The Great Lunar Cycle: The Horse Twins and the Grail: Part 9 of 12
The Welsh "Aesir-Vanir War"
In the next portion of the Mabinogion, Pryderi also fights a war very reminiscent of the Norse Aesir-Vanir war. Gwydion desires a pretext to cause Math to go to war, and also desires the otherworldly swine belonging to Pryderi. So Gwydion offers in exchange for the swine a great deal of enchanted fungus that he has temporarily turned into dogs, war horses, and shields. Pryderi accepts the deceptive trade, and we should be reminded of the deceptive deal made in the similar circumstance by the Irish Horse Twin Aengus to win Brugh na Boinne, only the Horse Twin Pryderi has here become the dupe. "And they consulted together, and determined to give the swine to Gwydion, and to take his horses and his dogs and his shields," we read, and the third function quality of the swine is here placed in clear contrast to the war horses, dogs and shields -- symbols of the higher, warrior function -- exchanged for them. Gwydion is, at least in part, one of the first function gods himself, the central Oðinnic magician god of the Welsh pantheon, and father of the chief god of sovereignty and justice Lleu, and so the war that ensues, of the forces of the Horse Twin Pryderi with the forces of Gwydion and Math, is perfectly in line with the war of Freyr's tribe with Oðinn's and the ultimate integration of the third function qualities of the Vanir into the society of the higher gods. There is even a hostage exchange at the conclusion of the war between Pryderi and Gwydion's forces, just as there is a hostage exchange at the conclusion of the Aesir-Vanir war. We read, "And that he might have peace, Pryderi gave hostages, Gwrgi Gwastra gave he and three-and-twenty others, sons of nobles." In this Welsh version, the peace falls apart however, and Pryderi is subsequently killed in a duel with Gwydion. However, the swine of Pryderi, symbols of the third function power, even said to have come from the underworld Annwn itself, the underworld commonly seen as the source of fecundating powers, have already been taken and integrated by Gwydion into the society of higher gods, thereby perfecting the divine social order.
In fact, it is quite incredible how closely this form of the myth matches that found in the Roman pseudo-historical account given by Livy, that is "the Rape of the Sabine Women." The Romans, led by Romulus (first function, parallel of Oðinn/Gwydion), desire wives, so they trick their neighboring tribes, including the Sabines, and steal their women to marry. This incites a war, which results in a stalemate and a truce, the outcome of which is that the Sabines, who possess the women and wealth symbolic of fertility and production (third function) are integrated into the Roman society, which is characterized by its warrior-priestly quality (second and first functions). Romulus and the king of the Sabines, Titus Tatius (parallel of Freyr/Pryderi), agree to share the rulership. However, after a short period, Titus is killed by Romulus' men. But the Sabines and their women have already been integrated into Roman society, the third function has already been integrated into the society of the higher functions. The most interesting and humorous realization while comparing the Roman and Welsh versions, along with how strikingly similar they are, is the fact that, in the Welsh version, the Swine of the Underworld take the identical position taken by the Sabine Women in the Roman version.
The Horse Goddess and the Daughters of the Sun
One important issue must be addressed regarding the various fair maidens before proceeding with a further explication of the details of the Welsh case. Most of these maidens or princesses have at least a possible solar significance: Tapati meaning “hot,” and being the daughter of the Sun god Vivasvat; Skaði being called “shining”; Iðunn having the possibly solar golden apples; it being said of Gerðr that "Her arms glittered, and from their gleam/Shone all the sea and sky"; Cigfa being daughter of “fair shining one.” Caer Ibormeith means “yew berry,” and considering what we have seen it seems prudent to interpret this in terms of the solar symbolism of the Yew tree: the Yew tree was the primary source of wood for archer's bows in Northwest Europe, archery being a prime symbol of solar activity. Thus, as we have seen, Norse Ullr is the archery god who lives at the Yew Dales, among the trees that are his symbol. Yew being a symbol for the power of the sun, a yew berry then could be a poetic symbol of a ray or drop of sun, a berry dropped from the solar tree. The red color of the yew berry can reinforce its solar quality.
