368 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



headway with his work of evangelization. No one else would have dared to 

 disobey the prohibition against strange fire. Unless quenched forthwith, the 

 h>ht of the conquering Faith would never be extinguished. The druids of the 

 semi- (or wholly) pagan king. Diarmait mac Cerrbeil, made a similar prophecy 

 respecting Ciaran of Clonmacnois. 1 The left-hand turn of the king before 

 proceeding to obey the druid's behests — possibly in the stone circle called the 

 Ivi.-rl - is extremely interesting, and is one of those vivid touches that would 

 not have occurred to a legend-monger. 



Professor Bury, in his Lift of St. Patrick, sees in this story a legend framed 

 by people with " an instinct for scenic effect The bold and brilliant idea of 

 the first Easter tire flashing defiance across the plain of Meath to the heathen 

 powers of Tara, and the vision of the king with his queen and sorcerers 

 setting forth from their palace in the depth of night .... is a picture not 

 unworthy of the best of those nameless story-makers who . . . transfigure the 

 facts of history. The Calendar is disregarded. The idea is that Easter is to 

 replace Beltane, the Christian to overcome the heathen fire; and it is a 

 matter of no import that the day of Beltane was the first day of summer 

 which could never tall on Easter Eve. 



I cannot help thinking that in tins eloquent passage Professor Bury does 

 the hagiographera t"" much honour. Scenic effect was the very last thing at 

 which those deplorably " pedestrian " writers aimed. So much is this the 

 case, that when we come across any specially effective incident, or what seems 

 to be a Btriking Bight of fancy, in all the dn-arv waste of pointless and often 

 immoral and mi-Christian miracles— when, in shott, the saint is depicted as 

 other than an inhuman monster, doling out " shortness of life and hell" to all 

 and singular as the penalty for the least affront— then we may fairly and 

 without paradox affirm that tl good to be false, and that here 



the real .-aim is shown r delightful colloquy of St. Patrick with the 



.simple-minded maiden- hu —the beautiful interview (infamously 



travestied by Moore in his Irish Melodies) between the hermit of Inis 

 Cathaig and her who Would have shared his devotion — the noble death- 

 - ' iaran.one of the most impressive passages in Christian literature 

 — the dignified and solemn self-revelation of the Confessio Pairieii— such 

 treasures as • wit of mediaeval hagiographera to invent. 



i. 73 ; ii, 76. 



- Op. «*., pp. 106 7 



3 This pretty story has l>een spoilt V>y some mawkish sentimentalist, who has added 

 a tag which made the chtldrti I 'heir meeting with the ^:uiit ! Had the incident 



terminated in so gruesome a fashion, we should have beard no more of St. Patrick, for his 

 numerous enemies would have had i arraigning him on the charge oi 



killing the king's daughters hy poison or by ma 



