¹Ó Riain, Pádraig. "Traces of Lug in Early Irish Hagiographical Tradition." Zeitschrift Für Celtische Philologie 36 (1978): 138.
The upper-case C in Christianity was added for clarity. The author borrowed the phrase "pagan survivals and reminiscences from a chapter heading in H. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints (London, 1907). The remainder of the quotation is largely derived from C. Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae : partim hactenus ineditae (1910, cxxxiv). Plummer wrote: "The Christian teachers never took the line of denying the reality of its existence. It was gentile or diabolic knowledge, powerfully ranged against themselves. But the other element is a matter of inference. Its direct exposition was made impossible by the acceptance of Christianity. The impact of the stronger creed shattered it into fragments but many of the fragments floated down the stream of time, and recombined in fantastic shapes around the persons of pagan heroes and Christian saints, who are not therefore necessarily non-existent or non-historical' because they have formed the nucleus round which mythological elements have gathered ; any more than the sponge is non-existent, because it has served to attract the particles of silex which have turned it into flint."