its various kinds of trees, shrubs aud grasses, into an army by enchantment, we have a reference, probably in the resurrection effected for the Brythons by Gwydion, to his having secured the Head of Hades' Cauldron of Regeneration, and to its use by Gwydion to resuscitate his fallen friends. Before the poet makes the trees begin to fight, with the alder foremost in the fray, he indulges in some score of lines which are too obscure for me to offer you a translation: this is the more unfortunate as he introduces a woman into his narrative, and her intervention, as I learn from other sources, was probably of the essence of the story. But a more transparent reference to her will be found in the Irish poem which is now to be introduced for comparison with the Welsh one. St. Patrick, trying to convert Loegaire mac Néill, king of Ireland, was told by the latter that he would not believe unless he called up Cúchulainn from the dead: this was done, but the unwilling convert cherished doubts as to his identity, and said that he must speak to him; so Cúchulainn was called up again, and he improved the opportunity to bid the king believe in God and St. Patrick; but, said that curious king, if it be Cúchulainn, let him discourse of his great deeds. I should premise that Cúchulainn was the most celebrated of the heroes known to Irish story, but that he does not correspond exactly to Gwydion, as he combines, roughly speaking, the rôle in Irish story which should answer to that both of Gwydion and of his son Llew in Welsh. But more of this elsewhere: for the present let it suffice to say that Cúchulainn complied with the king's wish, and the poem put into his mouth describes, among other things, his expedition to tho stronghold of Scáth, in the
