[103] The Irish writers are further remarkable for not confining their tolerance to traditional practices and the like, but extending it even to the spiritual beings of the national faith. This point has been well put by Mr. Nutt, Voyage of Bran, ii. 205: ‘And whereas in every other European land the ministers of the new faith were as bitterly opposed to the fanciful as to the business aspect of the older creed, in Ireland it is the saint who protects the bard, the monk who transcribes the myth, whilst the bird-flock of Faery, alike with the children of Adam, yearn for and acclaim the advent of the Apostle.’ And even when it has seemed necessary to regard these beings as demons, several tales show priest or saint feeling for them the like regretful kindliness as Origen, Burns, and Uncle Toby expressed for the chief of the demons. A very striking instance of the eagerness shown by the Christian writers to put the best possible construction upon their pagan predecessors, occurs at the close of ‘The Irish Ordeals,’ etc., trans. by Mr. Whitley Stokes, Irische Texte, III. i. 221: ‘The wise declare that when any strange apparition was revealed of old to the royal lords … it was a divine ministration that used to come in that wise, and not a demoniacal ministration. Angels, moreover, would come and help them, for they followed Natural Truth, and they served the commandment of the Law.’

[104] Most of the principal Irish deities include among their functions that of ruler of the dead. One of the most pronounced examples of the Yama type is Tethra, who is described in the legends as Chief of the Fomorians, whereby his distinctly Chthonian character is asserted; and, after the defeat of his people at the battle of Mag Tured, as ruler of a land beyond the ocean, like Varuna, when overcome by Indra (and cp. Hesiod, Works and Days, 168-9, and Pindar, Olymp. ii.). Thence, from time to time, he would send beautiful maidens to summon to him the chiefs and heroes of Éire.

[105] The subject of the Otherworld in Irish literature has been treated very fully by Mr. Nutt in his Essay on the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld, and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth, appended to Professor Kuno Meyer’s Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal, 2 vols., 1895-7.

[106] Extracted from the Lebor na h-Udri, by O’Curry, Manners and Customs, etc., vol. iii.

[107] A similar caldron was a favourite property of supernatural beings in the heroic tales of Ireland as of Wales; indeed, so desirable a possession enters into the folklore of most nations.

[108] Aislinge Meic Conglinne,‘The Vision of Mac Conglinne,’ edited, with translation, notes, and glossary, by Prof. Kuno Meyer, 1892.

[109] Ante, note 3, p. 44. The work is edited, with translation, notes, and glossary, by Prof. Kuno Meyer, who dates the composition of the tale in its present form in the seventh century; Mr. Nutt suggests the eighth century (op. cit., i. 141). Fragments of the tale exist in the L.U. Prof. Rhys identifies Bran with Cernunnos, the divine ancestor of the ancient Celts (Hibbert Lectures, pp. 85-95). Mr. Nutt further suggests an identity with Brons, the Fisher King, and keeper of the Graal (Studies on the Legend of the Holy Graal, 1888, p. 208).

[110] In the disputation between Neid and Fercertue which was to decide which of them should be Árd Ollamh (Chief Doctor) of Ulster, Fercertue put the riddling question, ‘What is it that thou traversest in haste?’ Neid replied, ‘The plain of age, the mountain of youth, the course of the ages, in pursuit of the King in the house of earth and stones, between the candle and its ending, between the combat and the hatred of combat, amid the brave warriors of Tethra.’

[111] Transcribed into the L.U. before 1103 A.D. from the earlier Book of Slane, now lost: edited (without a translation) by Professor Windisch in Irische Texte, vol. i. pp. 197 sqq. Professor Windisch, who states that the tale is composed of materials from several distinct sources (op. cit., pp. 202-3), calls attention to the thoroughly pagan character of it, despite the introduction of a passing allusion to Adam on p. 219. Portions of the descriptions of the TÍr Tairngire contained in this tale and in the story of Mider have been rendered in metre by Dr. Douglas Hyde, Literary History of Ireland, pp. 202-3.

[112] As Zeus was brother to Pluto, and as the strife between the Olympian and Chthonian powers—the powers of light and darkness—are typified, in most mythologies, by discord between a pair of divine brothers; a conception surviving in such creations of the popular or the lettered imagination as Valentine and Orson, Alcina and Logistilla, etc.

[113] The episode is contained in the Tochmarc Emere, The Wooing of Emer, dated eighth century, by Professor K. Meyer. Miss Eleanor Hull translates the L.U. version in her Cuchullin Saga, pp. 56 sqq. Professor Meyer publishes a shorter version, with translation, in the Revue Celtique, xi. 442 sq.