Now, our argument does not necessarily rely on these princesses being sun princesses in every case, as it is absolutely possible for a god to marry a sun princess in one branch and a different goddess in a separate branch, but some strong remnants of the sun princess motif should appear here or there, and we believe we have pointed to enough to make it plausible that these could be mostly solar goddesses. However, figures such as Etain and Rhiannon seem much more closely tied to horse motifs, either in their myths, in their names, or both -- Etain being called Etain Echraide, or Etain of the Horses, Rhiannon appearing first on her magical horse, having a son the same night that a horse is born, being condemned to carry visitors on her back like a horse, and being forced to wear a donkey's collar when she is imprisoned in the other world. This seems to present a slight difficulty to some of our proposed equations on first glance; however, these equations can be justified.
As Proto-Indo-European reconstructionist Ceisiwr Serith points out, the Horse Goddess Ɂéḱwonā and the Daughter(s) of the Sun (reconstructed as Sawelyosyo Dhugətḗr) frequently overlapped and were even identified (Serith, “Proto-Indo-European Deities,” “Ɂéḱwonā”). Though they may originally have been distinct goddesses in the Proto-Indo-European era, by the time of the written myths they were almost wholly conflated. Indeed, the image of Rhiannon riding the modestly ambling horse that cannot be caught up to should be enough of an image of the sun in the sky to demonstrate how these two symbols came to be equated, and in many other cases the horse was used as a solar symbol. As Serith puts it, “Ɂéḱwonā overlaps the sun goddess Sawelyosyo Dhugətḗr somewhat to the point that in some of the later descendant traditions they have become identified with each other. Sawelyosyo Dhugətḗr is connected with horses (especially through the Diwós Sūnú [Divine Twins]), and Ɂéḱwonā is described with solar imagery. Remember Saraṇyū. Ɂéḱwonā is particularly solar in her power and the danger of approaching her. In Proto-Indo-European times, they seem to have been different goddesses, though” (Ceisiwr Serith).
The connection of the Samvarana/Tapati or Pwyll/Rhiannon myth to the Horse Twin myth can then be explained by the fact that Tapati and Sukanya (whose true name is Suryā) are sisters (presented as being of different generations descended from the sun god, which we take to indicate that Sukanya is an incarnation of the previously mentioned daughter of the sun, Suryā), both, at their root, daughters of the Sun god, who furthermore could easily have been identified or confused with one another, or simply have been considered as figures linked by their sisterhood and whose wooing tales as a result were seen as parallel and connected. And thus, Rhiannon/Iðunn, Etain/Skaði, and Cigfa/Caer/Gerðr, though having different mythic origins and not necessarily depicted as sisters, can be considered in this same sense as sisters on a hypothetical more archaic level, participating in parallel and linked myths. This also explains how these seemingly separate myths can have come together around the Celtic Holy Grail legend, blended together, as we will see later.
This general understanding can perhaps be strengthened by the recent research of William Reaves, who has demonstrated that Olvaldi, father of Thjazi, and Ivaldi, father of Iðunn, are likely the same figure, making Thjazi and Iðunn potentially half-siblings. "Idun and her sisters are Alfar," says Reaves, and just like Aengus' bride Caer, "They appear as swan maidens...accustomed to warmth and light" (Reaves, Idunn and the Elves, The Epicist 3, 44). Hence Iðunn, Skaði, and – as we argue – Thjazi are all solar figures who are of one semi-nuclear family, all are either jotuns or kin of jotuns, and Gerðr is another jotunn whose arms make sea and sky shine. Clearly "jotunn" was a designation often given to beings associated with the sometimes a-social powers of the astral bodies such as sun and moon. While Iðunn would here be presented as the aunt of Skaði (as Tapati is the great-great-aunt of Sukanya, extra generations likely added to indicate that Sukanya is a mortal incarnation), and these two as having no clear link to the other solar giantess Gerðr, we must remember that on a deeper metaphysical level they may come from a shared mythos of solar "sisters," due to being sun princesses, goddesses of the sunbeams.
