Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 54

116 See p. 85.

117 Omnia monumenta Scotorum ante Cimbaoth incerta erant. Tierna, who died in 1088, was Abbot of Clonmacnois, a great monastic and educational centre in medival Ireland.

118 Compare the fine poem of a modern Celtic writer (Sir Samuel Ferguson), The Widows Cloak_i.e._, the British Empire in the days of Queen Victoria.

119 Critical History of Ireland, p. 180.

120 p.r.o.nounced Elyill.

121 The ending _ster_ in three of the names of the Irish provinces is of Norse origin, and is a relic of the Viking conquests in Ireland.

Connacht, where the Vikings did not penetrate, alone preserves its Irish name unmodified. Ulster (in Irish _Ulaidh_) is supposed to derive its name from Ollav Fola, Munster (_Mumhan_) from King Eocho Mumho, tenth in succession from Eremon, and Connacht was the land of the children of Connhe who was called Conn of the Hundred Battles, and who died A.D. 157.

122 The reader may, however, be referred to the tale of Etain and Midir as given in full by A.H. Leahy (Heroic Romances of Ireland), and by the writer in his High Deeds of Finn, and to the tale of Conary rendered by Sir S. Ferguson (Poems, 1886), in what Dr. Whitley Stokes has described as the n.o.blest poem ever written by an Irishman.

123 p.r.o.nounced Yeohee.

124 I quote Mr. A.H. Leahys translation from a fifteenth-century Egerton ma.n.u.script (Heroic Romances of Ireland, vol. i. p. 12).

The story is, however, found in much more ancient authorities.

125 Ogham letters, which were composed of straight lines arranged in a certain order about the axis formed by the edge of a squared pillar-stone, were used for sepulchral inscription and writing generally before the introduction of the Roman alphabet in Ireland.

126 The reference is to the magic swine of Mananan, which were killed and eaten afresh every day, and whose meat preserved the eternal youth of the People of Dana.

127 See p. 124.

128 The meaning quoted will be found in the Dictionary under the alternative form _geas_

129 I quote from Whitley Stokes translation, _Revue Celtique_, January 1901, and succeeding numbers.

130 Bregia was the great plain lying eastwards of Tara between Boyne and Liffey

131 The Destruction of Da Dergas Hostel.

132 p.r.o.nounced Koohoolin.

133 See p. 150.

134 See pp. 121-123 for an account of this deity.

135 It is noticeable that among the characters figuring in the Ultonian legendary cycle many names occur of which the word _Cu_ (hound) forms a part. Thus we have Curoi, Cucorb, Belcu, &c. The reference is no doubt to the Irish wolf-hound, a fine type of valour and beauty.

136 Now Lusk, a village on the coast a few miles north of Dublin.

137 Owing to the similarity of the name the supernatural country of Skatha, the Shadowy, was early identified with the islands of Skye, where the Cuchulain Peaks still bear witness to the legend.

138 This, of course, was Cuchulains father, Lugh.

139 This means probably the belly spear. With this terrible weapon Cuchulain was fated in the end to slay his friend Ferdia.

140 See genealogical table, p. 181.

141 Miss Hull, The Cuchullin Saga, p. lxxii, where the solar theory of the Brown Bull is dealt with at length.

142 A _c.u.mal_ was the unit of value in Celtic Ireland. It is mentioned as such by St. Patrick. It meant the price of a woman-slave.

143 The cune laid on them by Macha. Sec p. 180.

144 Cuchulain, as the son of the G.o.d Lugh, was not subject to the curse of Macha which afflicted the other Ultonians.

145 His reputed father, the mortal husband of Dectera

146 In the Irish bardic literature, as in the Homeric epics, chast.i.ty formed no part of the masculine ideal either for G.o.ds or men.

147 The Ford of the Forked Pole.

148 I quote from Standish Hayes OGradys translation, in Miss Hulls Cuchullin Saga.

_ 149 Ath Fherdia_, which is p.r.o.nounced and now spelt Ardee. It is in Co. Louth, at the southern border of the Plain of Murthemney, which was Cuchulains territory.

150 See p. 126.

151 In ancient Ireland there were five provinces, Munster being counted as two, or, as some ancient authorities explain it, the High Kings territory in Meath and Westmeath being reckoned a separate province.

152 Clan in Gaelic means children or offspring. Clan Calatin=the sons of Calatin.

153 Together with much that is wild and barbaric in this Irish epic of the Tain the reader will be struck by the ideals of courtesy and gentleness which not infrequently come to light in it. It must be remembered that, as Mr. A.H. Leahy points out in his Heroic Romances of Ireland, the legend of the Raid of Quelgny is, at the very latest, a century earlier than all other known romances of chivalry, Welsh or Continental. It is found in the Book of Leinster, a ma.n.u.script of the twelfth century, as well as in other sources, and was doubtless considerably older than the date of its transcription there. The whole thing, says Mr. Leahy, stands at the very beginning of the literature of modern Europe.

154 Another instance of the survival of the oath formula recited by the Celtic envoys to Alexander the Great. See p. 23.

155 Rising-out is the vivid expression used by Irish writers for a clan or territory going on the war-path. Hosting is also used in a similar sense.

156 See p. 130.

157 The sword of Fergus was a fairy weapon called the _Caladcholg_ (hard dinter), a name of which Arthurs more famous Excalibur is a Latinised corruption.

158 The reference is to Deirdre.

159 See p. 211.

160 A.H. Leahys translation, Heroic Romances of Ireland, vol. i.

161 The cloak of Mananan (see p. 125) typifies the seahere, in its dividing and estranging power.

162 This Curoi appears in various tales of the Ultonian Cycle with attributes which show that he was no mortal king, but a local deity.

163 This apparition of the Washer of the Ford is of frequent occurrence in Irish legend.

164 See p. 164 for the reference to _geis_. His namesake refers, of course, to the story of the Hound of Cullan, pp. 183, 184.