228 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
have thus another indication here that in the main our author follows 
the later writers, though occasionally adopting the earlier views. 
In the country from Constantinople along the south of the Danube 
he tells (x11.) of many swift-winged things, by which the night is 
made bright. These I take to be fire-flies, as often described by the 
ancients.” 
In the name of Thessaly, as given in the Book of Leinster, we 
have another of those curious linguistic changes I have mentioned. 
It appears as Cessair. The change of terminal / for r is common 
enough, but that from ¢h to ¢ is more difficult to explain, though 
there are instances of it; it may be due, however, to the similarity of 
¢ and ¢ in some manuscripts. 
Rome, verse Lx., is not the Imperial city, but that, it would seem, 
of the Republic. It is the ‘‘politic city of the Romans.”’ Our author 
occupies a standpoint outside the Empire, and speaks in quite a 
different tone from Dicuil, the Irish geographer who wrote on the 
continent, where the traditions of Imperial rule still survived. 
He concludes with Ireland, the island of Eriu, the pleasant land 
of many jewels, where the sons of Milesius are known to fame, the 
land of many glorious branching stems, the most fruitful of known 
lands. 
These observations by no means exhaust the interest of the poem, 
but I was obliged to omit a great deal, lest this Paper should run to 
too great a length. 
To sum up briefly the evidence it affords as to the teaching of the 
Irish schools, I may state that the situations and boundaries of the 
different countries, as well as the rivers and mountains, are generally 
pretty accurately laid down, even in remote districts. The fauna 
mentioned are the elephant, tiger, panther, wild ass or zebra, bear, 
serpent, and unnamed African monsters, perhaps crocodiles, together 
with some fabulous animals. Of minerals and natural products, we 
have the diamond, pearl, carbuncle, the magnet, selenite or moonstone, 
amber, crystal, gold, asbestos, myrrh, frankincense, and silk, and by 
inference petroleum. And then a long list might be made out of 
the physical characteristics of the different territories and the idiosyn- 
crasies of their inhabitants. 
It has no mention of the Franks, who had been in Gaul for five 
hundred years, nor of the Saxons, who were in Britain for about the 
same time, nor of the Danes, who had been ravaging the coasts of 
Ireland for one hundred and fifty years, and whom the author had 
reason to be acquainted with: from this, and the absence of any 
Christian allusions, it would seem that it was intended as a classical 
geography, and did not profess to give the state of knowledge at the 
date of its composition. 
It was evidently intended to be committed to memory, for which 
26 P, 244, note o. 
