Part II. of the so-called _Gospel of Nicodemus_, Greek text, which

relates how He ‘raised many of the dead, who appeared unto many in Jerusalem,’ and then described Christ’s descent into Hades, which had been preceded by a visit of St. John Baptist, who came to the Old Testament prophets, among whom Enoch and Elijah are especially mentioned, and expounded to them the Christian Revelation.

From the contemplation of the end of the world to speculation concerning the world to come, and the state of the departed spirits there, was but a step. Accordingly, as is but natural, many of the teeming crop of apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations which sprang up during the earlier ages of the Church are composed with a distinctly eschatological purpose.

Midway between these apocryphal writings and the canonical books of the New Testament stands the _Shepherd of Hermas_, which is commonly placed among the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, and was formerly ascribed to that Hermas to whom St. Paul sends greeting in his Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 14), but is now regarded as a production of the latter part of the second century, being the work, possibly, of Hermas, brother of Pius, who occupied the see of Rome from 140 to 155 A.D.[87] From an early date this work enjoyed a high repute in the Eastern Church, being admitted by some writers, including the author of the Canon of Muratori, to a place among the canonical books. Whether we regard its general plan, or the machinery by which it is carried out, it occupies a place by itself among the Christian Visions of the Otherworld, and is peculiarly interesting to the Dante student as affording a remarkably early instance, possibly an unique instance in ecclesiastical literature, of that idea, perceived by Plato, and lying at the root of the _Commedia_--to wit, the elevation of the human spirit, through the highest form of human love, to the perception of Divine truth.

In the opening of his narrative, Hermas tells how he had been acquainted, in his earliest life, with a young slave girl, the property of one by whom he himself had been brought up. Subsequently, this girl was sold by her master in Rome, but Hermas met her again in after-life, and conceived for her a fraternal affection, which ultimately, as one day he saw her bathing in the Tiber, ripened into love, and he desired her for his wife, ‘both for her beauty and for her disposition.’ Some time after, as he was walking in a lonely place, ‘musing on these thoughts, he began to honour this creature of God, thinking with himself how noble and beautiful she was.’[88] While musing thus, he was caught up by the spirit, and borne beyond a rocky place impassable to man. Falling upon his knees he began to confess his sins, when he saw the heavens open, and the object of his desire appear therein and greet him. In reply to his questioning, she explained that she had been brought thither that she might accuse him before the Lord on account of the thoughts he had entertained concerning her, though these would scarcely appear to have been such as to merit the reproaches she bestowed on Hermas by reason of them. So Hermas thought, and maybe the damsel thought so too, for after hearing his reply she smiled upon him as she vanished. Thereupon the heavens closed, but, after a while, Hermas saw before him a chair of whitest wool, in which an old woman took her seat, having a book in her hand. She accosted Hermas, and imparted to him certain moral admonitions, but these were mostly confined in their application to himself and to the government of his family.

Other visions were subsequently vouchsafed to Hermas, making four in all; the third of these contained a revelation of the building up of the Church Triumphant, and the fourth announced the tribulations which were to come upon the Church, and the final salvation of those who should endure unto the end. The second part of the work consists of ‘Commands,’[89] and the third of ‘Similitudes,’ all imparted to Hermas by Divine revelation. Certain of the similitudes contain visions wherein Hermas was shown the _corrective_ punishment of sinners, the edification of the Church Triumphant, and the various classes into which the guilty and the righteous are divided, together with the diverse manner in which these fare respectively. All this, however, is intended rather for an allegory of the soul’s progress through this world, than for a picture of its state in the world to come; in fine, the vision is more closely akin to the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ than to the _Commedia_, though it deserves a place in our series, alike as containing a curious anticipation of the most highly developed form to which the legend afterwards attained, and as connecting the legend with the familiar notion of the later Jewish and the early Christian Churches, that when the other oracles of paganism were silenced, the Sibyls were left to proclaim the advent of the Messiah, and the trials and triumph of His Church. For it is impossible not to recognise in the old woman with a book in her hand, in the first vision of Hermas, the traits of an ancient Sibyl; and for such, indeed, Hermas took her, until she told him that she was a personification of the Church. The simple affection, not wanting in elevation, which the hero of the opening story felt for the heroine--one at least being of the servile class--is interesting as affording a glimpse of that kindly social life of which there are many evidences during the first centuries of the Empire, in all grades of society, from the aristocratic circles of Pliny and Thrasea down to the slave community itself, however much it is apt to be thrown into the background by the tyranny and crime, vulgar ostentation and base lusts, that occupied the front of the scene during that period.

Several of the apocryphal books show a great advance in the theory of retributive justice in the future life. The so-called _Apocalypse of St. Peter_ is known to have existed in Syria and Egypt before the middle of the second century, and to have been admitted by several of the Fathers into the Canon, side by side with the Book of Revelation. Paradise is here described in much the same manner as the Greek Elysium--as a radiant place, full of flowers, fruit, and sweet odours, etc. The pains of Hell are set out with a more than common minuteness, and with a greater attention to a kind of _lex talionis_, so to speak, whereby the nature of the punishment is analogous to that of the crime, than is found in most of the Christian descriptions prior to Dante. Hell is represented as a place full of lakes of fire and burning mud, over which those who had blasphemed ‘the way of righteousness’ are suspended by their tongues, and adulterers by the hair, while in them wallow the perverters of righteousness. Blasphemers gnawed their lips, and had red-hot iron over their eyes; false witnesses had tongues of fire in their mouths, which they kept on chewing; rich misers, in filthy rags, rolled upon red-hot pebbles, sharper than sword or spit; usurers stood up to their knees in pitch, blood, and boiling mire; those guilty of unnatural crimes were hurled from a cliff and driven up again, to be again cast down.

A similar vision of the Otherworld, though differing in plan and in many details, is contained in the _Revelation of St. Paul_, written about the year 380 A.D. Apparently the author of the _Fis Adamnáin_ had this work in his mind when referring in ch. 2 to the Revelation that had been vouchsafed to St. Paul, for the Apostle’s own mention of his Vision of the Third Heaven contains no description of the Otherworld. Moreover, it is impossible not to be struck by the resemblance between the Irish author’s description of the manner in which the souls were received upon their arrival at the seventh Heaven (ch. 19), and the corresponding account in the _Apocalypse of St. Paul_: ‘And the good angels who had received the soul of the righteous man saluted it, as being well known to them,’ etc.[90] And so of the judgments passed upon the sinners in like manner. There are also several details given by the apocryphal writer concerning the pains of Hell, which are repeated in a closely similar form in the _Fis Adamnáin_: _e.g._ the immersion of some of the wicked in a murky river, the imprisonment of others in a brazen wall wrapt in flames, etc.

The theme was treated, with more or less fulness, by several writers of the Eastern Church, but our task does not involve the enumeration of all the forms in which it appeared, and the versions already quoted would seem to be those which treated it most elaborately, and exercised the greatest influence upon later developments. Indeed the two Visions last mentioned, being specially referred to by the author of the _Fis Adamnáin_ among the instances of revelations formerly vouchsafed to holy men, may be regarded as landmarks showing the course of the tradition. For the same reason, some mention should be made here of another of those instances, alluded to by the author in the same place, though it really belongs rather to the apocalyptic than to the Otherworld class of writings, namely, the group of apocryphal books dealing with what is known as the _Transitus Mariæ_. The oldest of these, the _Falling Asleep of Mary_, by John, Archbishop of Thessalonica at the end of the seventh century, was formerly ascribed to St. John the Evangelist, and Tischendorf thinks that it was really derived from a treatise bearing the name of St. John, and written in the fourth century at latest, which enjoyed a wide popularity in both East and West, and was translated into several languages. The several versions differ much in matters of detail, but the substance is practically the same.[91]

It relates how it was the Virgin’s practice to frequent the Holy Sepulchre, there to pray alone, until at length it was announced to her in a vision that the time of her earthly life was accomplished. Thereupon the apostles were all caught up from the most remote parts of the earth, where they then were, even those who were dead being raised from their graves and brought to Bethlehem, whence they proceeded to the Virgin’s house in Jerusalem in time to be present at her death, and to receive her benediction. They laid her in a new tomb in Gethsemane, and witnessed her assumption, at which time the Heavenly Host appeared to them, and the Holy Spirit prophesied to them concerning the last things.

In the descriptions of the Otherworld contained in the foregoing visions, the imagery employed evinces a blending of Hebraic traditions with materials obtained from Hellenic sources. The elements attributable to the latter source pertain rather to the popular faith and to the doctrines taught in the ancient mysteries--which, most likely, were fundamentally identical--than to the speculations of the Neo-Platonic schools, or to the cults which had been adopted from the East. This, indeed, is what might have been looked for, from the fact that Christianity received its earliest and most numerous recruits from the people at large,[92] among whom the old beliefs continued to exist. The moral teaching which, as mentioned in an earlier section, was an important feature of the Eleusinian mysteries, retained its importance long after Greece had ceased to be the centre of Hellenic thought throughout the countries which had come under the sway of Hellenic civilisation. In the last century of the Roman Republic Cicero lauds the mysteries, which, by their refining influences, had civilised minds previously rustical and savage, had imparted the true principles of life, and had taught the way, not only to live with joy, but to die with better hope.[93] In the first century of the Empire, Plutarch reminds his wife of the instruction they had shared at their initiation into the mysteries.[94] Indeed, at that period, it would seem to have been looked upon as an impiety to withhold oneself from initiation, that might even be visited with a criminal prosecution. The experiences of Demonax, as related by Lucian, furnish a case in point.

Equally great, at least, was the vitality retained by the popular belief in the Stygian river, and the pains of Tartarus that awaited the wicked. There is evidence to show that in the classical and post-classical ages of Greece it was accepted as an article of the national creed. Its persistence at a later date is attested by the vehemence of the onslaught which Lucretius made upon it, for, with due allowance for exaggeration, he could scarcely regard it as an incubus, an ever-present terror, weighing down and darkening men’s lives, an Upas-tree which it was philosophy’s noblest work to uproot, unless it had met with very general and very convinced acceptance in his day. Seneca, indeed, states that in his time the belief was rejected even by children, and herein he is corroborated by other writers; we must conclude, however, that the children in question were exceptionally enlightened--the Roman prototypes of Macaulay’s schoolboy--for in the same century Plutarch, and in the following century Lucian, attests the vigorous survival of the old doctrine.[95]

On the whole we may say that in the descriptions of Paradise, with the Tree of Life, the companies of Old Testament worthies, etc., Hebrew ideas generally predominated, while the Greek Tartarus furnished most of the ideas of the Christian Hell. These ideas, however, did not include the doctrine of rebirth, which was so prominent a feature in the Greek mystic cults. Indeed, the literature of the Vision of the Otherworld appears to have belonged, in the main, to the orthodox portion of the Church, avoiding, on the one hand, everything pertaining to the popular cults of Isis, Serapis, Mithra, the Magna Mater, and other fashionable Oriental deities, and, on the other hand, taking from Hellenic beliefs only such as were in harmony with the general character of the Christian faith, little attracted by the Neo-Platonic theories of emanations, æons, and the like, which did so much to mould the Gnostic and other heresies.

It would seem that the Vision of the Otherworld never acquired the same importance in the Western Church as in the East; nevertheless, several of the Western fathers report similar cases, many of which, it is probable, already existed in popular tradition. One of these, related by St. Augustine, tells how a certain Curina, a native of Hippo, died, but, as the condition of his body suggested that he was merely in a trance, his friends delayed the burial for some days. At length, however, the funeral was about to take place, when the corpse returned to life, and told his friends that he had really died, but, as he was being brought up for judgment, it was discovered that the Angel of Death had mistaken him for another Curina, a blacksmith, who dwelt in the same neighbourhood. Accordingly, after being favoured with a vision of Paradise, our Curina was dismissed with a caution to mend his ways, and present himself to St. Augustine for baptism, both of which commands he obeyed.

