, i.e. the Hollow of the Fair, where, according to tradition, marriages were solemnized in pagan times.'[2]
To sum up these remarks: the Lammas fairs and meetings forming the Lugnassad in ancient Ireland, marked the victorious close of the sun's contest with the powers of darkness and death, when the warmth and light of that luminary's rays, after routing the colds and blights, were fast bringing the crops to maturity: this, more mythologically expressed, was represented as the final
- ↑ Bk. of Leinster, 10a; Keating, p. 130-1.
- ↑ The Four Masters, A.M. 3370, note. Perhaps the marriages at the Lugnassad followed a season of no marrying: in Scotland at least the month of May was a close time in this respect: see Thos. Stephens' Gododin (published by the Cymmrodorion), pp. 125-6, where he quotes Thomas de Quincey in Hogg's Instructor for July, 1852, p. 293.