[114] Mr. Nutt gives abstracts of these stories in the Voyage of Bran, i. 297 sqq.

[115] In the Perceval legend, a bridge of glass occurs in Gautier’s continuation of the Conte du Graal (Nutt, Studies, etc., p. 17).

[116] A similar ‘obstacle bridge’ occurs in other Irish Sagas. In the Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach is a bridge of glass, on which the passenger kept falling backwards. Of this kind must have been the bridge which the celebrated Irish M.P.—real or mythical—described as ‘separating’ two shores.

[117] Edited and translated by Professor K. Meyer in Revue Celtique, x. 212 sqq., from the MSS. in T. C. D.—H. 2, 16 and Eg. 1782.

[118] This flagstone, the Lia FÁil, was endowed with the property of shrieking whenever pressed by the foot of a lawful king. The frequency of vocal stones in Irish legend will be referred to later on. Popular tradition identifies the Lia FÁil with the stone now inside the Coronation Chair at Westminster, stolen by Edward I. from Scone, where the kings of Alban used to be crowned upon it, and whither it was said to have been brought from Tara by the Dalriad Scots. I believe, however, that the identity of the stone so taken to Scotland by the Dalriada with that of Tara has been impugned. The practice of inaugurating a king or chief upon a certain stone survived into late historical times.

[119] The habitual presence of the great tree outside the raths of the Tuatha DÉ Danann is doubtless to be ascribed to the custom which prevailed in Ireland of having in a similar position a public tree of the tribe, round or beside which assemblies were held and games celebrated. The Irish chronicles frequently report the cutting down of such a tree by raiders as an insult to the invaded tribe. This practice was exactly paralleled in the mediÆval republics of Italy, where an invading army would often put scorn and offence upon a city by cutting down the public tree which stood outside the gates, and was the central point in games and festivals.

[120] Cethlenn was the wife of Balor of the Mighty Blows, a Fomorian chief, and therefore of the Chthonian race of Tethra. She has left her name to Enniskillen, Inis Cethlenn, Cethlenn’s Island.

[121] The Adventures of Árt, son of Conn, and the Courtship of Delbchaem, Érin, iii. 149 sqq. Edited and translated by Mr. R. I. Best, from the Echtra Áirt, one of the PrÍm-scÉla of Ireland, preserved in Early Modern Irish in the Book of Fermoy, R.I.A., a MS. of the fifteenth century.

[122] Edited, with translation and notes, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, Irische Texte, III. i. 183 sqq., from the Book of Ballymote, R.I.A., and the Yellow Book of Lecan, T.C.D., both MSS. of the fourteenth century.

[123] Another instance of the sacred character with which the Irish code of honour invested a pledge, and which is apparent in the stories, before quoted, of Mider, Conn, Árt, etc. So in the Baile MongÁin, a story printed by Prof. K. Meyer as an appendix to his Voyage of Bran, MongÁn is obliged to surrender his wife Dubhlaca to the King of Leinster (apparently an euhemerisation of ManannÁn, who figures in an earlier version, also given by Prof. Meyer (op. cit.)) in fulfilment of a like promise.

[124] At the same time, it is perceptible that incidents of the mÄrchen type are more numerous in this group than in the great heroic cycles.

[125] In the story of Cormac, ManannÁn’s Paradise, instead of lying oversea, is placed within a dÚn, at which Cormac arrives by land.

[126] So the group of Carolingian romances, which long passed for the work of Archbishop Turpin, retained the characteristics of a barbarous society in their views concerning magic, superstition, morals, etc., though sanctified by the addition of ecclesiastical miracles, and other matters of edification, which earned for it the formal approval of Pope Calixtus II. in the year 1122.

[127] ManannÁn is presented in like fashion in the story of MongÁn, op. cit.

[128] So in the tale of Mider, ante, where, as here, it is introduced into the description of the pagan Elysium, Magh MÓr; the ecclesiastical interpolations, as here again, being brought in in the usual incongruous manner.

[129] As in the Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach, an Imram of substantially the original type, treated from a Christian point of view. The trait is copied in the Adventures of Tadg Mac CÉin, a late mediÆval romance composed in the archaic style, where it receives from Tadg the characteristic comment, ‘’Tis queer, though charming’; he evidently regarded it as an example intended rather for edification than imitation. It is interesting to note how the idea recurs in modern Irish poetry, as, indeed, practically, in Irish peasant life. In poor Mangan’s beautiful Love Ballad, translated or imitated from the Irish, the hero—

[130] One of the most explicit instances occurs in the Graal series, in the Queste, when Perceval is informed that the Castle of Maidens is Hell, and the captives therein are the souls that await Christ’s coming; the seven knights that defend the castle being the seven deadly sins (Nutt, Studies, etc., p. 41).