It is clear that, perhaps due to this relatively interchangeable nature of the daughters of the sun, the Horse Twin myth and the Gandharva myth somehow became entwined into one tale in the branches of the Welsh Mabinogion, with the proposed Gandharva Pwyll and the Horse Twin Pryderi appearing now as father and son in one shared narrative, whereas their myths are somewhat separated in the other branches. The entwining of these tales reaches its peak in the Grail legend, where the wasteland of the Samvarana/Pwyll "Gandharva" myth is a prominent feature of the larger legend that centers around the Horse Twin hero Perceval.
To complete the set of Sun Princesses, we note that the Irish god of Eloquence, Ogma, who in a later chapter we will demonstrate is the cognate of the Gandharva, Hermes, Pwyll, and Bragi, marries a woman named Etan. If the mythic structure we are laying out holds, this Etain is none other than Etain, transferred from one husband to another, just as one of the Sun Princesses almost always is (Skaði, Rhiannon, Surya).
Manannan and Agni
There is nothing in particular in all of this to suggest that Njörðr, Pwyll, or Manawydan are themselves Horse Twins, as has sometimes been suggested, and these theories, which lack the fuller context, must be put aside. Instead, we can draw an interesting connection between the advisor of Samvarana, Vasistha and the friend and helper of Pryderi, Manawydan. In the portion of the myth where Samvarana/Pryderi occupies the sacred mountain improperly, leading to a wasteland, it is Vasistha in the one tale, and Manawydan in the other, who must then bring Samvarana or Pryderi back to their kingdoms to break the enchantment and revive the land. Interestingly, at this time Manawydan has become husband to the previously wooed wife of the now dead Pwyll -- that is, Rhiannon. If we consider again the hymn to "Suryā's Bridal," a possible link between Manawydan/Vasistha and the god Agni then comes into view. For, at the end of the hymn, we read that Suryā, the daughter of the sun, had a series of husbands, just as Rhiannon has now had two husbands in succession. The hymn states:
40 Soma obtained her first of all; next the Gandharva was her lord. Agni was thy third husband: now one born of woman is thy fourth. 41 Soma to the Gandharva, and to Agni the Gandharva gave (Rig Veda, 10.85.40-41).
Though it is possible the hymn is merely conflating various sun princesses here into one figure, and while some may say that this cryptic passage shouldn’t be extended too far or taken too literally, it must be said that Manawydan and his Irish form Manannan do have characteristics that can be interpreted in line with the fire-priest god Agni, as does Vasistha. Manawydan and Manannan are each said to be the son of the sea, while Agni is called “child of the waters.” Vasistha is said to be reborn from Varuna, who himself is a god identified with all water. Additionally, Vasistha goes as emissary to Vivasvat-Surya for Samvarana to request the Sun god’s daughter for Samvarana while Samvarana worships the sun god for 12 days straight, similar to how Agni is the emissary to the gods, carrying the sacrifice to them by burning it and rising into the sky. Again when Samvarana has stayed too long on the sacred mountain and has neglected his sacrifices, it is Vasistha's task to go as emissary to retrieve him and remind him of these sacrificial duties.
It seems clear that Vasistha in this myth is a stand-in for some god or other, for he takes the exact role the god Manawydan does in the Welsh myth. And not only does Agni follow Soma and the Gandharva in wedding the sun princess in the hymn, just as Manawydan follows Pwyll in marrying Rhiannon, but it is also said that at Soma and Suryā's wedding, “Agni was leader of the train.” Besides the Horse Twins, the wooers Chyavana and Samvarana, the princesses, and their fathers, there are almost no other figures that appear in the Indian forms of these wooing tales besides Vasistha. And he appears in an assisting capacity perfectly fitting one who would lead the train at the wedding, the primary priest and advisor of Samvarana as he is, just as Agni is priest of the sacrificial fire.
So: beginning with the potential correspondence of Vasistha to Agni as described in the "Suryā's Bridal" hymn, and then the correspondence of Vasistha to Manawydan based on their occupying the same role in parallel tales, then of Manawydan to his cognate Manannan, we can begin to investigate the possibility that Manawydan/Manannan is also the same figure as Vedic Agni.
