Mananaan MacLir

In keeping with the Homeric analogue of Proteus, a god changing into animal shapes on the seashore, Stephen looks out on the ocean and thinks, "They are coming, waves. The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of Mananaan." Manannán Mac Lir is an Irish god of the sea who is sometimes depicted Poseidon-like driving a horsedrawn chariot (or riding a single horse named Enbarr) over the waves. Stephen thinks of him again in Scylla and Charybdis in connection with a play by George Russell, "A.E." In Circe Russell and Manannán fuse.

John Hunt 2014

Digitally altered photograph of The Horses of Manannán Mac Lir, artist unknown. Source: www.coloradohummingbird.com.

An actual sea-horse photographed leaping over the Cobb Wall at Lyme Regis in Dorset, southern England. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk.

Kenneth Allen's 2014 photograph of John Sutton's bronze statue of Manannán mac Lir at Gortmore, County Londonderry. Source: Wikimedia Commons.