Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/445

 Reviews. 403

the Ancients " and the " Borohme," — that, in the time of Finn MacCumhaill, one of his followers, who hailed from identically the same district, Ross Broc in Leinster, was named Moiling luath or " the Swift," on account of his athletic powers. It is evident that the Saint's cognomen is a corruption of that of his pagan predecessor, and that the characteristic quality of the one has been transferred to the other. But this is not all. The district of the pagan Moiling luath was remarkable for a cascade which afforded relief to every disease, while the life of St. Moiling specially associates him with the perambulation of this same watercourse, to which in his time and up to the fourteenth century or later the afflicted people of the surrounding country continued to resort for the cure of various ailments. Again, both the pagan and the Christian Moiling were closely concerned with the remission of the heavy Leinster tribute known as The Borohme or "The Tribute"/^?- excellence, and it is allowable to hope that, if there ever existed an actual St. Moiling, (which we are sometimes tempted to doubt), some of the discreditable stories about this incident, as well as other wild tales told of him, have really been derived from the more ancient cycle of legends belonging to the pagan hero of the place. It seems likely that the confusions in St. Molling's genealogies arise out of the same cause. That a connection between the two Mollings was generally recognised is shown in the fact that Finn is said to have prophesied the coming of the saint while he was in the company of Moiling luath^ and on the very spot associated with both the namesakes.^

If we possessed a similar connecting link between St. Brigit and her great pagan prototype, the Triune Goddess of Wisdom or Poetry, Medicine, and Smithcraft, from whom she has evidently derived her fire attributes, we should no doubt find that the transition was equally simple; unfortunately, no evidence seems to be forthcoming to show that the cult of this goddess, (which seems to have been one of the most widespread Celtic pagan observances), was especially connected with Kildare, the settle- ment of the Christian Brigit ; that is, if we except the perpetual

^Lat. Life, vol. ii., pp. 193-194; Introduction, pp. Ixxxi.-lxxxii., and Notes; cf. Silva Gadelica,vo\. i., pp. 152-3, 364-6; vol. ii., 168-169, 405-406.