tion of Christianity, the immediate representative of the Deity, and the first of May as peculiarly sacred to those rites, many relics of which may still be discovered.

"They take her for a wicked woman and a witch, whatever she be, that cometh to fetch fire from them on May-day, (neither will they give any fire then, but unto a sick body, and that with a curse,) for because they thinke the same woman will the next summer steale away all their butter. If they find an hare amongst their heards of cattell on the said May-day, they kill her, for they suppose she is some old trot that would fetch away their butter. They are of opinion that their butter, if it be stollen, will soone after bee restored againe, in case they take away some of the thatch that hangeth over the doore of the house, and cast it into the fire.'

Amongst some Irish manuscripts in my possession, the composition I apprehend of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is a long description, possessing considerable poetic merit, of a contest between Eogan and Conn of the Hundred Battles,' part of which presents a picture of the appearance of some supernatural hags to the contending chieftains the night previous to the engagement: the translation is extremely literal.

"When Eogan came back from the council, three witches stood before him; frightful beyond description, with red and fiery-looking eyes, and long, lank, grizzly hair hanging down dishevelled over cadaverous countenances. The eyebrows of these fiends were large, rough, and grim, growing into each other, and forming two curvatures of matted bristles. Their cheeks were hollow, shrivelled, and meagre; and their beaked noses covered with parched skin, issued forth prominently from the deeply-wrinkled and knobby foreheads of these monstrous and filthy she-devils! Their blasting tongues, with flippant volubility, held ceaseless gabble; and their crooked, yellow, hairy hands and hooked fingers resembled more the talons of an eagle or a foul-feeding harpy, than the fingers of a human creature. Thus, supported by small inbent and bony legs, they stood before Eogan.

"Whence come ye, furies?' asked the chief.

"We come from afar by our powers,' replied they.

"I demand to know your powers,' said Eogan, leader of the mighty bands. "We cause the sea to run higher than the mountain-tops by our breath: we bring snow on the earth by the nodding of our white heads; we spread flames in dwellings by our words, we alter and change the shape of every person, nay, of those in our own occupation, by the rolling of our eyes; we'

"Enough!' cried the mighty Eogan, I now demand your names.'

"Our names,' returned the hags, are Ah, Lann, and Leana: we are daughters of Trodan the magician, and we have come from remote countries to warn you of your approaching death; for Eogan shall die by the keen-edged and bone-cleaving sword of the ever victorious Conn of the Hundred Battles.'"

"On your own heads may this prophetic warning light, ye hags of hell!' returned Eogan. May your forebodings of Conn sink into nothing on the air, and be unanswered by the voices of the mountains. May the trees bear the brunt of your evil words, the venom of your lips fall harmless on the rocks of the valley, and your malice be given to the waves of the ocean.'

"It is inevitable destiny we speak,' said they: 'we have spoken without precipitation and without reward;' and muttering of their horrid spells, they vanished from Eogan.

"That night came the same three hags to the tent of the King of Spain's son, and they boded ill to him; and thence they came where the hosts of Conn of the Hundred Battles lay encamped, and they roused that hero with these words:

"In thy arm be thy strength; in thy sword be thy safety; in thy face be thy foes; in thy strides thy prosperity. The pride of Ireland is against thee, in life and in motion. Be thou restless as the treacherous light that gleams to benighted travellers.'

"In the preceding part of the same poem the support and assistance received by Eogan and his tribe from a sorceress named Eadoin is mentioned, who, in a former engagement, so fascinated the eyes of Eogan's adversaries by her enchantments, that some rocks on the field of battle assumed the appearance of formidable bodies of armed men; and while Goll and the sons of Moirne, with their valiant associates, attacked these flinty phantoms, and were occupied in contest with invulnerable and senseless stones, the sorceress conveyed the unwilling Eogan and his followers from the scene of warfare, and embarked them for Spain. The rock,' adds an English note on this passage of the manuscript, which was converted into the resemblance of Eogan and his troops, is at this day called the Scalped Rock, in Irish "Cloch Bhearrha," in Glean Rogh, near Kin-mare, from the indenture made in it by the arms of Goll, which were shivered and broken into pieces thereon.'

"As in England, a worn horseshoe nailed on the threshold, or near the entrance of a house, is considered as a security against witchcraft; but this remedy is used only in the better description of cabins.

