is was similarly
killed by a boar. This animal was a form of Ares (Mars), god of war
and tempest, who also loved Aphrodite (Ishtar). The Celtic Diarmid, in
his character as a love god, with lunar attributes, was slain by "the
green boar", which appears to have been one of the animals of a
ferocious Hag, an earth and air "mother" with various names. In one of
the many Fingalian stories the animal is

... That venomous boar, and he so fierce,
That Grey Eyebrows had with her herd of swine.[111]

Diarmid had eloped with the wife of Finn-mac-Coul (Fingal), who, like
Ares, plotted to bring about his rival's death, and accordingly set
the young hero to hunt the boar. As a thunder god Finn carried a
hammer with which he smote his shield; the blows were heard in
Lochlann (Scandinavia). Diarmid, like Tammuz, the "god of the tender
voice and shining eyes", had much beauty. When he expired, Finn cried:

No maiden will raise her eye
Since the mould has gone over thy visage fair...
Blue without rashness in thine eye!
Passion and beauty behind thy curls!...
Oh, yesternight it was green the hillock,
Red is it this day with Diarmid's blood.[112]

Tammuz died with the dying vegetation, and Diarmid expired when the
hills apparently were assuming their purple tints.[113] The month of
Tammuz wailings was from 20th June till 20th July, when the heat and
dryness brought forth the demons of pestilence. The mourners chanted:

He has gone, he has gone to the bosom of the earth,
And the dead are numerous in the land....
Men are filled with sorrow: they stagger by day in gloom ...
In the month of thy year which brings not peace hast thou gone.
Thou hast gone on a journey that makes an end of thy people.

The following extract contains a reference to the slaying of the god:

The holy one of Ishtar, in the middle of the year the fields
languish...
The shepherd, the wise one, the man of sorrows, why have they
slain?...
In his temple, in his inhabited domain,
The child, lord of knowledge, abides no more...
In the meadows, verily, verily, the soul of life perishes.

There is wailing for Tammuz "at the sacred cedar, where the mother
bore thee", a reference which connects the god, like Adonis and
Osiris, with tree worship:

The wailing is for the herbs: the first lament is, "they are not
produced".
The wailing is for the grain, ears are not