MacalisTER — Tcmair Breg : Reynains and 'traditions of Tara. 353 



When we read an extravagance like this, our first impulse is to ask 

 helplessly with Geronte, Que diablr allait-il /aire dans cette galere '. — and then 

 to pass on to some other study which promises to be a less dismal waste of 

 time. But when we look at the eschatological literature, to which reference 

 was just now made, we are tempted to take a second glance at the story. Foi 

 this literature consistently affirms that the trouble is to fall on Ireland on 

 St. John's Day, in revenge for the death of the Baptist. There must therefore 

 have been a real tradition at the basis of these poems, which in some way 

 connected Ireland with the crime of Herod. 



The "Paddle-wheel" is sometimes associated with, sometimes superseded 

 by, another instrument of vengeance in these prophecies of judgment to come. 

 This is called the Sciiap a Fanait, which must be translated " The Broom 

 from Fanad," however we are to interpret the expression. We have even less 

 materials for determining the nature of the Sciiap a Fanait than we have for 

 the Both Bamach. That it likewise played a large, and to the early Christian 

 writers unintelligible, part in Irish literature is perhaps indicated, inter alia, 

 by the fact that it seems to have suggested to Colcu ua Dunechda the 

 strange title Sciiap Cltrdbaid, " Broom of Devotion," for the prayer composed 

 by him. 1 



The "Broom from Fanad " may have been an instrument of pagan worship, 

 like the Both Bamach : but the expression might well mean a rushing or 

 whirling wind, supposed to have been raised by magic; if the druids were 

 not wind-raisers and rain-makers, they knew little of the craft of the 

 medicine-man. The raising of magical winds is a conspicuous element in 

 the story of the landing of the children of Mil in Ireland, as related in Lebor 

 Gabala. 



But why Fanad '. What has ibis remote Donegal promontory I" do with 

 magical winds in the rest of the country '. It can hardly be explained merely 

 as anoiher way of saying "a north wind." Such an explanation strikes us at 

 once as insufficient. We may possibly find the clue in a Teutonic myth, 

 which also associates the Baptist with a mighty wind. 2 



It appears that Herodias, who is here treated not as Herod's wife, but as 

 bis dancing daughter, is " placed at the head of the ' furious hosts,' or of 

 witches' nightly expeditions, together with 1 liana, with Holda and IVtahta 

 (Berchta),or in their slead." We further learn that Herodias •■ is reverenced 

 by the third part of humanity " (pp. eit., p. 284), and that "from midnight 



1 Published in Otia Meiseiana, a, 92. 



- It will be found discussed in Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, tr. Stallybrass, vol. i. 

 p. 283 ff. 



[48»j 



