Who heard of an ancient pagan god of sun YERILLO?

Answer 1

Hidden beneath the etymology of the placename of Lothian is a shadowy mythological figure called Lleu. The earliest known Brythonic (and thus linguistically indigenous) form of "Lothian" is from a C12th Welsh poem by Hywel ap Owain:

Here, Lleudinyawn can be understood in the modern form Lleuddiniawn, meaning, literally, the "land of Lleu's fortress", comprised of the elements lleu (personal name), din (fortress), and -iawn (land of). The question then arises that if the meaning of "Lothian" is "land of Lleu's fortress", who is this Lleu?

Y Mabinogi
Scattered throughout the margins of the Celtic traditions from both Continental and Insular Europe are a series of clues about a pagan sun deity whose name generally means "light". In the Brythonic traditions related to the earliest Celtic culture of Lothian, there are traces of a solar deity called Lleu. In the Gaelic traditions, we have a mythological figure called Lúgh, and in Continental Gaul and Romano-Celtic cultures, he appears to be known as Lugus.

The majority of what is known about Lleu/Lúgh/Lugus as a pagan deity is generally from the Gaelic tradition, rather than the Brythonic, but one medieval Welsh text with strong Northern associations gives us a certain amount of information about him. Y Mabinogi, transcribed by Welsh monks around the C11th (historically later than the Gaelic texts concerning Lúgh), shows a distinct Christianisation of what were, evidently, nonetheless originally pagan myths. In the story of Mâth ap Mâthonwy, we have a basic version of Lleu's origins. One has to bear in mind, however, that despite the fact that many of the elements in the Mabinogi may have an originally Northern provenance, by the time that the stories were committed to writing, Brythonic-speaking territory had been pretty much reduced to Wales, Cornwall, and Cumbria, although Strathclyde was still a Brythonic-speaking territory on the immediate Western borders of Lothian. As a result, the Welsh scribe who worked on this text tended to set the myths in a local Welsh geography, as so often happens with local variants of otherwise international myths. As a result, the possible original Northern provenance is lost, and Lothian is not specifically mentioned. However, given that Lleu's cult was evidently followed throughout the entire continent, as well as Britain and Ireland, it's no doubt that the myth came in as many versions as there were regions in which it was told. Unfortunately, we have precious little left of the version(s) which may have been told in Lothian itself, and so the later version recorded in Y Mabinogi is probably as close as we can come to it. An online version of this story (from Charlotte Guest's C19th translation) can be found here from the Celtic Twilight website.

In Y Mabinogi, Lleu has a magical, apparently virgin birth, and his mother is given as Arianrhod, the ancient Brythonic moon-goddess whose name means, literally, "silver circle", a name which still attached itself to the moon in Welsh lore until recently. More specifically, Arianrhod's mother is Dôn, often thought of as the Brythonic Earth-goddess whose Gaelic equivalent is Danu), which makes Lleu the sun-god the son of Arianrhod the moon-goddess, and the grandson of the Earth-goddess: Earth → Moon → Sun. In Mâth ap Mâthonwy, the miraculous birth of Lleu is given as follows:

"Oh men," said he [Mâth], "you have obtained peace, and you shall likewise have friendship. Give your counsel unto me, what maiden I shall seek." "Lord," said Gwydion the son of Don, "it is easy to give thee counsel; seek Arianrod, the daughter of Don, thy niece, thy sister's daughter."

Answer 2

No. What religion or nation was he associated with? The only sun gods I really know anything at all about are Ra and Apollo.

Answer 3

Not me, but I have heard of one called Lucifer. And a pagan moon god called Allah

Answer 4

Not I.

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