Page:More Celtic Fairy Tales.djvu/261

 Speckled Book, and a shorter one from a sixteenth century MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. A translation of the former version was given by the late W. M. Hennessy in Fraser's Magazine, September, 1873. Prof. Wollner, who contributed to Prof. Meyer's edition an introduction dealing with the story from the standpoint of comparative literature, considers that the later version reproduces the original common source more nearly.

Parallels.—At first sight The Vision seems to picture the Land of Cockayne (on which see Poeschel, Das Mährchen vom Schlaraffenlande, Halle, 1878), but as Prof. Wollner remarks, the Irish form is much more simple and primitive, and represents rather an agricultural conception of a past aurea aetas. The conception of enormous appetite being due to the presence of a voracious animal or demon within the body is widespread among the folk. Prof. Wollner gives numerous parallels, l.c. XLVII.-LIII. The common expression "to wolf one's food" is said to be derived from this conception. On the personification of disease, see Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 148.

I can myself remember a tale somewhat similar to The Vision which I heard from my nurse in Australia, I fancy as a warning against gluttony. She told me of a man, who in swallowing large pieces of food had swallowed a little hairy monster, which grew and grew and grew and caused the man to be eating all day to satisfy his visitors. He was cured by being made to fast, and then a bowl of brandy was brought in front of his mouth into which the hairy thing, attracted by the fumes, jumped and was drowned.

Remarks.—We have here an interesting example of the personification of disease in the form of a demon, of which some examples occur in the Gospels. The rollicking Rabelaisian tone in which the story is told prevents us, however, from attributing any serious belief in the conception by the Irish Monk the author of the tale, who was parodying, according to Prof. Wollner, the Visions of the Saints. Still he would be scarcely likely to use the conception, even for purposes of parody, unless it were current among the folk, and it occurs among them even at the present day. (See Hyde, Beside the Fire, p. 183.)

XXXIII. DREAM OF OWEN O'MULREADY.

Sources.—Kindly translated by Mr. Leland L. Duncan from Gaelic Journal, vol. iv. p. 57 seq.

Parallels.—Croker's Daniel O'Rourke may be compared in part.