notorious sinner, or to instruct by the edifying fate of some one
remarkable for virtue or vice; often, again, with the practical object
of exacting restitution or reparation from the sinner or his heirs.

The subject was equally popular in sacred and profane literature,
appearing in homily and apologue, folk-tale and fabliau, in poems
serious and comic, tending to edification and otherwise.

In all this there was little enough of originality, or intrinsic merit
of any kind, save only when some aspect of the subject happened to fall
into the hands of a skilled _raconteur_. Nevertheless, it all served
to keep the subject present to the public mind, and thus to afford
that degree of preparation, which always appears necessary alike for
the production and reception of any great and novel work of art, and
likewise to amass a considerable store of material, ready for any hand
capable of dealing with it. At length, in Dante, the one poet arose
whose genius was sufficient to extricate from this heap of trivialities
the great dogmas of the Christian faith which lay at the bottom, and,
by his matchless constructive power, to give form and substance to
the theme, to illustrate it with all that his age could afford of
philosophy and learning, to animate it with the spirit of devotion and
sublime human passion, and to enrich it with all the resources of the
poetical imagination.[226]

7. CONCLUSION

In the foregoing pages it has been attempted to trace, from its
various sources, the progress of the legend which culminated in
Dante’s _Commedia_. It did not form a part of this design to collect
the corresponding traditions which abound in the folklore of many
times and peoples, nor even to give an exhaustive account of the forms
which the legend assumed in the several fields which have come within
our purview; rather to confine our examination to those examples
which may be regarded as its sources, or may have contributed to its
transmission, or determined the form which it assumed in later stages
of its development. We have seen that Dante’s poem had been led up
to by a long series of predecessors, like it in theme, if in nothing
else, and that it had already approved its fitness for a place in
the world’s literature, by the success which it had achieved, in
countless forms, among peoples of widely diverse stages of culture. We
have also seen how the Irish Church, in its palmy days, developed a
highly characteristic treatment of the theme, and while following, in
the main, the accepted traditions of the mediæval Church, introduced
certain modifications of a strongly individual and national type. Of
this class the Vision of Adamnán has been selected for a specimen,
as representing the highest level attained by the school to which it
belonged, and as being the most important contribution made to the
growth of the legend within the Christian Church prior to the advent of
Dante.

I have purposely abstained from offering a conjecture as to any
possible indebtedness on the part of Dante to the Visions of the Irish
school, and to the _Fis Adamnáin_ in particular, further than as these,
by reviving, transmitting, and popularising the theme, placed ready
to his hand the subject which was, of all others, best adapted to
his genius, and, at the same time, best calculated to appeal to the
public of his day. The various topics into which this examination has
compelled the writer to enter--Dante literature, Celtic tradition,
folklore, mythology--are all favourite subjects with that type of
theorist who is wont to accompany a small modicum of the bread of fact
with an intolerable deal of the sack of hypothesis, to the no small
detriment of critical sobriety, so that one who approaches the subject
with no preconceived theory of his own to prove--unless, like those
present at a revival meeting, he be set a-prophesying by contagion--is
apt to become almost as sick of these shadows as was the Lady of
Shalott of those in her magic glass. I have therefore endeavoured to
present the author of the _Fis Adamnáin_ merely as a ‘precursor’ of
Dante, without attempting to prove him Dante’s ‘progenitor.’ All the
same, I do not think I am transgressing these limits by suggesting the
almost certainty that so omnivorous a reader as Dante must have been
acquainted with works so generally known at and prior to his day as the
Voyages of St. Brendan, the Vision of Tundale, and the legends of St.
Patrick’s Purgatory, all of which were more or less influenced by the
_Fis Adamnáin_, and were productions of the same school. There is no
ground to imagine that Dante was acquainted with the _Fis Adamnáin_,
nor can that supposition be entertained unless it can be shown that
there existed in his day a translation of it into Latin, or one of the
Romance languages, to which he might have had access. Indeed, pending
the results of future research, it is impossible to put forward any
work, or group of works, as the model which Dante followed. Probably
no such model will ever be discovered, for the simple reason that none
such ever existed. It is true that Dante availed himself freely of all
that the previous Vision literature could give him, just as he drew
copiously from every source at his command. But for the Latin classics,
and Virgil in particular; but for the Latin Fathers, Augustine, Jerome,
and Gregory; the Schoolmen, from Erigena to Thomas Aquinas; the Romance
poets of France and Italy, it is certain that Dante’s work, as we
have it, could never have come into being. So much may be claimed
for the Visions of the Irish school, and, apparently, no more, but
even this much is enough to entitle them to a place in the history of
modern literature. Indeed, independently of any such relation of cause
and effect between the two, the writings of the Irish school would
still constitute an interesting study, both as the fruits obtained by
previous labours in the same field under widely different conditions,
and even more for the light which they cast upon what is still one of
the darkest places in the intellectual life of Europe.

We have had occasion to remark before upon several particulars wherein
the analogy between the _Fis Adamnáin_--and, to a less extent, others
of the Irish Visions--and the _Commedia_ would appear to go deeper
than can be explained by their common subject, and their use in common
of the same general stock of ideas. However, it does not appear that
the influence exercised by the Irish school mainly consisted in the
introduction of novel ideas and incidents, though even these were not
entirely absent. Indeed, throughout the history of the Vision legend,
we may observe a continual tendency to drop any national or personal
characteristics which it may have acquired at a previous stage of
its evolution. For instance, we have seen to how great an extent the
popular Christian eschatology was modelled upon the classical Elysium
and Tartarus, yet even the earlier Church works upon the subject
contain no such references to classical personages and traditions as
were employed so copiously by Dante, and, in a slight and tentative
manner, by certain of his predecessors. The same may be said of the
Oriental myths which formed part of the Hebrew contributions to
the subject. So, in proportion as the late mediæval visions of the
Otherworld recede in date from those of the Irish school, they tend to
drop more and more of the structure and imagery which were peculiarly
characteristic of the latter, as owing great part of their form or
colour to the Irish national traditions. This process is carried still
further by Dante, who rejected many of the most familiar incidents of
the earlier visions: _e.g._ the bridge, the open mouth of the dragon
as symbolising Hell, Enoch and Elijah beside the Tree of Life, and the
bird-flocks about them, the special provisions for various kinds of the
half-righteous, etc.

Thus, while exercising a secondary influence by further enriching the
stock of material already in existence, the main function of the Irish
Visions was to set a literary fashion, so to speak, whereby the Vision
of the Otherworld came to be regarded as the most natural vehicle for
conveying men’s thoughts and imaginations, as in other ages the epic,
the drama, the dialogue, the pamphlet, the novel, and other forms of
composition, have been specially affected for the like purpose.

It remains to say a few words respecting the literary merits of the
_Fis Adamnáin_. Obviously there can be no rivalry, or even comparison,
in this respect, between it and the poem which stands high among the
supreme achievements of the human intellect. Noteworthy, rather, is
the degree of excellence to which the earlier writer attains, when we
consider what was the state of vernacular literature in the Europe of
his day. His style, like the style of most Irish writers of the best
period, is simple, picturesque, and forcible; the language is terse
and pregnant, without being bald or meagre. There are certain writings
of every age, differing much in merit, from which, as we read them, we
seem to be hearing the author’s voice proceeding; where this is so, the
style can hardly be other than good of its kind, however simple, and
even rude, it may be, and however little it may owe to technical skill.
This characteristic, I think, the work in question possesses; but this
is an evanescent quality which must needs disappear in translation,
especially such a translation as the present, where the aim has chiefly
been at literal accuracy.

Mention has been made already of the advantages which this Vision
possesses over most others of its class, by reason of its superiority
in construction, which is manifested alike in the general design
of the work, and in the superior grouping and visual presentment of
certain portions, such as the description of Heaven, and the righteous
assembled about the Throne. Our author, too, compares favourably with
his fellows as regards his general cast of thought, as particularly in
the stress which he lays upon the spiritual or emotional side of the
sufferings of the lost, and the grave pity with which the contemplation
of their fate repeatedly inspires him--a feeling wonderfully absent
from the generality of his class.

Other characteristics are shared by him with the Irish romantic
writers. One characteristic was common to both of them: there was
_life_ in what they wrote; the scene of their narrative became a
veritable _Tír na mbeo_. They possessed, moreover, that sensibility
to natural beauty, which is often, but most erroneously, assumed to
be the peculiar property of modern times. They were keenly alive to
the amenities of woods and meadows, flowers and birds, to the charm
of colour, of brightness and light of every kind. Above all, they
delighted in melodious sound, whether the music of strings or of the
human voice, the note of birds and bees, the wind in the leaves, or the
sound of falling water. Like Byron, they knew that ‘there’s music in
all things, if men had ears.’ Nor did this delight in Nature consist in
sensuous pleasure merely. They too were aware of ‘a something yet more
deeply interfused’; it was ‘the light of setting suns’ across the ocean
that wooed the Ui Corra to their quest of the Unknown; St. Brendan
yearned for that retreat, ‘secret, hidden, secure, delightful, apart
from men,’ which the ocean solitudes alone appeared to promise him.

This national susceptibility to beauty constantly asserts itself in
our author, in manner appropriate to his theme. He also manifests the
no less national capacity for vivid and picturesque description, and
this without being led into redundancy, or straining after effect, the
leading characteristic of his narrative being a simple earnestness
which is often very effective. It is needless to dwell upon individual
descriptions, most of which have been dealt with in their place. It is
enough just to refer in particular to the description of Heaven, of
the Throne, and the celestial choirs; the naïve but striking symbol
of Omnipresence; the waste and desolate places of Hell in c. 30; the
various kinds of penalties in cc. 25-29; the picture of the generous
but carnally minded souls protected from the fiery sea by a rampart of
the alms they had bestowed.

In two respects our author differs both from Dante and from several
writers of his own school. His work contains no dissertations upon
theology, morals, nor natural science; neither does he hold intercourse
in the world of spirits with his own contemporaries, or with historical
or mythical personages; hence we do not find in it even an anticipation
of the dramatic episodes, or the endless procession of lifelike
characters which render the _Commedia_ a veritable microcosm. We are
tempted to speculate upon the results which might have been obtained,
had our author brought to the treatment of his subject the dramatic
force, the vivid portraiture, and the narrative power, which are
displayed in the great romantic cycles of Irish story.

