The boastful Kei of the romances appears already in _Kulhwych_, while in Geoffrey he is Arthur's seneschal.[440] Nobler traits are his in later Welsh poetry; he is a mighty warrior, fighting even against a hundred, though his powers as a toper are also great. Here, too, his death is lamented.[441] He may thus have been a god of war, and his battle-fury may be poetically described in a curious passage referring to him in _Kulhwych_: "His breath lasted nine days and nine nights under water. He could remain without sleep for the same period. No physician could heal a wound inflicted by his sword. When he pleased he could make himself as tall as the tallest tree in the wood. And when it rained hardest, whatever he carried remained dry above and below his hand to the distance of a handbreadth, so great was his natural heat. When it was coldest he was as glowing fuel to his companions."[442] This almost exactly resembles Cúchulainn's aspect in his battle-fury. In a curious poem Gwenhyvar (Guinevere) extols his prowess as a warrior above that of Arthur, and in _Kulhwych_ and elsewhere there is enmity between the two.[443] This may point to Kei's having been a god of tribes hostile to those of whom Arthur was hero. Mabon, one of Arthur's heroes in _Kulhwych_ and the _Dream of Rhonabwy_, whose name, from _mab_ (_map_), means "a youth," may be one with the god Maponos equated with Apollo in Britain and Gaul, perhaps as a god of healing springs.[444] His mother's name, Modron, is a local form of _Matrona_, a river-goddess and probably one of the mother-goddesses as her name implies. In the _Triads_ Mabon is one of the three eminent prisoners of Prydein. To obtain his help in hunting the magic boar his prison must be found, and this is done by animals, in accordance with a _Märchen_ formula, while the words spoken by them show the immense duration of his imprisonment--perhaps a hint of his immortality.[445] But he was also said to have died and been buried at Nantlle,[446] which, like Gloucester, the place of his prison, may have been a site of his widely extended cult.[447] * * * * * Taken as a whole the various gods and heroes of the Brythons, so far as they are known to us, just as they resemble the Irish divinities in having been later regarded as mortals, magicians, and fairies, so they resemble them in their functions, dimly as these are perceived. They are associated with Elysium, they are lords of fertility and growth, of the sea, of the arts of culture and of war. The prominent position of certain goddesses may point to what has already been discovered of them in Gaul and Ireland--their pre-eminence and independence. But, like the divinities of Gaul and Ireland, those of Wales were mainly local in character, and only in a few cases attained a wider popularity and cult.