84 THE BA TTLE OF VENTRY. 



though it is generally not the fairies, but the devil that imposes the task of making 

 a rope out of sand. To denote a perilous position we find : lam hi-net nathrach, ' a hand 

 into an adder's nest,' Tog. Tr. 608, ropsat Idma in-net nathrach, LL. p. 304 b ; athchungid 

 ugra,'a. redemanding a skirmish,' Tog. Tr. 609; amal mucca etir conaib, ' Wke &\\\ne 

 between hounds,' LU. p. 54 b, 7 ; anadfa inneoiti, ' staying under an anvil,' LL. p. 176 a. 

 Easy play: amal fael fb chairib, 'like a wolf among sheep,' LL. p. 258 b, amal fbelaid 

 etir chaircha, Tog. Tr. 2, 1433. Treachery : atdgur Idm a cul aci, ' I fear the hand from 

 behind her back,' LU. p. 75 a. Boldness: Idm latraind i n-arbdig, ' arobber's hand in 

 fight,' Tog. Tr. 651 ; bd hinni latraind dar maig leis eturru, Cog. G. p. 194. The only 

 printed collection of Irish proverbs I know is that at the end of Canon Bourke's 

 Grammar, who took them partly from a MS. collection of proverbs in the possession 

 of Mr. John 0'DaIy, partly from the list printed by Hardiman ('Irish Minstrelsy,' 

 vol. ii. pp. 397, 409), and partly from other sources. There is, however, a more 

 numerous collection of Seanraite Eirionnacha in a small octavo volume marked Egerton 

 146, in the British Museum, in the handwriting, according to 0'Curry, of Maurice 

 0'Gorman and Edward 0'ReilIy. Among these there is a great number of very 

 interesting ones that I have never seen anywhere else. They well deserve publication. 

 Begley's English-Irish Dictionary {An Focloir Bearla Gaoidheilge), Paris, 1732 (673 col. 

 4to.), also contains a large number of Modern-Irish proverbs. On col. 668 e. g. the 

 above phrase druim re saegal occurs in driiim do chur risan saoghal, ' to renounce the 

 world.' The following modern proverb occurs in our text, Eg. 232: an trath do 

 ghearus neach geaga ati chrainn, ni cas an crann fein do threasgart. ' If one has cut 

 oft' the branches of a tree, it is not hard to fell the tree itself.' 



One of the earliest Irish proverbs occurs in LU. p. 43, 43, where the translator of 

 Nennius, when he gets to the narrative of Patrick's miracles, exclaims : ' Ferta tra 

 Patraic do innisin dtiib-si, afiru hErend, is usce do loch in sin.' ' But to relate the miracles 

 of P. to you, oh men of Erinn, would be (carrying) water to a loch.' Cf. b^e sin salann 

 ^g a chur 'sa mhuir, Nicolson, Gael. Prov. p. 50. In the preface to his edition of the 

 Three middle-Irish Homilies, Dr. Stokes has noticed two proverbs: gniad cdch a 

 aimsir, ' let each one serve his time,' and is ri cech sldn, ' every sound man is a king.' 

 The second of thcse occurs also in the poem ascribed to Fingen, LL. p. 174 b: uasliu 

 cech rdd : ri cech sldn. There is a third proverb in the Three Hom. p. 30, 27 : 



dotoet torcc mor do orccan, 



is do dibill fds s breo 

 *a great boar cometh of a pigling, 



from a spark groweth a flame.' 

 The second of these verses is again found in Fingen's poem quoted above. In the 

 Itidex ofTbings to his edition of the Felire, Dr. Stokes notices the following proverbs : 

 loimm de rottmir, ' a sip from a great sea,' p. clxxxix ; is colatm ceti chend duitie cen 

 anmcharait, ' a man without a soulfriend is a body without a head,' pp. xlvi and cxxix ; 

 also found LL. p. 283 b, where the same story of Brigit and the macclerech is told, with 

 the following addition : ar is usce loch aelta ./. ni maith do dig, tn ttiaith do indlut, is 

 Qutnma 7 duttie cen anmcharait, ' for as water of a limy lake, neither good for drinking. 



