The Heroes of the Iliad as Indo-European Gods: A Mythological Rosetta Stone, Part 6 of 9: Paris

 Paris

Paris – Surya (The Sun)

It may be surprising to some, but as we have mentioned, the incarnation of the Sun God Surya in the Mahabharata, that is Karna, fights on the side of the Kauravas, the force opposing that of the protagonist Pandavas. This may represent the idea of a conflict of the gods of the potentially destructive natural forces (Sun, Sky, Destiny, etc), against the gods of “society,” those gods who represented the three social classes. For instance, Vayu and Indra, though gods of the fearsome and destructive natural forces of wind and storm, were able to be brought into the social structure as representatives of the ideal warrior nobles, Indra later as the ideal king as well. The Sun God, however, was always seen very ambivalently and this may have put him in an uneasy and antagonistic relationship with ordered society (Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Mythology, 145-146).  

Hence, as we find with Karna, Surya's incarnation, and as with Paris, the Sun God in the epics we have analyzed is always conceived of as at best a long lost half-brother of the other gods, his true parentage only revealed later after he has been raised separate from them. Karna is conceived by Kunti (who later becomes mother of the Pandavas) with the Sun God Surya. She is unmarried at the time, so she puts Karna in a basket and sends him down the Ganges river. The baby ends up being adopted by a certain couple, who themselves are of a relatively lower social status, from the charioteer and poet class, and who work for the Kaurava king Dhritarashtra. The fact that Karna is believed to be of low birth is an impediment and thorn to him throughout life. It is later revealed to the Pandavas that he is their half-brother. Paris, repeating much of this story very closely, is conceived by Hecuba, the queen of Troy; however, she has a dream that she will give birth to a flaming torch, and, it being prophesied that the child would lead to Troy's destruction, the king instructs their herdsman to kill him. In the end, however, the herdsman takes and ends up raising Paris away in the countryside. Hence, just like Karna, Paris, the long lost brother, is believed to be of low birth until he returns to court and is finally recognized as the forgotten prince. This theme of the Sun God being the forgotten half-brother of the gods seems to be an allegory for the sun originating from out of darkness each day, forgotten during the night until he returns to his rightful place on high and his regality is recognized. Paris, as has been thoroughly discussed in a previous part, also has a direct parallel in the Welsh solar figure Gronw Pebr “The Radiant,” who commits adultery with Blodeuwedd and confronts Lleu, in the same way that Paris duels Menelaus after stealing his wife.  

The Sun God heroes are always depicted as morally ambivalent, yet highly noble nonetheless. This is due to the way the Indo-European peoples viewed the Sun, as often inhospitable, even abusive, potentially exceedingly destructive, a psychopomp who draws souls down to their fates and then to the land of the dead, and yet as beautiful, life giving, a symbol of intellect and sovereignty, and associated with the elitist esoteric pursuit of immortality. Mircea Eliade explains it thus: “The sun's ambivalence is shown also in its behavior towards men. It is, on the one hand, man's true progenitor...On the other hand, the sun is sometimes identified with death, for he devours his children as well as generating them” (Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion). The sun, so powerful and uncompromising, a god even of devouring Time itself, seems to have been found difficult to bring into the social order and to count on as a benefactor of society. Karna distinguishes himself for his noble character, is an exemplary friend, generous in charity, hard working, piously devoted to the Sun god Surya, compassionate to those in need, and is known for his “glowing” beauty, yet his hot temper leads him to insult Draupadi and to order that she be assaulted. He is oversensitive and arrogant. He is a skilled speaker, but he fights for the adharmic side of the war, abetting the destructive actions of Duryodhana. He is at times cruel and abusive, as he is toward Draupadi. Paris, in his turn, is noted for his truthfulness and his fairness (which leads to his being chosen to judge the beauty contest of the goddesses), and he is recognized for his astonishing beauty and intelligence. Yet he commits the theft of the foreign queen which starts the war, and in Homer's account he displays significant cowardice (which Homer may have emphasized more than the tradition had), and is considered as lacking in warrior skill (this aspect also does not appear in the other traditions where the sun hero is generally a highly skilled warrior). These Homeric exaggerations likely come from the fact that Paris is said only to be able to fight with ranged weapons, specifically bow and arrow, seen by the Greeks of the time of Homer as more cowardly, though, as Gregory Nagy estimates, this  negative valuation may have been a recent development. This mode of fighting is of course the fitting and natural metaphor for the action of the Sun, who shoots his rays from afar, and bow and arrow are common solar symbols.  

