All local manifestations of the same deity, god of the sea, but not restricted to his watery domain. Most of the mythical material dealing with him can be found in the irish sources.
In Martin Martin's "A Description of the Western Islands" (1695) he describes a sacrifice of ale made to a sea god known as Shony that took place in the North of Lewis. A donation of malt was made by all the local inhabitants and this in turn was brewed into ale. On the full evening "hallowed" tide a male volunteer would wade in to the sea and say; "Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you'll be so kind as to send up plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground for the ensuing year". After the libation the wader would throw the cup into the sea. The assembled crowd then retired to the local chapel, gathered round a single candle placed on the alter, stood in silence for a while, snuff the candle then retire to the fields to tan the remnant of the ale.
Was Shony the local Lewis incarnation of Mannan??
