Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/476

 434 Tf^^ Ancie7it HyDin- Charms of Ireland.

Much on the end be mused by us, And Death be blessed found by us,

With angels' music heard by us,

And God's high praises sung to us, For ever and for aye." ^^

I would now take the passage in St. Patrick's Lorica which we have hitherto passed over.

" Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me, Christ in lying down, Christ in silting, Christ in rising up, Christ in the heart of every person who may think of me, Christ in the mouth of every one who may speak to me Christ in every eye that may look on nie ! Christ in every ear that may hear me ! "

and compare it with a similar passage in the Lorica ascribed to Mugron, Abbot of lona, in the tenth century, which shows either that he copied directly from St. Patrick's Lorica or, as is more probable, adopted a widely familiar form of phraseology : —

" The Cross of Christ with me in my good luck, in my bad luck ;

The Cross of Christ against every strife, abroad and at home ;

The Cross of Christ in the East with courage, the Cross of Christ in the West at sunset ;

South and North without any stay, the Cross of Christ with- out any delay ;

The Cross of Christ above towards the clear sky, the Cross of Christ below towards earth.

There shall come no evil nor suffering to my body or to my soul,

The Cross of Christ at my sitting, the Cross of Christ at my lying ;

2^ Hyde, Religious Songs of Connacht, vol. ii., pp. 12-13. For similar Irish charms see Lady Wilde, Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland, pp. 9-51; for Scottish charms see Wm. Mackenzie's "Gaelic Incantations, Charms, and Blessings of the Hebrides," Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, March 1892.