[315] D'Arbois, vi. 116, _Les Celtes_, 39, _RC_ xii. 75, 101, 127, xvi. 77. Is the defaced inscription at Geitershof, _Deo M ... Sam ..._ (Holder, ii. 1335), a dedication to Mercury Samildánach? An echo of Lug's story is found in the Life of S. Herve, who found a devil in his monastery in the form of a man who said he was a good carpenter, mason, locksmith, etc., but who could not make the sign of the cross. Albert le Grand, _Saints de la Bretagne_, 49, _RC_ vii. 231. [316] Holder, _s.v._; D'Arbois, _Les Celtes_, 44, _RC_ vii. 400. [317] Holder, _s.v._ "Lugus." [318] Stokes, _TIG_ 103. Gaidoz contests the identification of the Lugoves and of Lug with Mercury, and to him the Lugoves are grouped divinities like the _Matres_ (_RC_ vi. 489). [319] _HL_ 425. [320] See p. 349, _infra_. [321] See p. 272, _infra_. [322] _HL_ 409. [323] See Loth, _RC_ x. 490. [324] Leahy, i. 138, ii. 50, 52, _LU_ 124_b_. [325] _LL_ 215_a_; see p. 78, _supra_. [326] See, further, p. 385, _infra_. [327] _The Welsh People_, 61. Professor Rh[^y]s admits that the theory of borrowing "cannot easily be proved." CHAPTER VI. THE GODS OF THE BRYTHONS Our knowledge of the gods of the Brythons, i.e. as far as Wales is concerned, is derived, apart from inscriptions, from the _Mabinogion_, which, though found in a fourteenth century MS., was composed much earlier, and contains elements from a remote past. Besides this, the _Triads_, probably of twelfth-century origin, the _Taliesin_, and other poems, though obscure and artificial, the work of many a "confused bard drivelling" (to cite the words of one of them), preserve echoes of the old mythology.[328] Some of the gods may lurk behind the personages of Geoffrey of Monmouth's _Historia Britonum_ and of the Arthurian cycle, though here great caution is required. The divinities have become heroes and heroines, kings and princesses, and if some of the episodes are based on ancient myths, they are treated in a romantic spirit. Other episodes are mere _Märchen_ formulæ. Like the wreckage of some rich galleon, the _débris_ of the old mythology has been used to construct a new fabric, and the old divinities have even less of the god-like traits of the personages of the Irish texts.