NOTES.
determines not to lose sight of her, but when the hour arrives she disappears, leaving behind her in her hurry one of her golden slippers. Prince keeps it, and proclaims throughout the country that he will wed whomsoever the slipper will fit. Every woman in the land comes to try, but only one can wear it, and she has had her big toe cut off. One day a pet bird of the prince's begins to sing, and twice repeats : " There is a bonny girl In that town o'er." They send over for that bonny girl, and the slipper fits her exactly. So the king's son marries the sheep's daughter, and they live happy ever after. Mr. Nutt sends me the following particulars of two Irish stories, to which he attaches some importance in connection with the present study. They are found in Mr. O'Grady's recently published Silva Gaedelica. The first (op. Y., vol. ii, p. 368) is of Eochaidh Mughmedoin's sons. Eochaidh was king of Ireland in the fourth century, and had four sons by his queen, Mongfhionn (the Long-fair-haired One), and one, Niall, by a captive Saxon princess, Cairenn. Before the birth of Niall his mother was kept in a position of great hardship by the queen, who made her draw well-water for all the household. Niall was born in the dog-kennel, but became ultimately the chief of his brethren. He is later on the hero of a transformed-hag story. This story is from the Book of Ballyrnote, a I4th century MS., but it was probably redacted in the early nth century, as it refers in contemporary wise to a personage of the late loth century. The second story (pp. cit., ii, 428) is about Raghallach, the seventh century king of Connaught, of whom it was foretold that he should be slain by his own offspring. Accordingly, when his queen bears a child, she gives it to a swine- herd to kill, but he takes pity on the child, and puts her with a recluse. She grows up to be the fairest maid in Ireland. Raghallach, hearing tell of her, and not knowing her to be his own daughter, seeks her to wife. Mairenn (the queen) runs away ; the saints of Ireland fast upon Raghallach (an archaic touch ; "fasting upon" was, in Aryan Ireland, as in Aryan India, the recognised legal method of bringing an offender to book) and he is killed by churls in a chance brawl (i.e., the most disgraceful form of death for an Irish king) whilst stag- hunting. The MS. in which this story is found is of the i5th century, and the story is imbedded in annals which cannot be earlier than the end of the ninth century. It probably belongs to the nth or I2th century. Printed by CHAS. J. CLARK, 4, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.