We can see most of this archetype reflected in the Irish god Bres the Beautiful as well. Just as Karna and Paris, a disowned half-Kaurava and disowned Trojan by birth, “go back and forth” in their allegiances, at first allied with and then breaking their allegiance to the gods of society, so Bres, a half-Fomorian half-Tuatha De Danann by birth, originally fights on the side of the Tuatha De Danann against the Fir Bolg. He then takes over the kingship from Nuada temporarily, but proves to be the definition of inhospitable. Under Bres' rule, the gods' “knives were never greased and their breaths never smelled of ale,” (Gods and Fighting Men, Reign of Bres) and they are subject to hard labor under his command (perhaps as we all must labor under the hot sun). He is known as “the Beautiful,” “ornament of the host,” “with a visage never woeful,” “flower of the Tuatha De,” and “hot of valour,” yet he sparks the war with the Tuatha De Danann due to his own inhospitality, resentment and temper. As Paris becomes the lover and husband of Helen, possibly an incarnation of the Dawn Goddess, Bres becomes the husband of Brigid, the Irish Dawn Goddess. This clarifies why an ambivalent, sometimes quite negatively depicted figure like Bres would be married to the central Irish goddess of all benevolent aspects. Nor would Bres' association with a knowledge of agriculture be amiss for a sun god, Eliade emphasizing the common role of Sun gods in the agricultural sphere. Bres' beauty and noble battle exploits early on contrast with his inhospitable and even adharmic action later on, making him the most ambivalent of the gods. It must be remembered that Karna and Duryodhana in the Mahabharata also fight on the same side as the Pandavas before the Kurukshetra war begins, and that Paris was allied to Menelaus before he ignited hostilities, both figures following the same pattern of alliance and betrayal that Bres does.

Paris, like both Karna and Bres, is one of the two central warriors of the antagonist side of the war. There are generally two central warriors of this oppositional side, between whom a couple of mythoi may combine in different ways. These warriors are Greek Paris and Hector, Indian Karna and Duryodhana, Irish Bres and Balor. One of these two is always the Sun God, the other is generally the Demon of the Dark Age, but in the case of Balor, it should be noted, he may be closer to the incarnation of one of the Rudras (see Chapter 2), paralleling the Indian Kaurava called Ashwatthama. As Karna insults Draupadi and abets Duryodhana's taking of Draupadi and the kingdom, helping to spark the war, so Paris steals Helen (the slight difference here will be explained in the next part). This leads the gods of society to seek him out for vengeance in both cases. All three cases of the Sun God hero mentioned die in the war or immediately after. Paris dies from a poisoned arrow while Bres is made to drink poisonous sewage (Loki for his part is tortured using venom). We consider that this motif of death by poison could be somehow connected to an allegory for the colorful sunset. Karna too is killed by an arrow, which, though not said to be poisoned, is no ordinary arrow but is said to be a special “anjalika” arrow, “extremely difficult to withstand,” “capable of destroying the body,” and “capable of penetrating the inner organs,” which blazes like the sun and like fire and is compared to Indra's Vajra weapon.

The Sun God may have gotten a fairly negative treatment in most of the epics and myths (Karna being perhaps the most balanced version) and, with Paris and Bres, who have taken on a more direct and active role in inciting the war, may even have begun to bleed together with the Demon of the Dark Age figure, perhaps becoming symbolically united with or corrupted by him.  However, this negative treatment masks an esoteric meaning which we will expand on in the conclusion: as Eliade explains, the Sun God was after all the fearsome Lord of devouring Time and even of Death, governing and harshly imposing our movement toward death within the realm of Samsara, marking the hours by his burning rays. His movement across the sky indicated with painful precision the steady march toward death. But precisely because of this he was seen as the guardian of the gateway to the esoteric truths lying outside the realm of Time (these, according to Eliade, were often pursued by the royalty or elite priesthood), if one only knew how to overcome him, to thus esoterically unite with him, and then to continue on the path he guarded.  

