The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

62 The Highland Monthly
BOOKS.
LEGENDARY FICTIONS OF THE IRISH CELTS. Collected and
Narrated by Patrick Kennedy. London : Macmillan & Co.
The first edition of Kennedy's " Legendary Fictions of the
Irish Celts" appeared in 1866, and the work has long been
out of print. This second edition will be welcome to all
lovers of folklore, and also to all those that take an interest
in the lore of the Celtic race, whether in Ireland or in
Britain. The book is divided into five parts, dealing with
household stories ; fairy legends ; stories of witches, ghosts,
and fetches ; Ossianic tales ; and legends of the Irish
saints. Many of the stories have analogies among those of
the Highlands. This is especially true of the Ossianic
legends, which form a considerable portion of the book.
THE BODLEIAN FRAGMENT OF CORMAC'S GLOSSARY. By
Whiti.ey Stokes, U.C.L. Philological Society's Transactions.
CORMAC was king-bishop of Cashel at the end of the 9th
century, and was a man of scholarly mind, well versed in
Latin, Greek, and Irish. He compiled a glossary' of rare
Irish words, wherein he also made attempts at etymo-
logy, and recorded some curious beliefs and stories
illustrative of some of the words which he discussed. The
glossary exists only in middle Irish manuscripts, and is not
now as Cormac wrote it. Dr Stokes published the text of
the glossary in 1862, from the Lebar Breac, or Speckled
Book, a MS. of the 14th century. He also published a
translation of it, with additions, in 1868. Pie now publishes
a fragment of it as found in a Bodleian MS. of the
15th century. This fragment contains the latter half of
the original glossary nearly complete. Some of the
articles here discussed are extremely important, such as
that headed MiigJi-eme, where the Scottish invasions of
Britain in Roman and post-Roman times are referred to.
Irish folklore and mythology arc also well represented, for
the fragment commences with the famous Imbass forosnai,
a method of incantaion, whereby a poet, by chewing raw
flesh over which he had muttered a charm, and then sleep-