There are multiple similarities that can carry this comparison. First, Manannan and Manawydan are commonly called Manannan mac y Leir and Manawydan fab Llyr -- that is, this god's status as son of the sea god Lir/Llyr is generally so important that it is made a part of his very name. As for Agni, he is frequently associated with waters, so much so that the epithet Apam Napat, meaning descendent or nephew of waters, is numerically most often attached to him in the Rig Veda. This could then imply the same relationship that “mac Lir” does for Manannan. Agni is said to be mysterious, even to playfully hide in the waters and other places. The fish are said to report news of his presence to the gods. Agni is said to be twice or thrice born: from water, in the air, and on Earth, signifying the different forms fire may take. The idea that he was first born from water was the result of a complex understanding of the nature of fire, a belief that fire was contained (lived) in water and arose from it (was born of it), entering back into it when doused. "In the waters, Agni, is your abode, you climb up in the shrubs," says the Rig Veda. Varuna places "the will in the heart, the Agni in the water and the sun in the sky" and Herman Oldenberg explains that
The water comes down from the ‘highest father’, the heaven; the plants suck their food from the rain and from the water of the earth…The plants are indeed the ‘first-born essence of waters’, ‘water is their nature’. Therefore, the power must have remained latent in water, and it breaks forth as fire from the wood of the plants. If the fire then returns to the heaven as smoke, i.e. as cloud, the circle is completed…’The same water goes up and down in the course of the day: the downpour (of rains) swells the earth; the flames of Agni swell the heaven’ (I, 164, 51). (Oldenberg, Religion of the Vedas, 65)
Second, Agni is primarily known as a priest and emissary between the sacrifice and the gods, as the flames and smoke rise to the sky, but he just as much is said to be a psychopomp, conveying the souls of the dead to the afterlife or to rebirth, as the flames and smoke rise from the funeral pyre. Manannan is centrally seen as a psychopomp as well, carrying the souls of the dead to the Land of Promise. This is perhaps why he was associated with the Eastern isle of Man, the land of the dead seen as over the waves and to the East of Ireland. Agni himself is worshipped in the Southeast corner of temples, and known as the guardian of this direction, due to this same psychopomp concept. Connected with this role of fire priest and psychopomp, Agni is said to be a wise sage, as Manannan too is wise and versed in magic.
Third, Agni remains extremely central to marriage rites to this day, while in “The Fosterage of the House of Two Pails,” Manannan is connected with marriage as well as birth and fosterage, and is in this text said to take over the responsibility for all marriages. In “The Conception of Mongan,” Manannan takes on an active role in conceiving the child Mongan upon a mortal couple.
Fourth, Agni was, from earliest records, considered a lord of three spheres and three corresponding forms. These were the forms of fire, lightning, and the Sun, and the corresponding spheres of earth, air, and the Sun, or earth, air and heaven, alternately. Having these three forms, Agni was said correspondingly to have three legs, and is frequently depicted thus. Manannan is famously said to have three legs as well, on which he rolls across the ground like a wheel. Alternately, in some late folktales he is followed by a mysterious three-legged, rolling creature.
Manannán sometimes takes the form of a wheel rolling across the ground, as in"Pursuit of the Gilla Decair" from the 16th-century. Lore of the Isle of Man and some eastern Counties of Leinster (according to John O'Donovan) says that Manannán rolled about on three legs. The depiction of him as a three-legged being is clearly connected to the hazy origin of the three-legged triskele symbol that is the flag of the Isle of Man, Manannan’s eponymous island. This would imply that the triskele could symbolize fire in its three births: earthly fire, lightning, and the sun — the vital, fiery essence of the cosmos in its three manifestations.