An important mythic parallel between Karna and Bres should put their identification beyond doubt and thus indirectly support their identification with Paris. This parallel regards the very close similarity of the accounts of their conceptions, similarities which extend, interestingly, to the use of the unadorned word for “intercourse” or "copulation" at the same point in each case. I will reproduce each account in full so the full effect of the comparison can be appreciated.  

First is the conception of the Indian hero Karna, found in the  Srimad-Devi Bhagavatam,  Book 2, Chapter 6.

“The Sun, then, assuming an excellent human form, came down from the Heavens and appeared before Kunti in the same room. Seeing the Deva Sun, Kunti became greatly surprised and began to shudder and instantly became endowed with the inherent natural quality of passion (had menstruation). The beautiful-eyed Kunti, with folded palm; spoke to Sûrya Deva standing before :-- “I am highly pleased to-day seeing Thy form; now go back to Thy sphere.”

Sûrya Deva said :-- “O Kunti! What for you called me, by virtue of the Mantra? Calling me, why do you not worship me, standing before you? O beautiful blue one! Seeing you, I have become passionate; so come to me. By means of the mantra, you have made me your subservient so take me for intercourse.” Hearing this, Kunti said :-- “O Witness of all! O knower of Dharma! You know that I am a virgin girl. O Suvrata! I bow down to you; I am a family daughter; so do not speak ill to me.” Sûrya then said :-- “If I go away    in vain, I will be an object of great shame, and, no doubt, will be laughed amongst the gods; So, O Kunti! If you do not satisfy me, I will immediately curse you and the Brâhmin   who has given you this mantra. O Beautiful one! If you satisfy me, your virginity will remain; no body will come to know and there will be born a son to you, exactly like me.” Thus saying Sûrya Deva enjoyed the bashful Kunti, with her mind attracted towards him; He granted her the desired boons and went away. The beautiful Kunti became pregnant and began to remain in a house, under great secrecy. Only the dear nurse knew that; her mother or any other person was quite unaware of the fact. In time, a very beautiful son like the second Sun and Kârtikeya, decked with a lovely Kavacha coat of mail and two ear-rings, was born there.”  

The following is the conception of the Irish god Bres, found in the  Cath Maige Tuiredh.

“Now the conception of Bres came about in this way.

One day one of their women, Ériu the daughter of Delbáeth, was looking at the sea and the land from the house of Máeth Scéni; and she saw the sea as perfectly calm as if it were a level board. After that, while she was there, she saw something: a vessel of silver appeared to her on the sea. Its size seemed great to her, but its shape did not appear clearly to her; and the current of the sea carried it to the land.

Then she saw that it was a man of fairest appearance. He had golden-yellow hair down to his shoulders, and a cloak with bands of gold thread around it. His shirt had embroidery of gold thread. On his breast was a brooch of gold with the lustre of a precious stone in it. Two shining silver spears and in them two smooth riveted shafts of bronze. Five circlets of gold around his neck. A gold-hilted sword with inlayings of silver and studs of gold.

The man said to her, ‘Shall I have an hour of lovemaking with you?’ ‘I certainly have not made a tryst with you,’ she said. ‘Come without the trysting!’ said he.

Then they stretched themselves out together. The woman wept when the man got up again. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked. ‘I have two things that I should lament,’ said the woman, ‘separating from you, however we have met. The young men of the Túatha Dé Danann have been entreating me in vain—and you possess me as you do.’

‘Your anxiety about those two things will be removed,’ he said. He drew his gold ring from his middle finger and put it into her hand, and told her that she should not part with it, either by sale or by gift, except to someone whose finger it would fit.

‘Another matter troubles me,’ said the woman, ‘that I do not know who has come to me.’

‘You will not remain ignorant of that,’ he said. ‘Elatha mac Delbaith, king of the Fomoire, has come to you. You will bear a son as a result of our meeting, and let no name be given to him but Eochu Bres (that is, Eochu the Beautiful), because every beautiful thing that is seen in Ireland—both plain and fortress, ale and candle, woman and man and horse—will be judged in relation to that boy, so that people will then say of it, ‘It is a Bres.’’

Then the man went back again, and the woman returned to her home, and the famous conception was given to her.

Then she gave birth to the boy, and the name Eochu Bres was given to him as Elatha had said. A week after the woman's lying-in was completed, the boy had two weeks' growth; and he maintained that increase for seven years, until he had reached the growth of fourteen years.”