The correspondence of St. Gregory the Great contains several instances of a similar kind. One of these preserves the experiences of a man of Constantinople, Stephen by name, which were much the same as those of Curina, he having received the fatal summons in place of another Stephen, who too was a blacksmith. Stephen, like Curina, was restored to the body, after receiving a vision, in his case, of Hell.

A fundamental difference is apparent between the Visions just recorded, and those composed in the Eastern Church, these constituting a specific form of composition of which the primary object was to present a picture of the next world, while the Western fathers would appear merely to have introduced, by way of apologue, a current religious folk-tale. If a folk-tale, it was probably widely diffused, for both the above stories are evidently versions of one original--the scene of the first being placed at Hippo, of the second at Constantinople. Both have much in common with Plutarch’s story of Thespesios, and nothing is more probable than that all were variants of a folk-tale current in antiquity--long before Plato, as likely as not, for he too introduces the story of Er as a floating tradition--and receiving at the hands of Plutarch and the Christian fathers embellishments proper to their respective creeds. Moreover, in both stories the persons who ought to have died were blacksmiths, members of a trade which, by an obvious association of ideas, has always appeared in popular mythology in a somewhat sinister light. The blunder of the Angel of Death in bringing the wrong person up for judgment, is one of the motives which frequently recur in the innumerable comic tales of Hell and Judgment which enjoyed much favour in the Middle Ages, and some of which are enshrined in the _Ingoldsby Legends_ for the delectation of late-born men.

Elsewhere, however, in another of his epistles, St. Gregory records a vision which conforms more closely to the literary type. A certain soldier fell into a trance, and saw a bridge spanning a foul, smoky, stinking river, beyond which fair meadows lay, fresh and flowery, and goodly companies of folk walking therein clad in white apparel. Over the bridge a procession of the dead were passing, of whom the righteous crossed successfully, and joined the companies that were already in the _prata beata_ that lay beyond; the wicked fell into the river. Then the soldier recognised the aforesaid Stephen, who had since died finally, and was now endeavouring to cross the bridge; his foot slipped, and as he was hanging over the edge, certain grisly forms seized upon him, and endeavoured to drag him down, while white and radiant beings strove to bear him up. The issue is left undecided. The explanation of this incident was that Stephen had been liberal in almsgiving, but was addicted to sins of the flesh. Here we have a connecting link, passing on to the Irish school the bridge incident, belonging to Oriental myth, having first appeared in Chinvât bridge of the Avesta. St. Gregory likewise perpetuates the ‘tug of war’ for possession of the doubtful soul, which also first appears in the Persian books. Like St. Gregory, Adamnán’s chronicler shows the parlous state of the kindly but carnal souls, though his robuster charity pronounces decidedly for their ultimate redemption (_F. A._, c. 27).

In the land beyond the river were many fair mansions; one of these was then in course of construction, being built of golden bricks, which were the good works of the destined occupant; and they who brought the bricks were the persons whom he had befriended.

St. Gregory also relates the case of one Peter, a Spanish monk, who had died and gone to Hell, where he saw the torments of the wicked, and among them many who had lived in this world in greatness and high repute, and were then hanging in the flames. Peter was about to be thrown in himself, when an angel rescued him and sent him back to the body, with a caution.

It is certain that the earlier Middle Ages, as well as the later, possessed many stories dealing with the Otherworld, alike in form of the folk-tale and of the religious apologue. Probably, too, an examination of the ecclesiastical writers of the period would disclose examples of the treatment of the legend as a distinct class of literary composition, like the foregoing instances. Nevertheless, no important contribution to the subject appears to have been made, nor any new departure taken, until the legend entered upon a fresh course on Irish soil.

4. THE LEGEND IN IRELAND

While the Christian Church of Teutonic England owed its existence, in the main, to the missionary enterprise of Rome, the much older Celtic Churches, and notably the Church of Ireland, were more closely connected with Gaul and the East. It was to Gaul that Ireland was mainly indebted for its original conversion, and the intercourse between the two countries remained close and unbroken. But the Church in the south of Gaul--and it was the south alone that preserved any considerable culture, or displayed missionary activity, in the earlier Middle Ages--had from the very first been closely in touch with the Churches in the East. The great monastery of Lerins, in which St. Patrick is said to have studied, was founded from Egypt, and for many centuries the Egyptian Church continued to manifest a lively interest in Gallic matters. Indeed, not only Lerins, but Marseilles, Lyons, and other parts of Southern Gaul maintained a constant intercourse with both Egypt and Syria, with the natural result that many institutions of the Gallic Church, despite its increasing subjection to Rome, dating from the year 244, bore the impress of Oriental influences.[96] Hence the close relations with Gaul maintained by the Irish churchmen and scholars necessarily brought them into contact with their Egyptian and Syrian brethren, and with the ideas and practices which prevailed in their respective Churches.

Nor was Ireland’s connection with the East confined to the intermediary of Gaul. Irish pilgrimages to Egypt continued until the end of the eighth century, and Dicuil records a topographical exploration of that country made by two Irishmen, Fidelis and his companion.[97] Documentary evidence is yet extant, proving that even homekeeping Irishmen were not debarred from all acquaintance with the East. The Saltair na Rann[98] contains an Irish version of the _Book of Adam and Eve_, a work written in Egypt in the fifth or sixth century, of which no mention outside of Ireland is known. Adamnán’s work, _De Locis Sanctis_, already referred to, contains an account of the monastery on Mount Thabor, which might stand for the description of an Irish monastic community of his day. Indeed, the whole system both of the anchoretic and the cœnobitic life in Ireland corresponds closely to that which prevailed in Egypt and Syria; the monastic communities, consisting of groups of detached huts or bee-hive cells, enclosed within a general wall, the structure of the cells, and of the other earliest examples of Irish ecclesiastical architecture, all suggest a Syrian origin; and Dr. G. T. Stokes holds that ‘the Irish schools were most probably modelled after the forms and rules of the Egyptian Lauras.’[99]

But it was not only Egyptian and Syrian influences to which Ireland was subjected by its intercourse with Southern Gaul. The civilisation of that country was essentially Greek, and so remained for many centuries after the Christian era; and this circumstance no doubt contributed to the well-known survival of Greek learning in the Irish schools, long after it had almost perished in the rest of Western Europe. It is not to be supposed that this learning was characterised by accuracy of scholarship, or by a wide acquaintance with classical literature; but neither was it always restricted to a mere smattering of the language, or to passages and quotations picked up at second-hand. Johannes Scotus Erigena translated the works of the pseudo-Areopagite; Dicuil and Firghil (Virgilius, Bishop of Salzburg), studied the Greek books of science; Homer, Aristotle, and other classical authors were known to some of the Irish writers; several of the Irish divines were acquainted with the Greek fathers and other theological works. Nor were the Greeks in person unknown to Ireland. Many Greek clerics had taken refuge there during the Iconoclast persecution, and left traces which were recognisable in Ussher’s day; and the old poem on the Fair of Carman makes mention of the Greek merchants who resorted thither.

It is thus apparent that the Irish writers possessed ample means of becoming acquainted with the traditions, both oral and written, of the Greek and Eastern Churches. The knowledge thus acquired extended to the Apocalyptic Visions referred to in the preceding section, as is proved by internal evidence furnished by the Irish Visions, both by way of direct reference, and by the nature of their contents. It remains to see how far the predilection which the Irish writers manifested for this class of literature, and the special characteristics which it assumed in their hands, may have been determined by their familiarity with analogous ideas already existing in their national literature.

At the period in question, the traditional literature of Ireland would appear to have entered into the national life to no less a degree than in Greece itself. Indeed, in certain respects, it was still more closely interwoven with the habits of the people and the framework of society than in Greece, for the literary profession was provided for by a public endowment, something like that of an established National Church, and its professors constituted a body organised by law, and occupying a recognised position in the State. One of the most marked characteristics of early Irish civilisation, in its every branch, was an exaggerated tendency towards symmetrical classification and multiplicity of detail. This tendency extended to the social system, and the earliest records of ancient Ireland that have come down to us show that society was arranged according to a very elaborate scheme of ranks and classes,[100] among which the literary profession was remarkable alike for the number of its members, and for the consideration in which they were held. It was divided into several distinct orders, each of which was specially addicted to its own department of study, and of these the place of greatest honour and dignity belonged to the Filid, who combined with other functions the special duty of preserving and transmitting the national traditions.[101] The order of the Filid was further subdivided into seven ranks or degrees, graduated according to the attainments which their respective members were required to possess. For all, however, a knowledge of the romantic literature of their country was an indispensable qualification--the Árd-Ollamh, the chief of the order, being required to know two hundred and fifty _prím-scéla_, or principal stories, and one hundred of secondary importance; and so on in a descending scale through the inferior degrees of the literary hierarchy. These tales, in turn, were likewise grouped, with all the precision of a scientific classification, according to their subject-matter.[102] Two lists are extant giving the titles of the several kinds; the elder, preserved in the Book of Leinster, is ascribed by M. d’Arbois de Jubainville to the seventh century, or, at latest, the beginning of the eighth century. They are classed under the headings of _Catha_, battles; _Longasa_, travels (in exile); _Imrama_, voyages (voluntary); _Tógbála_, conquests; _Tóglasi_, destructions; _Airgne_, slaughters; _Forbasa_, sieges; _Oitti_, tragic fates; _Tána_, forays; _Tochmarca_, wooings; _Uatha_, [adventures in] caves; _Eachtra_, deeds, adventures; _Sluaigheadha_, hostings or expeditions; to which are to be added _Fessa_, banquets; _Aithidi_, elopements; _Serca_, love-stories; _Tomadma_, irruptions or invasions (of recent date); _Tocomlada_, colonies; _Físi_, visions. The subjects of these tales were taken from the national history or mythology, or, oftener still may be, from that traditionary lore which forms a debatable ground between the two. Many of them were more esteemed as authorities for tribal history or genealogy than upon their purely literary merit, though in others the imaginative element is as frankly recognised as in a historical novel by Scott or Dumas.

The romantic literature of Ireland reached its height about the time of the greatest activity of the Irish Church, and the sacred and secular schools did not fail to exercise a mutual influence, for the Irish clergy by no means despised these relics of Paganism: they possessed a large share of that wise tolerance which we find in many of the great clerics of the Middle Ages, who did not desire the destruction of all the associations that had twined themselves about the lives of the people, but rather to enlist them into the service of the new faith.[103] Two classes of the Irish tales were specially adapted for ecclesiastical treatment, and being thus brought into contact with the general literature of mediæval Europe, have left upon it a deep and traceable impression. These were the _Imram_, or Voyage, and the _Fis_, or Vision, species distinct in kind, but containing in practice much that was common to both; for the course of the _Imram_ lay, for the most part, among the enchanted lands of Celtic mythology, thinly disguised, in later times, by a coating of Christian eschatology; and the _Fis_, though more commonly of Christian origin, and often indited expressly for edification, was indebted to the same source for most of its _mise-en-scène_. Both types of narrative are represented among the legends which recount the adventures met with by Cuchulainn, Cormac Mac Áirt, and other ancient heroes in a purely pagan Otherworld. Starting thence and proceeding through the travel tales, similar in many respects to the foregoing, but more or less imbued with a Christian tinge, which relate the Voyages of Maelduin, of Tadg Mac Céin, of the Sons of Ua Corra, and the like, we reach, on the one hand, the Voyage of St. Brendan, one of the most picturesque and popular legends of the Middle Ages, and, on the other hand, the visions of the Irish Saints, the stories of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, and similar legends which pervaded Western Europe, and passing into Italy would appear to have led up to the story of the wicked Marquis of Brandenburg, and the opening of the _Tesoretto_ of Brunetto Latini, which last, again, suggested to Dante the opening passages of the _Commedia_.

