epithet Lam fada, “long hand,” suggesting that gyffes may have meant “long,” although it was Llew’s steadiness of hand in shooting which earned him the title.[385] Again, Llew’s rapid growth need not make him the sun, for this was a privilege of many heroes who had no connection with the sun.  Llew’s unfortunate matrimonial affairs are also regarded as a sun myth.  Blodeuwedd is a dawn goddess dividing her love between the sun-god and the prince of darkness.  Llew as the sun is overcome by the latter, but is restored by the culture-hero Gwydion, who slays the dark rival.  The transformation of Blodeuwedd into an owl means that the Dawn has become the Dusk.[386] As we have seen, all this is a Maerchen formula with no mythical significance.  Evidence of the precariousness of such an interpretation is furnished from the similar interpretation of the story of Curoi’s wife, Blathnat, whose lover Cuchulainn slew Curoi.[387] Here a supposed sun-god is the treacherous villain who kills a dark divinity, husband of a dawn goddess.

If Llew is a sun-god, the equivalent of Lug, it is curious that he is never connected with the August festival in Wales which corresponds to Lugnasad in Ireland.  There may be some support to the theory which makes him a sun-god in a Triad where he is one of the three ruddroawc who cause a year’s sterility wherever they set their feet, though in this Arthur excels them, for he causes seven years’ sterility![388] Does this point to the scorching of vegetation by the summer sun?  The mythologists have not made use of this incident.  On the whole the evidence for Llew as a sun-god is not convincing.  The strongest reason for identifying him with Lug rests on the fact that both have uncles who are smiths and have similar names—­Govannon and Gavida (Goibniu).  Like Amaethon, Govannon, the artificer or smith (gof, “smith"), is mentioned in Kulhwych as one whose help must be gained to wait at the end of the furrows to cleanse the iron of the plough.[389] Here he is brought into connection with the plough, but the myth to which the words refer is lost.  A Taliesin poem associates him with Math—­“I have been with artificers, with the old Math and with Govannon,” and refers to his Caer or castle.[390]

Arianrhod, “silver wheel,” has a twofold character.  She pretends to be a virgin, and disclaims all knowledge of her son Llew, yet she is mistress of Gwydion.  In the Triads she appears as one of the three blessed (or white) ladies of Britain.[391] Perhaps these two aspects of her character may point to a divergence between religion and mythology, the cult of a virgin goddess of whom myth told discreditable things.  More likely she was an old Earth-goddess, at once a virgin and a fruitful mother, like Artemis, the virgin goddess, yet neither chaste nor fair, or like a Babylonian goddess addressed as at once “mother, wife, and maid.”  Arianrhod, “beauty