Nuada of the
Silver Hand. Here we have the return or redescent of the Divine
Dynasties who came to lead the men of the early Fifth Race
against the Atlantean giants. I shall beg leave now to tell you
the story of the Second Battle of Moytura.

Perhaps it was in Ireland that the White Adepts of the Fifth made
their first stand against the Atlanteans? Perhaps thence it
first got its epithet, _Sacred_ Ierne?--Bres, driven out by the
Gods, took refuge with his father the Fomorian king beyond the
western sea; who gave him an army with which to reconquer his
lost dominions. Now we come to the figure who represents the
Fifth Race. There are in Europe perhaps a dozen cities named
after Lugh Lamfada, the Irish (indeed Celtic) Sun-god: Lyons,
the most important of them, was Lug-dunum, the _dun_ or fortress
of Lugh. Lugh was a kind of counterpart to Bres; he was the son
of Cian, a Danaan, and a daughter of the Fomorian champion Balor
of the Mighty Blows, or of the Evil Eye. The story of his birth
is like that of Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae. Danae's son,
you remember, was fated to kill his grandfather Acrisius; so
Acrisius shut Danae in an inaccessable tower, that no son might
be born to her. The antiquity of the whole legend is suggested
by this nearness of the Greek and Irish versions;--even to the
similarity of the names of Dana and Danae: though Dana was not
the mother of Lugh, but of the whole race of the Gods: _Tuatha
De Danaan_ means, the 'Race of the Gods the Children of Dana.'
So you see it comes from the beginnings of the Fifth Race, a
million years ago; but how much better the history of that time
is preserved in the Irish than in the Greek version! As if the
Irish took it direct from history and symbolism, and the Greeks
from the Irish. And why not? since in the nature of things
Ireland must have been so much nearer the scene of action.

Lugh grew up among his mother's people, but remembered his divine
descent on his father's side; and when it came to the War of the
Fomoroh against Ireland, was for fighting for his father's
people. So he set out for Tara, where Nuada and the Gods were
preparing to meet the invasion; and whoever beheld him as he
came, it seemed to them as if they had seen the sun rising on a
bright day in summer.--"Open thou the portal!" said he; but the
knife was in the meat and the mead in the horn, and no man might
enter but a craftsman bearing his craft. "Oh then, I am a
craf