Frrcuson—On the Legend of Dathi. 171 
now Lake Wallenstadt, which, leading eastward from the head of the 
Lake of Zurich, past the opening of the valley of Glarus (Clarona*), 
through a depression at the end of the Appenzell Alps, opens on 
the left bank of the Rhine about forty miles above Bregentz. The 
tribes who in Ptolemy’s time occupied the point of junction, the Sa- 
romcet and Rigusci, have left their names in the town of Sargans, where 
the railway junction now exists, and in Ragatz, five miles higher up, 
now the well-known health-resort for the adjoining baths of Pfeffers, 
the Fabaria of the Middle Ages.” Geographers are agreed in placing 
the Castra Rhetica of the Latin writers in the tract about the lower 
end of Lake Wallenstadt, in the district of Gastern; and the small 
towns of Tertzen and Quarten, on its southern, and Quinten on its 
northern bank, are accepted as marking the sites of Roman military 
stations. At Mollis, another small place between Quarten and Glarus, 
there was found in 1765 a hoard of Roman coins,* dating from the 
first to the third century, all indicating the existence of a well- 
frequented line of communication by this route in Roman times. 
Pfeffers claims for its founder a bishop Firmin or Pirmin, once of 
Metz.4% The name is not preserved in the abbey itself, but in the ad- 
jacent village of Saint Perminsberg, which stands higher up the moun- 
tain, both places being in the immediate vicinity of Ragatz. Leaving 
Ragatz for Zurich by the route which has been indicated, one passes 
through or near a number of towns and hamlets in the neighbourhood 
of Lake Wallenstadt, of which, for the purpose of this inquiry, it will 
only be necessary, in addition to the places already mentioned, to 
notice Wangs, Flums, Wallenstadt, which in the last century was 
Wallestadt, at the head of its lake, and Grinau at the head of the 
Lake of Zurich. 
We are now in a condition to judge how far what has been pre- 
mised may be found in accordance with the story of Dathi, as it exists 
in its oldest-written form in our now well-known eleventh-century 
manuscript, the Lebor na h Uidhrv. The text is accompanied by a gloss 
21 It is ‘“‘vicus Clarona’’ in Florencius’ account of the martyrdom of Felix 
and Regula, an event for which an antiquity going behind the date of Dathi has 
been claimed. (Gwillemann in Thes. Hist. Helvet., p. 109 a.) 
2 Guillemann’s description of Pfeffers in the beginning of the last century is 
deserving of preservation :—Omnium (aquarum) magis mirande Fabarie, a vicino 
Benedictenorum cznobio nomen sortite. In Racantiorum ambitu, intra montium 
fauces, portentoso aspectu, additu difficiles, infernali trucique situ; ac velut hor- 
rendo in barathro, strepitu preeterlabentis per vicinia saxa cautesque fluvii, et con- 
tinuo ruentis aque impluvio pulsantur. Nec deterret ea loci facies ab ingressu, 
cum frequentes eo morbidi conveniant. Mirum vero periculum homines sanitatis 
facere, ut sanitatem acquirant : quis namque inter foetorem, fumos, contagia, speret 
morbos depellere, cum ex ipsis fiant? Fingunt tamen exempla miseri et credunt , 
sanatosque audiunt semper alios, se videntnusquam. (Helvetiorwm Republica, 12°. 
Leyden, 1627, p. 492.) The ink-black colour, in time of flood, of the Tamina is 
the only feature wanting to complete the picture 
23 Muller, Hist. de Suisses, vol. i., p. 334. 
*4 Bucelin, Rhetia Etrusca ad An. 717. 