Fifth, Agni is in more than one place shown to shape-shift in order to test humans. Once, he tested King Shiba in the form of a pigeon, the king passing the test and proving his selfless virtue. He also witnesses the Agniparishka fire test, which Sita of the Ramayana was subjected to, also a test of virtue. Examples of trial by fire abound particularly in the Iranic tradition. In Avestan it is called garmo-varah, heat ordeal (cf. Boyce 1996:ch. 6), and in the text of the Avesta, blazing fire is the instrument through which justice is decided (Yasna 31.3, 34.4, 36.2, 47.2, 31.19, 51.9). Boyce points out that, "there are said to have been some 30 kinds of fiery tests in all" (Boyce, 2002:1). In the Vendidad violating truth is tested and detected by drinking a kind of “blazing” water (fire in water), which may have had brimstone or sulphur in it. Trial by fire was used in ancient Persia as a judicial tool, either requiring the accused to pass through fire or to have molten metal poured on their chest. In the comparable Hindu agniparishka fire test, the accused would have to sit on a burning pyre and survive. A similar test survives in the Indian Sansi tribe, where women's purity is tested by having to carry burning embers in their hands for a hundred yards. Manannan too is a shapeshifter and a tester with perhaps the same hidden underlying meaning, appearing as a beggar or cleric or some other unassuming being to beguile or aid humans. This trait became central to his depiction in medieval tales, which focused on his wily and trickster-like exploits, such as his bringing Cormac mac Airt to the otherworld and tempting and testing him with otherworldly gifts, including a cup that judges truth and falsity (His Three Calls to Cormac) as Agni judges virtue.
Sixth, Manannan is also closely associated with the three gods of crafts, Goibniu and his two brothers, but is not one of them. Yet he does himself produce or distribute many of the famous treasures and weapons of the Tuatha de Danann. He presides over Goibniu's feast and commissions a shield from the craft god Lucra, and also crafts the magical crane bag. This close association with crafts and weapon making, despite not being the blacksmith god or one of the main craft gods himself, only seems logical when Manannan is seen as the god of fire, fire being the necessary companion of craft work and blacksmithing. He is said to have a red spear and a yellow spear, perhaps repeating the colors of fire.
Seventh, Manannan is also depicted as overseeing the great Feast of Age, which keeps the gods immortal, and this association may be due either to the necessity of fire for cooking food, or, more likely, simply from the fact that fire conveys the food of the gods up to them from the burnt sacrifice. In the conception of the Vedic sacrifice, the god of fire directly serves the life-bringing offerings to the gods.
It likely will be objected that, despite all these possible connections, Manannan seems not to have been depicted with fire itself. However, this is not true. During the narrative of The Wooing of Etain, it is said that Manannan was known, in one tradition, to have killed Midir and Fuamnach by burning. It is in fact relatively rare to find fire used as an offensive weapon in Celtic myth, and so this instance stands out. Another significant instance occurs at the beginning of "The Adventures of Art, son of Conn," wherein the Tuatha de Danann are in council deciding what to do with the wife of Labraid Luathlam-ar-Claideb, who has committed a "transgression" with Manannan's son. The punishments debated are for the woman "to be driven forth from the Land of Promise" or "to be burned according to the counsel of Manannan." In the end, Manannan says not to burn her, "lest her guilt should cleave to the land or to themselves" (The Adventures of Art, son of Conn). It is certainly noteworthy that Manannan is seen here as the decider of whether to execute a criminal by fire, just as he kills Fuamnach (and Midir, seemingly) with fire himself. The fear that the woman's guilt will "cleave" to the land seems to be a fascinating glimpse into an ancient understanding of how guilt may be spread via an execution by flame.
Manannan is colloquially believed to be a god of the sea primarily. This is the image that has been passed down to us and how he appears in the most common depictions. However, the scholar David Spaan in his essay “The Place of Manannan in Irish Mythology” claims that this sea association is secondary to his true nature, an association likely to be derived from his abode on the Isle of Man and his connection to the land of the dead found thereabouts. Due to the fact that he lives out at sea and has to cross the ocean to carry souls back and forth, he has naturally become associated with the sea as its lord as well. Hence both his sea association and his magical wave-sweeping ship can be explained by his role as psychopomp, and can be supported further by the aforementioned epithet of Agni – Descendent of Waters -- and by Agni's general association with water, to the point that Agni was seen as living in that element and being born from it. Manannan's habitual cloak of mist can then be simply explained by this sea association, or even, more speculatively perhaps, as the natural result of fire touching water.
