Abartach

In Irish mythology, Abartach or Abarta ("performer of feats") was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He was also known as the Giolla Deacair ("the hard servant") and was associated with Fionn mac Cumhaill.

One tale has Abarta tricking a group of Fianna into mounting a magical gray horse which took them to the underworld until being rescued by Fionn.

Abarta may have been associated with a servant of Apollo, who was said to have given him a golden arrow (i.e. a sunbeam) which could teleport him, cause him invisibility and give prophecies. In later, more purely Celtic myths, the golden arrow was changed to a magical horse. Some similarities can be noted between Abaris and Paris), who slew Achilles with an arrow and the help of Apollo (a solar deity). Abaris' murder of Diarmuid Ua Duibhne by stabbing his heel with a boar's poisonous bristles has parallels with Achilles' story.

Etymology

This theonym appears to be derived from Proto-Celtic *"Adbero-tekos". The name literally means "service-begetting," which may have been a byword for the notion of ‘task performance’ (q.v. [http://www.wales.ac.uk/documents/external/cawcs/PCl-MoE.pdf] , [http://www.wales.ac.uk/documents/external/cawcs/MoE-PCl.pdf] , [http://www.indo-european.nl/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=leiden&basename=%5Cdata%5Cie%5Cceltic] ). The Romano-British form of this Proto-Celtic theonym is likely to have been *"Abertecos" (q.v. [http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/dwew2/diachrony.pdf] [http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0022226702001706] [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=74849&query=available%20name&ct=] [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=74843&query=ogham&ct=] ).