_Parallels._--The nuns of Brigit made a similar complaint against the
excessive charity of their abbess (LL, 1598). For the stag compare
incident XXI; also the tale of how Brenainn was on one occasion guided
by a hound (CS, 116). Ruadan, having given in alms his chariot-horses
to lepers, found two stags to take their place (CS, 328).
_The Stanza in VG._--The metre is one of the numerous forms of
_debide_, seven-syllable lines with echo-rhymes in which the
rhyme-syllable is stressed in the first line, unstressed in the second
(as _mén_, _táken_). The stanza before us is in _debide scáilte_,
where the two couplets of the stanza are not linked by any form of
sound assonance. The literal translation is: "Although it be low it
would have been high / had not the murmuring come // the murmuring,
had it not come / it would have been high though it be low."
_The Geographical Names in LA._--Loch Rii (properly Loch Rib) is Loch
Ree on the Shannon, above Athlone. The island called Inis Aingin has
now the name of Hare Island; it is at the south end of the lake near
the outlet of the river. There are some scanty remains of a monastic
establishment to be seen upon it.