296 
Casg, Easter, is a manifest corruption of Pascha, as Cincis 
Whitsuntide, is of Pentecost,—and these are examples of 
foreign names in which the p is made ec, in exact analogy with 
the conjecture, which Dr. Todd submitted to the judgment of 
the Academy, that Cothraighe was no more than a Celtic 
form of the Latin name Patricius. 
Dr. Todd remarked further, that this conjecture, if ad- 
mitted to be true, would supply a very remarkable confir- 
mation of the substantial truth of the traditions incorpo- 
rated into the lives of St. Patrick, and ought to render us 
very cautious how we reject the historical facts recorded in 
those lives, without very strong grounds. The fact that 
Patrick was called Catrick by his heathen masters, seemed 
a difficulty even to Fiech and the other ancient biogra- 
phers of the saint. ‘To meet the difficulty they were driven 
to fanciful derivations, and the circumstance of his having 
been purchased by fowr masters was invented to justify that 
derivation. But now, the comparative philology of the Celtic 
dialects enables us to explain a word which to the most ancient 
writers whose works have been preserved to us, seemed inex- 
plicable. It is beyond a doubt that the name of Cothraighe 
did exist, and was given to St. Patrick—and it is infinitely 
more probable that the story of his four masters was invented 
to explain the name of Cothraighe, than that the name of 
Cothraighe was invented to explain the story of his having had 
four masters. 
In conclusion, Dr. Todd stated that there was considerable 
difficulty in the translation of the passage already quoted from 
the Hymn of St. Fiech, which is the most ancient authority 
for this name. All the old biographers understand it as 
asserting that Patrick was called Cothraige because he was 
slave to four masters: and Colgan translates it accordingly. 
The difficulty is, that bacap is the third person plural, and 
that ile appears to be the well-known word which signifies 
many, so that the meaning would seem to be,— 
