306 Another View of Levitation. [July, 
made three furious bounces to shun the battle, but it hap- 
pened that—znstead of avoiding it—he went back into the 
same field of confli€t, through the giddiness and imbecility 
of his hallucination ; but it was not the earth he reached, 
but alighted on the shoulders of men and the tops of their 
helmets. 
‘“‘Inthis manner the attention and vigilance of all in gene- 
ral were fixed on Suibhne, so that the conversation of the 
heroes among each other was—‘ Let not,’ said they, ‘let 
not the man with the wonderful gold-embroidered tunic pass 
from you without capture and revenge.’ He had the tunic 
of the monarch of the grandson of Ainmire upon him on 
that day, which had been presented by Domhnall to Congal, 
and by. Congal to Suibhne, as he himself testifies in another 
place. 
‘It was the saying of everyone 
Of the valiant beautiful host, 
Permit not to go from you to the dense shrubbery 
The man with the goodly tunic.’ 
His giddiness and hallucination of imbecility became greater 
in consequence of all having thus recognised him, and he 
continued in this terrible confusion until a hard, quick, 
shower of hailstones—an omen of slaughter to the men of 
Erin—began to fall; and with this shower he passed away, 
like every bird of prey, as Suibhne said, in another place. 
‘ This was my first run. 
Rapid was the flight ; 
The shot of the javelin expired 
For me with the shower.’ 
And it was by lunacy and imbecility he determined his 
counsels as long as he lived.” 
Such is one of the most famous accounts of the Irish on 
the subject. It is in accordance with a notion there that 
lunatics lose their weight, at least, to a great extent; very 
different from the Red Indian who said—‘‘ When I am 
angry I weigh a ton.” Can that Member of Parliament 
have had these stories in his head when he said—‘‘ A man 
cannot be in two places at once, unless he is a bird?” 
When St. Columba saw the angel flying through the air 
like a bird, to save a man from falling, the time spent was 
very short, and the messenger was almost ‘‘ at once” there, 
at the end and the beginning. 
If we take the ecclesiastical side we hear of many similar 
flights, such as the instantaneous passage from place to 
place in Ireland; but probably the Irish fancy could not be 
