Fionn, Taliesin, Balor and the Celtic Rudra(s) [This article builds on our " The Climactic Spear-Throwing Scenes of Celtic Myth: Lugh as Yudhishthira-Mitra and Balor as one of the Rudras ," in which we demonstrated a mythic parallel between Irish Balor and Indian Ashwatthama, an incarnation of one of the Rudras.] One possible etymology of Balor's name is “the deadly one,” from Common Celtic * Baleros . This would make it cognate with Old Irish at-baill , “to die,” and Welsh ball , “death, plague.” This etymology seems more likely when we look at the comparative evidence related to Vedic Rudra. Based on the earliest Rig Vedic material, Rudra is especially the god of the destructive power of nature and the terror it causes (Chakravarti, The Concept of Rudra-Siva Through the Ages , 8), and is a bringer of both disease and death. His attendant gods known as “Rudras” or “Maruts”* are destructive gods of storm, and of wind or rain more specifically. It is important to not...