Soon after the time when our author wrote, the development of the
national literature, and, indeed, all other forms of national
development, were brought, by pressure of circumstances, to a stand.
Often since then the subjects and characters of Irish tradition have
furnished themes for masterpieces of European literature, but these
intellectual triumphs have been like the victories which Irish arms
have won for others, and under banners not their own. It is only in
our own day that any serious and well-directed attempt has been made
to resume the interrupted work upon truly national lines. Even within
the last few years the results obtained, and the promise shown, warrant
a belief that success may prove more speedy and complete than could
have been deemed possible a single decade ago; and with success may
come--who knows?--an infusion into modern literature of a new spirit
and new methods, of which it stands so grievously in need. Καλὸν γὰρ τὸ
ἆθλον, καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς μεγάλη.

[Uncial: U ċríoċ annso, Buiḋeacas le Dia.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] For further particulars of the life of Adamnán, see Dr. Reeves’s
introduction to his _Adamnán’s Life of St. Columba_, Dublin, 1857
(Irish Archæological Society); Dr. Healy’s _Ireland’s Ancient Schools
and Scholars_; Canon John O’Hanlon’s _Lives of the Irish Saints_, vol.
i.

[2] Mr. Alfred Nutt has suggested that the above passage appears to
claim for the Irish scholars and clerics a monopoly of the educational
and missionary work of the age to the exclusion of the eminent
Anglo-Saxons who were labouring with success and distinction in the
same field. I had no intention to disparage either the original genius
nor the learning of Bede and Aldhelm, Caedmon and Cynewulf, Winifred
and Alcuin, nor their missionary and scholastic work, both at home and
in the Frankish Empire; only to point out that the position acquired
by the Irish scholars and clerics enabled them speedily to disseminate
through Western Europe the works of their compatriots. By recalling the
names of a few of the most eminent Irishmen who enjoyed a Continental
fame during the Middle Ages, we may perceive how wide was the area, and
how long the duration, of their influence.

Clement was the chief of a group of Irish scholars who took a leading
part in the educational reforms promoted by Charlemagne. Alcuin,
Clement’s great English rival at the Frankish Court, had been educated
at Clonmacnois. Joannes Scotus Erigena, in the reign of Charles the
Bald, founded the scholastic philosophy, and by his translation of the
pseudo-Areopagite, and his studies of the Neo-Platonists, bridged over
the chasm between ancient and modern thought. Dungal, in the first
half of the ninth century, was the first astronomer of his age; at
the mandate of Lothair, King of Lombardy, he founded a school which
afterwards developed into the University of Pavia, with branches
in several other cities, and laboured with success at the task of
civilising the Lombards. Add to these Dicuil, a geographer of the same
date, the most accurate topographer of the early Middle Ages; Firghil,
or Virgilius, Archbishop of Salzburg, who taught the rotundity of the
earth and the existence of antipodes; Sedulius, the ninth-century
grammarian; St. Donatus, Bishop of Fiesole (fl. _c._ 840), traveller,
topographer, and Scripture commentator; Marianus Scotus, one of the
leading chroniclers of the eleventh century; and many others, who
laboured with distinction in France, Italy, Germany, England, and
Flanders, down to the thirteenth century, when Frederick II., Emperor,
summoned Petrus Hibernicus to the University of Naples, where he
counted among his theological pupils no less a personage than Thomas
Aquinas.

[3] There was also a Tír Enda, between L. Foyle and L. Swilly.

[4] Tigernach gives the date as 624, which Dr. Reeves is inclined
to accept, _op. cit._ Introduction, xl-xli. Lanigan is in favour of
627, which agrees with the reputed age of Adamnán, 77, at the time of
his death. Possibly the latter date is correct, the difference being
explicable by the different system of chronology adopted by Tigernach.

[5] _Lives of the Irish Saints_, vi. 708; and see _Ibid._, ix. 505.

[6] Acts x. 11.

[7] 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. Cp. also Galat. i. 12, 16; Ephes. i. 3; and the
_Apocryphal Acts of Paul_, Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xvi.

[8] With the ancient Irish, the abode of the departed was beyond the
Atlantic, towards the setting sun; so, in the Hindu mythology, Yama,
King of the Dead, crossed the stream towards the sunset, first showing
the way by which all men were to follow him. This natural idea has been
shared by many barbarous races.

[9] Vault; [Uncial: inna luinge], genitive of [Uncial: long], = ship.
_Qy._ here = ‘nave’?

[10] South-east, possibly because that is the direction of Jerusalem,
the Holy City.

[11] The word used is [Uncial: Mórdáil], the name of the Irish National
Assembly, or States-General. See _ante_, Sec. 2.

[12] Or, ‘a chair highly wrought,’ [Uncial: Inna ċaṫair ċumtaċta].

[13] The comparison of the arch above the head of the Heavenly King
to a wrought helmet or a regal diadem, may have been suggested by the
picturesque and chivalrous custom of the Irish kings recorded in the
ancient Irish poem upon the Fair of Carman, whence it appears that
their head-dress on ordinary state occasions was a wrought helmet, the
royal crown being reserved for the day of battle.

[14] ‘Glow,’ [Uncial: derge], lit. ‘redness,’ which, Mr. Whitley Stokes
suggests, ‘symbolises divine love, creative power, royalty.’ If so,
cp. Dante’s description of a ‘goodly crimson’ as ‘questo nobilissimo
colore.’

[15] Or, _qy._ ‘comet’?

[16] Compare the description of the seven walls of Ecbatana, of
different hue, in Herodotus, Book I.

[17] So Windisch trans. [Uncial: Crand caingil], = _cancelli_.

[18] ‘Seats,’ or _qy._ stalls; the author appears to have in mind
the construction of a Christian church. Cp. note to ch. 31 _post._
‘Canopies,’ lit. ‘crowns.’

[19] Or ‘virgins,’ W. S.

[20] See last note.

[21] Or ‘parricides,’ [Uncial: fingalaċ], which O’Donovan translates
both as ‘a fratricide, one who has killed a tribesman,’ and
‘parricidal’ (Supplement to O’Reilly’s Dictionary).

[22] The Erenach, or [Uncial: aircindeċ], was the official guardian of
Church temporalities.

[23] [Uncial: Dánaib], which signifies ‘gifts,’ ‘arts,’ etc.

[24] [Uncial: pluic], which W. S. trans, ‘maces,’ or ‘clubs.’

[25] ‘Reivers,’ [Uncial: aiṫdibergaig], which W. S. trans. ‘men who
mark themselves to the Devil,’ but expresses doubt on the subject, and
cites authorities which seem to imply the sense of rapine or plunder.

[26] Or ‘without remission, but they,’ etc.

[27] [Uncial: Co lár], which W. S. trans. ‘down to the ground.’

[28] [Uncial: Roṫa], so Windisch from [Uncial: ruṫ]; W. S. trans,
‘wheels’ from [Uncial: roṫ].

[29] Or, ‘the ordained who have broken their vows.’

[30] [Uncial: Erdam], which, Mr. Whitley Stokes says, was the name
used by the Irish ecclesiastical writers as equivalent to the Greek
_pronaos_ or _narthex_. See notes 1 and 2 to Ch. 13, _ante_.

[31] Cp. _ante_, Sec. 2.

[32] The Mórdáil at which these laws were passed was apparently held
in the year 697, while Finnachta Fledach had been assassinated in 695.
This anachronism affords yet further evidence of the comparatively late
composition of our version of the Vision.

[33] [Uncial: Anmċairdine], ‘soul-friendship’; [Uncial: anmċara],
‘soul-friend,’ is the Irish name for a father-confessor.

[34] Professor Bryce considers that the first extant mention of the
Donation of Constantine is contained in the letter of Pope Hadrian 1.
to Charlemagne, dated A.D. 777 (_Holy Roman Empire_, ch. vii. p. 112
note, 4th ed.). If so, the allusion is couched in very general and
obscure terms. Döllinger, who dates the letter in question 775, holds
that it refers not to what is commonly understood by the Donation of
Constantine, but to gifts of land in various parts of Italy, afterwards
seized by the Lombards. The forgery of the Donation would appear to be
later than 750, but prior to 774, as it refers to the state of things
existing before the first Frankish settlement in Italy, which took
place in 774. In any case, it is later than the time of Adamnán.

[35] Philip succeeded to Gordian III. in 224, but was not his son,
being an Arab. He favoured the Christians, and corresponded with
Origen, whence arose a report, countenanced by Eusebius, that he had
embraced Christianity, but for this there is no authority.

[36] [Uncial: Taiṫleċ], so W. S.

[37] [Uncial: Suṫi]. So Windisch, though W. S. trans. ‘fruitfulness
(?).’

[38] Mr. Alfred Nutt, in his _Essay on the Irish Vision of the Happy
Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth_, appended to Prof. Kuno
Meyer’s _Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal_, 1895-7, points out that in
Greece and Ireland alone of Aryan nations the Elysium legend existed
devoid of any eschatological belief (i. 329).

[39] See _Odyssey_, xi. 36 _sqq._; 222, 391 _sqq._; 488 _sqq._ This
gloomy impression is little mitigated by mention of the ‘Asphodelian
meadow’ in which the dead reside (_Od._ xi. 539; xxiv. 13).

[40] See, in particular, Homer, _Odyssey_, iv. 563; Hesiod, _Works and
Days_, 110, 166; Pindar, _Olympiad_, ii. 68, 120, which last, perhaps,
contains the most finished picture of the Elysium drawn by the earlier
poets.

[41] It would be possible to cull from the Greek writers a great wealth
of allusions to the Otherworld; not only, however, do exigencies
of space forbid this, but they are hardly pertinent to the present
subject, for the reasons mentioned in the text. Still less need we
enter into the burlesque descriptions of an Otherworld, conceived as a
Land of Cockayne, several of which are preserved in fragments of the
comic poets.