Spaan further comments on the many similarities between Manannan and the Norse Óðinn, pointing particularly to Manannan as “supreme provider, accomplished magician and sorcerer, as well as custodian of the well of truth and patron of the arts and crafts. Prophet and shape-shifter,” “ruler of the Otherworld,” who leads chosen warriors “to his Land of Promise...to be educated there at his own hand” (Spaan, 179), likening this last facet to Óðinn's role in Valhalla. Manannan also feeds warriors in this place with pigs that are ever renewed, as Óðinn feeds the slain einherjar with the ever-regenerating pig Saehrimnir. This connection of Manannan/Manawydan with Óðinn is important and is crucially supported by the passing of Skaði in marriage from Njörðr to Óðinn, which we have suggested matches the passage of Suryā from Soma to Agni or of Rhiannon from Pwyll to Manawydan. However, while keeping Spaan's important comparisons in mind, we should note here that Agni/Manannan seems only to correspond to one part of the larger makeup of Óðinn, as if the Agni deity is an "aspect" of Óðinn, so to speak. This complex problem will be discussed in another chapter.
Further, more tentative comparisons can be made between Manannan and Agni. Agni is said to be a giver of weapons on more than one occasion. In one portion of the Mahabharata he gives a magical arrow case, four white horses, and a chariot, to Arjuna, along with the powerful Gandiva bow, which becomes Arjuna's signature weapon. He furthermore gives Krishna the cakrayudha weapon. Manannan, for his part, gives Lugh a self-navigating boat, a horse than could cross both sea and land, a magically fatal sword called "The Answerer," a helm, body armor, and neck-piece. He also gives Finn the shield of wood commissioned from Lucra. The story of Manannan's wife may also bear a distant similarity to that of Agni's wife. Manannan's wife Fand falls in love with the central hero Cuchulainn, son of Lugh. The two become lovers, until Cuchulainn's wife musters a force to attack Fand. Fand returns to Manannan, and Mannanan then shakes his magical cloak, causing Fand and Cuchulainn never again to meet. Agni's wife Svāhā, on the other hand, falls in love with and desires Krishna. Krishna tells her that she will become his wife, but that she has first to be the wife of Agni. Agni and Svāhā have a daughter named Agneya. Manannan and Fand have a daughter coincidentally named Áine. Meanwhile, even more strikingly, other texts call Aine the wife of Manannan. Aine is a goddess generally seen to be a goddess of the sun and of summer, which makes for a perfect match to the pattern of sun princesses we have been tracing. Aine is seen by the king Aillil Aulom in a waking dream in a manner reminiscent of that in which Aengus sees Caer, after which Aillil rapes Aine and has his ear bitten off, making him unfit to be king. Another form of the name of Aine is thought to be Aynia, even more mysteriously similar to Agneya. However, Aine is a sun goddess while Agneya's name does not indicate her as one, thus we may consider this overlap as a kind of coincidence bolstered by the deeper linguistic framework of naming surrounding the fire god's female consorts and children. We should properly draw a line between the sun goddess Aine as Manannan's wife and the sun princess Surya as Agni's, and between Fand as Manannan's other wife and Svaha as Agni's other wife, while considering that these two sets of wives may or may not have an indeterminate amount of overlap. Ainya as daughter of Manannan and Agneya as daughter of Agni could then parallel one another, and this could explain the confusion between Aine/Ainya as either the daughter or wife of Manannan. This is no perfect solution to the problem, but the similarities evident here should be enough to further support the connection between Agni and Manannan.
