126 Proceedinga of the Royal Irish Acadeituj. 



Adam," where the writer of S seems to have had a faulty original before 

 him, is put in A much more clearly. S omits or alters the incidents of 

 the sun and moon, of the trees sleeping, of the prominence given to Seth, of 

 the four named angels, of Abel being buried at the same time, and of Eve's 

 death and burial. On the other hand, A knows nothing of Adam's burial 

 in Hebron, or of his head being washed to Jerusalem. 



Certain passages aud touches in S are additions clearly due to the influence 

 of Irish ecclesiastical literature. Such are : — viii, the allusion to the Seven 

 Heavens, the returning of the animals right-hand-wise, i.e. propitiously, and 

 the eating an exact half of the apple by each ; xi, the mention of the canonical 

 hours, the nine orders of angels, the " fasting " on God ; xii, the cross-%'igil and 

 the appearance of the three white birds. 



I shall now give some notes, in which aii attempt is made to explain 

 certain difficulties, and as well to throw light on the origin of some of the 

 curious ideas in S, which, for the most part, are not found in A or V. These 

 notes could be made much fuller, but I have endeavoured to condense them 

 by avoiding, as far as possible; the inclusion of matter not directly relevant 

 to the subject. 



Canto VI. — -Three days vAthout soul. — The same occurs in a poem on the 

 Creation in the Book of Lecan (ms., E.I.A.), fol. 533a ff. It appears to be 

 an Eastern idea. A Jewish tradition held that after its creation Adam's 

 body lay inanimate without a soul, and was green in colour fBartoloccius, 

 £ibliotheca Magna Rdbhinica, t. i, p. 350). Tabari states in his Chronicle 

 that it lay thus for forty years (Zotenberg, Chronique dc I'aiari, vol. i. p. 74). 

 This belief is alluded to by Hippolytus, Eefut. of all Heresies, bk. v, chap. 2. 



Named from four stars. — Eecte from the four points of the compass. 

 This idea is widespread. It occurs in the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch (Charles, 

 Apoc. aiid Fseudepigr. of O.T., vol. ii, p. 449) ; in the Sibylline Oracles ill, 

 lines 24-26 ; in the Eliceidarium of Honorius Augustodunensis (Migne, P.L. 

 clxxii, col. 1117); and in the Anglo-Saxon prose dialogue between Solomon 

 and Saturn (Kemble, Salomon a,nd Safurnus, pp. 179-181). For other 

 explanations of the name Adam see Bartoloccius, t. i, p. 79, and Heidigger, 

 Historia Patriarcharuni (2nd ed., 1688), t. i, p. 119. In the L. Breac prose 

 version it is said that Adam was formed from four sods — viz., his head from 

 Malon, his breast from Arton, his belly from Biblon, his feet from Agore. 

 In another authority {Cod. Pal. Vat., p. 24) it is given as follows : — His head 

 from the land of Garad, his breast from Arabion, Aradon, or Adilon, his belly 

 from Laban, his feet from Dagaria or Gagonia. In the Book of Lecan poem 

 on Creation his head is made from the land of Malon, his breast from Arabia, 

 his belly from Laton, his hands from Laban, his feet from Goma. This 



