Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/76

 66 The European Sky -God.

drowning of Conaing, son of Aidan, is thus commemorated by Bimudine, a poet apparently resident at Bili Tortan —

'The resplendent billows of the sea. The sun that raised them, My grief, the pale storms Against Conang with his army ; The woman of the fair locks Was in the curach with Conang : Lamentation for mirth with us This day at Bili Tortan.'1

The remaining bile of the Dinnsenchus is in some respects the most interesting of the series. Like the oak of Mugna and the ashes of Dathe and Tortu, it was first seen in the time of the sons of Ugaine.2 We read of it : ' The Tree of Ross is a yew. North-east as far as Druim Bairr it fell, as Druim Suithe (a poet named ' The Ridge of Science ') sang —

Tree of Ross, a king's wheel, a prince's right, a wave's noise, 5 best of creatures, a straight firm tree, a firm-strong god, door (?) of heaven, strength of a building, 10 the good of a crew, a word-pure man, full-great bounty, the Trinity's mighty one, a measure's house (?), 15 a mother's good, Mary's Son, a fruitful sea, beauty's honour, a mind's lord, 20 diadem of angels, shout of the world, Banba's renown, might of victory, judgment of origin, 25 judicial doom, faggot (?) of sages, noblest of trees, glory of Leinster, dearest of bushes, 30 a bear's (?) defence, vigour of life, spell of knowledge, Tree of Ross !'

Dr. Stokes says that this remarkable rhapsody ' seems a string of kennings, which in Irish, as in Scandinavian, poetry, took the place of similes. It once perhaps had

1 Skene Chronicles of the Picts and Scots p. 69. 2 Whitley Stokes ' The Rennes Dindsenchas ' in the Revue celtique xv. 445.