A visit to the Otherworld was one of the most frequent subjects of Irish legend. Not that the region visited is always so described; sometimes it is termed the realm of the Dagda, one of the most primitive culture-deities in the Irish mythology, and, at the same time, the counterpart of Yama and Yima;[104] sometimes, the island paradise of Manannán Mac Lír, the Sea-God; at others, the palace of Mider or of Oengus, both of whom shared with Lug many of the attributes of the Greek Apollo. Very often it is merely the rath, or island, or subaqueous abode, of some enchantress or fairy lady, but even then some detail of the story will almost always make it clear that the spot is to be identified with the land of departed spirits, although, in some instances, the authors may have been no more aware than Ariosto in describing the garden of Alcina, or, indeed, than Homer in his islands of the Phæacians, of Circe and of Calypso, that all their imaginary scenes alike had one common origin, the region where the κλυτὰ ἔθνεα νεκρῶν have their dwelling.[105]

The conception which the Irish formed of their Happy Otherworld resembled in substance the ideas which most other nations held upon the subject; but their descriptions of it are frequently remarkable for a poetry, a vivid sense of beauty--in short, for a _gusto_, which are far less common. For all that, however, they do not always reject the grosser--it would, perhaps, be more just to call them the simpler--pleasures which would naturally appeal to the healthy imaginations of a people addicted to a vigorous and somewhat rude way of life. Thus in the subterranean palace of the Dagda (afterwards usurped by his son, Oengus Óg), which was situate within the Brug na Boinne, and is described as a place of unceasing delight, whither death or sickness never came, the god sat beneath three fragrant apple-trees, always laden with ripe fruit, beside an inexhaustible vat of beer; two pigs were there, one alive and the other ready roasted, turn and turn about, and a caldron brought by the Dé Danann from Murias (‘Sealand’), which was never empty of food, and from which none ever rose unsatisfied, for it gave to each one a portion corresponding to his rightful claims. These gross enjoyments recur even in the truly poetic lines which Mider sings to Béfind (or Etain), wife of King Eochaid Airem, in the story of the Brudin Da Derga,[106] tempting her to follow him to his realm of Magh Mór. This he describes as a wondrous land, traversed by warm sweet streams; the people thereof are handsome, without a blemish, conceived without sin or lust; their bodies are like the snow, white of skin and black of brow, their hair like tufts of primrose, their cheeks like the foxglove, and their eyes like the blackbird’s eggs. But by way of additional attraction Mider promises the lady a cap of gold for her head, fresh pork, soft new milk, wine and mead of the choicest, and ale ‘headier than the ale of Ireland.’ We learn elsewhere that Mider also possessed a magic caldron[107] like that of the Dagda, and three cows which never ran dry. So, too, Manannán Mac Lír possessed among other highly desirable chattels seven pigs that would suffice to feed all the world, and seven cows whose milk would fill seven tubs, whence all the people of the world might drink their fill. It is interesting to observe how this side of the Irish Paradise received a twofold development; on the one hand, being subjected to a refining process, as we shall see when considering the _Fis Adamnáin_; on the other, developing into a veritable Cockayne, in such humorous writings as the _Vision of Mac Conglinne_.[108]

Perhaps the fullest and most poetic account of the Tír Tairngire is that contained in two poems of great beauty, which occur in the _Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal_, before cited.[109] It must suffice, in this place, to translate such portions as bear more immediately upon our subject.

A lovely maiden appears to Bran, bearing in her hand an apple branch with twigs of silver and golden fruit upon it; this she places in his hand, and sings:--

‘An isle there is afar; round it sea-horses are flashing; a free stretch, against which white-sided surges swell; four pedestals sustain it. A delight of the eye, a glorious array, are the hosts that disport them in the heroes’ chariot strife, in the Southern plain of Findarggat (silver-white). Of white bronze are the pedestals beneath it; throughout the glorious ages, throughout the ages of the world, shines the lovely land, over-snowed with many blossoms. There is a stately tree in bloom; the birds chant responsive to the [canonical] hours; at every hour they sing in harmony. Jewels of every hue are gleaming throughout the soft-voiced plain; perpetuity of joy, with linked melody, is in the Southern plain of Silvercloud. No wailing is known, nor guile, in the land of perpetual tilth; nothing rough nor harsh, but only sweet music, strikes the ear. No sorrow, no gloom, no death, no sickness at all, nor feebleness,--that is the token of Emain, no rival to it exists. The beauty of the wondrous land, lovely of aspect, a land fair to look upon--never its like was found. Shouldst thou next look on Airctec, bestrewn with dragon-stones and crystals; Ocean strews upon the land crystal tresses from his mane. Moorlands, thickets of every hue, in [the land of] Calm; the beauty of freshness, the hearing of music in its sweetness, the drinking of wine the brightest. In Magh Réin [Plain of the Sea] the golden chariots come at flood-tide to meet the sun; in Magh Mon [Plain of Games] are chariots of silver and of bronze, without a blemish. A herd of horses like yellow gold is there on the strand; another herd, of purple hue; after them, yet another herd, of the hue of a pure grey pearl. At the sun’s uprising a fair man will come, who illumines the level lands; he rides over the fair plain whereon the sea beats, he tempers the ocean till it is [as] blood. The host will come across the pure sea; they show themselves, rowing towards the land; then they row to a flat rock, well in view, whence a hundred songs arise. It chants melody to the hosts, so that sorrow is not therein; the music swells from the choirs of hundreds, who look not for return or death. Emain of many forms by the sea, it may be near, it may be far; therein are women, many thousands, in chequered array, and the pure sea round about it. When he has heard the music’s sound, the note of the birds in Imchiúin, a little band of ladies will come down from the height to the field of games, whereon he stands. Freedom with health shall come to the land on which laughter is poured forth; ’tis on Imchiúin, at every season, that length of life with joy shall come. A day of serenity unending scatters silver on the land; a pure white cliff is on the seaboard range, drawing the sun’s heat from him. The multitude race their horses along Magh Mon, a glorious sport, not languid; in the chequered lea-land, all beauty excelling (?), they look not for return nor death.’

We may see at a glance how thoroughly pagan is the conception of the happy region here depicted, though assuredly lacking neither in beauty nor refinement, in which respects the Tír Tairngire need fear no comparison with the Elysium of the Greek poets, which it so strongly resembles. It is equally evident that the lord of this Island Paradise, Manannán Mac Lír, is the Tuatha Dé Danann counterpart of the Fomorian Tethra, king of the dead, who sends his messengers in the guise of beautiful women--ἄγγελοι in all literalness--to call his subjects unto him in his realm beyond the ocean. Indeed, Tethra himself appears in a legend, exactly parallel to the foregoing in design, though of more primitive structure, which relates the passing of Connla, son of the famous Árd-Rí, Conn of the Hundred Battles. Connla, like Bran, was visited by a beautiful damsel, who promised to confer upon him a continuance of youth and beauty which should never fail or fade until the Judgment. She then gave him an apple and left him. The virtue of this apple was such that it afforded Connla nutriment enough for a month, at the end of which time the damsel returned, and told him that the ever-living ones had sent for him, having chosen him to become one of the folk of Tethra, there to dwell for ever, in the companies of his forefathers, in the midst of his acquaintance and friends.[110] And Connla followed her to the sea-shore, where a ship of glass awaited them, in which they embarked, while Conn followed them to the shore, weeping, and watched them until they were out of sight.

By far the greater number of the visits which the heroes and heroines of Irish tradition pay to the Otherworld are variations upon the same theme: a supernatural visitant, smitten with love for chief or maiden, induces him or her, by persuasion, guile, or force, to follow to fairy rath or oversea Elysium; a theme which has survived to our own day in the common legend of the _Leanamhán Sidhe_, or Fairy Lover. The story of Mider and Etain, or Eithne, above referred to, is an instance of this kind, Mider having won Etain of her husband, King Eochaid Airem, at a game of chess. In many cases where a hero’s wife is thus abducted the loss is but temporary, the husband, a more martial and more successful Orpheus, winning back his Eurydice by force or stratagem. To this also the modern Irish fairy tales contain many parallels. So numerous are the examples of this type, that it is both impossible and unnecessary to discuss them _seriatim_; it is enough to select from each of the great tale cycles such instances as may best show the persistence of the theme, and of the original Irish notions concerning the Otherworld, some of which coloured the versions in which the legend appeared in Christian times. The Elysian abodes of the Dagda, of Oengus Óg, of Mider, and of Manannán Mac Lír, which have been described already, pertain to the mythological cycle of Irish legend; similar visits to the abodes of the Tuatha Dé Danann are recorded in many stories belonging to the greatest of the heroic cycles, namely, the Ultonian cycle.

One of the best and longest of these stories is the _Serglige Conchulaind_[111] or Sick-bed of Cuchulainn, the principal hero of the cycle in question. We have room only for a brief abstract of this story, giving the details which relate more particularly to our subject.

Once, in dream, Cuchulainn was visited by two ladies of great beauty, who, without vouchsafing any explanation of their conduct, kept smiting him with whips as he lay until they left him speechless, in which state he remained for nearly a year. At the end of that time Emer, Cuchulainn’s wife, and those with her, saw one day a young man sitting by his bedside, singing how he was Oengus, and the dream-ladies were Fand and Liban, his sisters, of whom Fand, wife of Manannán Mac Lír, having been deserted by her husband, had conceived a great love for Cuchulainn, and promised that if he would visit her in the Tír Sorcha (Land of Light), she would make him whole, and give him gold and silver and wine _go leór_. Before complying with this message, Cuchulainn sent Loeg, his charioteer, to inspect and report. Loeg returned with a glowing account of the Tír Sorcha. He had been conducted to the house of Labraid Luathlam-ar-Claideb--Quick Hand on Sword--husband of Liban, where Fand was then residing. The rath was situate in the midst of ‘a pure lake, whither companies of women resort’; before the door stood three stately trees, pure purple, and the bird-flock singing upon the branches of them without ceasing, ‘and in the eastern doorway of the _lios_ a tree--not paltry the music thereon--of silver, on which the sun shines with exceeding radiance, like gold.’ Within was the usual good cheer, including an inexhaustible vat of mead. Tempted by this account Cuchulainn repaired thither himself, and found that all Loeg had said was true, and more. The beautiful Fand consented to be his, on condition that he would aid her people in war against a rival god-clan; this done, he brought her back to Ireland. The upshot of it all was that Emer, whom Cuchulainn had always loved most fondly until Fand’s spell was on him, became jealous of her rival, and sought to kill her. Cuchulainn objected to this, but Emer’s devotion revived the unquenched embers of his flame for her. At the same time, Manannán had found that ‘what our contempts do often hurl from us we wish it ours again,’ and the piece concludes with the return of all to their _premiers amours_.

The Otherworld of the ancient Irish possessed no Tartarus. Malignant powers, indeed, there were in plenty; not to speak of a multitude of hags and witches, giants and ogres, goblins and spectres, the divine personages themselves often display a very sinister side of their character, while not uncommonly a brilliant chief or radiant lady of the Tuatha Dé Danann would be brother or sister to a hideous and savage hag or giant.[112] In like manner, the Irish Wonderland (Tír na n-Iongnadh) could show, alongside of its enchanted raths and Elysian pleasances, scenes of a widely different kind; seas and lakes haunted by terrible monsters, weird forests, and gloomy, perilous glens, although, it is true, this side of the picture is treated much less fully than the other. Nevertheless, there is no strict line of demarcation between the two, which exist side by side, as might the desert and fertile regions of the same country.

