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The Isle of Man. 169
Ho kci)t tlic l.incls uiidor mists by liis necromancy :
if In- dreaded
an enemy, lie would of ano 'nan cause, to seem one hundred, and
tliat by art mati;ie." Tradition furtlier allirms that the mai^dcian
Mannan and his followers were expelled from the island on tlie
arrival of St Patrick. But this tradition is inconsistent with a
custom still obseived at Midsunnncr, on the eve of St John the
Baptist, when people carry green rushes and meadow grass to the
top of Barrule, one of the highest njountains in Man, in payment
of rent to Manninan-beg-mac-y-Lear. The name of this high hill
is descriptive of its shape, for, in its Manx form— " Baare-ooyl "
it signifies "the top of an ap})le." In the strange poem gathered
into his collection by (he Dean of Lismore, which describes how
Caoilte redeemed Fionn froni King Cormac's prison by bringing
that monarch a rabble of animals, are mentioned.
And again
Da mhuc mhucaibh I\Ihic Lir."
" Tugas learn each agus lathair
De irhreidh mhaiseach Mhananain."
The Dean ascribes the authorship of the poem to Caoilte Mac
Ronain himself. We may therefore conclude that, in the form in
which he got it, it must have been floating about at least a hundred
and fifty years before 1512, when the collection of songs was
finished. The Dean belonged to a priestly and literary family
whose continued memory for five generations would have prevented
him from attributing to a Fingalian hero an ur-sgeul ballad made
near his own time. But Ewen M'Comic, the Baron of Dail
Ardconaig, was the Dean's contemporary, and, being sick for a
long time, the baron made a song, in which he mentioned the
many wonderful things he would give, if he only had them, to
[lurchase good health. Among the ransom oft'erings lie mentions
" Greidh is aidlire Mhananain."
The herds and flocks of Mananan.
Mananan's father became Shakcsi)eare's " King Lear." The Manx
people call their island " Elian Mhannin." Julius Csesar, fifty
years before the Christian era, heard of it under the name of
" Mona." Tacitus, on the other hand, writing near the end of
the first century of the Chi'istian era, calls Angelsea "Mona."
This Welsh Mona was the great university of Druidic theology
and learning when the Roman commandei-, Sentonius Paulinus,
invaded it, a.d. 61, and killed the Druid priests and professors,
and cut down the sacred groves. But there is reason to believe,
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