> Is Bel associated with a day of the week in the way that Woden is with
> Wednesday or Tiw with Tuesday?
The Irish don't seem to have equated native gods with days of the week - in
fact, none of the Celts appeared to have done this.
Outside of Cormac's etymology for Beltine meaning "fire of Bel" and Bil/Bial
being a "dia idal", I don't there is any evidence for such a figure being a
part of Irish mythology. Personally, I tend to think Cormac came upon the
pagan Babylonian god Bel/Baal in the Bible (Apocrypha, the Book of Bel and
the Dragon, in Daniel, where it is explicitly stated that Bel was worshipped
as an idol) and decided that the Irish word Beltaine must have been related.
In other words, it is in essence a folk-etymology (albeit a learned one),
and attempts to connect this alleged god Bil/Bial with Irish or British
figures named Bile, Beli, Bili, etc are ultimately meritless because these
names are completely unrelated to Cormac's Bial/Bil. Just my opinion.
- Chris Gwinn
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