1875.| Another View of Levitation. 307 
brought to tell a simple tale of rising into the air beyond 
reach : it immediately raised the whole question a few stages 
higher, and made the immeasurable and incomprehensible 
out of the strictly limited. 
In the notes to the ‘‘ Life of St. Columba,” by Dr. Reeves, 
as published by Edmondston and Douglas, we have an ac- 
count of two Saints fighting with demons for the soul of 
King Brandubh. ‘‘ Brandubh was killed on the morrow, 
and demons carried his soul into the air, and Maedhog, 
abbot of Ferns, heard the wail of his soul as it was under- 
going pain, while he was with the reapers, and he went into 
the air and began to battle with the demons. And they 
passed over Hy (Iona); and Columbkille heard them whilst 
he was writing, and he stuck the style into his cloak and 
went to battle to the aid of Maedhog, in defence of Bran- 
dubh’s soul. And the battle passed over Rome, and the 
style fell out of Columbkille’s cloak, and dropt in front of 
Gregory, who took it up in his hand. Columbkille followed 
the soul of Brandubh to heaven. When he reached it the 
congregation of heaven were singing Te decet, &c. Columb- 
kille did the same as the people of heaven, and they brought 
Brandubh’s soul back to his body again. Columbkille tar- 
ried with Gregory, and brought away Gregory’s brooch with 
him,—and it is the hereditary brooch to this day in Iona,— 
and he left his style with Gregory.” 
Here we find the utmost exaggeration that one can 
imagine,—at the same time with limited ideas; but let us 
go back to Sweeny, whose story, after that of Maedhog and 
St. Columba’s, is like a common occurrence. Let us hear 
the remark, for a moment, of a modern student of those 
times. In Note 63 to ‘‘Congal,” a poem by Dr. Samuel 
Ferguson, Q.C., we have—‘‘ That men should lose their 
reason in the horrors of hand to hand fighting seems not 
incredible; but the notion of this kind of phrenetic excite- 
ment being attended with a loss of material weight, is, so 
far as I know, peculiar to Celtic tradition. We have it in 
the legends of both is!ands: Merlin, at Arderidd; Sweeny, 
in this incident of the battle of Moyra; another in the battle 
of Ventry, and various other instances referred to in the 
extract following.” This is from the ‘‘ Quarterly Review ” 
of April, 1868 :—‘‘ The idea, which had a strong and per- 
sistent hold of the Gaelic mind, was that excess of mental 
excitement—especially of the passion of fear—destroyed or 
counteracted the influence of gravitation. Excessive exalta- 
tion of mind arising from religious enthusiasm, whether 
Christian or Pagan, is alleged to have the same effect. 
