and the sun is called “golden-handed” because Savitri cut off his hand and the priests replaced it by one of gold.  The myth of Nuada’s hand may have arisen from primitive attempts at replacing lopped-off limbs, as well as from the fact that no Irish king must have any bodily defect, or possibly because an image of Nuada may have lacked a hand or possessed one of silver.  Images were often maimed or given artificial limbs, and myths then arose to explain the custom.[296] Nuada appears to be a god of life and growth, but he is not a sun-god.  His Welsh equivalent is Llud Llawereint, or “silver-handed,” who delivers his people from various scourges.  His daughter Creidylad is to be wedded to Gwythur, but is kidnapped by Gwyn.  Arthur decides that they must fight for her yearly on 1st May until the day of judgment, when the victor would gain her hand.[297] Professor Rh[^y]s regards Creidylad as a Persephone, wedded alternately to light and dark divinities.[298] But the story may rather be explanatory of such ritual acts as are found in folk-survivals in the form of fights between summer and winter, in which a Queen of May figures, and intended to assist the conflict of the gods of growth with those of blight.[299] Creidylad is daughter of a probable god of growth, nor is it impossible that the story of the battle of Mag-tured is based on mythic explanations of such ritual combats.

The Brythons worshipped Nuada as Nodons in Romano-British times.  The remains of his temple exist near the mouth of the Severn, and the god may have been equated with Mars, though certain symbols seem to connect him with the waters as a kind of Neptune.[300] An Irish mythic poet Nuada Necht may be the Nechtan who owned a magic well whence issued the Boyne, and was perhaps a water-god.  If such a water-god was associated with Nuada, he and Nodons might be a Celtic Neptune.[301] But the relationship and functions of these various personages are obscure, nor is it certain that Nodons was equated with Neptune or that Nuada was a water-god.  His name may be cognate with words meaning “growth,” “possession,” “harvest,” and this supports the view taken here of his functions.[302] The Welsh Nudd Hael, or “the Generous,” who possessed a herd of 21,000 milch kine, may be a memory of this god, and it is possible that, as a god of growth, Nuada had human incarnations called by his name.[303]

Ler, whose name means “sea,” and who was a god of the sea, is father of Manannan as well as of the personages of the beautiful story called The Children of Lir, from which we learn practically all that is known of him.  He resented not being made ruler of the Tuatha Dea, but was later reconciled when the daughter of Bodb Dearg was given to him as his wife.  On her death, he married her sister, who transformed her step-children into swans.[304] Ler is the equivalent of the Brythonic Llyr, later immortalised by Shakespeare as King Lear.