STAR MYTHS: CONCLUSION
DAVID and GOLIATH
LUGH and BALOR

by F. Graham Millar
Halifax, Centre, RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada)
Website use with permission of the late copyright-holding author and based on the author's significant pioneer article which appeared in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 89, No. 4, Aug. 1995, pp.141-154.


I would conclude, then, that the story of the type, David slaying Goliath, or Lugh killing Balor, was a myth of the stars. The Celts, and most other nations of Europe and eastward to Persia and northern India, speak Indo-European languages derived from Sanskrit, a language spoken by a people who about 4000 BC burst westward from Central Asia in the Kurgan Invasion.

The great antiquity of the Celtic gods has been shown by the presence of their names in Sanskrit. Certain gods of the Celts, as depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron, bear a convincing resemblance to constellations of the northern sky.

In particular, some figures - with their upraised forearms - look like the constellation Hercules, while Cernunnos or Lugh - with his folded legs - looks like Boötes. Lugh slew Balor by putting out his eye with a bolt from his sling, Corona Borealis. Balor is identified as Orion partly from his attribute of blindness, and partly from his name, Concubar, deciphered as Cupid, the bow-hunter.

As a result of precession, Orion today is a slanted figure. Around 3500 BC he stood upright, so may then have been formulated as a constellation and named. At that time Boötes, low in the north on Lughnasadh, could bombard Orion with his bolt, a meteor forged by Hercules the Smith, and flung from the pouch which was Corona Borealis.

In his heliacal setting Orion fell into the Otherworld. The myth of David and Goliath is an international folktale, found in nations from Ireland to India, and its motifs are listed in Thompson's classification of folktales.

In sum, astronomy, archaeology, and mythology combine to underpin my main conclusion that stories of the type, David slaying Goliath or Lugh killing Balor, originated as a myth of the stars.


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David as Orpheus: A Myth of the Stars
by F. Graham Millar