The Irish Lugh, Welsh Llew, and the Gaulish Lugos is one of my favorite deities, if not my one favorite Celtic dei. It is interesting to note that although the stories are different concerning the death of Balor across the Celtic realm, there are many similarities. One thing we see that is similar between the Irish and the Welsh traditions of Lugh and Balor is that Lugh has the "long arm" or can throw far and accurate, and Balor has an eye that is struck out.

From The Second Battle of Mag Tuired translated by Elizabeth A. Grey.

Lug and Balor of the piercing eye met in the battle. The latter had a destructive eye which was never opened except on a battlefield. Four men would raise the lid of the eye by a polished ring in its lid. The host which looked at that eye, even if they were many thousands in number, would offer no resistance to warriors. It had that poisonous power for this reason: once his father's druids were brewing magic. He came and looked over the window, and the fumes of the concoction affected the eye and the venomous power of the brew settled in it. Then he and Lug met. . . .

"Lift up my eyelid, lad," said Balor, "so I may see the talkative fellow who is conversing with me."

The lid was raised from Balor's eye. Then Lug cast a sling stone at him which carried the eye through his head, and it was his own host that looked at it. He fell on top of the Fomorian host so that twenty-seven of them died under his side; and the crown of his head struck against the breast of Indech mac De Domnann so that a gush of blood spouted over his lips.

And so Lugh was deified in the Irish tradition. We see a similar story after the rise of Christianity on the British Isles. We get the story of Gobhan, who was a carpenter working on the castle of a British King named Balor. Since the castle was coming along so well, Balor was afraid that if he were to let Gobhan and his son go, there would be other kings whose castles that would be better than his. So he took the scaffolding out to leave Gobhan and his son there to starve. After a few exchanging of words, Gobhan told him that he needed a special tool to finish the roof.

Balor agreed and sent his own son to Gobhan's house to retrieve the tool. Balor's son found the house, where he saw Gobhan's wife, and a child with one eye. Anyway, Gobhan's wife told Balor's son that the tool was at the bottom of a deep chest. When he reached down to get it, she shut him up in there and locked the chest.

There was an exchange of prisoners, with the two Gobhans being released and Balor's son. The Elder Gobhan told Balor of another craftsman though, who was better than himself known as Gavidjeen Go. Gobhan told Gavidjeen Go to accept only one thing as payment, though, and that was a gray cow of Balor that could fill 20 pails of milk in one day. Balor agreed but failed to give Gavidjeen Go the byre-rope with the cow so that she would always return back to Balor's home.

Anyway, this is where Lugh comes into the story. Gavidjeen Go was so troubled that he hired warriors to watch the cow. A certain warrior by the name of Cian was on watch one night when the cow wandered off. Cian followed the cow to the sea shore, where he lost her tracks. He was tearing out his hair at this when a man rowed up in a coracle. The man asked what was the matter and Cian told him. The man was none other than Manannon. He said he could help him but Cian had to give him half of whatever he gained. Cian agreed, and Manannon took him back across the sea.

Once at Balor's land, Cian saw that they did not have fire and would eat their food raw. Cian was not used to this, so he made a fire. Balor saw this and made Cian his chief fire maker. Cian saw Balor going up to a tower one day and after he came back down, Cian went up to see what was up there. In the tower, Cian met Balor's daughter. He stayed up there with her for a while, and after a while she had a baby.

Balor found out about the child, so Cian took the baby and went back to Ireland with the cow, in which he had now got the byre-rope. He net Manannon at the sea-shore again, and made it safely back to Ireland. Manannon asked for the child, and Cian gave it to him. The child, Manannon baptized as "Dul-Duana", which means "Blind stubborn" but is a strange name for a champion.

When the boy had grown, he went to the sea-shore. A ship came by with a man in it. The boy, without asking who the man was, took out a dart and hurled it at the man, and it hit him in the eye. The man in the boat was Balor, and the boy was obviously Lugh.

Although this is a strange post-Christian tale of the same, it is interesting to note that the tradition of Pagan Ireland. Even with the old gods in exile, it is still proof that these tales were still evident, albeit masked in a tale, and still being told in Ireland, Wales, and possibly Cornwall.