One of the nearest approximations to the gloomy Hades of the early Greeks is found in the realm of Scathach (The Shadowy) whither Cuchulainn was sent by the wizard Forgall Monach, his prospective father-in-law, in the hope of getting rid of him, but on pretext of completing his military education--an instance of the universal article of primitive belief that the ultimate arcana of knowledge are only to be won from the powers of death and darkness.[113] The approach to Scathach’s country lay across a plain, to the one half of which the feet of whoso attempted to cross it would adhere, while in the other half the ground would rise and impale the passenger on the grass blades, like spear points, which grew thereon. Cuchulainn was guided across the plain by the familiar agency of a wheel and an apple, given him by a young man whom he found dwelling in a fairy rath, at the outset of his journey, and who thus discharged the office of _psychopompos_, which in one form or other--Sibyl, Michael, Virgil, hag or damsel--almost always appears to be indispensable. The way then led through a narrow glen, peopled by monsters, and over high and perilous mountain passes. Finally, to reach his goal, he had to cross the ‘Bridge of the Cliff,’ an enchanted bridge, low at the two ends and high at the middle, of such kind that, so soon as one stepped upon either end, the other would rise and throw him back. This, Miss Hull says (_op. cit._, p. 291), is the earliest occurrence in Irish legend of the bridge episode, which, as we have seen, had previously been a prominent feature in pictures of the Otherworld, and afterwards appears with almost equal frequency in the chivalrous literature of the Middle Ages. Miss Hull suggests that the idea, in the present case, is borrowed from the Norse; this, of course, is quite possible, having regard to the prominence in Northern myth of the Bridge of Giöll, crossed by Hermödr on his journey to the Shades in quest of the dead Balder; while the Wonderland depicted in the Erik Saga and in the Story of Gorm is likewise approached by a bridge.[114] However, without entering into the difficult question of the epoch at which the Balder myth assumed its present shape, or of the respective dates of the Norse and Irish legends in their original forms, the hypothesis hardly seems necessary to account for the introduction of so obvious and so widespread an incident into the Cuchulainn legend, where, moreover, the Bridge of the Cliff differs widely from the Rainbow bridge of Giöll and from the more commonplace bridges of the Norse Sagas. As Miss Hull herself observes, the idea recurs in another branch of Celtic story, the Arthurian legend,[115] and ‘belongs to the Hell doctrine of nearly all Oriental religions’ (_loc. cit._) Several of these we have already examined, and have seen how the same idea passed into the eschatology of the Western Church. Neither is it confined to the cultured races, from Vedic India to Iceland; it occurs also among such primitive nations as the Inoits of Aleutia and the Bagadas of the Nilghiris. From them to Addison’s _Vision of Mirza_ is a long step in every sense.[116]

Another story connected with the same cycle, the _Echtra Nerai_, Adventures of Nera, otherwise called the _Táin Bo Aingen_, Cattle raid of Aingen,[117] may receive mention here as presenting a feature which frequently recurs in the ecclesiastical visions, while the main outlines of the story are preserved in modern folk-tales. As Ailill, king of Connacht, was keeping the Samhain festival in his rath of Cruachan, he offered to give his gold-hilted sword to any one who should dare to put a withe on the foot of a newly hanged man, who was swinging outside. Nera accepted the challenge, and after several vain attempts (the withe springing off of its own accord) succeeded. The corpse then spoke, and asked Nera for a drink, and Nera obligingly took the corpse on his shoulders, and offered to take him to a house which appeared hard by, standing amid a lake of fire. The corpse declined this offer, which is hardly to be wondered at, and the rest of the story follows the conventional lines of the ordinary folk-tale, but we have here the moat of fire, as in the _Fis Adamnáin_ and elsewhere.

Visits to the enchanted abodes of the Tuatha Dé Danann--to the Otherworld, that is--are common in the tales belonging to the third great group of heroic tales, second in importance to the Cuchulainn cycle above, namely, the Finn cycle, in which occurs the most celebrated of them all--the visit of Oísin to Niamh Cinn Óir, which so late as the eighteenth century inspired Michael Comyn with his fine poem, the _Laoi Oisín ar dTír na n-óg_. Still, the tales of this cycle, however ancient their materials, would appear to have undergone a sogmewhat modernising influence, comparatively speaking, in receiving artistic shape, in which last respect they betray more signs of a deliberately literary treatment than their predecessors, while in their treatment of the Otherworld they do not appear to have contributed materially to the evolution of the legend.

Distinct from the Finn cycle, though dealing in part with the persons and events of the period to which Finn has been assigned by tradition, is a group of highly picturesque tales relating to the dynasty of Conn Ced-cathach (of the Hundred Battles) Árd Rí of Ireland, according to tradition, in the second century A.D. In the Conn cycle the Otherworld legend figures prominently, the monarch himself, his sons Árt and Connla, and his grandson Cormac, all having journeyed thither. These tales, moreover, furnish certain links which connect the _Echtra_ with the _Imram_ and _Fis_.

It is said to have been Conn’s daily wont to make the circuit of Temair (Tara), in company of his Druids and poets, to see that none of the Tuatha Dé Danann, or Daoine Sidhe, alighted thereon. One day, while so engaged, he trod upon a flagstone, which shrieked so loud as to be heard all over Temair and Magh Breg. Conn asked his chief Druid for an explanation of this wonder, but the Druid required a respite of fifty days before he could give it. At the end of that time the king and his suite again repaired to the spot, and the Druid declared that the name of the flag was Fál, and that it had been brought from Inis Fáil by the Tuatha Dé Danann to remain at Temair for ever, and any year the Árd Rí of Éire failed to look upon it, dearth would be on the land.[118] And suddenly a mist fell upon them, and from out of the mist was heard the sound of a horseman, who cast three darts at them. ‘Whosoever aims at Conn in Temair will be violating the king’s majesty,’ exclaimed the Druid; whereupon the horseman came forward and, greeting Conn, invited him to his home. Conn followed, and soon reached a fair plain in which stood a royal rath, and a great tree, as it were of gold, in the doorway.[119] On entering, he saw a lovely damsel, a golden diadem on her head, standing by a silver vat hooped with gold, full of red ale, and a golden can and cup upon it. Beside it was a royal throne, whereon sat a Scál (champion) of majestic stature, and of a beauty never seen at Temair. Conn asked him who he was: he replied, ‘No living champion am I, but one of Adam’s sons returned from death; I am Lugh Mac Ceithlenn,[120] and I am come to reveal to thee the life of thine own sovereignty, and the sovereignty of every king who shall be after thee in Éire.’--‘And the maiden who was present to them in the house was the sovereignty of Éire for ever.’ Then were revealed to Conn the names of all the kings of his race who should succeed to him in Éire, a cup of ale being borne to the name of each. The scene, which suggests the similar revelation made to Macbeth in the witches’ cavern, closes with a prophecy of St. Patrick--whom God should honour, and who should kindle a torch that would illumine Éire from sea to sea--and of the later races of kings that should rule over Ireland.

Here we have another instance of Christian embroidery upon a thoroughly Pagan stuff; however, the identification of the Dé Danann Lugh as a son of Adam returned from the dead was true in a fuller sense than the author, probably, was aware.

Another visit of Conn to the Tír na n-Óg is related in a tale known as the _Echtra Áirt_, or Adventures of Árt.[121] The Leanamhán Sidhe, who figures in this story, bears a more sinister aspect than do most of her order in Irish legend, and possesses affinities to the witch-lady or Lamia. She was Bécuma Cneisgel (B. White-skin), wife of the Dé Danann chief Labrad Luathlam-ar-Claideb (Swift Hand on Sword), and having been found guilty of infidelity, had been banished from the Tír Tairngire. Finding a curach on the shore, she stepped in; this ‘trim skiff’ of the Wonderland ‘asked no aid of sail or oar,’ and Bécuma, ‘leaving it to the heaving of wind over sea,’ reached Benn Edair, the Hill of Howth. Here she found Conn, who had retired thither to mourn the recent death of his wife, and introduced herself to him as Delbchaem (Fair-form), daughter of Morgan (Sea-born), come to Ireland from the Tír Tairngire for love of Conn’s son Árt. However, it was ultimately settled that she should marry Conn himself, and she returned with him to Temair, having first obtained a pledge from the king, according to the rules of Irish chivalry, that he would grant her the boon she might ask of him, which proved to be the banishment of Árt for a year. Henceforth, all went wrong with the country; the land yielded neither corn nor milk, and the Druids, on being consulted, affirmed that by reason of Bécuma’s wickedness the land was under a curse, which could only be removed by sacrificing the son of a sinless couple, and mingling his blood with the soil of Temair. Conn set forth in quest of such a youth; at Benn Edair he found a curach which bore him across the sea, through herds of strange sea-monsters of fearsome aspect, while the waves rose and the firmament trembled, until he came to a strange isle, ‘having fair fragrant apple-trees, and many wells of wine, most beautiful, and a fair bright wood, adorned with clustering hazel-nuts, surrounding those wells, with lovely golden yellow nuts, and little bees, ever beautiful, hovering over the fruits, which were dropping their blossoms and their leaves into the wells’ (tr. Best, _loc. cit._). Hard by was a goodly house, the dwelling of Daire Degamra; the thatch was of birds’ wings, white, and yellow, and blue; the doors were of crystal, and the posts of bronze. Inside was a crystal throne, whereon sat Segda Saerlabrad, son of Daire. Conn was made welcome; his feet were washed by an invisible hand, which likewise guided him to the hearth, wherefrom a flame started up of its own accord. Tables laden with various kinds of meat were set before him by invisible attendants, and a drinking horn was set thereon. There was a vat, finely wrought, of blue crystal, and three golden hoops about it, wherein Daire bade him bathe. Then he was bidden fall to; but it was _geis_ to him to eat alone, whereas the inmates told him that it was equally _geis_ to them to eat save alone; however, Segda, to oblige the guest, consented to eat with him. Next morning Conn asked permission to take Segda back with him, having heard that he was that son of a sinless couple of whom he was in quest. His parents admitted that this was so, for they had never come together save at his conception, and so it had been with their own parents. Conn did not divulge why he needed the youth; nevertheless, his parents refused to let him go, but Segda proving resolute not to deny the king, they consented, putting him under the protection of Conn, and Árt and Finn, and the ‘men of art,’ for his safe return. The _dénouement_, showing how Segda was preserved from sacrifice, is too long to relate here, having nothing to do with our subject.

The story then goes on to Árt, whose adventures are the ostensible subject of it. Bécuma behaved like the typical stepmother of the folk-tale. In order to procure his absence from Ireland, she challenged him to chess, and on winning--by foul play, being aided by spiritual agencies at her command--put a _geis_ on him not to return to Ireland without the before-mentioned Delbchaem, daughter of Morgan, who dwelt in an isle in the sea. Árt, like his father, set out in a curach, and reached an island wherein was a dún similar to that of Daire. In it was a company of fair women, and among them Crede Firalaind (Truly-beautiful). Árt was welcomed and feasted; he told his tale, and Crede told him that his coming had long been decreed; she gave him a ‘variegated mantle, with adornments of gold from Arabia,’ and three kisses, and showed him a crystal bower, wherein was an inexhaustible vat, which straightway became full again, however often emptied. Here Árt stayed a fortnight, and upon his leaving, Crede instructed him as to the way he had to follow. This way was wild and difficult, full of the dangers and obstacles which commonly waylay the hero of romance, though they only call for mention here as constituting, with the realm of Scathach before described, as near an approach to a Tartarus myth as Irish legend contains. The terrors which Árt had to traverse included stretches of ocean filled with sea-monsters that had to be fought and overcome; a wood, where it was as though spear-points of battle were under the feet, like leaves of the forest; a venomous icy mountain, with a glen full of toads which lay in wait for passers-by; an icy river, with a narrow bridge over, defended by a giant whom no weapons would harm, fire burn, nor water drown. Of course, all ended as it should, but the remainder of the story casts no light upon the Otherworld.