[42] The Greeks themselves referred to a foreign origin most of their
mystical rites, and the deities worshipped therein. No doubt it is
often the case that peoples who observe in foreign nations practices
akin to those existing among themselves, are apt to derive these from
the former; nevertheless it appears certain that while the cults which
formed the basis of the mysteries existed, in a primitive form, in the
indigenous Greek religion, they received a great impetus, at several
distinct periods, through the importation of similar myths and rites
from abroad. Thus M. Paul Foucart (_Recherches sur l’origine et la
nature des Mystères d’Eleusis_, p. 75) accepts the Greek theory of
the Egyptian origin of the Demeter cult and the Eleusinian rites at
a date prior to the eleventh century B.C. These rites, he assumes,
were purely agricultural at first, but at a later day (seventh century
B.C.) became associated with the doctrine of a future life (pp.
75-9). He further holds that this doctrine was itself brought from
Egypt by the philosophers, Pythagoras and others, who are reported
by tradition to have travelled thither for instruction (p. 83). This
latter part of M. Foucart’s theory presents certain difficulties. The
name of Pythagoras is commonly associated with the Orphic mysteries,
to which M. Foucart denies any connection with Eleusis, while the
conception of a future life which prevailed both in the Orphic and
Eleusinian mysteries and in the teaching of Pythagoras, differed in
important points from the Egyptian doctrine, as will be pointed out in
a later place. Professor Rohde likewise holds that while the Dionysiac
mysteries existed in Greece in pre-Homeric times as a minor and local
cult, the Dionysos-Zagreus rites, which formed the basis of the Orphic
mysteries, were imported from Thrace at an early date; probably, Mr.
Nutt suggests (_op. cit._, ii. 141), during the period of change which
followed upon the Dorian invasion. Thrace, apparently, derived the
Zagreus myth from Phrygia. Prof. Percy Gardner (_Contemporary Review_,
March 1895) is also inclined to accept the Greek traditions as to the
derivation of many of their mystical rites and cults from Asiatic
sources, differing herein from Prof. Dieterich, who holds that these
were native developments. For a discussion by Mr. Alfred Nutt of these
various theories see _op. cit._, 1. ch. xi.

[43] The best authorities appear to be agreed that there are no grounds
for the views once held that the mysteries contained either some
esoteric creed of a religion purer than that held by the multitude, and
jealously guarded from the latter, or, according to others, a system of
occult philosophy or theosophy.

[44] See his article, ‘Mysteries,’ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ ed.
9, vol. xvii.

[45] Sir W. M. Ramsay further mentions a Rhodian inscription of the
fifth century B.C., which required the candidates for initiation at the
temple of Lindus to bring a pure heart and a conscience free from crime
(_loc. cit._).

[46] This may possibly represent the conception originally prevailing
in the mystic schools concerning the future life of mankind in general.
(See Mr. Nutt hereon, _op. cit._, i. 256.) If so, redemption from such
a lot would be one of the most important objects to be compassed by
the theurgic effects of initiation, until the growth of moral ideas in
connection with the mysteries converted this ‘place of filth and gloom’
into a place of punishment for the wicked.

[47] In like manner, the spirits were amazed to see that Dante’s
body cast a shadow, as the souls of the dead did not (_Purg._, iii.
88 _sq._), and that he breathed (_ib._, ii. 67-9). According to the
old Persian belief, the souls of the beatified dead were to cast no
shadows. See Sec. 2, _post._

[48] See Books iv. and vi. of his _De Civitate Dei_.

[49] See Dante’s Tenth Epistle, addressed to Can Grande della Scala,
_Oxford Dante_, pp. 414 _sqq._

[50] _Op. cit._, p. 416, ll. 173-5.

[51] _Ib._, l. 169.

[52] _Ib._, p. 417, l. 268.

[53] Lenormant, _Origines de l’Histoire_, vol. ii., cited by Ragozin,
_Chaldæa_, p. 276, which work gives a compendious account of the
subject. For fuller particulars see Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887,
Lectures iv. and v., and his article ‘Chaldæa’ in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, ed. 9, vol. iii.

[54] Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, p. 364.

[55] ‘She makes the soul of the righteous one go up above the
Hara-berezaiti (Mount Elborz), above the Kinvad bridge she places it,
in the presence of the heavenly gods themselves.’--_Vendîdâd_, xix. 30;
in Darmesteter’s translation, _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. 219; and
see Ragozin, _Media_, c. iv.

[56] In the Avesta we meet with an idea which is prominent in Jewish
and Christian examples of the Vision legend. If, at the balance of any
soul’s account, when his good and evil deeds were weighed one against
the other, the scales were equally poised, he was reserved for the last
Judgment in a place set apart for his like.

[57] _Vendîdâd_, p. 55.

[58] _Loc. cit._, footnote.

[59] _Vendîdâd_, p. 20, note. A similar bird occurs frequently in the
Hindu mythology. The Accadian ‘divine storm-bird’ stole the lightning
from heaven, and was thereby enabled to impart to man the knowledge
of fire, and of divination by lightning flashes.--Sayce, _Hibbert
Lectures_, 1887, 293-4. The Babylonian Semites identified this bird
with their culture-god Zu, who, in form of a bird, robbed the gods
of the ‘tablets of destiny’ (_op. cit._, 295-7). All the world over,
the part of Prometheus has been played by a supernatural bird, such
as Yehl, the crane, of the Thlinkeets; Pundgel, the eagle-hawk, of
Australia, etc.

[60] _Vendîdâd_, vi. 15-16.

[61] _Op. cit._, p. 17.

[62] Speaking of the effects which the conquest of Babylon by the
Persians produced upon the religion of the latter, Professor Dill
remarks: ‘The conquerors, as so often happens, were to some extent
subdued by the vanquished. Syncretism set in; the deities of the
two races were reconciled and identified. The magical arts and the
astrolatry of the valley of the Euphrates imposed themselves on the
purer Mazdean faith and never released their hold, although they failed
to check its development as a moral system.’--_Roman Society from Nero
to Marcus Aurelius_, 1904, p. 587, where the author cites Cumont,
_Monuments relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra_, and Gasquet, _Le culte de
Mithra_.

[63] _Vendîdâd_, Introduction, sec. v.

[64] The cult of Mithra, which, in the earlier ages of the Empire,
extended not only over the Mediterranean littoral, but throughout
all Europe so far as the Roman legions went, even to Yorkshire and
the forests of Pannonia, was full of symbolism, the meaning and even
the nomenclature of which are only to be explained by the Persian
religion, in which the cult originated, although it came to receive an
interpretation consonant with the Neo-Platonic theories.

[65] He further suggests that the original notion of the Var as a place
of refuge for the seeds of things from a coming destruction is borrowed
from the Judaic account of Noah. This would seem to be a very strained
inference from a slight analogy. The Biblical account finds much closer
parallels not only in the Chaldæan traditions, but in the Vedic account
of Manu and the Rishis being saved from the deluge in an ark containing
the seeds of things, not to speak of deluge myths in the East and in
the West, as the Thlinkeets, the Natchez, and other tribes of North
America; the Muyscas and Orinoco Indians of South America; the Samoans,
Tahitans, etc.

[66] He assumes that Vohu Mano (Good Thought) is the Neo-Platonic
Logos, and if so, that the other Amesha Spentas are of post-Alexandrian
development, and he goes on to find parallels for them too in the rest
of the seven emanations enumerated by Philo. However, even if the
parallels are so close as to compel the conclusion that the character
and functions ascribed to the Amesha Spentas in their latest form
are due to Neo-Platonic influences--and even this is not shown very
convincingly--it by no means follows that the very conception of the
seven celestial powers is due to the same source.

[67] We have here, in Persia, an anticipation of the Neo-Platonic æons
before the time of Plato himself--a conception which can hardly be
referred to the earlier theory of the kind propounded by Hesiod.

[68] _Vendîdâd_, Introduction, p. liv, and see p. lxi. For the dead
casting no shadow, cp. Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesios.

[69] _Op. cit._, p. lxv.

[70] Article ‘Chaldæa,’ in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, vol. iii.

[71] Revelation xv. 2, and cf. _Fis Adamnáin_, ch. II.

[72] Herodotus, _Euterpe_, ii. 156.

[73] Dill, _op. cit._, p. 561.

[74] Athenian colonists were settled in the Nile delta in the seventh
century B.C. at latest, and at an even earlier date intercourse had
been maintained between Greece and Egypt by the medium of Greek traders
to the Nile, and Greek mercenaries in the Egyptian service. The cult of
Isis was introduced into Attica, at the Peiraios, in the fourth century
B.C. (Foucart, _Associations réligieuses_, etc., p. 83), and extended
over the Grecian islands and the mainlands of Greece and Ionia.

[75] Budge, _Book of the Dead_, 1901, 1. lxv., and _Ib._ lxvii. _sqq._
Le Page Renouf, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1879, pp. 180-1.

[76] According to one Rabbi Leo, the wicked are tortured by fire and
otherwise, some without hope of remission, others for a time only.--E.
Cowper, _Apocryphal Gospels_, Introduction, lxviii.

[77] At a somewhat later date, the doctrine of the end of the world
by fire, held by many of the Stoics who, in the first century of the
Empire, represented the best and most serious side of Pagan thought,
would appear to have encouraged the bent of Christian teaching in that
direction rather by familiarising the subject to men’s minds than by
the contribution of any new matter.

[78] The speculative writings of the Rabbis belong to a time when the
Jewish schools of learning had fallen under the spell of Hellenism. So
preponderating was the influence of the latter that Professor Percy
Gardner appears inclined to trace the entire Hades theory to the Orphic
rites, and suggests a ‘great probability that the Christian doctrine of
the Descent into Hades, together with the imagery in which the future
world was presented to the early Christian imagination, was derived
neither from a Christian nor a Jewish, nor even a Hellenic source,
but from the mystical lore of Dionysos and Orpheus.’--_Contemporary
Review_, March 1895. So Mr. Alfred Nutt, speaking of the Elysium of the
Christian apocryphal writers, considers that the ‘source must be sought
for not in Jewish but in Greek conceptions,’ and that the Christian
Heaven derives immediately from the Hellenic one.--_Voyage of Bran_,
i. 256, and see ch. xi. generally. With all respect to these eminent
authorities, I would submit that it would be going too far absolutely
to exclude from those parts of late Jewish and early Christian
eschatology which deal with the theory of Hades, including the Descent
thither, and with the description of Elysium, all indebtedness to the
Oriental creeds which have contributed so much to that eschatology
in other respects. With this reservation, we may readily agree with
Mr. Nutt that ‘Christian eschatology, as so much else of Christian
doctrine, is emphatically a product of the fertilising influence of
Hellenic philosophy and religion upon Eastern thought and fancy’
(_op. cit._, p. 281); only contending that Eastern thought and fancy
contributed much of the raw material.

[79] Le Page Renouf, _op. cit._, p. 183.

[80] _The Book of Enoch_, translated from Dillman’s text, with notes,
by Charles. Oxford, 1893. See also _The Book of Enoch_, trans.
Lawrence. Oxford, 1821.

