Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/463

 The Ancient Hymn-Charms of Ireland. 421

A similar blessing is ascribed to the recitation of a Latin hymn of St. ^Engus mac Tipraite (i*745) to St. Martin, which was a " protection or charm against every disease, and secured heaven for reciting it on lying down and rising up," besides ensuring to a person who recited it before visiting a prince or a synod personal reverence and respect.

Two hymns of extraordinary richness and melody, — viz., that ascribed to S. Cuchuimne (■(•746.?), " Hymn to the Virgin," and that of St. Colman Mac Murchon, Abbot of Moville, (i*73i) in praise of St. Michael, — have also the character of personal charms, here intended solely for the benefit of the composers. The object of the former was, (as we learn from the preface), to free him from the evil life he was leading, or to smooth the difficulties of his studies ; while the latter was composed, according to the guess of the writer, for the relief of the three sons of Murchu of Connaught, a bishop and two priests, who were making pilgrimage across the Ictian Sea {i.e. the English Channel) and who were overtaken by a tempest and thrown upon an island, where a great famine fell upon them. St. Michael was the special guardian of the Irish against disease, and was, in general, regarded by the Celts as a protector against demons of all kinds. In an Irish tract we read, — " the three hostages that were taken on behalf of the Lord for warding off every disease from the Irish are Peter the Apostle, Mary the Virgin, and Michael the Archangel."^ The idea that these three august personages were held in hostage by the Deity for the safety of the people is peculiarly Irish. These two hymns, though written in Latin, are specimens of mediaeval Irish verse at its best and richest. All the intricate, native-born systems of rhyme, correspondence, assonance, and alliteration are brought to bear to produce poems of that luxurious and gorgeous quality which Ireland alone produced at this period, and which was, in the com- bination of its features and the care bestowed upon it,


 * Second Vision of Adamnan," ed. Stokes, Rev. Celt. vol. xii., sec. 19.