In the Brahmanas and Upanishads, Agni is said to be the heat, light, and energy of life, as well as the swiftness of mind (see: section 5.2.3 of Satapatha Brahmana, Agni is all the gods and the spiritual energy pervading the universe). Agni stands somewhat outside and above the other gods, and is often identified with a great number of them in the Vedas, again pointing to his shapeshifting nature and his status as the element of divine vitality found even within other gods. At times, because of this role as the vitality within the other gods, Agni is even seen as the true highest god and as the creator himself. This is akin to Heraclitus’ view of fire as the prime element, which manifested the unfolding of Logos in the world, and the Zoroastrian understanding of the holy fire, Atar, as the visible manifestation of Ahura Mazda (just as “Agni” would be one aspect of the high Varunian god Óðinn). The Zoroastrian tradition also preserves the idea that fire is a tester of virtue (trial by fire), a shapeshifter, and the vital force required by the other gods for creation. Manannan too seems to be of the gods, yet separate, a powerful magician living over the sea in his far island, yet occasionally called the chief god of all the Tuatha de Danann. For instance, in “The Fosterage of the House of the Two Pails,” Manannan claims that he is the over-king over all of the kings of the Tuatha De Danann and their true ancestor as well. Even Manannan's cloak, which causes those on either side of it to never meet again, can speculatively be explained using the lens of Agni. When we hear of “never meeting again,” induced forgetfulness, etc. in relation to a psychopomp god, we should immediately suspect a reference to death, the cloak of never-again-meeting being the veil between this world and the otherworld. When death occurs, the soul experiences forgetfulness and goes to an unreachable land, as Manannan shakes his cloak, which is perhaps a cloak once again visualized as the smoke rising from the funeral pyre.
Breaking his name speculatively into three parts : Irish mana- may mean "portent, sign" but comes from the root men- meaning "to think" or indicating spiritual activity. The suffix -an can mean "bright" or "brilliant," and, using the Old Irish spelling "Manandan" or the Welsh "Manawydan," the final portion of the name dan can mean "gift," "offering," "skill," or "fate." In a very rough way, only in order to offer suggestions to wiser linguists, we can theorize various potential meanings of the name then, such as "bright portent of thought," "brilliant gift of thought," "skill of mind," etc., which could suggest the bright gift and portent that is fire, which is also a symbol for and the metaphysical origin of mental illumination. Even Manannan's epithet Gilla Decair, meaning "troublesome boyservant," begins to sound like a comic description of fire when all the other evidence is considered. He is never depicted as an actual servant in any of the extant myths.
Considering all of this, it seems that what we have in the case of Manannan is actually a form of the Fire god that has, ironically, not been syncretized with the “descendant of the waters” deity, but merely has traits that make clear to us why these two gods would easily become syncretized, as they are in the Vedic case. If, instead, Irish Nechtan's etymology connects him to Neptune and Apam Napat, the true “descendant of the waters,” as seems likely (see: Dumezil, “Les Puits de Nechtan”), then we would see that Nechtan (Apam Napat) and Manannan (Agni) are preserved separately in the Irish tradition, while they have become syncretized into one god in the Vedic. What we see with Manannan, then, is as clear a picture as we can wish for of why the fire god, Agni, became syncretized with the Descendant of Waters, Apam Napat: because the fire god is also a child of waters, but in a different context. Manannan's appellation mac Lir, “son of the sea,” has a specific esoteric meaning relating to fire's birth from water or the sea, but does not make him precisely the same as the water deity known as Apam Napat, Nechtan, etc. who is also primarily known to be descended from the waters, but has his own specific and separate function seemingly not specifically related to fire. Thus the Irish “sea god” is likely to actually be the god of fire. Specifically he is the god of fire-in-water, a highly important Indo-European concept.
Agni and Óðinn
In this interpretation we would also be able to theorize the placement of Agni in the Norse pantheon. After the sun princess Suryā, in the “Suryā's Bridal” hymn, is said to be married to Soma, she is said to marry the Gandharva and then Agni. While we can say this might indicate the passing of the sun's rays from the moon at night, to the birds of dawn or the singers of the dawn sacrifice (manifestations of the Gandharvas), to the sacrificial dawn fires (Agni), we can also say that Skaði's leaving of Njörðr for Óðinn also seems to match the "Suryā's Bridal" pattern. As we can surmise that Bragi is a much more likely match for the Gandharva than Óðinn is (as Óðinn is not likely to be the lower level court musician of the gods no matter how wise and full of Mead of Poetry he is), it seems logical that Óðinn here may be taking the role of Agni, or more exactly, that Agni is one of the aspects of Óðinn. We note that, as Curwen Rolinson has pointed out in his “Soma-Kvasir, The Eddic-Vedic Myth of the Meath of Poetry,” Óðinn turning into the eagle to escape from the mountain fortress with the Mead of Poetry also parallels the hawk Shyena, a form of Agni, who steals the sacred liquid from the mountain.