[81] Cp. the veil of fire and veil of ice in the doorway of Adamnán’s
celestial city.--_F. A._ 14.

[82] 2 Esdras iv.

[83] _L.c._ ii. 12, 18-19; and cp. Isaiah xxv. 6; Revelation xxii. 2.

[84] 2 Cor. xii. 2-4; and cp. Galatians i. 12, 16; Ephesians i. 3.

[85] _E.g._ in Revelation ii. 7. ‘To him that overcometh will I give to
eat of the Tree of Life, which is in Paradise’; and xxii. 2, ‘In the
midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there
the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her
fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of
the nations’; also the Throne and One seated thereon in ch. iv., xx.
11; the sea of glass mingled with fire in ch. xv.; the city built of
precious stones, etc.

[86] _Vide_ Dante, _Inferno_, canto iv.

[87] The fact that the work was most in repute in the Eastern Church,
and that several of the leading Western fathers wrote of it in
disparaging terms, may possibly be held to militate to some extent
against this ascription.

[88] This passage, so thoroughly Dantesque, reminds us curiously of
chapters 9 and 12 of the _Vita Nuova_. Indeed, the little episode might
almost be termed a painting of Dante and Beatrice executed by one of
the primitives. In like manner, the passage that ensues recalls the
reproaches which Beatrice addressed to Dante on meeting him in the
Earthly Paradise at the close of the _Purgatorio_.

[89] Herein the plan of the work accords to some extent with that of
the _Book of Enoch_.

[90] _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_, vol. xvi. p. 480.

[91] Two Latin versions, together with the account of the pseudo-John,
are translated in vol. xvi. of the _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_.

[92] Using the word ‘people’ in its wider sense, not as equivalent to
the _popolaccio_, for there were persons of rank and culture among
the early converts, but as distinguished from those who were in high
station, or were remarkable for learning.

[93] _De Legibus_, II. xiv. 36.

[94] See Plutarch’s Consolatory Epistle to his Wife.

[95] Plutarch: _On Superstition, On the Tardy Vengeance of God, On the
Impracticability of a Happy Life on Epicurean Principles._ Lucian:
_Philopseudes, De Luctu_.

[96] See _Ireland and the Celtic Church_, by Dr. G. T. Stokes; ed. 5,
1900, pp. 169-174.

[97] _Op. cit._, p. 229, and cp. pp. 215-16.

[98] Edited by Mr. Whitley Stokes in _Anecdota Oxoniensia_, _Mediæval
and Modern Series_, vol. i., part 3.

[99] G. T. Stokes, _op. cit._, pp. 228-9. For other points of
resemblance and instance of communication between the Irish and the
Eastern Churches, cited by the learned author, see pp. 105 _n._, 173-4,
186-7, 229, and Lecture x., _passim_.

[100] This classification, in theory at least, regulated the structure
of society from top to bottom. There were four ranks of kings, from the
_Árd Rí_, High King, or Emperor, of all Ireland, to the _Rí Tuatha_,
King of a Tribal Territory. The territories themselves were divided
according to a descending scale, analogous to the English division into
county, hundred, tithing, etc. There were six grades of princes under
the king, classified according to the extent of their lands. Society
was divided into nobles, freemen, and serfs, and each of these classes
was subdivided into a great number of minor grades. The family was
traced to the seventeenth degree, and was grouped into six classes,
whose rights and liabilities in matters of inheritance, in the receipt
or payment of fines and damages, etc., are defined with the utmost
minuteness. The land tenure, and the dues to be paid in respect of each
kind; the circumstances of crimes and civil injuries, and the fines or
damages to be paid for each; in short, all the details of public and
private life, were elaborated with similar minuteness. For particulars,
the reader may be referred to the ancient legal and customary
treatises, and the respective commentaries thereon, printed in the
Rolls Series, the _Lebor na g-Cert_, ed. O’Donovan, 1847, and O’Curry’s
_Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, ed. W. K. Sullivan, 3
vols., 1873.

[101] The _Filid_ must be distinguished from the _Bárd_, a name often
applied to the poetic and literary class promiscuously, but really the
title pertaining to a rank far below the _Filid_ in dignity. See Dr.
Douglas Hyde, _The Literary History of Ireland_, pp. 486, etc.

[102] It is not to be supposed that so elaborate a system ever existed,
or could exist, in its entirety, or that the population of Ireland was
ever sorted out into sets of social pigeon-holes with anything like
the completeness represented by the chroniclers. The old Irish writers
combined two characteristics, which may appear, at first glance,
contradictory, though reflection may enable us to see how compatible
they are on psychologic grounds, viz. a tendency to run riot in the
exuberance of fancy, and an equally excessive love of system and minute
detail. Nevertheless, writing as they did of the state of society
in which they lived, and for readers who were acquainted with the
facts which they described, they cannot be supposed to have invented
their systems and classifications, but rather to have idealised and
elaborated their picture of an existing state of things so as to
make it accord with their conception of the true significance of the
social scheme. Modern writers have often done much the same thing in a
different way, in their treatment of the Feudal System, the Imperial
Theory, the Renaissance, Reformation, and similar movements, etc.

[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--

    ‘Sheltered by the sloe-bush black,
    Sat, laughed, and talked, while thick sleet fell,
         And cold rain.
    Thanks to God! no guilty leaven
      Dashed our childish mirth.
    You rejoice for this in Heaven,
      I not less on earth.’

[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]

    Pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris;
    Contendunt ludo, et fulva luctantur arena, etc.

                                               VIRG., _Æn._, vi. 642-3.

[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:

    ‘And, as I watch the line of light, that plays
      Along the smooth wave, tow’rd the burning west,
    I long to tread that golden path of rays,
      And think ’twould lead to some bright isle of rest.’--MOORE.

[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:--

    ‘A dungeon horrible on all sides round,
    As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames
    No light, but rather darkness visible.’

[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 Phœnix 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.:

                      ‘The delighted spirit
    To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
    In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.’

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.

[181] This is the doctrine of St. Augustine, which Dante followed in
_Inf._ vi. 106 _sqq._

[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.

INDEX

  Abersetus, 36, 194.

  Acallam na Sénórach, 187.

  Accadian survivals in Assyrian mythology, 69.

  Achæmenian elements in Avestan religion, 79.

  Acheron, 216.

  Achilles in Leuke, 143.

  Achtlann, 149.

  Adam, legend of death of, 84, 97;
    Book of, 203 _n._;
    Book of Adam and Eve, 114.

  Adam de Ros, 230.

  Adamnán, St., authorities for life, 4 _n._, 12;
    meaning of name, 7;
    birth and lineage, 7;
    anecdote of student days, 12, 13;
    at monastery of Iona, 8;
    Abbot, 8;
    missions to England, 8, 9;
    relations with Bede, 9;
    Paschal controversy, 9, 10;
    Boruma tribute, 15, 16, 17;
    relations with Árd-Rí Finnachta, 13 _sqq._;
    emancipation of women, 18 _sqq._, 45;
    death, 10, 22-3;
    character, 9, 12, 23-4;
    his learning, 10, 12, 25;
    his _Life of St. Colm Cille_, 10;
    cited, 157, 166;
    treatise _De Locis Sanctis_, 11, 114;
    his canons, 12, 18;
    apocryphal writings, 12;
    the _Cáin Adamnáin_, 18 _sqq._, 27.

  ---- The Vision of, date of, 25;
    MSS. and editions, 27;
    reasons of ascription to Adamnán, 25 _sqq._, 45, 177;
    Translation, 28 _sqq._;
    precedents and authorities, 28-9, 106-7, 180-1;
    contents discussed, 25 _sqq._, 174 _sqq._;
    structural design, 175 _sqq._;
    composite character, 176 _sqq._;
    literary characteristics, 174-6, 186, 246-8;
    ecclesiastical proclivities, 182-4;
    Purgatorial theory, 193-4;
    coincidences with Oriental eschatology, 83 _sqq._, 90, 193;
    compared with Dante’s _Commedia_, 181, 185, 187, 188 _n._, 189,
        193 _n._, 194-5, 200-4;
    relation to Dante, 243-6;
    cited, 3, 22, 96 _n._, 133, 144, 152, 171, 172, 174, 211, 212,
        218 _n._, 230, 232, 233.

  Addison’s _Vision of Mirza_ and Bridge episode, 132.

  Aelian, 151.

  Æons, early Persian, 79;
    of Philo Judæus, 79 _n._;
    of Hesiod, _ib._

  Ailill, 132.

  Alberic, Vision of, 238-9;
    cp. with Dante, _ib._

  Alcuin, 5 _n._

  Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, 8.

  Alexandria, Jewish colony in, 86;
    culture mainly Hellenic, 86-8;
    contact with Egyptian ideas, 88-9.

  Allegory, in the Avesta, 74-5, 182;
    in Virgil, 46;
    in the Shepherd of Hermas, 104;
    in Irish legends, 135, 142, 144-5.

  Amesha Spentas, the, and Philo’s Emanations, 78-9.

  Ancona, Prof. A. d’, _I Precursori di Dante_, 175 _n._, 184 _n._,
      190 _n._, 203 _n._, 208 _n._, 213 _n._, 216 _n._, 228 _n._,
      229 _n._, 238 _n._

  Angels, hierarchies, 30, 185, 223-4;
    guardian angels, 29, 86, 181-2, 191, 214;
    tending souls of dead, 35, 191 (and see art. ‘Guide’);
    porter in Otherworld, 35, 84, 193;
    fallen angels, 202 _n._, 211;
    angel of death, mistaken, 110, 111;
    angel giving light in Paradise, 34;
    in Hell, 214.

  Anglo-Saxon scholars and missionaries, 5 _n._

  Annals, Irish, see under Ireland;
    of Ulster, cited, 2 _n._

  Apap, Egyptian ‘Eater of the Dead,’ 89, 196 _n._

  Apocalypse of St. John, see ‘Revelations’ of St. Paul, St. Peter, etc.;
    see ‘Paul,’ ‘Peter,’ etc.

  Apocryphal Books, Christian, abundance of, 101;
    Jewish traditions in, 97.

  Apostles, Vision at death of B. V., 29, 107;
    in Paradise, 31, 98, 194-5.

  Apuleius, 49.

  Aquinas, Thomas, pupil of Petrus Hibernicus, 6 _n._

  Arali, 70.

  Arch, fiery, watery, etc., in legends, 32, 152, 160, 188.