[131] Edited and translated by Mr. W. Stokes in Rev. Celtique, ix.-x., from a version contained in the L.U., parts being completed from later versions. Cf. Voyage of Bran, i. 162-3.

[132]

[133] Odyssey, ix. 481 sqq.

[134] David Fitzgerald, ‘Popular Tales of Ireland,’ Rev. Celtique, iv. 189 sqq.

[135] The root conception belongs to the common stock of Celtic tradition. We shall see more of the fiery rampart later on; for the revolving wall, cp. the castle in the Welsh story of Peredur, which spun round faster than the winds.

[136] Probably a reminiscence of some hermit who had chosen a snowy region in the North for his retreat.

[137] A similar miraculous provision by the agency of some animal occurs in the legends of several of the Irish hermits. In Wolfram’s Parzifal, the Grail appears as a ‘stone which yields all manner of food and drink, the power of which is sustained by a dove, who every week lays a Host upon it.’—Nutt, Studies, etc., p. 25.

[138] Vita S. ColumbÆ, I. xiv.

[139] Iomram Churraig h-Ua g-Corra, ed. and trans, by Mr. W. Stokes, in Rev. Celt., xiv. 22 sqq., from the Book of Fermoy, a MS. of the fourteenth century. The tale, in its present form, is later than that of Maelduin, though Professor Zimmer considers that the original was written early in the eighth century, the present being probably ‘a thirteenth-century rifacimento, save the opening portion, which he (Zimmer) thus looks upon as being the earliest fragment of this genre of story-telling.’—Nutt, Voyage of Bran, i. 162. Mr. Stokes, however, regards the extant version as a work of the eleventh century, loc. cit.

[140] Here, again, the harp in the hands of a modern minstrel re-echoes the ancient tune:

[141] A similar belief existed in the old Latin religion. Outside the city gates of every town there used to be a pit, the ‘Mundus,’ which was regarded as the receptacle of the souls of the dead. It was covered with a flagstone, which was lifted on three days in the year, occurring in August, October, and November, to give the imprisoned souls a holiday. Cp. the belief, once prevalent all over Europe, and still existing in many parts, that on All Souls’ Eve the spirits would go through their towns in procession, and visit their former homes.

[142] Imrum Snedghusa agus Mic RÍagla, ed. and trans, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, Rev. Celt., ix. 12 sqq., from the Yellow Book of Lecan, before mentioned; and see O’Curry, MS. Materials of Irish History, pp. 333 sqq. Mr. Stokes ascribes the tale to the middle of the seventh century; Mr. Nutt, to the middle or latter part of the ninth century.—Voyage of Bran, i. 231.

[143] The anticipation of a general battle immediately prior to the Judgment, though an article of many religions (e.g. the Persian, the Norse, etc.), is unusual in Irish writings of the present class; it is probably suggested by the prophecies contained in the Revelations, and in the prophetical books of the Old Testament, more especially the mention of the Battle of Armageddon in Rev. xvi. The mention of Enoch in connection with this battle is singular, and suggests the legend of Enoch in the Talmud. The disappearance of a national hero, and his seclusion until he shall appear to take part in some great conflict, though common to the traditions of most races (some of the most familiar being Arthur, Dietrich of Berne, Holger Danske, Frederick II.—not Frederick I., Barbarossa), has always appealed to the Irish imagination, and recurs in the modern folk-tales of Gearoid Iarla, O’Sullivan, the MacMahon, etc. It will be remembered that on Mr. Parnell’s death many believed that the Chief was not really dead, but had only disappeared for a time.

[144] There is no intention to suggest that the Echtra, the Imram, and the Fis, or the tales in each group, succeeded one another in the order in which they are referred to in the text, either in their present form or in their original composition, least of all as regards the very ancient materials which are embodied in all of them. It has been attempted to present them in such order as may best illustrate the development of the eschatological idea, and the increasing fusion of native traditions with the Church legends. A later writer, on account of his subject, or for other reasons, might sometimes employ a more archaic form of narrative than some of his predecessors.

[145] Sanctorum quoque angelorum dulces et suavissimas frequentationes luminosas habere meruit. Quorumdam justorum animas crebro ab angelis ad summa coelorum vehi, Sancto revelante Spiritu, videbat. Sed et reproborum alias ad inferna a demonibus ferri saepenumero aspiciebat.—Vita S. ColumbÆ, I. i. Part III. of the Life is largely devoted to these visions, which, however, do not throw light upon our subject.

