Lleu Llaw Gyffes - Name

Name

The name Lleu is derived from Proto-Celtic *Lugus, the exact meaning (and etymology) of which is still a matter of scholarly debate.

For many years the name *Lugus was derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *leuk-, "light", and thus he was considered a sun god. This etymology has been dismissed because Proto-Indo-European *k did not under any known circumstances become *g- in Proto-Celtic, but remained *k. The direct descendent of the Proto-Indo-European root *leuk- (‘white light’) in Proto-Celtic is *leuk- as in the name of the Celtic lightning god Leucetios.

Proto-Celtic *Lugus may be related to the root of the Proto-Celtic *lug-rā ‘moon’ (the origin of Welsh lloer, though Peter Schrijver suggests an alternative etymology for lloer, from Common Celtic *lus-rā, where the root would be cognate with that of Latin luridus "pale yellow"). Another possibility is Proto-Indo-European *leug- meaning blackness, dimness, darkness (thought by Pokorny to be the root of the ill-attested Gaulish word lugos ‘raven’), or *leug- ‘swamp, peat-bog’. Proto-Celtic *Lugus may equally be related to Proto-Celtic *lug- meaning "oath, pledging, assurance" on the one hand and "deceive" on the other (derived from Proto-Indo-European *leugh- ‘avowal, deception’). Juliette Wood interprets his name as deriving from Proto-Celtic *lug-, oath, which would support this identification of Mercury as a god of contracts.

The name may also be related to Old Irish lug "lynx", perhaps indicating the existence of a Proto-Celtic root that denoted an animal with "shining eyes", from PIE *leuk- "to shine" (compare Greek lunx "lynx", perhaps from a zero-grade form *luk- with infixed nasal).

Another possibility is that *Lugus is related to Latin lugubris "mournful, pertaining to mourning," from lugere "to mourn," from a Proto-Indo-European base *leug- "to break" (cf. Greek lygros "mournful, sad," Sanskrit rujati "breaks, torments," Lettish lauzit "to break the heart")