Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/86

Rh more in length, and almost two hands in breadth. For their swords are as big as the saunians of other people, and the points of their saunians are larger than those of their swords; some of them are straight, others bowed and bending backwards, so that they not only cut but break the flesh; and when the dart is drawn out, it tears and rends the wound most miserably.

‘These people are of most terrible aspect, and have a dreadful and loud voice. In their converse they are sparing of their words, and speak many things darkly and figuratively. They are high and hyperbolical in trumpeting out their own praises, but speak slightingly and contemptuously of others. They are apt to menace others, self-opinionated, grievously provoking, of sharp wits, and apt to learn.’ Our author then speaks in praise of the poets and bards, and of the harp-playing, by means of which some are praised, and others dispraised; of the veneration paid to the druids and bards, and to soothsayers who prophesy events by augury from the entrails of sacrificial victims, and he notes that oftentimes the philosophers and poets, stepping in between two armies ready to engage in battle, have pacified them, as though wild beasts had been tamed by enchantments (Bk. V. chap. ii.).

Now there is scarcely a phrase in the above description which cannot be amply illustrated and paralleled from Irish writings. How many a scene rushes to the mind of any one at all familiar with ancient Irish romance as we read of the courteous treatment of strangers, who are always entertained before their business is inquired into, be they friends or foes; of the feasts made of whole animals seethed in great caldrons, drawn out and divided among the warriors seated round upon the ground; of the ‘champion’s portion,’ reserved for the best or bravest; of the quick temper which often broke up a friendly banquet and turned it into a scene of rout and bloodshed; of the quieting of a fierce combat by the peaceful words of the poets or of the rousing them to fury by the same poet’s recitations of their own and their ancestors’