[146] Bede, Hist. Eccl., III. xix., where the author relates St. Fursa’s arrival in England from Ireland, and gives an account of his visions. See, too, the Very Rev. Canon O’Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, under 16th January, where an account is given of several Acts, Visions, etc., of St. Fursa, mostly of the usual mediÆval type.

[147] Probably suggested by Ephesians vi. 16.

[148] This episode suggests the manner in which Virgil protected Dante from the onset of Filippo Argenti (Inf. viii. 40 sqq.), though the latter passage does not contain any moral, in connection with Dante’s own previous conduct, as is the case in Fursa’s vision, and in similar moral legends of the Middle Ages.

[149] The Vision of LaisrÉn, in Stories and Songs from Irish MSS., by Professor Kuno Meyer, Otia Merseiana, i. 1899; ed. and trans. with notes from Rawlinson B. 512, a fifteenth-century MS. in the Bodleian. Professor Meyer considers that the original was an O. I. work of the late ninth or early tenth century (p. 112).

[150] Edited by Mr. Whitley Stokes, in A Middle Irish Homily, Rev. Celt., iv. 245 sq.

[151] Cited by Mr. Nutt, Voyage of Bran, i. 225, where it is suggested that this circumstance may have arisen in the distinction between the Pagan Elysium and Heaven, a provisional Hell being added for the sake of symmetry. But it appears quite as probable that this classification may be another instance of the acquaintance of the Irish Church with Eastern writers, for the fourfold division already exists in the Book of Enoch, c. 22, the several categories being: (1) The martyrs, as in the Fis AdamnÁin; (2) The rest of the righteous; (3) Sinners who have been punished in this life; (4) Sinners who have not made expiation.

[152] Cp. Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 61-3:—

[153] Possibly this amplification of the usual description of the Piast owes something to the picture of Rumour, in Book iv. of the Æneid.

[154] David Fitzgerald, loc. cit., pp. 192-3, where he cites from Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers, a passage of the Vedas: ‘Two birds sit on the top of the imperishable aÇvattha, one eating its figs, and the other looking on.’ He also cites from the FÉlire Oengusa: ‘A great tree that was in the Eastern world, and the heathens used to worship it, so that the Christians fasted against all the Saints of Europe that the tree might fall, et statim cecidit.’ This passage contrasts curiously with the terms in which the ‘great tree’ is described in other Irish writings. The FÉlire also speaks of Elijah, Gospel in hand, preaching to the spirits under the Tree of Life in Paradise, while the bird-flocks come to eat the berries of it, which are sweeter than honey and headier than wine; just as the ale of the TÍr Tairngire is described as headier than the ale of Éire.

The human souls in the form of birds are a variant of a belief of world-wide extent. In Lithuania and the neighbouring countries the belief still exists, or existed lately, that the souls of dead children return as birds. Nearer to the present instance is the Mohammedan belief that the martyrs for Islam feast on the fruits of Paradise in the shape of beautiful green birds.

[155] Cp. hereon Professor Alessandro d’Ancona, I Precursori di Dante (Firenze, 1874), pp. 29-30, 108, etc.

[156] Cp. Inferno, i. 144 sqq.: ‘loco eterno Ove udirai le disperate strida, Di quegli antichi spiriti dolenti, ChÈ la seconda morte ciascun grida: E poi vedrai,’ etc.

[157] In nearly all the visions the seer is provided with a guide or instructor, though there is a great variety in the persons invested with this office. The earliest of these is the Archangel Michael in the Book of Enoch, and he retains his functions in a large proportion of the subsequent visions, and even in the conventional relations of a visit to Hades in Renaissance and post-Renaissance literature. Dryden, indeed, in his Essay on Epic Poetry, complains of the unfair share of work in this department that is thrust upon him. In the Vision of Esdras he is associated with Gabriel and thirty-four other angels. In the Vision of Fursa he is conducted by three angels who represent the Trinity. In other narratives St. Paul or St. Peter figures. In the later mediÆval visions the guardian angel appears in this capacity with increasing frequency, and in particular in the Irish legends from the time of St. Patrick, who received his revelations through the mouth of his angel Victor. In the Shepherd of Hermas, the apparition of the object of Hermas’s affection, followed by that of the sibyl-like personification of the Church, is a very curious anticipation of Beatrice instigating Virgil to undertake Dante’s guidance.

