Interesting parallels can be drawn between the ancient Vedic (Indian) myths concerning the god Vishnu and the traditional (albeit bizarre) conception in the Isle of Man that the main Atlantic solar god Manannan had three legs, a fact reflected in the small island nation’s ancient flag:

The imagery of the flag is widely agreed by celticists to be related to the ‘triskelion’ motif common in Atlantic and northern-European art from the late Bronze Age onwards, and to be a  solar symbol, related to the ancient lucky (for some) ‘swastika’ design.

Folklore collected in the Isle of Man by Charles Roeder, Edward Faragher, Sophia Morrison and colleagues in the late 19thC contained references to Manannan as a three-legged giant. This was an era when ancient mythology was considered very important to contemporary ideas of nationhood, and the study of folklore was a widespread pastime throughout Europe. The following excerpts were published in Volume 3 of a publication called Yn Lioar Manninagh (‘The Manx Book’) produced by the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society in the 1890’s:

” In olden times, long gone, there was a giant with three legs (‘dooiney three cassyn’) who lived in the Island; At last, when he could keep it no longer, it is said he rolled out like a wheel at Jurby Point, and then he disappeared and went out into the tide, and I heard this 60 years ago, when I was a little boy. “

” My next door neighbour was telling me his father went to Spanish Head one morning, at an early hour, some few years ago, and he saw a headless man toward the perpendicular cliff, some-thing in form of the three legs, rolling like a wheel on his feet and hands, and rolled over the cliff, which was full of sea-birds at the time, but the sea-birds did not appear to see anything, or they had all been on the wing in a moment, for if a small stone is thrown down the cliff the birds are flying and screaming in a thrice.”

” Manannan was a magician that governed the Island for many years, often hiding himself in a silver mist on the top of some high mountain, and as he could see strange ships who came to plunder the Island, he would get into the shape of the three legs, and roll down from the mountain top as fast as the wind, to where the strange vessels were anchored, and invent something to frighten them away.”

” There was a fleet of Norwegian ships came to Peel Bay, and the three-legged fellow came rolling to Peel, and it was about low tide in the harbour, with a small stream of fresh running out to sea. So he made little boats of the flaggers (AR: Iris) by the river side, a good number of them, and put them in the stream. Now, when the little fleet came out of the harbour, he caused them to appear like great ships of war, and the enemies fleet on the bay were in a great panic, and hoisted sails, as fast as possible, and cut their cables, and got away from the Island.”

Apparently, such ideas – if we are to believe the mid-19thC Irish antiquary John O’Donovan – were not just confined to the Isle of Man. In his notes to the translation of the 10thC Irish text known as Sanais Chormaic (known as ‘Cormac’s Glossary’), published by Whitley Stokes in 1868, he wrote the following against the entry on Manannán Mac Lír:

“… He was the son of Allot, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann chieftains. He was otherwise called Orbsen, whence Loch Orbsen, now Lough Corrib. He is still vividly remembered in the mountainous district of Derry and Donegal, and is said to have an enchanted castle in Lough Foyle. According to the traditions in the Isle of Man and the Eastern counties of Leinster, this first man of Man rolled on three legs like a wheel through the mist…”

The ‘Three Legs’ myths about Manannan’s rolling or striding are also perhaps mirrored in the many myths from Irish and British folklore about great leaps made by the titanic denizens of ancient legends, including but not limited to: The Devil, the Cailleach, St. Patrick, St. Patrick’s horse, Fionn mac Cumhaill and any number of other giants and supernatural beings. Take, for instance, the case of the tales of ‘7 League Boots’ popularised in literary accounts of fairy tales in the 19th and early 20th centuries. All of these variants have a widespread provenance in popular folklore, and are not limited to insular Europe alone, but occur across the continent and further afield.