Later in the same text, when Bres has grown:

“Then he went to his mother and asked her where his family was. ‘I am certain about that,’ she said, and went onto the hill from which she had seen the silver vessel in the sea. She then went onto the shore. His mother gave him the ring which had been left with her, and he put it around his middle finger, and it fitted him. She had not given it up for anyone, either by sale or gift. Until that day, there was none of them whom it would fit.”

If it is not patently obvious to the reader just how similar these two passages are, we will enumerate the ways in which they match each other almost line for line, though the order of the events is in a couple places switched and the Irish passage consistently uses oblique allusions where the Indian passage states what it means directly.

1.  The Sun god appears suddenly to the woman in her room.  In the Indian case this is explicitly stated. In the Irish case, the fact that this is the Sun god is only alluded to by the description of his gold circlets, clothes, hair, and jewelry. Despite this allusiveness, Elatha's identity as a sun god has long been guessed, as the scholar T.F. O'Rahilly did in 1946 (On the Origin of the Names Erainn and Eriu, Eriu Vol. 14, p. 26), and it can not be said to be hidden. The correspondence to the Indian myth merely confirms what has long been the leading thought.
2.  The woman is a virgin.  This is stated outright in the Indian case. In the Irish passage, Ériu  comments that “the young men of the Túatha Dé Danann have been entreating me in vain,” implying that she had been a virgin as well.  
3.  She denies him with her first words.  The first thing Kunti says is:  “I am highly pleased to-day seeing Thy form; now go back to Thy sphere.” The first thing Ériu  says is: ‘I certainly have not made a tryst with you.’
4.  He is pushy, and asks specifically for “intercourse” or "copulation."  Surya says, “you have made me your subservient so take me for intercourse.” In Elizabeth Gray's translation, Elatha says, “Shall I have an hour of lovemaking with you?” However, this translation and others have euphemized the original language here, which has generally  been seen as too brash in its phrasing, in which the word for “copulation” is used at this point just as the word for "intercourse" is used in the Indian case. Morgan Daimler, in a literalist translation, translates it as: "Shall I have an hour of copulation with you?" Thus the similarities of the two texts occur right down to the use of approximately the same explicit terminology at a key moment.  
5.  They lie together.
6.  The woman expresses anxiety over losing her virginity.  Just before they lie together, Kunti says, “O Witness of all! O knower of Dharma! You know that I am a virgin girl. O Suvrata! I bow down to you; I am a family daughter; so do not speak ill to me.” Just after they lie together, Ériu  says that one of the things she laments is that “The young men of the Túatha Dé Danann have been entreating me in vain—and you possess me as you do.” That is, she is anxious about having given up her virginity.
7.  He removes her anxiety about this.  Surya says, “If you satisfy me, your virginity will remain.” Elatha says, “Your anxiety about those two things will be removed,” and gives her a gold ring. Because there is no clear indication of how the gift of the ring will alleviate her anxiety over her lost virginity, the possibility must be considered that Elatha may also restore Ériu's virginity along with this gift, and that this fact is again only being obliquely alluded to, as other details have been. However, it must be said that the restoring of virginity seems like a trope more common in Indian myth than in Irish. Yet, due to all of the other alignment between these parallel passages we must attempt to imagine that these details regarding the alleviation of the virginity-anxiety may have in some way had the same meaning in some kind of a shared origin.
8.  The father foretells that a son will be born. A son is born who is exactly like his father.  This is stated explicitly in the Indian case: “there will be born a son to you, exactly like me.” The Irish case similarly has: “You will bear a son as a result of our meeting.” In the Irish case, the fact that the son is just like his father is only alluded to, but is not exactly hidden either.  The ring that Elatha gives to Ériu  he takes off of his own finger. He then tells Ériu  to give this only to the man whom it will fit. The only man whom the ring fits ends up being Elatha's own son, Bres, and it would fit no other. With the context of the Indian version, it becomes clear that this is an illustration, as opposed to an outright statement, of the same fact that we find in the Indian case: that the son is identical to the father. The father's ring fits only his son because his son is just like his father. Their fingers, as every other part, are perfect doubles. Their fingers are being used as metonyms, one part standing in for the whole. The full meaning of this Irish passage can indeed only be grasped by its comparison with the Indian case: it is not telling us that Bres has only a family resemblance to his father – it is telling us that Bres is his father's double. And as his father Elatha is the golden-haired god wearing the golden circlets and clothing, a blatant solar figure, so Bres is also the Sun god, born again from his Sun god father.
9.  The son is specifically said to be very beautiful upon his birth.  “In time, a very beautiful son” is born, says the Indian text. So beautiful is Bres said to be upon his birth that he is named “Eochu Bres (that is, Eochu the Beautiful), because every beautiful thing that is seen in Ireland...will be judged in relation to that boy, so that people will then say of it, ‘It is a Bres.’”
10.  A type of ring jewelry is given by the father to the son which marks him as son and double of the Sun god.  Surya's son, Karna, is born wearing earrings that make his face shine, along with a breastplate. It is implied that these come from his Sun god parentage, inborn gifts from his father that manifest his solar quality and show him as the son of the Sun. Elatha gives Ériu  the ring upon Bres' conception that Ériu  later gives to Bres, which itself is a symbol of Bres' identity with his father the Sun. Thus although Bres receives the ring later, while Karna has the earrings at birth, they carry the same meaning and provenance.
11.  The father leaves the mother abruptly immediately after the conception, and the son does not know his true father until an event connected to the Great War.  Karna does not find out his true parentage until well into the Kurukshetra War, while Bres finds out who his father is after the First Battle of Maige Tuireadh and right before he sparks the Second Battle of Maige Tuireadh.  
12.  From one of the two of this couple springs many of the other main gods or god-incarnations.  That is, this is an important divine “ancestor” pairing. In the Indian version, Kunti becomes mother of Karna, incarnation of Surya, but then also becomes the mother of the incarnations of Mitra, Vayu, Indra, Nasatya and Dasra -- the Pandavas, or the incarnations of the gods of society. In the Irish case it is instead the  male  in this pairing from whom spring many of the main gods: Bres, the Dagda (from whom many more deities spring), Ogma (who likewise engenders key deities), Elloth/Lir (father of Manannan), as well as Delbaeth and Fiacha. Why the male deity in one branch and the female in the other is made the more important ancestor figure within this paring could be investigated further on both theological and anthropological grounds.
13.  While Karna is explicitly a manifestation of the Sun deity, Bres is called "Eochaidh," or "Horseman," a not uncommon title for various chiefs, but also fitting for a solar figure, the horse being a common solar symbol. He also is said to grow, from birth, at twice the normal rate, another solar trope possibly paralleling the sun rising rapidly in the sky.