  Arculf, 11, 12.

  Árd-Ollamh, the, 117.

  Árd-Rí, the Irish, 116 _n._

  Ariel, archangel, 36.

  Ariosto’s enchanted gardens, Otherworld origin of, 181.

  Aristophanes on the Otherworld, in the _Frogs_, 59 _sqq._;
    on the mysteries, _ib._

  Armageddon, 163 _n._

  Árt mac Cuinn, 133, 136, 138-9.

  Art, sacred, and the mediæval legends, 186, 215 _n._

  Ascetics, priority of, in Paradise, 39, 198.

  Assyrian eschatology, 69, 70, and see ‘Chaldæa.’

  Augustine, St., Vision of Curina, 110;
    purgatorial theory, 193;
    cited, 202.

  Avesta, eschatology, 71 _sqq._;
    animistic conceptions, 75;
    allegorising tendency, 74-5;
    date and composition, 76;
    Neo-Platonic influences, 76 _sqq._;
    early Persian elements, 79;
    Oriental elements, 81;
    influence on Hebrew thought, 70.

  Axiochos, pseudo-Platonic dialogue, 58.

  Bagadas, Bridge myth among the, 132.

  Baitan, 157.

  Ballyshannon, Mórdáil of, 18.

  Balor, the Fomorian champion, 135 _n._

  Bards, the Irish order, 117 _n._

  Battle at the end of the world, 163.

  Bécuma Cneisgel, 136, 138.

  Bede, Venerable, and Adamnán, 9, 10, 23;
    account of St. Fursa’s visions, 166 _sqq._;
    of Drihthelm’s vision, 233.

  Béfind, 122.

  Belach Dúinn, 8.

  Benn Edair, 136.

  Best, Mr. R. I., _Adventures of Árt, Son of Conn, and the Courtship
      of Delbchaem_, 136 _n._, 137.

  Birds, mystical, 32, 72, 73, 154-5, 163, 189;
    as divine messengers, 72, 73;
    as culture bringers, 72;
    human souls in, 46, 160, 174 _n._, 189, 191;
    singing the canonical hours, 32, 85, 179;
    choirs of, in Paradise, 31, 157-8, 163, 174, 185, 189;
    in island Elysium, 160.

  Birr, Mórdáil of, 18.

  Book of the Dead, Egyptian, 89 _n._

  Boruma Tribute, instituted, 14;
    remitted, 15 _sqq._;
    treatises on, 14.

  Bran, son of Febal, Voyage of, 122 _n._, 123 _sqq._, 146-8, 189.

  Brandenburg, Marquis of, legend, 121.

  Brenainn of Birr, St., 154.

  Brendan, St., Voyage of, 147 _sqq._, 202 _n._, 207 _sqq._;
    influence on European literature, 202, 207;
    his island, belief in, 207 _n._

  Bridge, in legends of the Otherworld, 38-9, 71, 111, 131, 132,
  139, 178, 197-8, 215-17, 231, 239;
    cognate traditions, 131-2.

  Brudin Da Derga, story of, cited, 12 _n._

  Brug na Boinne, Elysium in, 122, 189.

  Brunetto Latini, reference to his _Tesoretto_, 121.

  Bryce, Prof., on the Donation of Constantine, 45 _n._

  Buan, mystical hazels of, 140, 155.

  Budge, Dr. W., _Book of the Dead_, 89 _n._

  Bundehesh cited, 72.

  Burghcastle, monastery founded by St. Fursa, 166.

  Cáin Adamnáin, see ‘Adamnán.’

  Caldron, magic, 122-3, 141.

  Calixtus II., Pope, and Carolingian Romances, 147 _n._

  Callimachus, 88.

  Carman, poem on Fair of, cited, 32, 115.

  Carolingian Romances, 146 _n._

  Castle, enchanted, Otherworld origin of, 150;
    revolving, in romance of Peredur, 154.

  Castor and Pollux, 49.

  Cernunnos and Bran, 123 _n._

  Cethlenn, 135 _n._

  Chaldæa, eschatology of, 69, 70;
    Hades, 70;
    visits thereto, 69;
    Elysium, 69;
    multitudinous deities, 81-2;
    no Rebirth doctrine, 80.

  Charles, Rev. A. H., ed. of _Book of Enoch_, 95 _n._

  Chastity ideal in Irish Elysium, 144, 147-8.

  Chaucer cited, 143.

  Chinvât Bridge, 71, 112.

  Christ’s descent into Hades, 101.

  Christian interpolations in Irish tales, 145-8;
    ideas becoming predominant, 146-7.

  Chthonian side of Irish myths, 121, 129, 130, 135 _n._, 136, 138-9.

  Church, Paradise conceived as a, 34, 164, 184.

  Cicero, _Somnium Scipionis_, 64;
    approbation of the mysteries, 108.

  Cinel Enda, 7.

  City, celestial, 33, 35, 94.

  Classical ideas in mediæval eschatology, 227.

  Classification of departed spirits, 172, 198-9;
    of penalties in the Otherworld, 40 _sqq._, 105, 199 _sqq._

  Claudian, cited, 49.

  Clement of Ireland, 6 _n._

  Clovis II., 167.

  Cockayne element in Irish Elysium, 122-3, 135, 137, 141, 190;
    transition to higher conceptions, 144, 164-5, 171, 190.

  Colm Cille, St., 8, 11, 18, 24;
    visions of, 166;
    privilege of order, 17;
    Adamnán, _Life_ of, see ‘Adamnán.’

  _Commedia_, see ‘Dante.’

  Comyn, Michael, _Laoi Oisín ar dTír na n-Óg_, 133.

  Conall Gulbán, 7.

  Concobar, mediæval Irish king, 221.

  Condla Coel Corrbacc, 149.

  Conn Ced-cathach in Otherworld, 133 _sqq._, 143.

  Connla mac Cuinn in Otherworld, 126, 133, 143.

  Constantine, Donation of, 45.

  Cormac, King of Cashel, 221-2.

  Cormac mac Áirt in Otherworld, 120, 133, 139 _sqq._, 146 _n._

  Corpre Cundail, 149.

  Cuchulainn, in Otherworld, 120, 127 _sqq._, 130;
    and children of Doel Dermait, 146, 149, 150.

  Curina, Vision of, 110.

  _Dá Brón Flatha Nime_, 174.

  Dagda, Elysium of the, 121-3, 144, 183, 190.

  Daire Degamra, 137.

  Dante, antiquity of his theme, 1-3;
    his true originality, 3, 241;
    his design, 67-8, 181;
    Dante and Virgil, 67;
    non-classical sources, 68;
    how far indebted to the Irish legends, 243-6;
    Dante and Immanuel ben Salamone, 241 _n._;
    parallels to the _Fis Adamnáin_, 181, 185, 187, 188 _n._, 189,
        193 _n._, 194-5, 200-4;
    to the Vision of St. Paul, 230;
    to the Vision of Tundale, 225-9;
    to St. Patrick’s Purgatory, 235, 238;
    representation of the Trinity, 186, 188 _n._;
    mystical bird, 189;
    cited, 32 _n._, 101 _n._, 103 _n._, 169 _n._, 172, 181 _n._,
        193 _n._, 194-6, 209 _n._, 231.

  Darmesteter, trans. of _Vendîdâd_, 71 _n._;
    on Neo-Platonic ideas in the Avesta, 76 _sqq._

  Dead cast no shadows, 61, 79;
    nor move eyelids, 61.

  Dé Danann, see ‘Tuatha Dé Danann.’

  Delbchaem, 136, 138.

  Demeter, 49;
    and see ‘Mysteries.’

  Demonax and the Mysteries, 108.

  Demons, malice of, 43, 204;
    opposition to the seer’s progress, 167-8, 170, 213, 233, 234, 239.

  Derg, Loch, 234.

  Derry, Mórdáil at, 18.

  Dicuil, 6 _n._, 114, 115.

  Dietrich, Prof., on the Greek mysteries, 54 _n._

  Dill, Prof., _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, 75 _n._,
      88 _n._

  Dionysos, in the mysteries, 59;
    in the _Frogs_ of Aristophanes, 59.

  Divinity, the, representation of, in Paradise, 32, 33;
    as a mystical face, 33.

  Doel Dermait, children of, and Cuchulainn, 146, 149, 150.

  Döllinger on the Donation of Constantine, 45 _n._

  Donatus, St., Irish bishop of Fiesole, 6 _n._

  Drihthelm, Vision of, 233.

  Druimceatt, Mórdáil of, 18.

  Drumhome, 7.

  Dumas _père_, quoted, 1.

  Dungal, 6 _n._

  Easter, time of celebrating, 9;
    and see ‘Paschal Controversy.’

  ‘Eater of the Dead,’ Egyptian, 89, 196 _n._

  Ecbatana, walls of, 33 _n._, 185.

  Ecgfrid, King of Northumbria, 8.

  Echtra, class of Irish romance, 118;
    E. Nerai, 132;
    E. Áirt, 136.

  Edward I. and Lia Fáil, 134.

  Egypt and the Greek mysteries, 52-3;
    early intercourse with Greece, 88-9;
    eschatology, 89, 93;
    relations to Alexandrian culture, 87-9;
    cults in the Hellenic world, 88-9;
    intercourse with Irish Church, 113-15.

  Elborz, Mount, 71, 81.

  Eleusis, see ‘Mysteries.’

  Elias in Paradise, 46, 85, 98, 157, 163, 174, 179, 205.

  Elysium, Greek, 49 _n._, 50, 58, 59, 63;
    Chaldæan, 69;
    Avestan, 72, 85;
    Egyptian, 89;
    Irish, 49 _n._, 121-6, 128-9, 135, 137, 138, 140-4, 146 _n._, 147;
    aristocratic theory of, 70, 143, 227.

  Emer, 128-9.

  End of world anticipated by early Church, 100-1.

  Enniskillen, derivation of name, 135 _n._

  Enoch, in Paradise, 46, 85, 98, 157, 179, 205;
    to reappear for final battle, 163;
    Book of, date, 94;
    cited by St. Jude, _ibid._;
    general character, 95;
    summary, 95 _sqq._;
    purgatorial theory, 194;
    whether known in Ireland, 192 _n._;
    compared with Dante, 95;
    cited, 183 _n._, 198, 199.

  Eochaid Airem, 122, 127.

  Eochaid Glas Corpre, 149.

  Epicurean school, influence of, in first century, 91.

