Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/395

 Correspondence. 355

" Two cadhlas (goats) from Sith Gabhran, Two pigs of the pigs of MacLir, A ram and ewe both round and red I brought with me from Aengus. I brought with me a stallion and a mare From the beautiful stud of Manannan, A bull and a white cow from Druim Cain, Which were presented to myself by Muirn Manchain."

Here we see that " wild oxen " does not imply white oxen, and that white cattle were domesticated, being classed among other domestic animals and considered of very high value, for with the white bull and cow the poem ends, and the reciter's greatest achievement is thus recorded, while attention is drawn markedly to the circumstance that these animals were presented by, we suppose, their breeder.

Though this Irish poem and the Welsh story quoted are the only "lore" known to me, yet many more will be known to folk- lorists and others interested ; so that I shall be obliged for further references. Such references in early poems, tales, &c., may either point to the use and value of white cattle specially or to the colour of cattle that were wild and were hunted and slain.

Coming now to the days when the Church was a great if not the dominant factor in the land, I have read that herds of white cattle were kept by abbots and other dignitaries, as their meat was considered the best. This may be alluded to in some place- rhymes ; if so, I shall be glad to be favoured with them, A single reference which I had to white cattle, called white wild bulls, kept in the park of an abbey for their " sweetnesse " of flesh, I have unfortunately lost, though I have a reference to a banquet given on the ordination of an archbishop which shows that besides beef there was also provided the meat of white oxen. But white bulls were necessary for some of the ceremonies of the Church. Leases exist which show that the tenants of the church- lands attached to the church of the shrine of Bury St. Edmunds were bound to breed and provide as many white bulls as might be required for the ceremony which took place when barren women visited the shrine to be relieved of their sterility. The wording of the leases that exist show that the tenants were bound to supply these white bulls, because it was customary and had been done for an exceedingly long time. A part of the ceremony was, it seems, that the woman (and we are told that the fame of

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