Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/279

Rh 3066 A.M. But the most curious account of this mythic event occurs in the stories associated with the name of Nennius. The whole paragraph in point is worth citing, as it enumerates briefly the legendary colonizations of Erinn, beginning with the customary Bartholomew, whose name in this connection has always elicited more questions than answers. After him comes Nemed and his race, and then the three sons of the Miles Hispaniae, whence the so-called Milesian Irish; and it is by this race, and not by the children of Nemed that Conaing's Tower was destroyed, according to Nennius. His words are to the following effect:

"Latest of all came the Scotti from the coasts of Spain to Erinn; but the first to come was Partholomaeus, with a thousand followers, both men and women, and they increased to four thousand souls; and a mortality came upon them in which they all perished in one week, so that not even a single one of them remained. The second to come to Erinn was Nimeth, son of a certain Agnomen, who is said to have been on sea for a year and a half, and to have at last made land in Erinn, when his ships had been wrecked: he remained there for many years, but taking again to the sea with his men, he returned to Spain. Afterwards came the three sons of a certain soldier from Spain, having with them thirty keels and their thirty consorts in each keel, and they abode there for the space of one year. Afterwards they beheld a glass tower in the middle of the sea, and they used to see men on the tower, to whom they sought to speak, but they never used to be answered; so with one accord they hastened to attack the tower, with all their keels and all their women, except one keel which suffered