  Er, Vision of, 56 _sqq._, 59.

  Eratosthenes, 88.

  Erenach, the Irish, 40.

  Eridu, 70.

  Erigena, see ‘Joannes Scotus E.’

  Erik Saga, 131.

  Esdras, Vision of, in O. T. Apocrypha, 97, 182 _n._, 215 _n._;
    in N. T. Apocrypha, 98.

  Etain, 122, 127.

  Ethne, wife of Mider, 127;
    E. Taebfada, 143.

  Fabian, Bishop of Rome, 45.

  Failbhe, Abbot of Iona, 8.

  Fand, 128-9.

  Félire Oengusa, 174, 205 _n._

  Fercertue, 126 _n._

  Fermoy, Book of, cited, 136 _n._, 157 _n._

  Ferry to Hades, 67.

  Fidelis, Irish traveller, 114.

  Fiery circles in Paradise, 30, 187;
    lakes, rivers, etc., of Otherworld, 36, 37, 96, 132, 133, 194;
    wall, 43, 153, 187, 194, 202.

  Filid, Irish literary order, 117.

  Filippo Argenti, 169 _n._

  Finnachta Fledach, Árd-Rí of Ireland, accession, 14;
    relations with Adamnán, 13 _sqq._;
    and Boruma tribute, 14 _sqq._;
    mentioned in connection with emancipation of women, 45;
    death, 17.

  Finn cycle, 133.

  Firghil, Irish bishop of Salzburg, 6 _n._, 115.

  Fis, class of Irish romances, 120;
    the Christian Fis, 165, 212;
    _Fis Adamnáin_, etc., see ‘Adamnán,’ Etc.;
    see also under ‘Vision.’

  Fitzgerald, David, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, 153 _n._, 174 _n._

  Fomorians, the, Chthonian powers, 121, 135 _n._

  Food, miraculous, 126, 155-6, 208, 210.

  Forgall Monach, 130.

  Foucart, M. P., on the Greek mysteries, 52-5;
    on the Isis cult, 89 _n._

  Four Masters, the, cited, 18.

  Fravashi, the, 86, 183.

  Frederick II., Emperor, and Petrus Hibernicus, 6 _n._;
    legend of disappearance of, 164 _n._

  Friedel, Dr. V. H., joint editor of _La Vision de Tondale_, 212 _n._

  Fursa, St., 166;
    Visions of, 167 _sqq._

  Gardner, Prof. P., on the Greek mysteries, 53 _n._, 54, 92 _n._;
    on Greek sources of Christian eschatology, 92 _n._

  Gelasius, 25.

  Gilbert, Abbot of Louth, 234.

  Giöll, Bridge of, 131.

  Gisdubar, 69.

  Good and evil, souls of mingled, fate of, 39, 72, 85, 112, 191, 201-2,
      220-2.

  Gorm and Bridge myth, 131.

  Graal legend, parallels to Irish legends, 124 _n._, 131, 150, 154, 156,
      184 _n._

  Greece, visits to Otherworld, 49;
    visions of Otherworld, 56 _sqq._;
    Greece and Alexandria, 86 _sqq._;
    intercourse with Egypt, 89 _n._;
    philosophic schools under early Empire, 91;
    influence on early Christian eschatology, 92 _n._;
    Greek learning in Ireland, 115;
    Greeks in Ireland, _ibid._;
    traces in Irish tales, 151;
    and see ‘Elysium,’ ‘Tartarus,’ ‘Mysteries,’ ‘Hades,’ ‘Plato,’
       ‘Plutarch,’ ‘Aristophanes.’

  Gregory I., Pope and Saint;
    vision of Stephen, 110;
    of a soldier, 111;
    of a Spanish monk, 112.

  Guide to Hades, 182;
    in _Book of Enoch_, 95;
    in _Vision of Esdras_, 98;
    in _Fis Adamnáin_, 29, 181-2, 195;
    in Irish legends, 121, 130, 167, 170, 214;
    in Continental legends, 230.

  Hades, the Greek, 50;
    Virgilian, 66;
    Chaldæan, 70;
    Christian, 92 _n._

  Haemgils, 233.

  Hara-berezaiti, Mount, 71 _n._

  Harrowing of Hell legend, 101.

  Healy, Dr., _Ireland’s Ancient Schools and Scholars_, 4 _n._

  Heaven, described: in the _Book of Enoch_, 96;
    in the _Fis Adamnáin_, 30 _sqq._, 183 _sqq._;
    in Irish legends, 158, 174, 223, 234;
    as a Christian Church, 34, 164, 184;
    the Seven Heavens, 35, 83, 84, 192;
    and see ‘Paradise.’

  Hebrews, see ‘Jews.’

  Hell, in the _Book of Enoch_, 95-6;
    Greek ideas in Christian, 109;
    _Apocalypse of Peter_, 105;
    _Paul_, 106;
    St. Gregory, 112;
    _Fis Adamnáin_, 38 _sqq._, 196 _sqq._;
    other Irish visions, 158, 170-1, 172-3, 209, 219 _sqq._, 233, 235;
    Continental legends, 231, 239;
    of Oriental religions, 226 _n._;
    as mouth of a monster, 215, 216, 235, 239;
    Northern and Southern conception contrasted, 200 _n._, 202, 228.

  Hellenism, in Persia, 76 _sqq._;
    Syria, 68;
    Egypt, 87-9;
    Jewish schools, 68, 86-7.

  Helmet of Irish Árd-Rí, 32 _n._, 188.

  Henry of Saltrey, 234.

  Herakles, visit to Hades, 49.

  Hermas, Shepherd of, 101 _sqq._;
    anticipations of Dante, 103, 182 _n._

  Hermits on islands, 154-7, 160, 191, 210, 211.

  Hermödr and Bridge myth, 131.

  Herodotus cited, 33 _n._, 87, 88 _n._, 151.

  Hesiod, Elysium, 50 _n._;
    æons, 79 _n._;
    cited, 121 _n._

  Hierarchies, nine celestial, 30, 185, 223-4.

  Hilarius, Pope, reforms calendar, 9.

  Homer, Elysium, 50;
    island Paradise, 121;
    _Odyssey_ cited, 152.

  Horse-races of demons, 152.

  Hull, Miss Eleanor, _Cuchullin Saga_, 130, 131.

  Hyde, Dr. Douglas, _Literary History of Ireland_, 117 _n._, 128 _n._

  Immanuel ben Salamone, 241 _n._

  Imram, class of Irish romance, 120;
    adopts Christian eschatology, 146, 157, 164;
    Christian Imrama, 147, 150;
    modern Imrama, 212;
    of Bran, Maelduin, the Ui Corra, Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, St. Brendan,
        Tadg Mac Céin; see ‘Bran,’ etc.

  Indian mythology, parallels in, 29 _n._

  Inferno, see ‘Dante.’

  Initiation, see ‘Mysteries.’

  Interpolations, Christian, in Irish heroic tales, 145-9.

  Iona, monastery founded by St. Colm Cille, 8;
    abbots of, 8;
    opposition to Adamnán’s reform, 10;
    apocryphal disputes with Adamnán, 22.

  Ireland: Church in seventh century, 4;
    three orders of saints, 4;
    asceticism, 24;
    tribal organisation, 7, 15;
    political activity, 6;
    learning in, 5, 115;
    connections with Gaul, 113;
    with the East, 113-15;
    intercourse with Greeks, 115;
    Oriental type of monasticism, 114;
    pilgrimages to Egypt, 114;
    missionary activity, 5;
    Irish scholars abroad, 5, 115;
    Irish monastic foundations in foreign countries, 5, 166, 233 _n._

  ---- Social ranks and classes, 116 _n._;
    position of women, 18 _sqq._

  ---- Political constitution, 14, 116 _n._;
    the Mórdáil, 18.

  ---- The literary class, 116-18;
    the annals, authority of, 16, 17.

  ---- Romantic literature: classification of stories, 118-19;
    pagan elements, 119, 120;
    ethical ideas, 144, 145, 147-8;
    tolerance of clergy, 119, 209 _n._;
    clerical interpolations, 145-9;
    transition to Christianity, 146-7, 157, 164-5;
    possible borrowings from the Norse, 131, 152;
    from classics, 151-2;
    loss of natural beauty, 247;
    of music, 124, 139, 141, 159, 181, 189, 191, 247.

  ---- Interrupted development of Irish literature and modern revival, 247.

  _Isaiah, Vision of_, 98.

  Ishtâr, 69, 97.

  Isis, cult of, in Græco-Roman world, 89 _n._;
    treatise on Isis and Osiris, 88.

  Island Paradise, 123, 151, 153-4, 157, 159, 160, 162-3, 184 _n._, 210.

  Israel, see ‘Jews.’

  Jews, contact with Oriental religions during captivity, 68, 82;
    Persian mythology, 70;
    Hellenic influences, 68, 86-7;
    colonies in Asia and Alexandria, 86;
    Egyptian ideas, 87-9;
    Rabbinical legends, 84;
    spiritism, 81;
    eschatology, 89, 90, 191;
    Purgatorial theories, 90;
    influence on Christian conception of Paradise, 109.

  Joannes Scotus Erigena, 6 _n._, 115.

  John of Thessalonica, 107.

  Jubinal, _La Légende latine de St. Brendaines_, 207 _n._

  Jude, St., Epistle of, cited, 71, 94, 99.

  Judgment: of individual on demise, 37, 38, 71, 106, 195;
    deferred till Last Judgment, 39, 40, 41, 191;
    Last, 31, 47, 72 _n._, 96;
    impatience of damned for, 43;
    intensification of bliss and woe after, 202.

  Karshipta, mystical bird of Avesta, 72, 73, 81, 85, 189.

  Labraid Luathlam-ar-Claideb, 128.

  Lagny, monastery, founded by St. Fursa, 167.

  Laisrén, St., Vision of, 169 _sqq._

  Lanigan cited, 7 _n._

  Lawrence, ed. of _Book of Enoch_, 95 _n._

  Leanamhán Sidhe stories, 127, 136.

  Lebor Brec, 27.

  Lebor na g-Cert, 117 _n._

  Lebor na h-Udri, 27, 122 _n._, 127 _n._

  Lenormant, _Origines de l’Histoire_, cited, 69 _n._, 82.

  Lerins, monastery of, 113.

  Leuke, 50, 143.

  _Lex innocentium_, 22.

  _Lex talionis_, in punishments of Otherworld, 63, 105, 171, 231, 238.

