Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/310

 302 ' Kuno Meyer.

there are many things in it that must seem wonderful, and for some of these the land must be called holier than other lands.

2. It lies in that part of the world where both heat and cold are so well tempered that it never grows too hot nor too cold there. There is never too much heat there to be harmful in summer, nor too much cold to be harmful in winter, so that in every winter -all cattle graze outside, both sheep and neat ; and men are there almost without clothes both winter and summer.

3. Again, that land is so holy beyond other lands, that no venomous creature may thrive therein, neither snakes nor toads, and though such be carried thither from other lands, they die at once as soon as they touch the bare earth or stone. And if anything be taken out of that land, either wood or earth or sand, and carried into other lands where venomous creatures are, and if with that sand or earth a ring be formed around them where they lie, then they never after come out of that ring, but lie therein all dead. Likewise, if you take wood which comes out of the land about which we now speak, and draw it in a circle around them, so that you mark the earth with the wood, then they all lie dead within that ring.

Ir. Nenn. p. 219: 'There live no toads nor snakes nor dragons^ in all Ireland, and even though they be brought from other places into it, they die immediately ; and this has been tested. Except the mouse, the wolf, and the fox, there has not been, and there shall not be any noxious animal in it.' Cf. also Stokes, Trip. Life, p. xxix. This freedom from venomous creatures is now popularly ascribed to the prayers of St. Patrick. None of his biographies, however, except that of Jocelin (a.d. 1120), mention such an incident, nor have 1 ever found it mendoned in other native sources. It is probable that the expulsion of venomous creatures from Ireland was first ascribed to St. Patrick by the

1 Todd omits no dracoin in his Irish text, and ' nor dragons' in his translation.