10 



great graudson of Partholanus : that after the expulsion of his co- 

 lony by the Fomharaig, they passed, some into Scythia, some 

 into Greece: that after an absence of two centuries, five sons of 

 Dela, a descendant ofNemethus, brought new colonies hither after 

 the flood, which, after a successful battle with the inhabitants, di- 

 vided the country into five parts. ^'' 



Of Bartholomew's colony the only survivor was Ruan or Thuan, 

 a giant. This man having lived 100 years in the shape of a 

 liuman being, twenty in that of a stag, 100 in the form of an 

 eagle, three in that of a fish, at length appeared in tlie original 

 shape of a man. This last transformation might continue, for 

 aught Bishop Nicolson could see to the contrary, down to the 

 days of St. Patrick,^' to whom he gave an exact account of tlie 

 fate of his colony. ' Let this pass,' says the bishop, ' with the 

 history and chronicle of Carbre Lifachair, who being first avow- 

 ed to be an historian as old as any of the evangelists, was dis- 

 covered to be no writer at all, but a king of a later time.' 



The Belgte are said to be the first in Ireland, who elected 

 monarchs;"^- next the Dananni, a tribe of the Belgae, who wor- 

 shipped Danaan as their common mother, and her three sons 

 as deities.'^- 



From Ptolemy's silence as to a division of this island and the 

 regal power under Slang and his four brothers, it may be in- 

 ferred, if this account be true, that the partition took place about 

 the third century. In this age the names of tribes and places, 

 given by Ptolemy, might have been changed with the introduction 

 of government : the river Ovoca, for instance, into Invhear Dom- 

 nanii, the Modonus into Invhear Staine, after those Belgic tribes. 



Irish historians, in order to clothe their fables with the seem- 



IC. Ogyg. p. 172. 



1". Nicolson's Irish Historical Library, p. 10. 



18 Ogjg. Dom. O'Flahcr. p. )72. 19. IbiU. p. 6. 



f 