It is in that ‘further field’ that we leap almost three millenia to find the hymns of the ancient Indian/Hindu Rig Veda texts (dated by scholars to the period spanning 1500-1200 BCE). These detail the role of the god Vishnu (the indo-european rootword ‘Vis-‘ implies ‘penetrating/pervading’), whose three great strides spatially delineate the universe, and whose incarnations and transformations delineate the eras of time itself – the ‘Yugas’:

Rig Veda Mandala 1, Hymn 154 – the ‘Vishnu Suktam’ (Trans. ?Griffiths):
1. I WILL declare the mighty deeds of Visnu, of him who measured out the earthly regions,
Who propped the highest place of congregation, thrice setting down his footstep, widely striding.
2. For this his mighty deed is Visnu lauded, like some wild beast, dread, prowling, mountain-roaming;
He within whose three wide-extended paces all living creatures have their habitation.
3. Let the hymn lift itself as strength to Visnu, the Bull far-striding, dwelling on the mountains,
Him who alone with triple step hath measured this common dwelling-place, long, far extended.
4. Him whose three places that are filled with sweetness, imperishable, joy as it may list them,
Who verily alone upholds the threefold, the earth, the heaven, and all living creatures.
5. May I attain to that his well-loved mansion where men devoted to the Gods are happy.
For there springs, close akin to the Wide-Strider, the well of meath* (AR: Soma – the holy visionary sacrament, called Haoma by Zoroastrians) in Visnu’s highest footstep.
6. Fain would we go unto your dwelling-places where there are many-horned and nimble oxen,
For mightily, there, shineth down upon us the widely-striding Bull’s sublimest mansion.

and

Rig Veda: Mandala 7, Hymn 100 (trans. ? Griffiths):

1 NE’ER doth the man repent, who, seeking profit, bringeth his gift to the far-striding Viṣṇu.

He who adoreth him with all his spirit winneth himself so great a benefactor.

2 Thou, Viṣṇu, constant in thy courses, gavest good-will to all men, and a hymn that lasteth,

That thou mightst move us to abundant comfort of very splendid wealth with store of horses.

3 Three times strode forth this God in all his grandeur over this earth bright with a hundred splendours. 

Foremost be Viṣṇu, stronger than the strongest: for glorious is his name who lives for ever.

4 Over this earth with mighty step strode Viṣṇu, ready to give it for a home to Manu. 

In him the humble people trust for safety: he, nobly born, hath made them spacious dwellings…

Vishnu is known in one of his incarnations by the name Vamana, also referred to by the epithet Trivikrama: ‘Three world strider’, because his three strides took in the seven heavens (Svarga), the underworlds (Patala) and the middle world of nature (i.e. the Earth). The name  ‘Vamana’ certainly appears resonant with that of Atlantic Europe’s Manannán! You might also note from Hymn 7.100 above, he bestowed the earth upon a character called Manu. Manu is of course, as the name suggests, the mythical ‘Proto-Man‘ of Hindu myth – the same function occupied by Manannan in Manx mythology. As the Hindus believe in reincarnation, it is unsurprising to learn that their mythology deals with many incarnations of Manu. The early Irish manuscript references to Manannan (Cormac etc) also hint at a number of ‘incarnations’ of the god, whose various names the euhemerist christian clerics were eager to record in order to support their propaganda that pagan gods were nothing but deified ancestral heroes. Vishnu, as the primary Vedic god, is represented as the animating spirit of men through his incarnation/’avatar’, Manu, just as Manannan is the same for the Manx people…

Like Vishnu and his wordly incarnations, Manannan provided a similar link between the mundane, subterranean and heavenly worlds of Irish mythology. He had a foot in each. As well as providing a link to an idealized past, he functions – like Vishnu- as a warrior-protector in the less-than-ideal present, referred to in Hindu parlance as the Kali Yuga or ‘Epoch of Kali’. Fans of Atlantic mythology might recognise our own ‘Western Kali’ in this name – the fractious and destructive goddess referred to as ‘An Cailleach‘!

…. But that, as they say, is for another story.

NB – Re: *’Meath’. This is the old Indo-European word related to the ancient intoxicating honey drink ‘Mead’. It appears to be a word cognate with the name of Ireland’s famous fairy Queen Medb (‘Maeve’) of Connacht, from the Ulster Cycle of tales, as well as being echoed in the fairy lord, Midir/Mider of Brí Leith (a key player in the Old Irish mythological reincarnation tale known as ‘The Wooing of Etain‘). Of interest, Māyā is one of the names of Vishnu’s wife in Hindu/Vedic mythology, and is also another name of the goddess Lakshmi. In Greek mythology, Maia is the mother of the travelling/leaping/world-crossing god, Hermes…