MARITAL JEALOUSY 133 



but every man in Ulster gave him hospitality at 

 night and caused him to lie with his wife. The same 

 royal right is reported of other Irish monarchs. 1 

 Accounts hostile, it is true, but not altogether destitute 

 of credibility represent, both in the reign of Henry II. 

 at the time of the first conquest and at the commence- 

 ment of the Elizabethan troubles, a state of society 

 quite inconsistent with the observance of the marriage 

 laws known to the writers. 2 



Both Greek and Scandinavian stories of the gods 

 are full of traces of sexual relations indicating a very 

 imperfect development of jealousy among those divine 

 beings, the reflection doubtless of their worshippers' be- 

 haviour at the times when the stories came into being. 

 Among the Scandinavians, even in historical times, 



1 D'Arbois de Jubainville, L 'Epopee Celt. i. 7, 29. 



2 Girald. Cambr. Topog. hi. 19; Froude, Hist. Eng. vii. 103, 

 quoting a report to the Council, 1559, preserved among the Irish 

 MSS. in the Rolls. A curious tale is told by Martin, writing on 

 the Hebrides in the early years of the eighteenth century, illustrative 

 of the morality of the islanders of Rona near Lewis. " When 

 Mr. Morison the minister," it runs, " was in Rona two of the natives 

 courted a maid with intention to marry her; and [she] being 

 married to one of them, afterwards the other was not a little 

 disappointed, because there was no other match for him in this 

 island. The wind blowing fair, Mr. Morison sailed directly for 

 Lewis, but after three hours' sailing was forced back to Rona by a 

 contrary wind ; and at his landing the poor man that had lost his 

 sweetheart was overjoyed, and expressed himself in these words : < I 

 bless God and Ronan that you are returned again, for I hope that 

 you will now make me happy and give me the right to enjoy the 

 woman every other year by turns so that we both may have issue by 

 her.' Mr. Morison could not refrain from smiling at his unexpected 

 request, chid the poor man for his unreasonable demand and 

 desired him to have patience for a year longer, and he would send 

 him a wife from Lewis ; but this did not ease the poor man, who 

 was tormented with the thoughts of dying without issue " (Martin, 

 Description^ 23), 