One of the best-known stories belonging to this cycle is that which relates the adventures of Cormac, son of Árt, in the Tír Tairngire.[122] At the dawn of a May morning Cormac was walking on the ramparts of Temair, when he espied a dignified, grey-haired warrior approaching him, bearing on his shoulder a branch of silver and three golden apples on it; and the music which those apples made when shaken would lull to rest sick folk, and wounded men, and women in the pains of childbirth. After the two had exchanged greetings, Cormac asked the stranger whence he had come. ‘From a land,’ he replied, ‘where there is nought save truth, and there is neither envy, nor jealousy, nor hate, nor haughtiness’ (tr. W. S.). They plighted their friendship, and Cormac begged for the musical branch, which the other gave him, exacting in return the promise of three boons which he should crave. A year later the warrior returned, and claimed his first boon, which was none other than Cormac’s own daughter Ailbe. Though loath, Cormac submitted, bound by his promise,[123] and stilled the lamentations of his household by shaking the branch, and casting them into a profound sleep. After a month the warrior returned, and demanded Conn’s son, and, finally, his wife. Cormac still felt himself bound to comply, but he started off in pursuit, followed by all his people. Upon their passing beyond the walls a dense mist fell upon them, and Cormac found himself in the plain alone. Before him stood a great dún, with a stockade of bronze about it, and within it a house of silver. The thatch of this house was the wings of white birds. It was half thatched only, and troops of fairy horsemen kept bringing other wings to complete it, but the wind was always carrying them away. After this, he saw a man feeding a fire with a great oak-tree, entire, and as soon as one was consumed he would replace it with another. Then he came to an enclosure also ramparted with bronze, and four houses therein; one of these was a great palace, ‘with its beams of bronze, its wattling of silver, and its thatch the wings of white birds. Then he sees in the garth a shining fountain, with five streams flowing out of it, and the hosts in turn a-drinking its waters. Nine hazels of Buan grow over the well, the purple hazels drop their nuts into the fountain, and the five salmon which are in the fountain sever them and send their husks floating down the stream. Now the sound of the falling of those streams is more melodious than any music that men sing’ (W. S. _loc. cit._). In the house Cormac found a warrior of exceeding beauty, both in face and figure, and a maiden, ‘the loveliest of the world’s women,’ with a helmet of gold on her yellow hair. Her feet, Cormac noticed, were washed by invisible hands, and within a partition was a bath, heated without visible agency, and Cormac bathed there. In the afternoon a man came in, bearing in one hand an axe and in the other a log of wood, and followed by a pig. At the warrior’s bidding, the man kindled a fire with the log, killed the pig, and put him in a caldron on the fire to boil. After a while the damsel bade him turn the pig, but he replied that it was useless, for that pig would never be done until a truth had been told for every quarter. Thereupon each one told some truth; the man how he had obtained the log and the pig, the properties of which were such that after the log had been burnt out at night, and the pig eaten, the pig would be found alive in the morning, and the log whole; and one quarter of the pig was cooked. The warrior told how there was a field outside the lios, which was found, at ploughing time, to be ready ploughed, harrowed, and sown with wheat; at harvest time, ready stacked, and so on, and they had been eating of that wheat ever since, and it none the less; and another quarter was done. The girl said that she had a herd of seven cows, whose milk sufficed for all the people of the Tír Tairngire, and seven sheep whose wool furnished the garments of them; and the third quarter was cooked. Then Cormac related the reason of his coming, and the pig was cooked entirely. When Cormac’s portion was set before him, he said that he never ate unless there were fifty men in his company. Then the warrior sang a strain which sent him to sleep, and on waking he beheld fifty men, and with them his wife, son, and daughter. So they set to upon the food and ale in all mirth and gladness. And a silver cup was placed in the warrior’s hand, who, as Cormac admired the workmanship of it, told him that there was something yet more wonderful about it, for when three lies were told under it it would break into three pieces, while the utterance of three truths would make it whole again. He then told three lies, and the cup broke, even as he had said; then, to restore it, he declared that neither had Cormac’s wife nor daughter seen a man, nor his son a woman, since they had left him, and in proof that his words were true, the cup came together, perfect as before. So Cormac received again his wife and son and daughter; and with them the cup, that he might discern between truth and falsehood in his judgments, and the bell-branch for music and delight. And the warrior declared that he was Manannán Mac Lír, who had allured Conn to the Tír Tairngire that he might behold the wonder of it. And the men who had brought the wings to complete the thatch of the house were ‘the men of art in Ireland, collecting cattle and wealth which passed away into nothing’; the man burning oak-trees was a young lord, paying out of his own husbandry for all that he consumed; the fountain was the Fountain of Knowledge, and the five streams issuing thereout the five senses, ‘And no man will have knowledge who drinketh not a draught out of the fountain itself, and out of the streams. The folk of many arts are those who drink of them both’ (W. S. _loc. cit._).

The foregoing group of stories from the Conn cycle probably represent a very ancient legend, several of them being manifest variants of a single original, which at some period became connected in turn with the successive members of the dynasty. This is apparent even in several minute points of detail: _e.g._ Conn’s first wife, for whom he mourned, and Cormac’s wife, taken from him by Manannán, were both named Ethne Taebfada (Long-side). The group represents a stage in the theory of the Otherworld in advance of previous conceptions;[124] and although the ideas which it contains fall far short of an eschatology, properly so called, they yet contain materials which later writers were able to employ in that sense. We can discern here the rudiments of an ethical theory of the Otherworld. In the story of Connla, the land of Tethra appears as a happy place whither the souls of famous chieftains and warriors are borne across the sea, as Achilles was rapt away to the isle of Leuke; and even this aristocratic Elysium--parallels to which abound from Polynesia to Greece, and from Greece to America--contains in germ a certain ethical idea. The favour of the immortals is reserved for chieftains famous for their birth and qualities, and thus the process is begun which first designates as a ‘gentleman’ the scion of a noble _gens_, and then goes on to require in such an one qualities worthy of his origin, and to

‘Loke who that is most vertuous alway, Privë and apert, and most entendeth ay To do the gentil dedes that he can, And take him for the gretest gentilman.’

Thus, in the Adventures of Cormac, Manannán describes the Tír Tairngire as ‘a land where there is naught save truth, and there is neither envy nor jealousy, hate nor haughtiness’; a description which is applied in a greatly amplified form to Heaven, at the close of the _Fis Adamnáin_, and in other Christian writings. It reminds us of a passage already cited from the Avesta, descriptive of the Var of Yima. Indeed, in Ireland as in Irân, ‘everything that maketh a lie’ is excluded from the ideal country, even as we have seen a want of fidelity to plighted faith to be the vice most inconsistent with the character of a king.

In the episode of Segda Saerlabrad, and again in the Adventures of Cormac, occurs that idea of chastity in connection with the Tír Tairngire to which, in its more developed form in the _Voyage of Bran_, we shall have to refer. This group, moreover, is marked by a tendency to conscious allegory which is foreign to the previous cycles. The maiden whom Conn finds in the dún is a personification of the sovereignty of Éire; and the dún visited by Cormac is a veritable ‘House of the Interpreter.’ The ethical significance of the wonders seen by Cormac on the way thither, and there expounded to him, is entirely symbolical of the life of this world, wherein the story resembles not merely the _Shepherd of Hermas_ and the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, but the _Tablet of Cebes_ and the _Choice of Herakles_ among the Greeks, and countless moral apologues, Oriental and mediæval.

The Dé Danann chieftains, seated on their crystal thrones beside the marvellous tree and the vat of ale, are an advance upon the Dagda, seated beside his vat of ale and apple-trees, and display the legend in a stage at which it is ready to coalesce with, and give native colour to, the Hebraic imagery of the Throne and its Occupant.

The pleasantly told little apologue of the Fountain of Knowledge and its five streams, which are the five senses, interprets a very primitive Irish legend in the light of a simple but not shallow philosophy.

The Irish heroic tales having passed through the hands of Christian redactors, the question occurs whether we must ascribe to them any ethical element that occurs therein. Although it is hard to pronounce with certainty, where they contain no express reference to the Christian faith, it would be rash, and probably a mistake, to reply in the affirmative in all cases. Certain ethical ideas there must have been in pre-Christian Ireland, and the places and the mode in which we find them are often those in which they might most naturally appear. In the instances referred to, there is nothing inconsistent with a system of ethics far more primitive than that to which the ancient Irish might conceivably have attained. Moreover, there is nothing about the passages in question suggestive of an interpolation; they arise quite naturally out of the narrative, and in one striking instance, that of Segda Saerlabrad, are expressly bound up with the pagan idea of human sacrifice in a manner that no Christian writer could or would have invented. Neither does it seem likely that an ecclesiastical writer who should make such interpolations in the interest of the Christian religion would make no mention of that religion in connection with them. The very tales in question show in what a clumsy and perfunctory manner such interpolations were made, when it was found expedient to bring an ancient legend into agreement with Christian doctrine. Instances of this are furnished by the prophecies of Manannán Mac Lír in the _Voyage of Bran_, and the reference to the Judgment in the Adventures of Connla. The last-named story further contains a prophecy of the coming of the law which shall destroy Druidism and its charms ‘upon the lips of black lying demons.’

As previously mentioned, there exists in these same stories a connection between the Echtra and Imram classes of tales. In several of them the hero departs in his curach in quest of a Wonderland that lies oversea,[125] passing in the course of his voyage through the herds of sea-monsters which beset the heroes of the Imrama, and beholding marvels and visiting enchanted islands entirely similar to those which occur in the latter.

In the Imrama proper we may note in an ascending scale the gradual preponderance of Christian ideas, and the assimilation of the old Irish conception of the Otherworld to a genuine eschatology. Some of them, such as the _Voyage of Bran_, and Cuchulainn’s quest of the sons of Doel Dermait, relate a purely pagan legend, though the clerical redactors have sought to dissociate them from the paganism which was scarcely forgotten in their day by the interpolation of a Christian prophecy, or the like, as in Christian Rome the statues of the Olympian deities were converted into the effigies of Christian saints by the apposition of a nimbus to their heads. Then come a group written from a Christian point of view, and enforcing a lesson in Christian morals, although the framework of the story and most of the episodes are derived from the older literature:[126] such are the Voyages of Maelduin, of the sons of Ua Corra, and of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla. Finally, there are the purely ecclesiastical Imrama, included in the acts of one or other of the saints, of which class the Voyage of St. Brendan is in every way the most important example.