[158] Cp. the manner in which the DÉ Danann chiefs are often represented in the heroic romances, sitting in state in their dÚns: e.g. Lugh Mac Cethlenn, in the story of Conn, thus enthroned, with a great tree in the doorway of his dÚn, and the birds singing on it.

[159] Revelation iv., xx., etc. Cp. the Book of Enoch, where One clad in white robes sits in glory in the crystal mansion, whence a river of fire issues.

[160] Revelation iv. 4; vi. 11, etc.

[161] A conception similar in kind, though different in form, is apparent in the dÚn with a hundred doors, and at each of them an altar, and a priest celebrating mass thereon, in the Voyage of Snedgus and Mac RÍagla. Cp. the Castle of the Graal in the Perceval romances. The accessories of Christian worship are frequently introduced into the Heaven of mediÆval legends, though seldom with such minuteness as in our text. Cp. the seventh- or eighth-century legend of Saints Theophilus, Sergius, and Hyginus, who came to a church built of crystal and precious stones.—Ancona, op. cit., p. 32. This church, indeed, was not meant to symbolise Heaven, but corresponds to the churches on the mystical islands of the Irish Imrama. Praise and psalmody, as among the joys of Heaven, of course have Scripture warrant; it remained for Swedenborg to crown the bliss of his elect, who in other respects se rÉjouissent moult tristement, with the privilege of listening to sermons through all eternity.

[162] Cp. the Vision of Esdras, where the Apostles and Patriarchs and all the righteous are arrayed about the Tree of Life.

[163] Acallam na SÉnÓrach, in Irische Texte, IV. i., II. 6089 sqq.

[164] Mr. Whitley Stokes aptly compares the three fiery orbs in Paradiso, xxxiii. 114 sqq. However, these orbs represent the visible manifestation of the Trinity, and do not appear as circles encompassing the Divine seat.

[165] It is curious to note how Dante employs this symbol to represent the Imperial eagle, in Purg. xxxii. 125 sqq., which, in its onslaught upon the car of the Church, reminds us how the bird Karshipta breaks off the branches of the Tree of Life in the Var of Yima. Surely this coincidence, and also the frequency of the culture bird in the myths of unconnected races, afford good examples of the independent origin of similar ideas. In the branch covered with life-giving berries, brought by the eagles in the Voyage of Maelduin, we may possibly have a modification of the popular Irish tradition, further influenced by the Phoenix legend, or, maybe, some Oriental tradition, derived through intercourse with the Eastern Churches.

[166] In some Continental visions the Cockayne idea assumes a form more accordant with the Scriptural imagery, the inhabitants of Paradise renewing their youth by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and drinking the Waters of Life (Ancona, op. cit., p. 32). The last item is evidently suggested by Revelation xxii. 1, when the Waters of Life proceed from under the Throne, as in the ChaldÆan myth. By a certain meeting of extremes the Cockayne idea passes over into asceticism; thus, in order to express the abundance and luxury of the mythical Elysium, it is said that a single loaf, or the very scent of the apple-trees, or the like, affords sufficient sustenance; in later developments we find in the Persian Paradise one loaf suffices for so many persons, Connla lives for a month on the apple brought him by the LeanamhÁn Sidhe, the fragrance of the candles in AdamnÁn’s Heaven yields sustenance enough, and so on.

[167] Thus, Tundale’s guardian angel quits him temporarily as he enters into Hell. See post.

[168] The Irish legends of the Otherworld, and the Fis AdamnÁin in particular, offer so many points of resemblance to the Book of Enoch as to lead us to conclude that that work must have been known to the Irish Church. This is likely enough in itself, having regard to the close connection maintained by that Church with the Churches of Egypt and Syria, referred to in a previous section, where a parallel case was pointed out, viz. the preservation, in an Irish translation, of the Book of Adam and Eve, the original text of which disappeared.

[169] And compare St. Paul, 1 Corinthians iii. 13.

[170] The close agreement of this theory with the Egyptian belief has been pointed out in Section 2 ante.

[171] Cp. the angel at the door of Purgatory (Purg. ix. 103-4).

[172] Cp. the fire through which Dante had to pass in the seventh circle of Purgatory (Purg. xxvii.).

[173] It is remarkable that several of the most impressive incidents in the Apocalyptic description of the Last Judgment are omitted from the present, as from most of the other mediÆval visions; a circumstance which may cause us to hesitate before concluding positively that our author had as frequent recourse to the Book of Revelation as many analogies would suggest.

[174] Mr. Whitley Stokes, in a note on this passage, aptly compares the Egyptian demon Apap, which devoured the souls of the wicked. He also cites an Old English homily, where a dragon swallows the wicked and discharges them into the Devil’s maw. The fertile mediÆval literature on the subject furnishes several parallels, more or less close, both of a serious and comic nature.