  Lia Fáil, 134, 187.

  Liban, 128.

  _Limbus infantium_, 172, 238;
    _Limbus patrum_, 172.

  Lindus, temple of, initiation at, 56 _n._

  Loeg, 128-9, 147.

  Loingseach mac Oengusa, Árd-Rí, 18.

  Lothair, King of Lombards and Dungal, 6 _n._

  Lucan cited, 49, 229 _n._

  Lucian cited, 108, 109, 151.

  Lucifer, in _Fis Adamnáin_, 38;
    in Vision of Fursa, 167;
    in Vision of Tundale, 220.

  Lucretius on Tartarus doctrine, 109.

  Lug, Irish god, 121.

  Lugh mac Cethlenn, dún of, 135, 183 _n._

  Lying excluded from Otherworld, 141-2, 143.

  Macbeth, parallel in Conn legend, 135.

  Machutus, St., and whale, 208 _n._

  Mac Conglinne, Vision of, 123.

  Maelduin’s Curach, Voyage of, 120, 150 _sqq._

  Magh Breg, 8;
    M. Mell, 152, 183, 187, 189;
    M. Mon, 125;
    M. Mór, 122, 148 _n._;
    M. Réin, 124.

  Malachi, St., 25.

  Malignant powers in Irish myth, 129, 130.

  Malo, St., see ‘Machutus.’

  Manannán mac Lír, 121, 123, 128, 143, 146, 147, 156;
    converted into the Devil, 208.

  Mangan, J. C, quoted, 148 _n._

  Marcus, author of _Vision of Tundale_, 212, 225.

  Marianus Scotus, 6 _n._

  Martyrs, precedence of, in Paradise, 39, 188.

  Mary, B. V., Vision at death of, 9, 107, 181;
    in Paradise, 31, 185.

  Median conquests, effects of, 70.

  Megasthenes, possible borrowings from, 151.

  Mercy, leaning of Irish divines towards, 201-2.

  Meru, Mount, 81.

  Metempsychosis, see ‘Rebirth.’

  Meyer, Prof. Kuno, ed. of the _Cáin Adamnáin_, 18;
    of the _Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal_, 49 _n._, 122 _n._, 123 _n._;
    of the _Tochmarc Emere_, 130 _n._;
    of the _Echtra Nerai_, 132 _n._;
    of the _Baile Mongáin_, 140 _n._;
    of the _Vision of Laisrén_, 169;
    of _La Vision de Tondale_, 212 _n._;
    of the _Vision of Mac Conglinne_, 123 _n._

  Michael, Archangel, 35, 95, 182, 195, 230.

  Mider, Irish god, 121, 122, 123, 128, 148 _n._

  Miller, Demon, 152-3, 162.

  Milton cited, 173 _n._, 201, 203, 204.

  Mithra cult in Roman Empire, 75 _n._

  Moling, St., and Boruma tribute, 14, 15.

  Mongán, 140 _n._, 147 _n._, 153.

  Moore, Thomas, quoted, 159 _n._

  Moran, Dr., _Ada Sancti Brendani_, 207 _n._

  Mórdáil of Ireland, 18;
    Adamnán at, _ib._

  Morgan, 136, 138.

  Moses, contest between Michael and Satan for, 71.

  Muirgheas mac Páidin ui Maoilchanaire, translator of _Visio Tundali_,
      213 _n._

  Mundus of Latin towns, 161 _n._

  Murias, 122.

  Music, Irish susceptibility to, 124, 139, 141, 159, 181, 189, 191, 247.

  Musical cords to St. Peter’s vessel, 29.

  Musical stones, 31, 125, 181, 187.

  Mysteries, Greek, 51 _sqq._;
    origin, 52-3;
    Eleusinian, 51-2, 54-6;
    Orphic Pythagorean, 52-4;
    orgiastic, 55;
    connected with Demeter, 52;
    Dionysos, 59;
    Pythagoras, 52-3;
    benefits of initiation, 52, 58-60;
    moral teaching, 51-2, 54-6;
    doctrine of future life, 52 _sqq._;
    of rebirth, 54;
    survival of, 108.

  Nature, Irish love of, 158-9, 247.

  Neid, 126 _n._

  Neo-Platonism and the East, 76 _sqq._;
    in interpretation of Greek myths, 51.

  Nera, adventures of, 132.

  Niamh Cinn Óir, 133.

  Nicodemus, gospel of, 97, 101.

  Norse, possible Irish loans from, 131, 152.

  North, region of evil powers, 200.

  Northumbria, Christianised from Ireland, 233 _n._

  Numenius, 77.

  Nutt, Mr. Alfred, _Essay on the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld
      and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth_, 49 _n._, 92 _n._, 119 _n._,
      122 _n._, 123 _n._, 131 _n._, 150, 155, 162 _n._, 172 _n._;
    _Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail_, 124 _n._, 131 _n._,
        150 _n._, 156 _n._;
    on the Greek and Irish Elysium, 49 _n._;
    on the Greek mysteries, 53 _n._, 59 _n._;
    on the Greek sources of Christian eschatology, 92 _n._;
    on the Phœnix legend, 155;
    on the date of the voyage of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, 162 _n._;
        5 _n._, 28.

  Oath of Irish Kings, 21.

  O’Curry, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, 117 _n._, 122 _n._;
    _MS. Materials of Irish History_, 162 _n._

  O’Donnells, the, of Tír Conaill, 7.

  O’Donoghue, Rev. Denis, _Brendaniana_, 207 _n._, 208 _n._

  Oengus Óg, 121, 122.

  O’Flaherty, _Ogygia_, 14.

  O’Grady, Dr. Standish Hayes, _Silva Gadelica_, 14, 15, 212 _n._

  O’Hanlon, Very Rev. Canon, _Lives of the Irish Saints_, 4 _n._, 14, 18,
      166 _n._

  Oisín, 133.

  Orpheus, 49, and see ‘Mysteries’;
    Orpheus myth in Ireland, 127.

  Otherworld, visits to, in Greek myths, 49;
    Chaldæa, 69;
    in Irish traditions, 121, 133;
    Connla, 126;
    Cuchulainn, 127 _sqq._;
    Conn, 134 _sqq._;
    Árt, 138 _sqq._;
    Cormac, 139 _sqq._;
    and see ‘Vision,’ ‘Imram.’

  ---- Descriptions, Chaldæan, 69, 70, 193;
    Avestan, 71 _sqq._;
    Greek, 49 _sqq._;
    in _Book of Enoch_, 96;
    in _Apocalypse of Peter_, 105;
    in ancient Ireland, 122-6, 128-30, 133-5, 137-44;
    and see ‘Elysium,’ ‘Paradise,’ ‘Hell,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Purgatory.’

  ---- Orthodox character of the ecclesiastical legend, 109;
    of minor importance in the Western Church, 110.

  Owen, Vision of, 234 _sqq._;
    Dante parallels, 235.

  Ozanam, _Dante et la Philosophie catholique_, 229 _n._

  Paradise, Hebrew ideas in Christian, 109;
    described in _Book of Enoch_, 96;
    _Vision of Esdras_, 98;
    _Revelation_, 100 _n._;
    _Apocalypse of Peter_, 105;
    by St. Gregory, 111;
    in _Fis Adamnáin_, 29, 30;
    in the Irish legendary, 157, 221, 233;
    Paradise of Birds, 211;
    Terrestrial Paradise in Irish legends, 153-4, 162-3, 210, 236;
    and see ‘Elysium,’ ‘Heaven.’

  _Paradiso_, see ‘Dante.’

  Parnell, Mr., and the return myth, 164 _n._

  Paschal controversy, 9, 10, 25.

  Patrick, St., 45, 113, 182 _n._, 223;
    pagan prophecy of his coming, 135;
    hymn of, 21.

  Patrick’s Purgatory, St., 120, 225, 234 _sqq._;
    closed, 237;
    doubtful origin, 236;
    popularity of legend, 234, 237;
    influence on European literature, 237;
    Dante parallels, 235, 238.

  Paul, St., Vision of, 29, 99;
    Revelation of, 106, 181;
    mediæval vision of, 202 _n._, 230 _sqq._;
    authority for Purgatory, 192 _n._;
    guide to the Otherworld, 182 _n._

  Pavia, University founded by Dungal, 6 _n._

  Perceval (Peredur) romances, parallels to Irish legends, 131, 150, 154,
      156, 184 _n._

  Persian eschatology, see ‘Avesta.’

  Peter, St., Vision of, 28, 181;
    on purification of the world by fire, 99;
    Apocalypse of, 105;
    authority for Purgatory, 192;
    guide to the Otherworld, 182 _n._

  Peter, Spanish monk, Vision of, 111.

  Petrus Hibernicus, 6 _n._

  Philip, Roman Emperor, 45, 46 _n._

  Philo Judæus, 76 _sqq._

  Phœnix legend, 85, 154-5, 189.

  Pillar on enchanted island, 151, 160, 210.

  Pindar on Elysium, 50 _n._;
    cited, 121 _n._

  Plato and the Otherworld legend, 56;
    Vision of Er, 56 _sqq._, 111;
    eschatology of, 57-8;
    on the mysteries, 58;
    rebirth, 57-8.

  Plutarch, Vision of Thespesios, 60 _sqq._, 111, 118 _n._, 233 _n._;
    eschatology of, 61 _sqq._;
    the mysteries, 108;
    Tartarus, 109;
    early Neo-Platonist, 77;
    _On Isis and Osiris_, 88.

  Porter of Hades, 35, 69, 84, 193.

  Promise, sacredness of, in Ireland, 140.

  Psychopompos, see ‘Guide to Otherworld.’

  Ptolemy I., 88;
    Philadelphia, _ib._;
    Euergetes, _ib._

  Pûitika sea, 72, 85, 184.

  Pundgel, Australian divine bird, 73 _n._

  Punishments in Otherworld, see ‘Hell,’ ‘Tartarus’;
    Purgatorial, see ‘Purgatory’;
    temporary, 35, 39, 40, 41, 49, 201-2;
    classified, 40 _sqq._, 105, 171, 174, 199 _sqq._, 231;
    respited periodically, 43, 160, 161, 232.

