1888. 278 
[Mooney. 
ing and expressive, and its curses wonderfully strong, bitter and biting. 
The rapidity and ease with which both are uttered, and the epigram matic 
force of each concluding stanza of the keen, generally bring tears to the 
eyes of the most indifferent spectator, or produce a state of terrible excite- 
ment. The dramatic effect of the scene is very powerful: the darkness 
of the death-chamber, illumined only by candles that glare upon the 
corpse—the manner of repetition or acknowledgment that runs round 
when the keener gives out a sentence—the deep yet suppressed sobs of the 
nearer relatives—and the stormy, uncontrollable cry of the widow or be- 
reaved husband, when allusion is made to the domestic virtues of the 
deceased—all heighten the effect of the keen; but in the open air, wind- 
ing round some mountain pass, when a priest, or person greatly beloved 
and respected is carried to the grave, and the keen, swelled by a thousand 
voices, is borne upon the mountain echoes—it is then absolutely magnifi- 
cent. 
The music of the caoine has its traditional origin in the wail of the 
Bean-sighe, and in the manuscript Book of Ballymote there is an ancient 
funeral lament which is recorded as having been sung by a chorus of 
invisible spirits over the grave of an Irish king in the tenth century.+ 
With regard to the subject matter of the caoine it is difficult to say much, 
or to give specimens, as the principal part is usually improvised on the 
spot and forgotten with the occasion which calld it forth. It is recited in 
a’ measurd chant, each line ending in a crescendo, dying away at the 
beginning of the next. The wailing chorus is.a long tremulous ochdn, 
ochon eile, ullulu or ullagén. In Connemara the criers use ochén, ochén 
eile, ochda eile (okhoén ella), while in the south ullagén is more common 
and may be a corruption of the same expression. Ochdén is the Gaelic 
equivalent for alas/ and eile signifies another, so that ochon, ochon eile, 
may be rendered, ‘‘ Alas, and again alas!’’ The stanzas ar composd the 
more readily from the fact that Gaelic rhymes ar vocalic only, and it is 
sufficient that the final vowel sounds of corresponding lines be the same. 
The caoine itself strikingly resembles the Indian death song. Itisa 
lament for the dead in which the speaker eulogizes the virtues of the 
deceasd and makes touching allusion to little incidents in his history, and 
should it be the case that he has come to his death by violence, as has 
happend too often in the troubled condition of the country, the most wither- 
ing curses ar calld down upon the head of the slayer. We giv here speci- 
mens of caoines which hav been preservd among the people, but as before 
remarkd the great majority ar forgotten almost as soon as utterd. There 
ar, however, numerous elegies of more finishd composition, written by 
Gaelic poets within comparativly modern times, which ar wel known in 
the districts of the south and west where the language is stil commonly 
spoken. The first is given in Hall’s Ireland as the literal translation of a 
* Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Ireland: Picturesquely Illustrated, i, 225, n. d., New York. 
t Idem, ii, 408 note. 