[175] This is probably one of the additions made to the Book of Enoch in Christian times, cp. Rev. xx. 4-5, where precedence is given to the martyrs, the other righteous not being permitted to live again until after the lapse of one thousand years. Herein we have another form of the doctrine of postponed redemption in certain cases, though not here, to allow time for the purgation of sins.

[176] Cp. the similar fate of the flatterers (Inf. xviii. 113), and the stinking Stygian lake in which the violent are immured (Inf. vii. 110).

[177] We have seen that in Persia, as in Ireland, the ‘black north’ was the region whence cold winds and malignant beings proceeded. It is a well-known fact that cold no less than heat entered into the Hell of the Irish, as of the Northern nations, wherein they are followed by Dante, who, indeed, makes the sufferings of the inmost circle, devoted to the worst of sinners, to consist in intense cold. Cp. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III. i.:

So Milton: ‘In fierce heat and in ice.’

[178] ‘Senza riposo mai era la tresca Delle misere mani, or quindi or quinci Iscotendo da se l’arsura fresca’ (Inf. xiv. 40-42); and in Inf. xvii. 47-48: ‘Di quÀ di lÀ soccorrien con le mani, Quando a’ vapor, e quando al caldo suolo.’

[179] Inf. v., where Dante couples with them the angels who abstained from taking either part on Satan’s revolt, but per sÈ foro. In like manner the Irish writers, as in the story of St. Brendan, extended their more merciful judgment to these spirits also. The popular traditions of modern times identify them with the Daoine Sidhe, but without agreeing as to their ultimate fate after the Judgment.

[180] Cp. the devices to which Christian redactors of Pagan legends had recourse, in order to bring the national heroes within the pale of salvation: e.g. Cuchulainn, Concobar, Finn Mac Cumhal, Caoilte, Cormac Mac Áirt, Fintan, Tuan Mac Cairill, etc. The early Christian writers dealt in like manner with Seneca, Trajan, Statius, Lucan, etc.; to whom Dante, apparently on his own responsibility, added Rhipeus.

[182] Cp. the brazen wall wrapped in flame in the Revelation of St. Paul.

[183] Cp. Revelation ix. 6, upon the authority of which text a similar passage is introduced into many of the mediÆval descriptions of Hell. Cp. the Book of Adam, where the damned ‘call aloud for the second death, and the second death is deaf to their prayer’ (Ancona, op. cit. 107). So Dante, ‘che la seconda morte ciascun gride’ (Inf. i. 115). Cp. too Dante, Inf. iii. 124-6, where the guilty are eager to cross the river to their place of suffering: ‘ChÈ la divina giustigia gli sprona SÌ che la tema si volge in disio,’ when, however, Dante was probably following Virgil, Æneid, vi. 313-14.

[184] See, especially, Paradise Lost, ii. 587 sqq.

[185] ‘Now seeing that they who make this moan are the Saints, to whom are allotted everlasting mansions in the heavenly Kingdom, how much more meet were it for men that are yet on earth,’ etc., ch. 34. Cp. the similar passages in the FÉlire Oengusa and the ScÉla LÁi BrÁtha referred to in the preceding section.

[186] Verbal differences between the two versions are frequent throughout, though generally the later copy is the fuller, owing to the insertion of a certain amount of ‘padding.’ Far wider divergences exist between the different versions of most of the mediÆval legends, e.g. the Vision of Paul, the Voyage of St. Brendan, and the Vision of Tundale. This circumstance strengthens the internal evidence of interpolations in the Fis AdamnÁin. At the same time, it adds to the difficulty of determining the relative priority of the incidents contained in the several Visions.

[187] The Acts of St. Brendan, and the accounts of his voyages, have often been translated by modern scholars. Besides the collections of hagiologists and Church historians, standard works on the subject are Jubinal, La LÉgende latine de Saint Brendaines, Paris, 1836; SchrÖder, Sanct Brandan, Erlangen, 1871; Moran, Acta Sancti Brendani, Dublin, 1872. The Irish Life is edited, with a translation and notes, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, in Anecdota Oxoniensia (MediÆval and Modern Series, pt. 5). In the Rev. Denis O’Donoghue’s Brendaniana the subject is treated in an interesting and compendious manner. The summary of the principal incidents of the voyages given in the text, is taken, for the most part, from Mr. Stokes’s edition of the Irish life.

