376 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



PfaMtobel, Schwringraben, he would associate with (he name thus recovered — 

 the last on account of a supposed M.H.G. word fol, meaning "boar." But 

 we have here in Ireland a " Black Pig's Dyke " independently of the essential 

 link of Middle High German. As for the words compounded with pfal.pfald, 

 he tells us that the commonly received etymology from Pfahl, " stake," cannot 

 he right, as there are no stakes in the structures. This observation we now 

 know to be erroneous. Further, notwithstanding the coincidence of Phol's 

 day with th - - Ml hardly see my way to follow him in 



equating the name Phol with the fi 



rtissitr - »nl that although Phol takes no part in t lie proceedings, 

 his name is ment that of th s Wbdan. This suggests a 



superiority that i iccounted for. with thi before us, only on the 



hyp rior antiquity. We have, in short, in the charm an 



interesting ease <>f the stratification of two pre-Christian faiths, just as in the 

 ich illustration we hav< inand a pre-Christian faith superposed. 



Wodan and Frua, who wil e the only characters in the scene whose 



nam < • the place of Borne pre-Germanic gods, as Our 



take the place of pre-Christian beings in the charm 



from II In this connexion it may not 1"- without meaning 



that the hi a peculiar way— P'ol, with the 



the /'. I- sibly an attempt at representing the to him 



unwonted and f< nd "f ^. a p followed 



In Carui vol. it, pp. 14-21, ai-e given a number 



3 from the - Highlands sembling that of 



hardly be unrelated to it. Most probably they and 



the Me derived from a common source. The Gaelic charms 



Item Christ takes the place of Wodan 



anil in two of them Si Brigid is introduced, not unsug- 



ve\j I' g what < I liints at, as to a connexion 



ii Fal and Nuadu, may we permit ourselves to guess 



that in an ol ■: the incantation .'■' scupied the place held in 



■ W u I: rruption involved would he easy 



and natural in a Ten' inch of the tradition. 



to say the lea worthy that when we 



fish in tl ilian theology, we hook Pales; when we plumb 



Teutonic relig P md far down below the surface 



of the tronbli ic divinities w<- discover Fdl. It may be added that 



in A •• find a: i iinary Wing, by name Photos. He looks like 



ut is in parentage and d a totally different from the 