  Purgatory: idea in Plato, 57;
    in Plutarch, 61-4;
    theories of the Rabbis, 90, 193-4;
    in _Book of Enoch_, 194;
    development in the early Church, 192-4;
    in the _Fis Adamnáin_, 36, 178-9, 193-4;
    in Irish legends, 160, 215 _sqq._, 225, 227, 233, 235;
    in the _Vision of Alberic_, 239;
    St. Patrick’s, see ‘Patrick’s Purgatory, St.’

  Pythagoras and the mysteries, 52-3.

  Rabbis, see ‘Jews.’

  Ragozin, M. de, _Chaldæa_, cited, 69 _n._;
    _Media_ cited, 71 _n._

  Ramsay, Sir W. M., on the Greek mysteries, 55-6.

  Raphoe, Mórdáil at, 18.

  Rebirth doctrine, in Plato, 54, 57-8;
    Plutarch, 62, 64;
    Virgil, 65;
    rejected by the Persians, 80;
    Chaldæans, _ib._;
    Egyptians, 93;
    Jews, 92-3.

  Reeves, Bishop, ed. Adamnán’s _Life of St. Columba_, 4 _n._;
    cited, 7 _n._, 11.

  Renouf, M. Le Page, on the Egyptian theory of the future life,
      89 _n._, 93.

  Respite, periodical, of the damned, 43, 160, 161, 232.

  Return myth of departed heroes, 163.

  Revelation, Book of, 85, 98 _n._, 99, 100 _n._, 163 _n._, 183, 184,
      190 _n._, 195, 198, 205.

  Rhapsodical description of Paradise, 43, 73, 174, 205-6, 210.

  Rhys, Professor, on Bran, 123 _n._

  Rivers of Hell, 43, 151;
    four, 43, 204.

  Rohde, Professor, on the Greek mysteries, 53.

  Ronán, 7.

  Ronat, 7, 20.

  Ross, men of, 162-3, 191.

  Ruadán, St., 18, 24.

  Sabbatarianism in early Irish Church, 161.

  Saints, Land of, in _Fis Adamnáin_, 30;
    three orders of Irish, see ‘Ireland.’

  Saltair na Rann cited, 114.

  Samoan ten Heavens, 83.

  Satan, in _Fis Adamnáin_, 38;
    in Vision of Fursa, 167;
    in Vision of Tundale, 220;
    in Voyage of St. Brendan, 208.

  Sayce, Professor, on Chaldæan eschatology, 70 _n._, 72 _n._, 82.

  Scathach, realm of, 130.

  Scél Lái Brátha, 171, 205 _n._

  Schröder, _Sanct Brandan_, 207 _n._

  Scone, stone of, 134.

  Sedulius, 6 _n._

  Segda Saerlabrad, 137-8, 144-5.

  Segine, Abbot of Iona, 8.

  Seneca on Tartarus doctrine, 109.

  Seppelli, Signor, trans. Immanuel ben Salamone, 242 _n._

  Sereth, 7.

  _Serglige Conchulaind_, 127 _sqq._

  Seth, journey to Paradise, 84, 97.

  Seven, favourite mystic number, 83;
    Heavens, 35, 83, 84, 192;
    walls of Celestial City, 33, 185;
    of Ecbatana, 33;
    Hells of Rabbis, 90, 193;
    Chaldæan Spirits of Earth, 70, 81;
    Persian Magnificent Deities, 81;
    Amesha Spentas, 78, 81;
    Philonic emanations, 81;
    Archangels, 84.

  Shakespeare cited, 201.

  Shammai, school of, 90, 194.

  Sheol, 96, 191.

  Shepherd of Hermas, see ‘Hermas.’

  Sibylline books, 101.

  Sibyls, medium of revelation, 67, 104.

  Silvester, Pope, 45.

  Sinbad, 151, 208 _n._

  Sliabh Daidche, 208.

  Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, 147, 162 _sqq._, 184 _n._

  Soldier, St. Gregory’s vision of a, 111.

  Soleus, see ‘Thespesios.’

  _Somnium Scipionis_, 64, 229 _n._

  Sorrows, two, of Heaven, 46, 174, 205.

  Stephen, Vision of, 110.

  Stoics and early Empire, 91;
    destruction of world by fire, 91 _n._

  Stones, vocal and musical, 31, 125, 135, 181, 187-8.

  Stokes, Dr. G. T., _Ireland and the Celtic Church_, 114 _n._, 115.

  ---- Dr. Whitley, editor of _Fis Adamnáin_, 25, 32 _n._, 35 _n._,
      40 _n._, 41 _n._, 42 _n._, 44 _n._, 47 _n._, 188 _n._, 196 _n._;
    on date of, 25;
    _Saltair na Rann_, 114 _n._;
    _Adventures of Cormac_, 139 _n._;
    _The Irish Ordeals_, etc., 120 _n._;
    _Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach_, 151 _n._;
    _Voyage of the Sons of Ua Corra_, 157 _n._;
    _Imrum Snedghusa agus Mic Ríagla_, 162 _n._;
    _A Middle Irish Homily_, 173 _n._;
    Latin life of St. Brendan, 207 _n._, 210 _n._

  Sunday respite of the damned, 43, 160, 161, 231.

  Swallowing of guilty by demons, 38, 39, 89, 195-6, 198, 216, 218, 220,
      228, 231, 235.

  Syria, Hellenism in, 68;
    Jewish colonies, 86;
    and Irish Church, 113-15.

  Tadg mac Céin, adventures of, 120, 148 _n._, 212 _n._

  Táin Bo Aingen, 132.

  Tara, Synod of, 18;
    abandonment of, _ib._

  Tartarus, in Plato, 57;
    Aristophanes, 59;
    Plutarch, 62;
    Virgil, 65-6;
    under Roman Empire, 109;
    contribution to Christian Hell, _ib._;
    none in Pagan Ireland, 129;
    kindred conceptions, 129, 130, 139.

  Tertullian, precedence awarded to martyrs, 188.

  Tethra, god of Irish Underworld, 121, 126, 143.

  Theophilus, Sergius, and Hyginus, voyage of, 184 _n._

  Theseus, 49.

  Thespesios, Vision of, 60 _sqq._

  Throne of Deity, 31, 96, 158, 183 _sqq._;
    parallels in myths of Chaldæa, 70;
    Ireland, 122, 137, 183.

  Tigernach cited, 7 _n._, 18.

  Timotheus of Alexandria, 88.

  Tinne, 7, 29.

  Tír Aedha, 7 _n._

  Tír na n-óg, 133, 136;
    Tír Tairngire, 123 _sqq._, 126, 136, 139, 141, 142, 144, 148, 210.

  Tonsure, Irish, 9.

  Torach, cook of, 155.

  Tradition, historical value of Irish, 16, 17.

  _Transitus Mariæ_, 107.

  Tree of Life, 46, 70, 75, 84, 96, 98, 157, 163, 174, 179, 184, 189,
        190 _n._, 224;
    parallels in Irish myth, 124, 128, 134, 137, 140, 154-5, 190.

  Tree, public, in Ireland, 134;
    in the Italian republics, 135 _n._

  Trinity, the, in mediæval visions, 188;
    in Irish visions, 37, 167, 188.

  Trionfo del Vaglio, Il, cited, 153.

  Tuatha Dé Danann, 122, 126, 127, 129, 134, 136, 183 _n._

  Tuathal Techtmar, 14.

  Tundale, Vision of, 212 _sqq._;
    influence on foreign literature, 224;
    compared with _Fis Adamnáin_, 225;
    with Dante, 225-9.

  Turpin, Archbishop, 146 _n._

  Ua Corra, Voyage of the sons of, 120, 147, 157 _sqq._, 183.

  Ui Néill, the, 15.

  Vara of Yima, 72, 73, 85, 144, 189;
    suggested derivation from Deluge tradition, 78 _n._

  Varuna and Tethra, 121 _n._

  Veil before the Throne, 30, 187;
    over mystical islands, 152, 160, 187, 210.

  Vendîdâd cited, 71 _n._, 72 _n._, 73 _n._, 74, 76 _n._, 79 _n._, 80.

  Victor, St. Patrick’s angel, 182 _n._

  Virgil and the vision of the Otherworld, 48, 64 _sqq._;
    descriptions, 65 _sqq._;
    follows received authorities, 65;
    agreement with Aristophanes, _ib._;
    eclecticism, 66;
    artistic point of view, 66;
    received as prophet by the Church, 67;
    influence on development of the legend, _ib._;
    on Dante, _ib._;
    cited, 152, 173 _n._, 194, 203 _n._, 209 _n._

  Vision of Otherworld, wide diffusion of the legend, 1 _sqq._;
    in Greece, 56 _sqq._, 60 _sqq._;
    Rome, 48, 64 _sqq._;
    lines of development, 3, 48;
    popularity with post-captivity Jews, 94;
    in early Church, 98 _sqq._;
    survival in homilies, folk-tales, etc., 111, 114;
    special developments in Ireland, 23, 121;
    Irish acquaintance with earlier visions, 116;
    Irish vision-writers on the Continent, 206-7;
    their influence on European literature, 224, 242 _sqq._;
    on Dante, 243-5;
    tendency to increase in horror, 225-6;
    popularity in later Middle Ages, 229, 240;
    diminished importance and increased number, 239 _sqq._

  Visions of Adamnán, Er, Thespesios, Enoch, Esdras, Apostles, Hermas,
      St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Colm Cille, St. Fursa, St. Laisrén, Tundale,
      Drihthelm, Owen, Alberic, see ‘Adamnán,’ etc.

  Vohu Mano and Neo-Platonic Logos, 78 _n._

  Wagner, A., editor of Vision of Tundale, 213 _n._

  Waters of Life, 69, 84, 98, 190 _n._

  West, abode of the dead, 29, 96.

  Whale taken for island, 208.

  Windisch, Professor, editor of _Fis Adamnáin_, 27, 34 _n._, 47 _n._;
    date of _F. A._, 25;
    ed. _Serglige Conchulaind_, 127 _n._

  Women, status of, in Ireland, 19;
    military service, 18-20;
    emancipation, 18, 20-23;
    liability for crimes, 21.

  World-Sea, 72, 85.

  Wright, _St. Patrick’s Purgatory_, 229 _n._

  Yama, Indian god of dead, 29 _n._, 74, 121.

  Yehl, divine bird of Thlinkeets, 73 _n._

  Yima, Persian god of dead, 72 _sqq._, 85, 121.

  Zimmer, Professor, on date of the Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach, 150,
      157 _n._

  Zoroastrianism, see ‘Avesta.’

  Zu, Babylonian culture-bird, 73 _n._

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