I.
In the gods’ great scramble for human followers, Nodens would seem to have lost decisively.
asserted
Nodens → seem → followers
We know him only from vague inscriptions at two archaeological sites near the Welsh-English border.
asserted
We → know → border
He seems to have been a Romano-British-Celtic god of . . . hunting? rivers? . . . worshipped around the Severn estuary between 100 and 400 AD.
asserted
He → seem → 100
His cult may have been dispersed by Christianity, or could have faded away before that, a victim of ordinary religious churn.
uncertain
cult → disperse → churn
Roman paganism was Schumpeterian; innovate or be destroyed.
asserted
paganism → innovate → ?
Nodens didn’t innovate.
asserted
Nodens → innovate → ?
Yet the more one looks, the less convinced one becomes that this is the whole story.
asserted
this → look → ?
Nodens was a river god; if you dam up a river in one spot, it will flow down other channels.
asserted
it → dam → channels
Sometimes it will vanish underground, bursting out of some unexpected cavern miles away.
asserted
it → vanish → cavern
Nodens was a hunter, and hunters know when to stay camouflaged.
asserted
hunters → know → ?
In 1929, an archaeologist digging at the Temple of Nodens had some questions about the etymology of the god’s name, and asked Oxford to send a linguist.
asserted
archaeologist → dig → linguist
Oxford dispatched a young philology professor with an encyclopedic knowledge of European mythology, who spotted a connection that had evaded previous scholars: Nodens appeared to be the same figure as the Irish god-hero Nuada of the Silver Arm.
asserted
Nodens → dispatch → Arm
Nuada was king of the Tuatha de Danaan, a race of immortals who sailed from the north on ships that were clouds and made war against the then-inhabitants of Ireland, the Fir Bolg.
asserted
that → sail → Ireland
He fought bravely, wielding his all-powerful Sword of Light, but in the climax of the battle, the Fir Bolg champion cut off his right arm.
asserted
champion → fight → arm
This caused some temporary trouble (the laws of the time prevented a one-armed man from being king), but his people were skilled at magic and metalworking, so they made him a new arm of silver, hence his epithet.
asserted
him → cause → silver
He ruled for some number of centuries, a golden age of crafting and wonder-working, until the Tuatha de Danaan were invaded in turn (this was a theme; our source for these stories is a medieval manuscript called The Book Of Invasions).
asserted
source → rule → Invasions
The new invaders banished Nuada’s people to the hills and forests, where they became the sidhe aka fae aka fairies.
asserted
they → banish → hills
From there, the web of connections grew.
asserted
web → grow → connections
It seemed like the Romano-British Nodens and the Irish Nuada were the same figure as the Welsh Nudd, whose name later morphed to Lludd, and who was sometimes called Lludd Llaw Eraint, Lludd of the Silver Hand.
asserted
who → seem → Hand
Lludd was also a mythical king; during his reign, the kingdom encountered three plagues: dwarves, dragons, and a giant.
asserted
kingdom → encounter → plagues
The Tale of Lludd and Llefelys tells how he and his brother came up with various clever schemes to defeat the plagues and save the kingdom.
asserted
he → tell → kingdom
Lludd’s son Gwyd became king of the fairies, which makes no sense, since Lludd was just a normal guy.
asserted
Lludd → become → sense
Probably this is the tangled web again; Nodens/Nudd/Lludd started as a deity, and later Christian sources euhemerized him in different ways.
asserted
sources → start → ways
Some of them made him a king, others a fairy, others king of the fairies, and then some of them got the wires crossed and made him a normal guy whose son was king of the fairies for no reason.
asserted
son → make → reason
Speaking of tangled euhemerizations, in English legend Nodens/Nudd/Lludd is known as King Lud, after Geoffrey of Monmouth’s attempt to reconceptualize ancient Celtic deities as primeval kings of Britain.
asserted
Lludd → speak → Britain
Geoffrey did this with approximately one zillion Celtic heroes, and Lud might have ended up a footnote among such unlikely characters as Gurguit Barbtruc and Rud Hud Hudibras, except for the random coincidence that his name happened to sound a bit like “London”.
uncertain
name → do → London
This was enough for Geoffrey, who made him the mythical founder of Britain’s capital.
asserted
him → make → capital
The Londoners accepted the link and raised a statue to him over the city gate.
asserted
Londoners → accept → gate
It’s not surprising that a Romano-British deity worked his way into every great mythology in the British Isles.
asserted
deity → ’ → Isles
These are all Celtic or Celtic-influenced cultures, everyone knows they all descend from the same Indo-European stock anyway, probably there’s some Hindu god who looks a bit like Nodens if you squint.
asserted
you → influence → Nodens
Nodens worked his way into mythologies that shouldn’t even have been possible.
asserted
that → work → mythologies
The popular view of Lovecraft says he portrays an indifferent cosmos, one where alien gods treat humans with the casual cruelty of a bulldozer running over ants.
asserted
gods → say → ants
But a few of his stories break this mold and hint that the indifferent gods are opposed by an alternate collection of slightly-less-indifferent gods, and the leader of this benevolent pantheon is Nodens.
asserted
leader → break → pantheon
How did this minor Celtic river-god earn a place alongside Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep?
asserted
god → earn → Cthulhu
Welsh horror writer Arthur Machen grew up in the shadow of Nodens’ ruined temple, and found something about it so eerie that he gave Nodens a cameo in his book “The Great God Pan”.
asserted
he → grow → book
Lovecraft was a big Machen fan, and lifted Nodens as a tribute to his predecessor.
asserted
Lovecraft → lift → predecessor
How serious was I when I said Nodens was in every great British mythology?
asserted
Nodens → say → mythology
Here we return to the Oxford philology professor who first linked Nodens to Nuada, a young man named J. R. R. Tolkien.
asserted
who → return → Nuada
During his research, he would have come across a tablet, one of a handful of inscriptions mentioning Nodens at all, in which a petitioner asked the god to curse the thief who had stolen his special ring.
asserted
who → come → ring
Did this influence Tolkien’s later work?
asserted
this → influence → work
…and 69 more, not listed.
The Aporia
