250 



Hunting would seem to have been still the popular diversion of 

 this period, for Bede calls the island " insula cervorum venatu insig- 

 nis,"* therein so curiously echoing the words of Diodorus, " venatio 

 illic omnis generis ferarum suppetit/'-f* Other diversions of a more 

 gregarious or domestic nature, seem to have resulted from the inge- 

 nuity of the first missionaries in substituting festivals and social recre- 

 ations, for pagan rites and unhallowed meetings. J The attachment of 

 the people, however, for some of their old superstitions was not to be 

 wholly eradicated, (in some instances perhaps it may be said to have 

 come down to our own days.) Fortune-telling we have seen, {ante, 

 p. 209,) was condemned by an express canon, and the practice of sor- 

 cery is earnestly deprecated by a poet of the year 550. § 



The funeral ceremonies practised by the Pagan Irish have been 

 already noticed, those which Christianity introduced varied little from 

 the custom of the present day. Psalm singing and religious exercises 

 preceded the interment, as at the burial of Saint Patrick, or what is 

 called " exequiae sancti,"|| and when corruption had done its work, 

 the bones of the holy were frequently gathered, and deposited in 

 shrines like those of Saint Barr at Cashel.** The last wish of earthly 

 affection so beautifully expressed in the entreaty of Jacob, " bury me 

 not, I pray thee, in Egypt; but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt 

 carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place. * * * 

 Bury me with my fathers in the cave, that is in the field of Ephron the 

 Hittite;" the same lingering remembrances appear to have dictated 

 the ancient Irish canon preserved by D'Achery, " Vir sive mulier in 



* Eccl. Hist. lib. 1. c. 1. f Ante, p. 34. 



X See Priestley's History of the Church. § See Trans. lb. Celt. See. ad ann. 



II " Homines relijifiosi, orantes a.c psalvtos canentes, sacrum corpus ex more custodiebant." — 

 Probus, Vita S. Patricii, lib. 2. c. 36. 

 ** Ware's Bishops, p. 556. 



