Lugh was also called the Ildana, that is, the man of many arts, because he knew and could do anything. He could write a poem, or play the harp, or build a house, or fight a battle, equally well, he had so much learning.
The last of the gods that I shall tell you about now was Fintann, who was also called the Salmon of Knowledge. Sometimes he would change himself into a salmon, and go to a sacred well where nine mysterious hazel-trees grew, which were called the hazel-trees of wisdom. They produced their blossoms and leaves and nuts at the same time, and as the nuts dropped from the trees to the surface of the water Fintann would eat them, and so he gained wisdom of all that had been or would be. The legends say it is this Salmon of Knowledge that Fionn mac Cumall touched with his thumb one day, when he was a boy, and so gained his knowledge of the past and the future.
At the time that Fionn and his heroes lived, the gods made themselves visible very often; perhaps that was because the people living then believed so thoroughly in them.