We have been induced somewhat to anticipate the earliest of the Imrama, and to give the greater part of the description of Manannán’s Elysium contained in the Voyage of Bran, in order to present in a single view the different forms in which the Otherworld was conceived by the ancient Irish. The story goes on to relate how, the maiden’s song ended, the branch leapt back again into her hand, and she vanished; but the glamour was on Bran, and he set forth in his curach across the sea. Here he meets Manannán Mac Lír, traversing the sea in his chariot like a veritable Poseidon.[127] The god accosts Bran, and sings to him a song concerning his Elysian realm beyond the sea. His description adds but little to that contained in the maiden’s song; one touch, however, we may note, by reason of its frequent occurrence in subsequent writings. He speaks of a ‘charming delightful game,’ at which the denizens play over their wine, ‘men and gentle women beneath a bush, without sin, without transgression.’ This passage has been accredited to Christian transcribers; however, the remarks previously offered in relation to such interpolations in general would seem to apply to the present case. The very poetical description of the Tír Tairngire contained in this tale, while thoroughly in accord with the more primitive legends, though amplified and drawn by a more masterly hand, is marked by a refinement of imagination and execution more than sufficient to account for the occurrence of the idea in question, without any air of incongruity with the rest of the description.[128] We may add that it seems most unlikely that a Christian scribe would, if he could, introduce a touch of the kind, when he has not found it necessary, in this and other legends where the old Irish conception of the Otherworld has undergone an euhemerising and Christianising process, to delete the episodes of enchanted dúns and islands where the wayfarer is refreshed with delights akin to those of the Mohammedan Paradise.[129] Manannán’s song in the present tale contains a palpable interpolation of the usual kind, in the form of several stanzas prophetic of the coming of Christ.

Another Imram belongs to the Cuchulainn cycle, and in its original form was probably older than any other story of this class that has come down to us, but it is only preserved in a later redaction. Cuchulainn having overcome in battle the king of the Ui Maine, the king put a spell on him that he should know no peace until he had ascertained why the children of Doel Dermait had left their country. Cuchulainn could find no one to tell him this, and became a prey to unrest. At length he had occasion to fight a duel with the king of Alba’s son, whom he vanquished and would have slain, but that the prince begged his life, which Cuchulainn granted him on condition that he would solve the riddle. This the prince could not do himself, but he promised to take Cuchulainn to those who could. Cuchulainn accepted these terms, and embarked on board the prince’s ship with his charioteer Loeg and his comrade Lugaid. They first came to a fair island, wherein was a dún surrounded by a wall of silver and a stockade of bronze upon it. They received a cordial welcome, but upon propounding their question were directed to another island, where dwelt Achtlann, daughter of Doel Dermait and wife of Condla Coel Corrbacc, a kind of marine Enceladus, who used to lie all across his island, and at every breath he drew would send a great wave along the sea with the wind of it. Achtlann guided them to a third island, where two great giants bore joint rule, Corpre Cundail, a kinsman of Doel Dermait, and Eochaid Glas Corpre. The former challenged Cuchulainn to fight, and, being overcome, treated him hospitably, and told him of Doel Dermait’s children, who were held captive in that island by Eochaid. Next day Cuchulainn attacked Eochaid in his ‘Place of Torture,’ the Glenn; but the giant was so tall that Cuchulainn could only reach him by jumping on to the rim of his shield, from which Eochaid kept blowing him off each time. Cuchulainn, however, by dint of one of those gymnastic feats for which he was famous, leapt into the air over the giant and slew him from above. He then released the captives, who straightway bathed in the giant’s blood, and being thus healed of their tortures and sufferings, were enabled to return to their own country. In this story, which assuredly bears small imprint of Christian influences, we probably have the earliest form of that episode of the release of the captives of some giant or wizard, which recurs in the Graal romances, and is one of the most frequent incidents of the romantic tales of chivalry.[130] Its meaning is clear, the release of the dead from the powers of the lower world, a feat which is no less frequently accomplished by different means, in mediæval stories, by a saint or jongleur, according as the scope of the work is religious or comic.

The earliest of the Christian Imrama that we possess is _The Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach_, the composition of which Professor Zimmer refers to the eighth century at latest, though it contains interpolations which Mr. Nutt considers to have been made at the end of the tenth century.[131] It relates a voyage undertaken by Maelduin, a young noble of the Eoghanachta, in order to find the murderer of his father who had been slain by a marauder of Leix. The tale is a remarkably fine one of its kind, and its simple and picturesque prose is by no means improved upon by Tennyson’s poem, the subject of which it suggested. It is long, and contains a great variety of incidents, some of which, it is very possible, may not belong to the original Celtic stock, but may be due to classical sources. Certain it is that a great part of them belong to that class of ‘ferlies’ which old writers used to place in _terræ incognitæ_, and have their analogues in the writings of Herodotus and Aelian, and, Mr. Stokes says, Megasthenes, to whom we may add Lucian and Sinbad. The majority of them, however, are variants, and often developments, of topics common in Irish legend. We must content ourselves with giving a brief summary of those episodes which most illustrate the development of the Otherworld legend in Irish ecclesiastical literature.

As usual, the narrative mainly consists of the visits paid by the wanderer to a number of enchanted islands, which are mostly of the usual Wonderland pattern, though the present description of them contains, in most cases, certain distinctive features of its own. The wanderers are entertained in stately dúns, with walls and palisades of the precious metals or of crystal; they are regaled with magic food; there is the usual Calypso episode, etc. etc. One island is raised above the sea upon a pedestal; in another is a river of fire; one is encompassed with a wall of water; over another a stream rises on one side and descends on the other, forming an arch like a rainbow; upon another is a tall column with a mystical veil depending from it and enshrouding the island,--all of which recall features of the Paradise described in the _Fis Adamnáin_.

Some of the incidents bear a decidedly infernal significance. On one island the voyagers beheld a horse-race, and heard the shouts of the crowd; both jockeys and spectators were demons. It has been suggested that this incident, for which no parallel exists, so far as I am aware, in earlier narratives, may be of Norse origin; possibly it may be one of those loans from classical literature before referred to, and ecclesiastical influences may have depicted in Stygian colouring the pagan Elysium in which departed heroes continue to ply their wonted sports.[132] At the same time, it is possible that the writer may have dealt in a like manner with the sports of Magh Mell, in Manannán’s Elysium, described in the _Imram Bráin_. Of course, the question of foreign importation turns upon the other question, whether horse-races, as well as chariot-races, were known in Ireland at the date when the _Voyage of Maelduin_ was written.

On another island they saw a party of demon smiths forging a mass of glowing metal, which one of them threw after the curach, as Polyphemus threw the rock after Odysseus.[133] On another they came to a huge, hideous mill, and the miller, huge and hideous to match, told them that the grist which he cast into his mill was all things that had been begrudged on earth. This demon miller is rather a favourite symbol in Irish legend, and is not confined to professedly religious compositions. It occurs in the story of Mongán in a slightly different form; in the Voyage of the sons of Ua Corra, who saw all manner of precious things cast into the mill, and the miller told them, ‘I cast into the mouth of the mill all things for which grudging has been made, and ’tis the Miller of Hell I am’; and it survived in local tradition as the _Muilleann Luprachán_ (Pixies’ Mill) near Tuam.[134]

There is something weirdly picturesque in this demon miller who casts into his Mill of Vanities, and grinds down there, all the objects of worldly covetise; the conception reminds us rather curiously of the mystical Wheat-sieve in the carnival hymn of the Florentine Piagnoni, _Il Trionfo del Vaglio_.

In striking contrast to these rude sketches of the infernal realm is a short but vivid episode in which the subjects borrowed from the primitive Elysium are rendered by a master’s hand. One island by which the voyagers passed was surrounded by a wall of fire, which revolved about the island continually. ‘There was an open doorway in the side of that rampart. Now whenever the doorway would come (in its revolution) opposite to them, they used to see (through it) the whole island and all that was therein, and all its indwellers, even human beings, beautiful, abundant, wearing adorned garments, and feasting, with golden vessels in their hands. And the wanderers heard the ale-music. And for a long space were they seeing the marvel they beheld, and they deemed it delightful’ (trans. W. S., _loc. cit._).[135] Never perhaps in sacred or profane literature has a passage of equal brevity portrayed with equal vividness that Celestial Feast which, as fact or symbol, enters into every creed; from the gross delights of that ‘humbler heaven’ which ‘kindly Nature’ has given to the hopes of primitive man, to the imagery wherewith higher creeds seek to picture the indescribable _ben dell’ intelletto_. There is no superfluous detail, and none is needed, but the picture flashes out before the reader’s eye as it did before Maelduin and his crew--that ideal region, cut off from the wanderers by a fiery wall which forbids their access, but grants them a fleeting vision before they pass on their way.

This tale contains a group of incidents which are largely represented in the Acts of the Irish Saints. On one island an old hermit, fifteenth in descent from St. Brenainn of Birr, dwelt beside a lake. Hard by, a great eagle, very old, alighted, bearing in his beak a branch and berries on it. Two other eagles came and picked off the vermin which infested the plumage of the first; they then ate of the berries and cast others into the lake, after which the old eagle plunged into the water, and washed until his youthful vigour returned to him, after which they all flew away. One of Maelduin’s crew bathed in the lake wherein the berries had been cast, and lost neither tooth nor hair, nor suffered from any infirmity until the day of his death. As we have seen, mystical birds abound in Irish descriptions of the Otherworld, but in the present curious episode we can easily recognise the classical legend of the Phœnix. Mr. Nutt well develops this point in the essay to which we have so often had occasion to refer, and gives an interesting parallel in an Anglo-Saxon poem on the Phœnix. For this, and the discussion thereon, we must refer the reader to Mr. Nutt’s work. We may note the very characteristic way in which the Irish writer adapts the foreign incident to the accepted forms of the national literature. The rejuvenescence of the eagle is effected not by fire but by water, which owes its properties to certain berries dropped therein, these evidently belonging to the species which dropped from the quicken-trees--a variant of the hazels of Buan--into the wells where the Salmon of Knowledge consumed them, and thereby acquired his supernatural virtues.

Another island was covered with trees, which were the resort of birds; and here dwelt a man, clad with his own hair. This was a pilgrim from Ireland who had been wrecked on the island, and the birds were his children, with whom he was to abide there till Doomsday.

Another anchorite, likewise clad with his own hair, dwelt upon an island surrounded with a golden rampart, and the ground of the island was white as down.[136] He was fed by a fountain, which ran on Wednesdays and Fridays with whey or water, on Sundays and the feasts of Martyrs with good milk, and on High Days with ale or wine.

On yet another island dwelt a hermit covered with white hair, so that he looked like a white bird. He had been cook at the monastery of Torach, where he used to embezzle and sell the provisions of the community, and hoard the proceeds, until he became exceeding rich, and waxed proud. One day he was bidden bury a peasant; on digging the grave, he was accosted by a corpse already buried on the spot, who forbade him to lay that sinner’s corpse atop of him, a holy man. The cook asked the corpse what boon he would grant him for compliance; the corpse replied, ‘Eternal life’; and the cook found another resting-place for the peasant. Some time later, the cook felt a desire to quit the island, so he set forth in a curach, laden with all his ill-gotten wealth. At sea he was hailed by a man seated upon a wave, who told him that all the air about him was thick with demons, because of his pride and thefts, and bade him fling all his riches into the sea. He obeyed, reserving to himself only a little wooden cup. The man gave him seven cakes and a cupful of whey-water, which the cook carried to a rock, and this was his only food for seven years, after which time he had lived on salmon which an otter had brought him periodically.[137] In the man sitting upon the wave, it is impossible not to recognise an adaptation of Manannán Mac Lír, who drove over the waves in his chariot to meet Bran.

