Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/264

 2 28 Reviews.

accounts, two of which at least, vouched for by twelfth-century MSS., are obvious efforts to bring an existing story into accord with what the scribe knew of Roman history in the time of Christ. As it stands, the story falls into two parts : the wound- ing of Conchobor by the Connaught champion Get with the brain-ball of the Leinster chief Mesgegra, in consequence of which he remained for seven years in a state of invalidism ; his death when, angered at the tidings of Christ's crucifixion, he neglects the physician's warning, exerts himself violently, the brain-ball starts from his head, and he dies. Now one of the latest of the MSS. containing the story has preserved a poem by Cinaed ua Hartacan (who died in 975), which gives the history of the Mesgegra brain-ball. After Conchobor's death it seems to have remained hidden until its existence was revealed by the King of Heaven to Buite mac Brohaig, abbot of Monasterboice (who died circa 520). "Since Bute with grace of fame has slept upon thee (i.e. the brain-ball) without treachery, the hosts have eagerly humbled themselves, until thou changedst colour, O stone," says the poet. Now Cinaed's verses (dating as they must do from the tenth century) presuppose the story as it is found in the Book of Leinster (twelfth century) and later MSS., but, obscure and tortuously allusive as they are, are quite incapable of having originated it. They alone, however, enable us to divine its genesis and development. Early in the sixth century a stone, hallowed by traditional association with the famous Ulster king, was annexed by a partisan of the new faith, and thereafter acquired fresh virtue and credit. Con- cerning the king there was a tradition of a seven years' death-in-life trance, a theme found elsewhere in Irish tradition, e.g. in connection with Nuada of the silver hand and with Cuchullin, and undoubtedly in my opinion of mythical signifi- cance and origin. Some coalescence of the two stories took place, and, the Christianisation of Bute's aforetime pagan stone combining with the desire to preserve Conchobor from the fate to which a purely Pagan king would be liable, the existing story arose and grew. But, it may be asked, how could Mesgegra's brain-ball, an object that could be slung from a sling, and obtain lodgment in a mortal skull, an object no