[188] The imaginary island of St. Brendan was delineated in the maps of the Middle Ages, and even of later periods. It was claimed by the Portuguese, but afterwards ceded to Spain. Many voyages were undertaken in quest of it, one so late as 1721.—Ancona, op. cit., p. 50.

[189] Father O’Donoghue points out that the whale episode appears too early in mediÆval churches to be due to an imitation of Sinbad. It occurs in a mediÆval life of St. Machutus, or Malo, which, however, Father O’Donoghue considers an imitation of St. Brendan, into whose legend the incident entered at a very early period, being mentioned in a poem by St. Cumin, who lived in the seventh century (Brendaniana, pp. 88-91), where the author refers to parallels occurring in the MediÆval Bestiaries. Signer D’Ancona (op. cit.) says that the episode occurs in the Romance of Alexander, which is likely to be the origin of the Western variants. However, the idea is one which may well have presented itself spontaneously in several distinct quarters.

[190] Apparently a travesty of ManannÁn Mac LÍr as he appeared to Bran in the Imram BrÁin, but quantum mutatus, or, literally, diablement changÉ en route. Already have the Celtic deities followed the Olympians, and become converted into demons.

[191] Cf. Virgil, Æneid, vi. 557-8, and Dante, Inferno, iii. 22-28.

[192] We may note one curious incident which illustrates the sympathy, before mentioned, with which Irish Churchmen treated the beings who pertained to that older faith which it was their mission to destroy. One day St. Brendan came upon a maiden of vast stature and exceeding beauty floating upon the sea, dead, and a spear through her. He restored her to life, and asked her who she was: she replied that she was one of the dwellers in the sea, who were praying for the Resurrection. He baptized her, and gave her the choice—to die, and go at once to Heaven, or to return to her own people. She chose to go direct to Heaven, so he administered to her the last Sacrament, and she died.

[193] Mr. Whitley Stokes suggests that ‘his feathers may be a reminiscence of some hermit’s dress of bird-skins’ (op. cit., p. 354). Or, maybe, of some anchorite who may have lived into extreme old age, as doubtless many did, in the condition of King Nebuchadnezzar after his fall, until his long white hair and beard suggested the plumage of a white bird. Or, again, it is just possible that this bird-like hermit, dwelling in an island Paradise, may be an attempt to euhemerise one of the many avatars of the sacred bird.

[194] The influence of the Fis AdamnÁin likewise appears in the opening portion of the Life, which cites precedents for the Saint’s devout and holy life among the worthies of the Old and New Testaments.

[195] The principal Latin Life of St. Brendan, though later than the Irish life, was written in the eleventh century. Both Lives, however, contain elements which the Lives of other Irish saints prove to have been of much earlier date.

[196] Imrama still continued to be written, and the late mediÆval story of Tadg Mac CÉin (published, with a translation, in Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady’s Silva Gadelica), presents a very admirable specimen of its class. That work, however, is a more purely literary production, consciously imitative, and deliberately archaic in style.

[197] The summary in the text follows the Irish version contained in La Vision de Tondale, V. H. Friedel and Kuno Meyer (Paris, 1907), which also contains two French versions in prose, and a fragment of an Anglo-Norman version in verse. The Irish translation was made in 151-, by Muirgheas Mac PÁidin ui Maoilchanaire (op. cit., Introduction). The original Latin has been edited by Scade, Halle, 1869, and A. Wagner (with an O. G. version), Erlangen, 1882. For translations into modern languages see op. cit., Introduction, and Ancona, op. cit., p. 53 n.

[198] In Christian art, Hell was often symbolised by a picture of the Dragon, his open mouth filled with flames, into which the wicked were impelled. This image survived in book illustrations into the eighteenth century at least. It occurs in many of the mediÆval visions; possibly the Vision of St. Paul may have been the immediate authority. It appears so early as the Vision of Esdras, if not before.

[199] This lake corresponds to the sea haunted by strange monsters which swarm about the hero’s curach in the early Imrama and in the modern romantic folk-tales.

[200] Signor D’Ancona (op. cit.) suggests that the apologue of the bridge in the Fioretti of St. Francis (cxxvii.) is an imperfect quotation from Tundale, as also a similar passage of Joachim of Flora.

[201] See the remarks in the preceding section upon a similar conception in the Fis AdamnÁin, and contrast the treatment of it by the two authors.

[202] The destruction of the guilty soul, and its reintegration for a renewal of its suffering, dates back to Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesios. See Sect. I ante.

[203] Cp. the analogous ideas in the Shepherd of Hermas, and the vision in St. Gregory’s Epistle.