Many of the ancient Irish chieftains have received deification, and the credulous believe in their frequent reappearance on earth as the messengers of good tidings, such as a fine season or an abundant harvest. Other shades are compelled to perform certain penitential ceremonies in expiation of crimes committed during life; of the latter may be mentioned an Earl of Kildaire, doomed to ride septennially round the Curragh, an extensive common, until the silver shoes of his supernatural steed are worn out. To the former class belongs O'Donnoghue, a chief of much celebrity, whose May-day visit on a milk-white horse, gliding over the Lakes of Killarney, to the sound of unearthly music, and attended by troops of

spirits, scattering delicious spring-flowers, has been lyrically preserved by Mr. Moore, and is accurately recorded in a poem by Mr. Leslie on Killarney, and in Mr. Weld's account of that lake, as also in Derrick's Letters, where some additional particulars may be found from the pen of Mr. Ockenden. There is a farmer now alive,' says that gentleman, who declares, as I am told, that riding one evening near the lower end of the lake, he was overtaken by a gentleman, (for such he judged him by his appearance to be,) who seemed under thirty years of age, very handsome in his person, very sumptuous in his apparel, and very affable in conversation. After having travelled for some time together, he observed, that as night was approaching, the town far off, and lodging not easy to be found, he should be welcome to take a bed that night at his house, which he said was not very distant. The invitation was readily accepted; they approached the lake together, and both their horses moved upon the surface without sinking, to the infinite amazement of the farmer, who thence perceived the stranger to be no less a person than the great O'Donnoghue. They rode a considerable distance from shore, and then descended to a delightful country under water, and lay that night in a house much larger in size and much more richly furnished than even Lord Kenmare's at Killarney.'

"Second-sight, so common in the Highlands, I believe is unknown in the south of Ireland. Story relates a mysterious appearance of stars, accompanied by heavy groans, that preceded the landing of the rival monarchs William and James, seen by one Mr. Hambleton, of Tollymoore, a justice of the peace in his county, and a sober, rational man;' in company with others who were journeying towards Dundalk; adding, they have a great many tales of this kind in Ireland, and the Inniskilling men tell you of several such things before their battles.' I should, however, consider these visions, on account of their northern limits, as derived from Scotland, and not genuine Irish superstitions.

"I fear it may be considered that I have dwelt too long upon, and entered too minutely into the notions of the ignorant; but early associations have tempted me to linger over these marvellous relations, and have, perhaps, misled my maturer judgment.

'Such fancies are the coinage of the brain,
Which oft rebellious to more sober thought

Will these strange phantoms shape; the idle prate

Of fools and nurses, who in infant minds

Plant such misshapen stuff, the scorn and scoff

Of settled reason and of common sense!'

"On the whole, from what may be collected, the present state of Irish superstition closely resembles that of England during the age of Elizabeth; a strong proof of

VOL. I.

N N

the correct measurement of those who have stated a space of two centuries to exist between the relative degree of popular knowledge and civilization attained by the sister kingdom."

XVI.

THE ROCK OF CASHEL arrests the traveller on his road from Limerick to Kilkenny —a remarkable-looking eminence, the only one in an extensive plain, and crowned with a pile of the noblest assemblage of monastic ruins in Ireland. It resembles nothing that I remember except the citadel of Gratz, built on just such a rock, with a town at its base. The ruins are supposed by some to have been both a monastic and a regal edifice; and from the want of regularity in plan, as well as peculiarities in the workmanship and style of ornamenting, appear to have been the work of several periods. The town of Cashel, once the residence of the kings of Munster, has now dwindled into a place of very moderate pretensions. "The want of a navigable river," says Wright, "is the only assignable cause for the desertion of this royal seat, encompassed by a great extent of country, fertile as cupidity could desire, and diversified by gentle undulations. The most ancient structure in the group of buildings on the rock is called Cormac's Chapel, from the founder, Cormac-mac-culinan, King of Munster and Archbishop of Cashel, who flourished in the beginning of the tenth century, and was slain in battle by the Danes.

"The chapel, the first and perhaps the only edifice that graced the rock in ancient times, is entirely of stone, both walls and roof; the latter ridged up to an acute angle, the sides or legs of which are tangents to a counter-arch, springing from the inner front of the walls. The doorway is in the Saxon style, which pervades also the other parts of the chapel, and is adorned with zig-zag and bead ornaments. Above the archway is the effigy of an archer in the act of shooting at an ideal animal. The ceiling or roof is of stone, groined, with square ribs springing from stunted Saxon pillars, with enriched capitals. There is one rich Saxon arch, ornamented with grotesque heads of men and animals, placed at intervals all round from the base upwards, and a second arch within the recess or crypt, probably intended to receive the altar. The walls are relieved by blank arcades, and the ceiling by numerous grotesque heads. The pilasters, from which the blank arches spring, have been adorned with a variety sculptures, and their capitals anciently gilt