Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/322

 3^4 Kit^w Meyer.

There is nothing Hke this either in the Ir. Mir. or in Giraldus. But we may compare the story about the grave of the jester Mac Rustaing at Russagh, which no woman can see without laughing or breaking wind (Ir. Mir. p. 201 = Felire, p. cxlv) ; and the story of the talking head of Donnb6 in Three Fragments., p. 45. Clepcrn I take to be miswritten for Ckssd}i^ a hypocoristic form of some name the first part of which was cless, ' feat, trick,' an appropriate name for a jester,

I do not know any more things in this land that seem suitable to me to speak about any longer."

Having thus said all he has to say about Ireland, our author goes on to speak of Greenland, the natural pheno- mena to be seen there, its sea-monsters, climatic conditions, the northern light, etc. Then ends the first part of the book. The second part deals entirely with questions of manners and morality, mostly with reference to kings and court life, and with various religious and scholastic problems, and does not concern us here. In this second part the story of Tara's desertion is told once more, but without the addition of any new features.

It will hardly be necessary for me to show at greater length that the idea of our author having used either Giraldus or a version of the Irish Mirabilia cannot be entertained. The Norse account hardly ever tallies with either of them ; it sometimes agrees with Irish native accounts against Giraldus, and it contains several stories to be found neither in Giraldus nor in the Mirabilia, but known to us from other Irish sources. It might be argued, of course, that our author drew from some other source, not now accessible to us, but I do not think that his narrative anywhere contains the slightest indication of dependence on any authority except that of oral and local tradition. However, the most conclusive evidence as to this being our author's source remains yet to be mentioned. It is that offered by the shape in which the Irish names of places and persons appear. These names, though more or