[204] It is said that the Hells of the Oriental religions even surpass those of mediÆval Christendom in the morbid cruelty and obscenity, and in the childish extravagance of their descriptions.

[205] The angel who came to Tundale’s rescue may also be compared to the angel who came to the aid of Dante and Virgil when their entrance into the City of Dis was opposed by the demons (Inf. ix.). Signor D’Ancona (op. cit., p. 55 n.) compares the approach of Tundale’s angel, ‘with a radiance as of a star,’ to the approach of the angel in Purgatorio xii. 89 sq., nella faccia, quale Par tremolando mattutina stella, citing the passage from the Latin Tundale, where the resemblance is still closer—longe venientem velut stellam lucidam.

[206] Purg. xxvii. 130 sqq.

[207] Par. xxii. 129 sqq. Dante evidently follows the corresponding passage in the Somnium Scipionis, or the derivative passage in Book ix. of Lucan’s Pharsalia. The manner in which the idea appears in Tundale is not analogous. The doctrine—‘to whomsoever God giveth power to behold Himself, to him is power to see all other creatures likewise’—is precisely that of Dante. See Paradiso ix. 61 sq. and cp. viii. 90; ix. 73 sq.; xi. 19 sq., etc.

[208] For many specimens of these visions, both of earlier and later dates, see Ozanam, Dante et la Philosophie catholique au treiziÈme SiÈcle; Wright, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, 1844; Ancona, op. cit. The learned author of the last-named work has recorded several curious and little-known examples, and, in his notes, gives references to many works upon special branches of the subject.

[209] ‘Andovvi poi lo Vas d’elezione, Per recarne conforto a quella fede,’ etc. (Inf. ii. 28-9).

[210] For this extreme tenuity, cp. Al SirÂt, the Muslim equivalent of the ChinvÂt Bridge, narrow as a razor’s edge; also the souls’ bridge of the Inoits of Aleutia, which, as in several mediÆval visions, is of the thickness of a single thread.

[211] Cp. the fate of the violent in canto xii. of the Inferno. The traitors also stand more or less completely congealed in the ice, according to the circumstances of their treachery (Inf. xxxii.-xxxiv.).

[212] It is possible that this circumstance was suggested by similar travel tales told of the serpents of India, and preserved by the Greek naturalists. However, the idea is one which might well occur spontaneously, as one of the usual Otherworld applications of the lex talionis.

[213] Cp. the fiery sepulchres in Inf. canto xi., wherein, likewise, infidels were immured.

[214] Northumbria, it will be remembered, was Christianised by Irish monks, who planted monasteries at Lindisfarne and elsewhere, which long maintained the connection between the two countries.

[215] Cp. Plutarch, Vision of Thespesios, ante, Sec. 1, where the souls ascended contained in bubbles.

[216] In the Fis AdamnÁin Paradise is placed in the south-east.

[217] Cp. Inferno xii. and xxxii.-xxxiv.

[218] Inf. xxi.-xxii.; and cp. the Centaurs in Inf. xii. 56.

[219] Inf. xxxii.-xxxiv.

[220] Inf. ix.

[221] Inf. v.

[222] Inf. xxiv.-xxv.

[223] Inf. xxiii. 111 sqq.

[224] See a paper by M. Henri Gaidoz in Revue Celtique, ii. 482.

[225] Signor d’Ancona (op. cit., pp. 62-3) doubts whether this work was ever known beyond its birthplace in the Abbey of Monte Cassino, until its discovery less than a century ago, where Dante was not likely to have seen it. In the absence of direct evidence on this point, I leave the passage in the text as it stands, for the reader to form his own conclusions.

[226] Perhaps a reference should be made to the Vision of the Otherworld composed by Dante’s friend, the learned Jew Immanuel ben Salamone, as the question might occur whether Dante may not, by his means, have arrived at such part of his subject as relates to Old Testament lore and Jewish tradition by a shorter cut than the usual channels, which it has been here attempted to trace. Immanuel was born at Rome in 1265, the year of Dante’s birth, and, like his friend, was at once poet, scholar, theologian, philosopher, and exile, and, probably, one of the most learned men of his day. It is possible that Dante may have been indebted to him for stray pieces of information, scraps of Hebrew, and the like, but the debt can hardly go further than this. Immanuel’s vision of Hell and Paradise was not completed till 1325, and is a manifest imitation of the Commedia; it has been conjectured, even, that by Daniel, who served as his guide, as Virgil did to Dante, he signified the latter. See Signor Seppelli’s translation, with notes and introduction—Inferno e Paradiso di Emanuele di Salamone, Ancona, 1874.