ORIGIN: Celtic [Irish]
TYPE: Lord of Skills
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: Early times until Christianization circa CE 400 or later.
SYNONYMS: Lugh, Lamfhada
CENTER(S) OF CULT: Lugudunum (modern Lyons) and elsewhere in Continental Europe, possibly brought to Ireland in the first century BCE by settles from Gaul.
ART REFERENCES: various stone carvings.
LITERARY SOURCES: Book of Invasions; Cycles of Kings
INFORMATION: The texts infer that Lug was a latecomer to the Irish pantheon, a tribal god who was particularly skilled in the use of a massive spear and a sling both of which possessed invincible magic properties. One of his epithets is lamfhada—"off the long arm." A young and apparently more attractive deity than the Dagda. The main festival in his honor seems to have been Lugnasadh on August 1, a particularly agrarian celebration in a country which otherwise tended to observe pastoral calendar dates, suggesting again the Lug was a later arrival who possibly superceded an arcane ritual god Trograin. An alternative name for the August festival was Bron Trogain (Rage of Trogain}. It is inferred that, like many Celtic deities, Lug was capable of changing shape, hence the possible translation of the name as Lynx. There appear to be strong Romano-Celtic associations in Continental Europe and Britain with place names such as Lugudunum (Lyons) and Luguvalium (Carlisle).