The prevalence of the island-hermit incident in Irish legend is accounted for by the early history of the Irish Church. The pastoral duties and missionary work of the early saints necessitated frequent voyages to the Western Isles of Scotland, to Britain and to Gaul, while that passion for solitude and retirement, which alternated in them with an intense activity in their calling, and even a vehement partizanship in public life, found full gratification on the small islands which fringe the western coasts of Ireland. These islands naturally became the scene of those miracles which in Ireland, as elsewhere, clustered about the names of the saints; but here, as in other things, a strong nationality asserted itself, and recollections of the island Paradise of antiquity entered largely into the legends of the saints, rendering easy the transition from the island retreat to the Paradise where the saints dwelt with Enoch and Elijah, beside the Tree of Life, amid the songs of the bird-souls of the righteous. No doubt a certain number of these wandering saints would be blown out of their course to strange lands, and bring back tidings of the wonders they had actually seen, which would lose nothing in their passage from mouth to mouth. One such case is reported by Adamnán himself, that of one Baitan, who set out with several others in quest of an ocean solitude, but returned after long wanderings.[138]

In the _Voyage of the Curach of the Ua Corra_,[139] the ethical and eschatological element is entirely in the ascendant. Conall Dearg ua Conaill Fhinn, a rich and hospitable noble of Connacht, being discontented at having no children, entered into a compact with the Devil, who undertook that Conall should have children, on condition that they should belong to himself. In due time Conall’s wife bore him triplets, who received ‘heathen baptism’ by the names of Lochan, Einne, and Silvester. These grew up to be mighty men of valour; howbeit, they considered that as they belonged to the Devil, it was hard if they might not harry his enemies. Accordingly, they set themselves to plunder and burn the churches and monasteries of Tuam, and of half Connacht besides. Finally, they proposed to add the last touch to their guilt by murdering the Erenach of Clogher, their mother’s father, and burning his church on him. The better to effect their purpose, they visited the Erenach and partook of his hospitality, and went to sleep, awaiting the coming of night. Then Lochan had a dream, wherein he saw Hell with its four rivers, one of them full of toads, another of serpents, the third running fire, and the fourth ice. He also saw the ‘Piast of Hell,’ ‘and abundance of heads and feet on it,’ ‘the old Dragon’ often appears in Irish sacred legend. He was then taken to Heaven, and saw ‘the Lord Himself on His throne, and bird-flocks of angels making music to Him,’ the sweetest singer of all being Michael, in form of a bird. On waking, he related his vision to his brethren, and they all, moved to repentance, vowed thenceforth to serve God instead of the Devil. Accordingly, ‘they made staves of their spear-shafts,’ instead of beating their spears into pruning-hooks, and betook themselves to St. Finden of Clonard, to whom they made confession. He instructed them in religion for a year and a day, and then bade them go and restore the churches which they had destroyed. This they did; and then, ‘one day when they came forth over the edge of the haven, they were contemplating the sun, as he went past them westwards, and they marvelled much concerning his course. “And in what direction goes the sun,” say they, “when he goes under the sea? And what more wondrous thing,” say they, “than the sea without ice, and ice on every other water?”’[140]

These reflections, so typical of the old Irish attitude towards Nature, although to us they may seem to be more in keeping with the ideas of much more recent times, awoke in the Ui Corra that spirit of wandering, than which, perhaps, no other Leanamhán Sidhe casts more potent spells on man. They got a friend, a wright, to build them a ship, wherein they embarked, with a bishop, a priest, a deacon, a shipwright, a buffoon, and a servant, being nine in all; then, at the bishop’s bidding, they committed themselves to the guidance of the winds.

The incidents of the voyage and the lands they visited resemble those described in the Voyage of Maelduin, several of the islands at which they touched exhibiting the _mise en scène_ of pagan legend, adapted in the usual manner to the Christian drama. Thus on one of these islands they found an orchard of fair, fragrant apple-trees, and a most beautiful river flowing through it; and ‘when the wind would move the tree-tops of the grove, sweeter was their song than any music’ (trans. W. Stokes, _loc. cit._). And the apples and the river, which was of wine, cured all wounds and sickness. Many of the adventures belong to the common stock of wonder voyages; here, as in the Voyage of Maelduin, mention is made of the island uplifted above the sea by a pedestal, whence the voices of the islanders could be heard, but the speakers not seen; of the watery arch, the pillar and net, the demon smiths, etc. On one island flowers were growing as big as tables, dropping honey, and about them beautiful bright bird-flocks were singing. Here dwelt a ‘son of the Church,’ Dega, a disciple of the Apostle Andrew, who had gone on a pilgrimage across the ocean to expiate his having forgotten his nocturn one night; he was awaiting Doomsday on that island, together with the birds, who were the souls of holy human beings.

In these islands, the abode of pilgrims and hermits until Doomsday, we have, in a pagan setting, the limbo of the _boni sed non valde_. A little further on, we come to what is the first incident of a purely Purgatorial nature occurring in this class of literature. One island was divided into two parts--the one part inhabited by the living, the other by the dead. Multitudes were lying there on red-hot flagstones, with red-hot spits through them, howling terribly as a fiery sea sent its billows of flame over them. These were they who had failed to make expiation for their sins on earth, and were tormented in this manner until Doomsday.

The voyagers also perceived flocks of birds rising from out of a river, pursued by eels, otters, and black swans. These were the spirits of the damned, let out of Hell for a day’s respite on Sundays, though they were not allowed to enjoy this boon in peace, for the eels, etc., were demons that kept pursuing them. One of these birds had three beautiful rays on its breast; this was a woman who had forsaken her husband, but had brought him food when sick and in want. This notion that the damned were periodically allowed a day’s holiday[141] was generally accepted by the early Church in Ireland, as elsewhere. Sometimes, as here, this was believed to take place so often as every Sunday; by some, only on the great festivals of the Church, as Christmas Day and Easter. Our author, like several other of the Irish Churchmen, was a strict Sabbatarian, and gives to violations of the Sunday a place disproportionately large, visiting them with a severity that seems excessive. For instance, a solitary rower was rowing with a fiery spade upon a fiery river, the waves of which kept breaking over him; this was a boatman who had plied his trade on Sunday. The lurid picturesqueness of this figure, worthy of Dante, is spoiled by the disproportion between crime and punishment. A horseman bestrode a fiery horse; he had stolen his brother’s horse, and ridden him on a Sunday. There was also a black, smoky giant, carrying an iron staff as big as a mill-shaft, and flakes of fire, as big as fleeces, coming out of his throat. This was no Typhoeus, nor heresiarch, nor conqueror, the scourge of nations, but a man who had carried firewood on a Sunday; for this he now bore on his back a bundle of faggots, the load of six oxen, which would blaze up, ever and anon, when he would fling himself into the sea, ‘but it was increase of pain to him.’

Reference has already been made to the demon miller, grinding the world’s vain riches. One island was peopled by men wailing aloud as they were mangled by the fiery red beaks and talons of sable birds, while their tongues were aflame within their heads; these were dishonest smiths.

Other islands which the Ui Corra visited were variants of the earthly Paradise, being inhabited by pilgrims, solitaries, etc., like those already described.

The _Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla_[142] is equally Christian in conception, and in some respects approximates yet more closely to the eschatology of the _Fis_. The men of Ross, unable to endure the tyranny of Fiacha, their chief, killed him, thereby rendering themselves liable to death. At the instance of St. Colm Cille, this doom was commuted to the old Irish punishment of exposure on the sea; and they were set adrift, sixty couples of them, in as many small boats, ‘for God to judge them.’ It was Snedgus and Mac Ríagla that were sent to bear this sentence to them, and shortly afterwards they embarked on their own account to make a pilgrimage to the East. After visiting several islands of the familiar type, they came to one whereon was a great tree, and many beautiful birds perched thereon. And ‘melodious was the music of those birds, singing psalms and canticles, praising the Lord. For they were the birds of the plain of Heaven, and neither trunk nor leaf of that tree decayed’ (trans. W. Stokes, _loc. cit._). On the top of the tree sat a great bird, with a head of gold and wings of silver, who told of the Creation of the World, of the Nativity, Baptism, Passion, Resurrection, etc.; ‘and he tells tidings of Doom; and then all the birds used to beat their sides with their wings, so that showers of blood dropt out of their sides, for dread of the tidings of Doom’ (_Ibid._).

After which they came to a land where they found the banished men of Ross, who were to abide there until Judgment, for they were guiltless in what they had done; Fiacha having apparently deserved his fate. ‘Good is this island,’ they said, ‘wherein we are, for in it are Elijah and Enoch, and noble is the dwelling wherein is Elijah.’ And they showed the voyagers a lake of water and a lake of fire, which should long since have come over Éire, had not St. Patrick and St. Martin been praying for the land. The travellers asked to see Enoch, but were told that he was ‘in a secret place, until we shall all go to battle on the Day of Judgment.’[143]

We might have expected to find Enoch and Elijah in the Terrestrial Paradise, in company of the bird-flocks, as in other writings, but the construction of the _Imram_ was commonly loose. The introduction of them shows that the fusion of the national traditions with the teaching of the Church was now complete. This is equally apparent in the description of another island, on which they landed: ‘A great lofty island, and all therein was delightful and hallowed. Good was the king that abode in this island, and he was holy and righteous,’ etc. (trans. W. Stokes, _loc. cit._). His dún had one hundred doors; at each door was an altar, and at each altar a priest, celebrating the Eucharist. This king and his dún again remind us of the castle of the Graal.

We have now traced, in outline, the development of the Otherworld theory in Irish legend, from its primitive conception as a Land of Cockayne, presided over by the Dagda, with his inexhaustible ale-vat and ready-roasted pigs, to its identification with the Terrestrial Paradise, though without losing its distinctive features. One step only remained to be taken before the _Imram_, thus modified, should pass beyond the country of its birth, and assume a prominent place in the literature of mediæval Europe. This step was taken in the group of stories--some legendary, others more or less historic, though intermingled with legendary matter--which narrated the voyages of the Irish Saints, or, rather, in that most famous example of its class which purports to give an account of the travels of St. Brendan of Clonfert, surnamed ‘the Voyager.’ So entirely does it surpass all others in popularity and influence, and especially in those circumstances which connect it with our subject, that it may be taken as the representative of its class; as, however, it is later in date of composition than the _Fis Adamnáin_, and even reproduces some passages of the latter, it may be left for a later section.

The authors of the Voyages of the Ui Corra, and of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, had not only given an entirely Christian tone to the _Imram_, but, without abandoning the imagery of the Otherworld handed down by the national traditions, had blent therewith a number of conceptions derived through the medium of the Apocalyptic literature of the early Church from both classical and Hebraistic sources. Further, they prepared the transition from the _Imram_ to the _Fis_.[144]

The Visions of the Saints figure prominently in the hagiology of Ireland as of other countries; not all of them, however, related to the Otherworld, or, in particular, treated the Otherworld as a subject in itself, and not merely as the medium for conveying some moral lesson, or for revealing the fate of an individual. Adamnán, in his _Life of St. Colm Cille_, one of his authentic works, states that the saint was often rewarded with angelic intercourse, and received frequent revelations concerning the fates of the good and of the wicked.[145] However, the most famous of these Visions, with the exception of that of Adamnán, were those of St. Fursa (_c._ 570-_c._ 650 A.D.), which derived additional celebrity from the mention made of them by Bede in his _Ecclesiastical History_.[146]

The exact place of St. Fursa’s birth and race appear to be unknown, though it seems that he was a Munsterman. The principal scene of his early ministrations was the neighbourhood of Loch Orbsen (Corrib), and he afterwards spent some time as a hermit upon an island in the ocean. At a later date he visited England, probably about 633 A.D., as recorded by Bede, and won the favour and respect of Sigebert, King of East Anglia. The monastery of Burghcastle, in Suffolk, was founded under his auspices, and his labours were attended with many conversions among the Saxons. He next passed over to Gaul, where he enjoyed a great reputation, and exercised influence over King Clovis II. In Gaul he founded the monastery of Lagny, and a branch of it at Perronne.

Fursa’s visions of the Otherworld must have appeared to him before his visit to England, probably during the solitude of his ocean retreat. However, he continued to see visions, of one sort or other, during the latter part of his life. Indeed, it is probable that in his case, as in so many others, the visions were largely produced by physical causes--a constitutional tendency, stimulated by special circumstances--for we read that the first of his visions came to him in a trance, during an illness, and the rest after long fasting.

