136 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



in Ireland, or with that of inventors of druidical rituals and arrangements 

 of earthworks to form eagles or serpents 1 on the map of Ireland ! One must 

 prepare for bitter hostility, not only from the unexpected survivals of these 

 discredited theorists, but from students of the old schools, whose faith in the 

 pseudo-chronology and pseudo-hisl tine antiquaries must endeavour to 



demolish. 



I will avoid the terms "fairy" and "elf* for the Sid folk, for each suggests 

 the English idea, and gives as false an idea of the hero-like Sid as could 

 well 1h^ imagined. Tin 1 terms •demon" and "goblin" are. perhaps, even 

 lin' i is ii" necessary implication of ugliness, or wicked- 



1 malignity, in "the brig i 5 of elder time." The HinU, was 

 usually beautiful and stately— a Pallas or Artemis. She only gradually 

 the nadir of loaths - and horror — " imr uglier follow the night- 



hag" than she — in late works, culminating in the Cathreim Tkoirdmlbaigh. 

 •i t<> tli' — Aibinn, Aine, and Cliodna, for 



mple — kepi all theii supernatural beauty. 



two m.i _ Is in old Inland.- the Tuatha 1 '>'• 



whom are t; in Gaul ami Britain) and the 



Fomorigh. \ primitive faiths, the "departmental" allocation of 



divine functi • k intellect, and accepted 



Roman) was not followed by the 



: in attributes and functions. Lucian 



the mixture of Hercules and Mercury in 



in Gaul; the _ have resembled Mars and 



. i trace of Apollo and Pluto. - • we cannot take 



. their worshippers'] with 



the I _ I find i of % Ireland, 



.iu. unlet of ] and even he is a half-breed. 



ind the Aine family \ he Tuatha De), area 



nuii. non-1 ltic, from the great 



\. 1 1. .mi. and Febra : and 

 ancestral ones, like Can M D gthene, and Deda, with his forty 



The subject iu its crude beginning leaves no excuse for dogmatism. 



1 I know the possessor of this remarkable map. but not its author. 



the Gaulish and Irish s«od» in 



: '• Ir. Myth. Cycle": Arthur B. Cook, "The 



. 28) ; " Encyc. Relig. I tries Squire, 



F>r. .1 A. UacCuIlocb, "Religion "f the Ancient 



te." 