It should be more than evident that these two passages are from the same original myth, connected in both cases to a pair of father and son Sun gods. The fact that Bres and Elatha are  both  Sun gods, rather than merely one or the other being such, is extremely surprising and likely never could have been predicted or perhaps even believed without comparative analysis making the conclusion undeniable. The motif of a higher god incarnating into his spiritual son repeats numerous times in the  Mahabharata,  but is never otherwise seen in the Irish mythic cycle, indicating just how important this specific god-incarnation myth must have been. The Sun god, apparently, is the god above perhaps all others who incarnates into a son who is his double, and does so not only on the legendary plane, incarnating into a mortal son, but on the divine mythic plane as well, seemingly engendering a son as much a god as himself.

The uncanny closeness of these two passages, separated by nearly four millennia (considering when each passage was committed to writing) and yet more similar to each other than some myth variants of a single tale within a single tradition are, represents a shining pearl in the comparative mythology treasure trove, and gives to us the gift of a confident identification of the father and son Irish Sun gods. The fact that these passages can have been preserved so closely for so long is a minor miracle and should inspire any reader with a new respect for the conservative quality of the Irish tradition in general and the quality of this text in particular. This comparison also confirms much of what we have implied about the Fomorians: they are not to be seen as pure evil beings – they include the Sun gods, and could include other sometimes benevolent, if potentially asocial and antagonistic divinities as well, if we could successfully excavate them and see them for who they are. The king allied to the Fomorians, Indech, whose name means "interweaving" or "weaver," reminds us of the fact that the king of the Kauravas, Dhritarashtra, is considered by Dumezil to incarnate the god of apportioned destiny, Bhaga. Thus the possibility that this Indech the Interweaver could likewise be a god of destiny should be an obvious avenue for future investigation.

