130 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



tales may have been recorded briefly and on perishable materials ; the ogham 

 was not suited for literature. Ethicus of Istria, early in the fourth century, 

 claims to have examined books of the " unskilled philosophers " and " unculti- 

 vated teachers " of Ireland. St. Patrick reckons " Gaulish rhetoricians " 

 among his opponents in Ireland ; Juvenal tells us, " Gallia causidicos docuit 

 facunda Britannos." Perhaps, these *' spread the light " to Ireland. The 

 '■'Yellow Book of Lee an " has a story how the saint burned 180 druidical 

 books : and MacTheni (ante a.m. 098) tells of an ordeal by which Patrick and 

 a druid tested the merits of their respective books. 1 To argue that the tales of 

 thr _ rvival of Fintan and Chain imply a belief that there was no early 

 written 3 to go too far. Only Bucha being as Fintan could tell of 



colonies lost in the Deluge or exterminated, to the last life, by a pestilence 

 (indeed, the Fintan si vidently a clerical recension of an archaic tale 



of rebirths : while the Oisin cycle is confessedly late too late to give a clue 

 as to belief in the early fifth century — the omniscient " eagle (or hawk) of 

 A chill " \ an •• authority " ! 



Taking the less popular (and on that account loss corrupted and more 

 archaic of the Red Branch, we have probably Ulidian 



ills of the opening centuries of our era. with no trace of the tribal pre- 

 dominance of the M : i. or the provincial arrangements, or the 

 ■lit political import. imr of that pine, or the dawn of the Milesian tribes 

 iii Thomond The Ernai andMairtene loom large; 

 the manners aii''; il witli those of the Gauls just before 

 the leg.-: lutrages on all the ethics and prejudices 

 of th<- ami evidently remotely ancient and almost 

 unexp . 



u district we have a great mass of tales from several 

 differenl no mere fictions, but once told to those 



who Iwelt on the great blue peaks of Galteemore and 



1 " C'.smographia Ethici. - • Ancient [reland" (Dr. P. W. Joyce), i, 



pp. 403-fi; cf. Juvenal. '' Satires," xv ; Petrie, " Tkn Hill " (Trans. K. I Acad., xviii, 



" Tripartite Lil - .trick" 

 (ed. Whitley Stokes, p. 44), from " B 3 e also " Battle <>i Mi_-h Leana." 



p. 21 U - ripl M .• ■ ,.- I ... na O'Curry . \<. 605. The opening " Reasa " poem 

 in ti; i.urely pagan, save a "redeeming ' verse (pp. 1-25). See also 



of Ballymote, ;•. 190 I M. Neil] ipm, \xvii, p. evidence for early 



Christian hi Irish pagan culture. 



So (Bliss El Hull); "Men Ireland Review," xxvi, p. 130, 



p. 84 Seil] . " Doanaire Finn " (Ir. Texts Soc. . intr<>d. (same). 



-e of Duben. Clothra. Bresal, of Cnogba. and Ness; see K. Soc Antt. Jr., xl. 

 I; Keal iry,"voL ii, i 2 Metr. Dind 8.,'" \. \>. V>, and " Coir 



Anmann " (Iriscl 3er. iii), ] 



