Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/29

 Rh Doss he began law, learnt twenty more difficult poems and ten more tales. As Cana, in his fifth year, he went on with his grammar and learnt ten more tales. As Cli, in his sixth year, he learnt forty-eight poems and ten tales, and began to study the difficulties of the oldest Irish poetry. He now became Anradh (something like a Master of Arts) and was qualified as a Bard or ordinary poet. For three years he learnt poetry, acquired old Gaelic, and had to compose in various difficult metres and to learn one hundred and five tales. For his last three years he was studying to be received as Ollamh (equivalent to our Doctor's degree), and to be known as File (a poet), or Eces (a learned man). He had now mastered a hundred poems of the highest class, and 175 tales (making 350 in all) which he was prepared to repeat accurately at the call of his audience. The degree was conferred by the king on the report of the examining doctor. The Ollamh thus knew poetry, history, law, and the older language, which had now passed into another stage and was rapidly becoming unintelligible. He had learnt the geography, history, and mythology of his native land. He had acquired great privileges, the musical branch corresponding to his degree, of gold as Doctor, of silver as Master, and of bronze for the lower grades. He was entitled to carry the riding whip of state, to wear white garments, and a mantle (in the case of a chief poet) made of birds feathers, white and partly coloured from the girdle down, and upward green-blue, made from the necks and crests of drakes; a very old-fashioned species of honorary clothing. He had a right to entertainment and guerdon, and even as anradh had a train of twelve persons, and rode on horseback. At the banquet the head poet's portion was the haunch. His worth-fine was that of a king or bishop, he was free from all taxation, he was believed to possess many of the supernatural powers the Druid or magus had possessed. His satire could bring out black, red, or white blisters on the face of his victim. His poetic