In the first vision, his soul was conveyed out of the body, and ‘he was graced with the sight and the hearing of the praises of the Heavenly Hosts.’ Three days later, he was again taken by three angels, who represented the Trinity, and borne through clouds of hideous, misshapen demons, who attempted to bar his progress, and cast at him showers of fiery arrows, which the leading angel caught on his buckler.[147] On their way they passed by Satan, who raised up his head, like that of a serpent, and argued against Fursa’s acceptance into Eternal Life, by reason of the sins to which he was prone, and among these, chiefly, a vindictive spirit; but although he showed that ‘the Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,’ the angels answered his arguments, and they passed on. Then Fursa, like Scipio in the ‘Dream,’ was bidden to look back upon the world; and it appeared to him as it were a dark valley, and in the air about it four fires were burning. These were the fires that destroy the world; and the first fire was Neglect of the Baptismal Vow to renounce the Devil and his works; the second fire was Covetousness; the third Dissension, and the fourth Injustice. Fursa descried a fire approaching, and was dismayed; but the angel said to him, ‘What thou hast not kindled shall not consume thee’; for the fire tried every one according to his works; and ‘as the body is consumed by self-willed pleasure, so shall the soul burn with everlasting punishment.’ The doctrine is as old as the Rabbis, but the moral lesson is here finely conceived and forcibly conveyed. Seven times more did as many demons in succession attempt to bar Fursa’s progress, contesting his right to admittance with various eristic arguments, supported by texts of Scripture. It is to be remarked that the obstacles which commonly obstruct the hero’s access to the enchanted lands of fable, and often survive in theological adaptations of the subject, have here assumed an aspect almost purely intellectual and spiritual. All objections having been satisfactorily answered by the angels, Fursa found himself surrounded by a great brightness, and saw vast multitudes of angels and saints flying with wings in motion. Among these Fursa recognised several friends, with whom he held converse. He then approached a region of serener air, where the angelic host, disposed in four choirs, were singing the _Tersanctus_. Here he received long instructions in theology and morals, which he was bidden to announce to the princes and prelates of Ireland; he was then conducted back to his body. On the way, a great fire approached in a threatening manner; the angels diverted it, but from out of the midst of it demons shot forth a sinner, aiming him at Fursa. The angels cast him back, but not until he had struck Fursa’s shoulder and burnt it. This was a sinner from whom Fursa had accepted a cloak, while ministering to him on his deathbed.[148]

Another of the Visions of the Irish saints, attributed to St. Laisrén, has been made available for the first time by Professor Kuno Meyer.[149] This Laisrén, he thinks, was probably the most celebrated of the many saints bearing that name, the Abbot of Lethglenn (Leighlin) in the Co. Carlow, who died in the year 638. From the mere fragment that survives, it would seem that the complete Vision must have treated the subject with great fulness, though a part of Laisrén’s visit to Hell is all that is left. It is more in the style of Fursa’s vision than that of Adamnán, though it differs from both in certain respects, notably in the manner of the revelation to the seer of the vision. Laisrén had gone to Cluain Cháin, in Connacht, to purify a church there, and after nine days’ fasting fell asleep. In his sleep he heard a voice say ‘Arise!’ and upon this command being repeated, he raised his head, crossing himself. The church was all lighted up, and between the chancel and the altar stood a shining figure, who said to him, ‘Come towards me!’ At this Laisrén was seized with a trembling, and in some mysterious manner he became aware that his own spirit was parted from the body, and was hovering over his head. The roof of the church then opened, and two angels, taking Laisrén’s soul between them, bore him aloft into the air, where a host of angels received him. Further progress was opposed by three hordes of fiery demons, armed with fiery spears and darts, one of whom preferred against Laisrén a long charge, enumerating all the sins which he had committed since birth, and of which he had failed to make confession; ‘and the demon said nothing that was not true.’ However, ‘an angel of the great host’ succeeded in answering all charges, and dismissed the demons; he then bade Laisrén’s conductors take him to see Hell. The two angels let him down into a glen lying towards the north, which seemed to be as long as from the rising of the sun to his setting. They entered into a pit like a cave between two mountains, and at length came to a lofty black mountain, in the upper part of which was a glen, broad below and narrow above, and this was the porch of Hell. In the midst of the glen Laisrén saw very many of the people of Ireland, wailing; so many that he thought a pestilence must have brought them thither, but the angel explained that ‘whoever is under the displeasure of God after thee, here do they behold (their) souls, and this is their certain fate, unless they repent’ (tr. K. M., _loc. cit._). Laisrén would fain have spoken to them, but the angel forbade it, ‘lest they despair.’ However, he enjoined Laisrén to preach repentance to them, whereby they should escape that evil. ‘And again, he who shall live in righteousness, he sees life while he is in the body, and he shall be in life if he is steadfast in righteousness. Tell them also,’ said the angel, ‘that he who lives in righteousness be steadfast in it, for there is not much time for them to consider, until death comes to them’ (_Ibid._).

They entered into Hell, and saw a wild and billowy sea of fire, and the souls aflame therein, wailing, their heads above the surface. Some had fiery nails through their tongues, others through the ears, or the eyes; others, again, were being driven by demons with fiery forks. Laisrén, asking what these different torments might mean, was told that those with nails through their tongues had been less frequent in worship and praise than in blasphemy, falsehood, prying, and boasting. Here the fragment breaks off.

In his preface to the foregoing work, Professor Meyer appears to anticipate further discoveries in this field of research; however, of all the Irish Visions yet brought to light, the _Fis Adamnáin_ excels the rest in interest and importance even more completely than the Voyage of St. Brendan excels all other members of its own class, and may be regarded as the type of its _genre_, in its most highly developed form.

Before proceeding to examine the contents of that _Fis_, we may glance at two other works by Irish ecclesiastical writers which show that a great part of the imagery and incidents contained alike in the sacred _Imram_ and in the _Fis_ belonged to a common stock of ideas current in the Irish eschatology of that period.

One of these is the _Scél Lái Brátha_ (‘Tidings of Doomsday’), a homily ascribed to ‘Matthew, son of Alphæus,’ which is preserved in the _Lebor na h-Udri_, and was therefore written in the eleventh century at latest.[150] In it occurs the familiar distinction between the _Mali sed non valde_ and the _Mali valde_, both of whom are condemned in their several degrees; the _Boni sed non valde_, who are finally saved by virtue of their almsgiving, and the _Boni valde_, who go direct to Heaven. This classification, though not expressly made in the _Fis Adamnáin_, lies at the root of the scheme of rewards and punishments there set forth. Indeed, Professor Zimmer points out the frequency of this division in works written by Irish authors or under Irish influences.[151] The _Limbus patrum_, the _Limbus infantium_, etc., represent similar attempts of the mediæval theologians to provide for cases which do not seem to them to be adequately dealt with by the broader distinctions. Dante, in effect, adopts an analogous fourfold arrangement; the infernal regions inside and without the City of Dis being allotted to sinners of greater or less degree of guilt, while the system of Purgatory is adapted to the respective cases of the _Boni valde_ and the _Boni sed non valde_ respectively.

In its descriptions of both regions of the Otherworld, the homily presents several points of resemblance to the _Fis Adamnáin_. ‘In no wise pleasant is the path of the sinful; they find not food nor drink, but perpetual hunger, great thirst, and bitter cold. Then they are conducted to the Devil’s house amid the sound of despair and heavy, long-drawn moaning. Piteous are the crying and wailing, the weeping and sighing, the mourning and smiting of hands of the sinners, as they are dragged towards Hell’s torments. But theirs is the weariness of remorse without avail; for their prayer is not heard there, seeing that they had not hearkened aforetime while they were in this life, body and soul dwelling together.’ Here, too, we have the simile of the closing of the locks, which are here threefold: ‘to wit, the closing of Hell upon them through ages everlasting; the closing of their eyes to the world upon which they had set their love; and the closing of the Kingdom of Heaven against them.’ The description of the torments of Hell is copious and varied. Cold, gloomy tracts, abounding in dark, fœtid lakes, alternate with regions of glowing though murky flames,[152] where the sinners stand on red-hot flagstones. Herein swarm monsters of various kinds: adders, toads, cats which rend the damned, demons who torment them and hew them with swords, and, above all, the Piast, the old serpent--‘a strange serpent,’ indeed, for he is depicted with one hundred necks, and one hundred heads on each, and five hundred teeth in every mouth; one hundred arms he has, one hundred hands on every arm, and one hundred claws on every hand.[153]

There is little attempt made to discriminate between the penalties accorded to different kinds of guilt.

Heaven is described in the same rhapsodical style as in the _Fis Adamnáin_, the _Félire Oengusa_, etc.

Another moral treatise is the _Dá Brón Flatha Nime_, ‘The Two Sorrows of the Kingdom of Heaven,’ _i.e._ the two sorrows referred to ch. 33 of the _Fis Adamnáin_. Here, too, Elias is represented as standing in Paradise, the Gospels in his hand, and he preaching to the birds that perch on the Tree of Life, eating its berries.[154]

5. THE FIS ADAMNÁIN

The general plan of the _Fis Adamnáin_ is distinguished from that of the other similar writings that have come down to us by an architectonic character to which they can make no claim. The structure proper to the _Imram_ was, in great measure, that of a framework into which a greater or less number of incidents could be fitted, according to the author’s taste, without impairing the general effect; the same, in a somewhat less degree, may be said of the _Echtra_, which are more nearly akin to the romance of adventure than to the epic. The early Christian writers, again, solely intent upon edification, and being for the most part men of little culture--for this species of composition, after all, was but a by-way of ecclesiastical literature--were usually content to repeat a few topics belonging to the common stock of ideas prevalent in their day, and paid but little heed to literary effect, or even to the clear conception, or orderly presentment, of their subject.[155]

Thus, in the _Fis Adamnáin_, we have the first serious attempt made between the Vision of Enoch and the _Commedia_ of Dante, either to think the subject thoroughly out, or to treat it in a literary spirit: an attempt on the part of the author to construct in his own mind some distinct idea of the Otherworld, and to present his conception to his readers in a coherent form. In some respects, indeed, the construction of it is superior to that of its early predecessor, for, with due allowance made for the topographical minuteness displayed by the author of the Book of Enoch in his reproduction, in the description of Hell, of the details of his model, the _Fis_ manifests a more complete grasp of the subject as a whole, while it gains by the omission of the voluminous discussion of things celestial and sublunary, in which the older writer indulges, and which can only encumber a work conceived with less breadth and executed with less power than Dante, and he alone, has brought to the task.

All the same, it cannot be denied that these architectonic qualities are still at a rudimentary stage, and the very fact that so moderate an exercise of constructive power should suffice to set this work, as a literary achievement, so far above all other precursors of Dante, does but enhance our appreciation of the height at which the stately edifice of his creation towers above all previous efforts.

The structural imperfections of the _Fis Adamnáin_ are enhanced by the appearance of composite design which the work bears in its present form, being apparently made up from two distinct versions, or else having been ‘perfected’ by some redactor by the addition of other matter. The latter explanation seems to us most probable. The first twenty chapters contain a complete and consistent account of the soul’s progress from death to judgment, followed by his relegation to the place which he has merited. It is this part of the work which displays that care for construction already noticed; a great part of the details, whether of native or foreign origin, which had come to be accepted as conventional features of the _Fis_ or sacred _Imram_, is here rejected, and the borrowings from the old romantic literature, though still abundant, are made duly subservient to the general design. This part, moreover, together with the peroration in chapter 32, bears testimony, by way of direct reference and otherwise, to the author’s possession of a greater erudition, and a wider culture, than were evinced by most of those who had treated of the same subject. Thus, apparently, we are entitled to conjecture that chapters 1-20,