Some place-names in the barony of Moycashel (S. Co. Westmeath), which
lies in Cenel Fiachach, support the tradition that Ciaran's birthplace
is to be sought there, and not in Mag Ai at all. I can find nothing
in the local nomenclature to suggest Ráith Cremthainn; but
"Templemacateer" (_Teampull mhic an tsaoir_, the "Church of the
Wright's son") may be compared with, and perhaps equated to the
similarly named "house" (p. 111); "Ballynagore" (_Baile na ngabhar_,
the "town of the goats," or "horses") perhaps echoes the "Tir na
Gabrai" of VG 3. About half a mile to the west is _Tulach na crosáin_,
the "Mound of the crosslet"--possibly the missing cross of Ciaran (LA
4). At the outflow of the Brosna from Loch Ennell is "Clonsingle,"
which it is tempting to equate to the place-name corrupted to "Cluain
Innsythe," in LA 12.
An additional suggestion may here be made to the effect that the
eldest son and daughter of Beoit were twins. Their names, _Lug-oll_
"big Lug," and _Lug-beg_ "little Lug," are in correspondence, as
twins' names often are.
[Footnote 1: For brevity we shall refer to certain books, frequently
quoted in these Annotations, by the following symbols--
LL. _Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore_, ed. Stokes.
CS. _Codex Salmaticensis_ (Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae), ed. de
Smedt and de Backer.
VTP. _Vita Tripartita Patricii_, ed. Stokes.
VSH. Plummer's _Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae_.
TT. _Trias Thaumaturga_ (Colgan's collection of the lives of
SS. Patrick, Brigid, and Colum Cille).]
[Footnote 2: There is a different version, which need not be given
here, in the _Martyrology of Oengus_ (Henry Bradshaw Society edition,
p. 204).]
[Footnote 3: Mentioned in _Annals of Ulster_, anno 1166, _Annals of
Loch Cé_, anno 1189, _Annals of the Four Masters_, annis 1121, 1166.]
[Footnote 4: A collection (in Irish) of the traditions of this person
will be found in _Targaireacht Bhriain ruaidh uí Chearbháin_, by
Micheál ó Tiomhánaidhe (Dublin, 1906).]
[Footnote 5: The passage would then read thus--_Rothircan Bec mac De
condebairt andsin_--
"_A maic in tsaeir, cot clasaib, cot coraib,
It casair chaeim, cot cairpthib, cot ceolaib._"
The transposition has probably been caused by the error of some scribe
who copied first the parts of the two lines preceding the caesura.]
[Footnote 6: The roll of the Kings of Tara was evolved from various
sources by the Irish historians of the early Christian Period.
Tigernmas was properly a pagan culture-hero, to whom was traditionally
attributed the introduction of gold-smelting and of other arts, and
who was said to have perished, apparently as a human sacrifice, at
some great religious assembly.]
[Footnote 7: This is certainly the reading, curiously misread in LL p.
356, (Irish text), and in VSH i, p. li, note 3.]
[Footnote 8: Ossianic Society's _Transactions_, vol. v, p. 84 ff.]
[Footnote 9: Edited by Dr. Hyde in _Celtic Review_, vol. x, p. 116
ff.]
[Footnote 10: On this whole subject see Chapter IV of MacNeill's
_Phases of Irish History_, a book which may be unreservedly
recommended as giving a clear and accurate view of the early history
of the country.]
[Footnote 11: It may be noted for the benefit of the reader
unaccustomed to Irish nomenclature, that persons are named in one of
the following formulae: "A mac B" (_mac_, genitive _mic_, in syntactic
relation _mhic_ [pronounced _vic_] = son): "A ó B" (_ô_ or _ua_,
genitive _ui_ = grandson or descendant): and "A maccu B" (_maccu_ =
descendant, denoting B as the name of a remote ancestor). Of course
the name B will in every case be in the genitive.]
[Footnote 12: For division of labour between the sexes, see Frazer,
_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii, 129. For prohibitions
of the presence of males when specifically female work was being
transacted, Plummer quotes Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, Eng. Trans.,
iv, 1778 ("Men shall not stay in the house while women are stuffing
feathers in the beds, otherwise the feathers will prick through
the bed-ticking"). O'Curry (_Manners and Customs_, iii, p. 121),
commenting on this story, refers to times and seasons deemed unlucky
for dyeing, at the time when he wrote; but the prohibition of the
presence of males was forgotten.]
[Footnote 13: Vafthrudnismál 41; Grimnismál 18. (_Edda_, ed. Hafn,
1787, vol. i, pp. 24, 48.)]
[Footnote 14: F.M. Luzel, _Contes populaires de Basse-Bretagne_
(Paris, 1887), vol. i, p. 219 ff. Some other parallels are quoted by
Plummer, VSH, i, p. cxliii, note 5.]
[Footnote 15: There is evidence from various literary sources that
cattle thus peculiarly coloured were accounted sacred in ancient
Ireland.]
[Footnote 16: There should be no hypermetric syllables, but I have
been unable to avoid them.]
[Footnote 17: _Horae Hebraicae_ in Evangel. Matt., xv, 36, following
the tract _Berakoth_.]
[Footnote 18: O'Donnell's _Life of St. Columba_, ed. O'Kelleher, p.
120.]
[Footnote 19: For the story of Coirpre, see _Lismore Lives_, ed.
Stokes, preface p. xvi; _Revue celtique_, xxvi, 368. For the story of
Ambacuc, see _Silua Gadelica_, no. xxxi; _Eriu_, vol. vi, p. 159.]
[Footnote 20: A fully illustrated description of this relic by
Mr. E.C.R. Armstrong will be found in _Journal_, Royal Society of
Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xlix, p. 132.]
[Footnote 21: _Book of the Dun Cow_, printed in _Zeitschrift für
Celtische Philologie_, iii, 218.]
[Footnote 22: _Féilire Oengusso_, Henry Bradshaw Society edition, p.
12.]
[Footnote 23: _Revue celtique_, xv, at p. 491.]
[Footnote 24: I should here have quoted as a parallel the
oft-described Indian rope-trick, which is alleged to be a hypnotic
feat, had I not been recently assured by a relative who knows India
well that no one has yet been discovered who has actually seen this
trick performed, and that it is probably nothing more than a piece of
folk-lore.]
[Footnote 25: See his important series of papers, _Ueber directe
Handelsverbindungen Westgalliens mit Irland im Altertum und früher
Mittelalter_, published in _Sitzungsberichte der königliche
preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_, 1909, vol. i.]
[Footnote 26: _Life of Colman mac Luachain_, Todd Lectures Series,
Royal Irish Academy, vol. xvii, p. 86.]
[Footnote 27: Bede's _Life of Cuthbert_, § xxxix.]
[Footnote 28: This is evidently a mistranslation of _bóbán_, the
translator having in mind the word _bán_, "white."]
[Footnote 29: Henry Bradshaw Society edition, vol. i, p. 157.]
[Footnote 30: Although the sense appears to run continuously from one
stanza to the next in their present collocation.]
[Footnote 31: MS. illegible.]
* * * * *
=APPENDIX=