Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/192

 CH. XI.] monk—who he was we cannot tell: and in this the old writer glosses or explains many Latin words by corresponding Irish words. Among others the Latin interjection ei or hei (meaning ho! quick! come on) is explained by upp or hupp (Zeuss).

Before Christianity had widely spread in Ireland, the pagans had a numerous pantheon of gods and goddesses, one of which was Badb [bibe], a terrible war-fury. Her name is pronounced Bibe or Bybe, and in this form it is still preserved all over Cork and round about, not indeed for a war-fury, but for what—in the opinion of some people—is nearly as bad, a scolding woman. (For Badb and all the other pagan Irish gods and goddesses, see my 'Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland,' chap. v.)

From the earliest times in Ireland animals were classified with regard to grazing; and the classification is recognised and fully laid down in the Brehon Law. The legal classification was this:—two geese are equivalent to a sheep; two sheep to a dairt or one-year-old heifer; two dairts to one colpach or collop (as it is now called) or two-year-old heifer; two collops to one cow. Suppose a man had a right to graze a certain number of cows on a common (i.e. pasture land not belonging to individuals but common to all the people of the place collectively); he might turn out the exact number of cows or the equivalent of any other animals he pleased, so long as the total did not exceed the total amount of his privilege.

In many parts of Ireland this system almost exactly as described above is kept up to this day, the collop being taken as the unit: it was universal in my native place sixty years ago; and in a way it exists