The comparison of these passages highlights a sometimes distressing issue in the scholarship of  Cath Maige Tuireadh  and other Irish texts. A trend toward the over-application of historicism has developed, in the name of judiciousness, in the study of the Irish mythological and other medieval texts. John Carey, one of the most respected scholars in Irish studies today, analyzes the  Cath Maige Tuireadh  in terms of the supposed political struggles of the tale's purported time of composition. This is a valid enterprise in itself, yet when it begins to overstep what can be claimed with actual certainty it can become destructive and can even begin to rob from the people their true national epic. Carey posits, among other things, that the meeting of Elatha and Ériu  to conceive Bres is merely a generic liason story-type, one among many, and has been specifically crafted in this case to villainize the English foreigners who would try to take the sovereignty of Ireland, represented here by the foreign Elatha marrying Ériu,  personification of Ireland.  

This would be a reasonable, though, given what we see in comparison, not entirely necessary hypothesis to put forward, if it was merely attempting to add a political layer to the mythic layer of meaning. Myth is commonly used in this way by those who mold it, and it is difficult to prove one way or another if such a meaning was part of the intent of the composer in this case. But when this purely hypothetical political lens, employed by a respected scholar, is imposed upon and fully overshadows genuine mythic content, which must have been there in nearly the same form for millennia, and which we can see for ourselves, claiming it, mistakenly, to be a recent fabrication, it can obscure this mythic tradition and negatively impact how its legitimacy is assessed. This damage is only sometimes reparable. We believe the intentions of such scholars are generally pure and the historical and political readings of myths are often of great use. In this case, however, it is only by a miracle that the parallel Indian text was preserved in order to vindicate the authenticity of the mythic content of the Irish text.  

Furthermore, Carey posits that Bres' depiction as harsh and villainous is a product of political tensions of the time. He bases this claim in part on a competing textual tradition that describes Bres nobly, associating him primarily with Brigid and the gods of skill. He concludes that the sovereign order of kings found in  Cath Maige Tuireadh, starting with Nuada who is succeeded by the cruel Bres, is a political fabrication of the time that cannot have had deep roots, saying: “There is accordingly a significant body of evidence indicating that the picture of Bres painted in the  CMT  is isolated and anomalous for the early period. In other sources Bres appears not as a matrilineal interloper but as a legitimate member of the Tuatha De, closely associated with the  dramatis personae  of poetic lore: Brigit, Ogmae, “the three gods of skill” and presumably Elatha. His role in  CMT  is to be understood as a radical adaptation of his original character.” Knowing what we do about the Sun god type, however, this type being the most ambivalent of all, and knowing that Bres is such a Sun god, we can see plainly now what Carey had no context to see: the sun god Bres is  both  things.  He is noble and venerated and associated with the good deities of the arts, he is a god of creation, agriculture, and his father and double is a divine ancestor figure, but he is also harsh and cruel in turn, specifically in relation to his noonday or drought sun aspect, or in relation to his role as imposer of doom via Time and as devourer of souls that he draws toward him as he descends to the underworld (based on the Vedic conception), and his cognates are often aligned with the forces who oppose the gods of society in the various traditions we have analyzed.  

The vital contribution of Carey's essay lies in his emphasis on this more positive side of Bres that did exist in the Irish tradition. Bres was not some narrow villain. Epithets that belong to him in the poem  Carn Hui Neit  in the  Dindshenchas  are “kindly friend,” “with a visage never woeful,” “gifted with excellences,” “flower of the Tuatha De Danann,” “ornament of the host,” “noble and fortunate,” “hot of valour” and “gifted with love spells.” We can read for ourselves in these epithets how positive a figure Bres was understood to be despite his cruelty. His association with friendship reminds us of Karna, perhaps the most loyal friend of the Indian epic in his devotion to Duryodhana, while “gifted with love spells” reminds us of the Sun god's usual role as lover of the Dawn goddess, most explicitly depicted in the case of the hero Paris who apparently has a spell-like power to steal away Helen. The sun is indeed  the  object whose visage is never woeful, and which is the ornament and flower of the host above all others. Thus Carey's emphasis on this other, positive side of Bres is exceedingly important in rehabilitating him from a narrow villain to a multidimensional deity, but we should not go too far and erase his destructive side or too quickly call his description in  CMT  a radical departure or fabrication. This destructive side may indeed have been played up in a political context, and we concede this much at least as a possibility to Carey – we have already pointed out that some roles taken by the Demon of the Dark age in the Indian version are taken by Bres in the Irish, for instance his directly sparking the Great War due to his greed – but from our analysis some degree of harshness, as well as his alignment with the “opposition” forces, seems perfectly mythically legitimate and correct.  