This would also fit with the pattern of Óðinn's seeming monopoly on the great majority of magico-priestly deities as compared with the Vedic branch, whether these be Brihaspati, Varuna, Agni, etc. Each of these can be shown to be connected to myths belonging to Óðinn. It would also partially explain the sometimes remarked upon similarities of Óðinn and Manannan as we have mentioned regarding Spaan's "The Place of Manannan in Irish Mythology," and would perhaps account for Óðinn's psychopomp-related roles as well, perhaps even his penchant for going about in disguise. Vedic Agni and Brihaspati are the two central priests of the sacrifice, the priest of fire and of the spoken word, respectively. As such, interpreting both Brihaspati and Agni as aspects of Óðinn would only be reuniting the otherwise divided priestly aspects in one figure.
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[One thing has to be added as a postscript to this issue, as a possibility for further contemplation. The incarnation of Agni from the Mahabharata, Dhrishtadyumna, seems possibly to share a myth with Freyr as well. Dhrishtadyumna is bested by Ashwatthama in the Kurukshetra War because he is missing his sword. This fact is underlined when Ashwatthama refuses to let him die with his sword in his hand. Freyr famously gives his sword away to Skirnir, and misses it later in the battle of Ragnarok. He confronts Surtr (a demonic fire entity) in this battle, and is killed. Now, the Irish Aengus, who we have seen is cognate to Freyr, has a brother named Aed, meaning simply "fire." As it happens, there is not as much Aed's body of myth that can be connected with the myths of Vedic Agni, unlike in the case of Manannan. Both are likely manifestations of Agni, but just because Aed's name means “fire,” this should not make us set Mannanan aside as a form of “Agni” as well. Additionally, in Vedic scripture, the Dawn goddess and the Horse Twins are sometimes called siblings (compare here Freyr and Freyja as siblings and Aengus and Brigid as siblings), and Agni is said also to be their brother. In the Mahabharata, Dhrishtadyumna, incarnation of Agni, is born as a twin with Draupadi (who may or may not be connected to Ushas and who may even more clearly match Freyja than Ushas does), each emerging in succession from the holy flame of the yagna rite. As Draupadi has been speculated in another chapter to be related to the incarnated Dawn goddess, this twin birth is likely an allegory for the birth of the holy flame and the dawn at the same moment during the dawn sacrifice. The coinciding of their appearance and the dawn sacrifice is also the reason the Horse Twins, as gods of the morning star, are seen as brothers of the Dawn goddess. Horse Twins, Dawn, and Fire Priest gods are then siblings. However, seeing that Freyr, unlike Aengus, is not said to have any brothers, could we speculate a partial combination of the mythos of this Fire god into the Horse Twin Freyr, as suggested by the shared motif of dying due to missing his sword? Or reversing the causation, perhaps, could we leave open the possibility that Agni's Mahabharata incarnation took this myth from the Horse Twins due to their close association as brothers?
Ultimately, what the separate existences of Irish Aed and Manannan suggests is that the fire deity may have been seen to have at least two separate aspects: one a more earthly fire, Aed, the other the high priest and psychopomp, Manannan. This accords exceedingly well with the Vedic case, in which celestial and terrestrial fires were separately designated, the celestial Ahavaniya Agni and the terrestrial Garhapatya Agni. Dumezil points out that a precisely corresponding division of fires appears in Roman tradition with the ordinary templum vs. the aedes Vesta. The Latin word for this latter temple, aedes, as might be obvious, comes from the same root word that gives the Irish Aed his name, and likely came to designate temples due to the fact that these buildings housed sacred flames. Thus, if Aed can be seen as this same terrestrial, domestic fire, he would have direct cognates in the flame of the Vestals and the Garhapatya Agni of the Vedics. The Dagda is Aed's father, he bears the epithet Aed himself, and is the wind god. This likely reflects an understanding also seen in the Rig Veda that the wind is father of fire, and is almost continuous with it, carrying the germ of the spark.
This postscript must be marked as speculative and tenuous, but it also must be noted: it may be that we find these two aspects of the Fire god absorbed separately into, or even "originating" from, Freyr and Óðinn respectively, as the lower and higher priest gods.]
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