254 



Translated : 



" Tell us, Fergus, 

 Thou bard from Erin's heroes." 



The Irish copy runs thus : 



" Innis dhuinn a Fhearghuis, 

 Fhilidh Feinne Eirionn." 



Literal translation : 



"Tell to us, O Fergus, 

 Bard of the Feinne of Erin." 



The Committee tells us, Report, p. 106, " that these, and all 

 other translations given in this Report, are strictly literal." This, 

 however, is not strictly true, which the second line now quoted 

 proves. The Gaelic words " Ille Feyni Errin," however barbarously 

 spelled, are not so disguised as to conceal the meaning of the author. 

 They literally mean " Poet of the Feinne of Ireland ;" and it is evi- 

 dent that translating them " Thou Bard from Erin's heroes," was 

 done for the purpose of making it appear that those Fenian heroes 

 were not Irish. 



The corruptions which, it is asserted, have crept into the Irish 

 poems, are most strangely accounted for by the Committee. It tells 

 us that, " whoever has looked with attention on the history of nations, 

 or the progress of civil society, will easily conceive how the superior 

 cultivation of Ireland in literature, civil polity, and a religious esta- 

 blishment, might naturally tend to produce such a change and cor- 

 ruption in the ancient traditionary poems as they seem to have ex- 

 perienced in that country." — Report, p. 49. This corruption, the 



