297 
“There were many Cothragians 
With four tribes of whom he was in slavery.” 
And Dr. O'Donovan, who suggests this version, states that 
there is a barony called Cathraighe, now Carey, in the district 
where Milcho resided. Dr. O’Conor takes ile for ale, and 
translates (but how the translation is to be justified does not 
appear), ‘‘ Fuit ei nomen adoptivum aliud Cothrag.” Dr. 
Heinrich Leo, in his commentary and translation of the Hymn 
of St. Fiech, has proposed an entirely new translation of the 
passage. He would render the words bacap ile cochparse, 
‘¢ Magni erant greges.” And he remarks “ Locus hic intel- 
lectu facillimus ab interpretibus maxime difficilis redditus. 
Opinabantur enim, quia vocem Cothraighe insolito more scrip- 
tam videbant, et guia in sequentibus narratur Patricium quatuor 
prediorum pecora pavisse, Cothraige esse novum nomen 8. 
Patricio ab Hibernis inditum, quatuor familiorum servum signi- 
ficans.” But it is beyond all doubt that the story of Patrick 
being slave to four masters was founded on the explanation 
given of the name Cothraighe, not the name Cothraighe on the 
story, as Dr. Leo supposes. He assumes also that Cothraighe 
was an unusual mode of writing ceatpaige, or caopaise, cattle 
orsheep.* A very unusual mode indeed—for the small sound- 
ing diphthongs ea, or ao, never could be represented by o 
ora. And this is also a difficulty in the common derivation 
from Ceathair, four, for in all the authorites the name is writ- 
ten with the broad vowel a or 0, Cothraighe, Cotirche, Qua- 
driga, &¢. 
It is, however, doubtless a great objection to all these 
interpretations, that the ancient biographers of St. Patrick 
unanimously understand the Hymn of St. Fiech as having 
asserted that Cothraighe was a name given to St. Patrick by 
* Zeuss translates the words batar ile cathraige, ‘‘fuerunt multe civi- 
tates,” taking cathrazge as the plural of cathair, a city.— Gram. Celt. p. 943. 
