Manannán mac Lir

Manannán or Manann (Old Irish Manandán), also known as Manannán mac Lir (Mac Lir meaning "son of the sea"), is a sea deity in Irish mythology. He is affiliated with both the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians. In the tales, he is said to own a boat named Scuabtuinne ("Wave Sweeper"), a sea-borne chariot drawn by the horse Enbarr, a powerful sword named Fragarach ("The Answerer"), and a cloak of invisibility (féth fíada). He is seen as the guardian of the Otherworld and one who ferries souls to the afterlife. Manannán is furthermore identified with the trickster figure Bodach an Chóta Lachtna ("the churl in the drab coat").

Manannán appears also in Scottish and Manx legend, and some sources say the Isle of Man (Manainn) is named after him, while others say he is named after the island. He is cognate with the Welsh figure Manawydan fab Llŷr.

Names and eponymy

Manannán is also known as Oirbsiu or Oirbsen, from which Lough Corrib takes its name.

His name is spelt Manandán in Old Irish, Manannán in modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and Mannan in Manx Gaelic. He is also given two surnames. The most common is Mac Lir, which may mean "son of the sea" or "son of Ler". It has been suggested that Ler was a sea god whose role was taken over by Manannán. The other is Mac Alloit or Mac Alloid. Allot or Allod may be another name for Ler.

King's Quest III

King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human is the third installment in the King's Quest series of computer games produced by Sierra On-Line. It was the first game in the series not to feature King Graham as the player character.

The game was released for the Apple II and PC in 1986. The latter was the first Sierra game to be DOS-based instead of using a self-booting disk, as well as the first to feature EGA and Hercules graphics support. A year later, it was rereleased with the slightly improved AGI V3 engine.

The game's title is a pun on the proverb "To err is human, to forgive divine" by Alexander Pope, whose namesake may have been given to the character Gwydion once it is later revealed who he really is in the game.

Story

In King's Quest III, the story moves away from Daventry and King Graham to the land of Llewdor, where a boy named Gwydion is being kept by the wicked wizard, Manannan. According to the introduction, for as long as he could remember, 17-year-old Gwydion has been held captive by Manannan as his servant, cooking and cleaning for him in his home atop a large mountain in Llewdor. From this vantage point, and with the help of a telescope, the seemingly all-knowing wizard watches the countryside, the shoreline and vast ocean to the east and an endless desert to the west.