Carey persists in this line, further stating that, “the king list was composed by splicing together the pedigree of the Ua Neill... and that of the Eoganachta; the juxtaposition of Nuada Finn Fail and Bres Ri is therefore due simply to their positions in their respective pedigrees,” concluding that “The idea of a Nuadu-Bres opposition is the product of developments in Irish historiography, and can scarcely be dated more than a century earlier than the composition of  CMT”  (Carey, 57-58).  We will see, in our chapter “Ullr and Bres,” that the solar archer Ullr, who also prominently is known for his ring, rings even being offered to him at his shrines, is in the very same position as Bres in the succession of kings recorded in Saxo Grammaticus, being the second king who reigns in an interstitial period while the first king, Odinn, like Nuada, is seen to be unfit to rule, and up until that first king returns to rule again. Thus Carey's claim of fabrication again seems at least potentially contradicted by an understanding of the deeper comparative myth structure. The comparison of this sequence of kings may not be considered definitive on its own, but along with all else we have seen it must give pause. In general, all of this should make historicist scholars much more cautious when proclaiming these texts as recent fabrications in one fashion or another and basing such proclamations off of only a small selection of preserved historical data that rarely tells the full story.  

Having vindicated portions, at minimum, of this text against the best criticisms of this venerable scholar, we support the caution of historicists, but urge readers to remain open to mythic interpretations of such texts going forward, and to carefully weigh the historicist hypotheses with the other evidence. Comparative mythology is one of many tests which must be applied to texts such as  Cath Maige Tuireadh  in order to establish or critique their mythological legitimacy. Thus  Carey simply has lacked this test when he sums up, “The evidence adduced above strongly indicates that Eriu's seduction by Elatha, and the depiction of Bres as Nuadu's avaricious successor, reflect the deliberate manipulation of tradition by a ninth-century author. I have argued that the former symbolizes capitulation to foreign influence; I believe that Bres, condemned for his foreign associations and his failure to perform a king's traditional duties, is intended as another example of the erosion of native values” (Carey, 58). We do not say some degree of alteration and political influence could not have occurred, in particular Bres possibly, though not definitively, taking on more of the directly antagonistic roles (remember that Lleu’s only antagonist is the Sun god Gronw, that Paris certainly is central to sparking the war, Karna is a main antagonist as well, and that the Sun god has been interpreted by some as a main opponent of Mithras), but this kind of reading must be much more carefully kept within bounds as it has destructive force. This outcome perhaps is to be expected, however; after all, it is Dr. Carey's stance that “the narratives that presumably formed part of the culture of the pre-Christian forebears of the medieval Irish: the real 'Celtic mythology,'” despite “however many traces and reflections it may have left in the literatures of the Celtic peoples and their neighbors, is lost to us forever” (Carey, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature, ii). It will certainly be lost if it is actively obscured.

This issue of historicism indeed repeats again and again, as the confusion which often reigns in relation to Irish texts leads to understandable skepticism and a desire to use the historical lens as a scalpel. Surgeons be warned or you will cut out the still beating heart.

Thus established, the Sun gods Bres and Karna point from West and East at their (partially degenerated) Greek counterpart, Paris. 

Sun God: (Paris, Surya/Karna, Elatha/Bres, Gronw Pebr)

- Morally ambivalent yet noble

- Hot tempered and inhospitable

- Unknown parentage revealed later to be a lost half-sibling of the other gods, or has some kind of split-allegiance between the two sides, allied with the gods of society at first and then turning against them

- One of the 2 main warriors for the “opposing” side of the war

- Known for his beauty and speaking skill

- May steals or insults the central female goddess or heroine, helping to start the war

- Is associated with speaking skill and harsh mockery or satire

- Lover of the Dawn Goddess

- Dies in the war or in the immediate aftermath

- Often an archer, though not in the Irish case where archery is uncommon

- May die from poison

- may be son and double of the elder Sun god