than once in the Ashburnham manuscript just alluded to, in the sense of betrothing one's daughter, or giving her away by solemn contract to a husband;[1] and lastly, a participial form nassa occurs of a girl who has been promised or betrothed to a husband.[2] These facts, and the curious allusion to Lug's wedding the kingdom, go to prove that the term Lug-nassad originally meant Lug's wedding or marriage, and that this was one of the chief things the festivities on that day were meant to call to mind.
We have traces of this idea in a strange story[3] to which allusion has already been made (p. 205). Conn the Hundred-fighter and his druid were one day over-
- ↑ Fol. 83b: arnaisai sede uile do feraib remibsium, 'he had betrothed all these to husbands before them;' and further on—arnais iarum Forgall ann ingin don ri, 'Forgall then betrothed the girl to the king.'
- ↑ See the Bk. of Leinster, 92a: Ba nassa damsa indingen út uair chéin, 'that girl has been betrothed to me long ago.'
- ↑ Edited with a translation in O'Curry's MS. Mat. pp. 618-22, from the British Museum MS. Harl. 5280.
sanction, in a verse in the Book of the Dun, 118b, which treats the death of Loegaire Mac Néill as a punishment for his violating an oath he had sworn by the sun and the moon and the elements:
"Loegaire mac Néill died beside Casse—green is the land;
God's elements by him pledged brought the encounter of death on
the king:
In the battle of Ath Dara the Swift was Loegaire taken, son of Niall;
The just sanction of God's elements, that is what killed Loegaire."
The tract in which it occurs has recently been published by the Rev. Charles Plummer in the Rev. Celt. vi. 163. A different version, in which the word in question does not occur, is to be found in the Bk. of Leinster, 43a (see also Atkinson's Introduction, p. 23). In these words the original meaning of a tying or binding is involved, but it has added to it the idea of what makes the obligation effective or avenges the violation of it.
