From primal days, indeed, it was a common thing for British poets to father their own productions upon early celebrities, and even throughout the Middle Ages mythical persons like Thomas Rhymer, as well as real persons like Bede and Thomas à Becket, were represented as the spokesmen of prophecies concocted centuries after they were supposed to, or did actually live. Ancient worthies, moreover, were frequently called up from "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller [ordinarily] returns to convey news to mortals; and, curiously enough, St. Patrick and other saints were made to play a large part in this means of perpetuating pagan lore and giving it credence.* Hymns were attributed to Patrick, as also to Columba, and a vision to Adamnan, which they could not have composed. Patrick was said to have codified the Brehon laws, much as old proverbs were put into the mouth of King Alfred, another lawgiver.

In an old Irish narrative, where " varying " like Blind Harry's is given as the explanation of a hero's ability to authenticate information and prophecy, occurs a good example of a shape-shifter of supernaturally prolonged life who became an informant regarding past days and a credited seer. Tuan Mac Cairill, after one hundred years as a man, is said to have changed his shape many times during

the next three centuries and more. Finally he was caught as a salmon and eaten by Cairell's wife, was born of her, and grew up with a long memory and superhuman insight. When he was of great age, he was baptized by St. Patrick. At the request of the sixth-century Irish saint Finnen of Moville, who preached the gospel in Ulster, Tuan, then a hermit, told the Christians the story of his life and transformations (reciting poems of his own composition) and all the history of Ireland. "There they stay a week conversing together. Every history and every pedigree that is in Ireland, 't is from Tuan, son of Cairell, the origin of that history is. He had conversed with Patrick before them, and had told him; and he had conversed with Colum Cille, and had prophesied to him in the presence of the people of the land."

The Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests,* which contains the Irish ethnologic legends, declares that these were preserved by an early settler Fintan, who had lived before the Flood and had been miraculously preserved in order that the memory of the events should not be lost. He was baptized by St. Patrick and gave him an account of everything he remembered himself.

In the Irish tract called The Champion's Ecstasy,† the faery prince Lug is said to have appeared to Conn of the Hundred Battles (put by the annal

ists at A.D. 177), carried him off in a magic mist to a wonderful abode, and there informed him of the future history of Ireland, the length of his reign, and the names of his successors for many centuries afterwards. Concerning Conn's experience Nutt remarks:* "It is instructive to note how in the early tenth century the personages and scenery of the otherworld were thus used as convenient machinery for the fabrication of a prophecy, which doubtless owed its origin to the anxiety of some Northern poet to bolster up the claim of the race of Niall to the head kingship of Ireland. Instructive also that, whilst the story-teller makes no attempt to radically modify the primitive pagan character of these beings, he is yet anxious to bring them within the Christian fold by representing them as sons of Adam, clear proof that the process of transforming the inmates of the ancient Irish Olympus into historic kings and warriors had already begun."

Here we may also recall how the great hero Cuchulinn, son of Lug, prince of faery," after being nine fifty years in the grave," was awakened by St. Patrick, to help him to convert Laegaire mac Neill, King of Ireland, to the true faith. Laegaire (Leary) would not be persuaded until he heard Cuchulinn tell of his great deeds, amongst others his expedition to Scath, the shadowy world.'

Perhaps more interesting for our purpose is the tradition of the recovery of the Táin bó Cuálgne, the most celebrated epic of ancient Ireland, in which Cuchulinn's deeds are narrated. *"Two different versions of the legend, one pagan and one Christian, exist. According to the first account, which is preserved in the Book of Leinster, Senchan Torpeist, chief poet and filé of Erin about the year 598 A.D., called a meeting of the bards and storytellers of Erin to ascertain whether any of them could recollect the whole of the Táin bó Cuailgne. They confessed that they remembered only fragments, and he then sent away two of their body to the East to seek an old book called The Cuilmenn long since carried away out of Ireland, which was said to contain the whole story of the Táin. Setting forth, the young bards arrive, on their journey, at the grave of Fergus mac Rôich at Magh Aei in Roscommon, and, seating himself on the tomb, one of them addressed to the spirit of Fergus a lay of his own composing. Suddenly he found himself enveloped in a heavy mist, and Fergus himself appeared to him in all his old dignity and splendor, and, during a space of three days, he related to him from beginning to end the Progress of the Táin. According to [the second, or Christianized] version, Fergus appears in response to the prayers of the chief saints of Ireland collected for this pur

pose around his tomb. St. Cieran of Clonmacnoise, who was present at the recital, is said to have written down the tale from beginning to end on a fine vellum manufactured from the skin of his favorite dun cow, hence called the Leabhar na hUidhre, or Book of the Dun Cow. Having offered up thanksgiving, the saints retire, and Fergus returns to his tomb."

A similar contrast between a heathen and a Christian version of a legend of poetic inspiration is present, on the one hand, in the Old Norse story of the shepherd Halbjorn Hali, who waited at the grave of Thorleif until that skald rose and instructed him how to compose a song in his memory, whereafter Halbjorn sang many songs in praise of princes; and, on the other hand, in the Anglo-Saxon story of the herdsman Cædmon, who was instructed by an angel how to compose a song of Creation, whereafter he dictated various Biblical narratives in the monastery of Whitby, as Bede relates. Cædmon is still reputed the first of AngloSaxon poets, though he has now been shorn of all the various epics with which he was once credited.

We can see better why Blind Harry was represented as the author of a poem dealing with events that occurred some two hundred years before when we recognize that it was a persistent habit of Celtic story-tellers to state that mortal visitors to faery