ANECDOTA FROM IRISH MSS.
XII.
Translation—continued.
“Ye are welcome!” saith the warrior. “Ye shall have my good. Do ye likewise give me your good, even praying to God for me.” So it is done. They go, and they went round the place of the burial and martyrdom of Peter and Paul. They come again from the East. Then a place is sought to be vacated for them. “There is a small hermitage here. A miserable hermit is in it. Tell him to go out,” saith the king. “I give thanks to God,” saith the hermit. “My earthly king throws me out, and my heavenly king enters. Come in now, O clerics!” “May it be lucky!” saith the cleric. “What do they say?” saith the king. “That it may be lucky for them.” “Out of the land with them!” saith the king. “They are heathen. They shall not drink even the water of the land.” They go thence that day’s journey, till they came to a city there. The bishop, even their leader, was washing his hands in the river on the next morning, when he saw a wooden chest (floating) against the current of the stream towards him. It bounded upwards, so that it was in the bosom of the cleric. “Take this with thee to the king, O lad,” saith the cleric. “I know not what it is that is in it.” Thereupon it is brought to him. It is opened by him, and he saw in it six bars of silver, and a bar of red gold among them. He put them into a scale. There was not the weight of a pig’s bristle (fleshworm ?) in anyone of them beyond another. “Well,” saith he, “let the clerics be called to us.” Thereupon they come. “Well, O clerics, here is the decision of our quarrel. These seven bars here, viz,, the six bars of silver, they are the six days of the week. The bar of gold, that is the Lord’s Day. This is what I see, none of them is heavier than another. Now, this is the meaning of it. As none of these bars is heavier than another, so is none of the days of the week luckier than another. For it is the same king that gave them, and [ 80 ]he did not send evil on any of them more than another. Remain here, O clerics, and ye are good men, only do not talk of luck as long as you are alive.”
Hence it is not right to pursue luck or fortune-telling.
Notes.
ro-bar-bia, there will be to you, 3. sg. fut., with the verbal particle ro (used with future as well as past tenses), and infixed pronoun of the 2. person plural (bar).
atluċur do Dia, gratias ago Deo, Zeuss, p. 438. Atluċur is the deponential form of atluigim, later atluiġim.
aircid = éirgid.
atacomnaic, they are. at-ċomnaic, accidit, with infixed pronoun of the 3. pers. plur. (oa).
comraid, acc. sg. of comra, a chest, coffin. A ċomra órdai, “O golden shrine!” LBr., p. 743.
friged, gen. sg. of frige, cf. friġan .i. guaireċ muc pig’s bristles. Or it may stand for frigde, fleshworm, see Stokes’ Lives of Saints Ind. s. v.
do-s-rat, with infixed pronoun of the 3. pers. plur. (-s-).
it-íb, ye are, cf. isam, I am, isat, thou art.
sénaireċt, augury, from sénaire, a fortune-teller (LL., p. 294b., 22)=W. Swynwr; from sén, W. Swyn, borrowed from Latin signum. Cf. apair fris naċan-erbad i sénaireċt, “tell him not to put his trust in augury,” LL. 294b., 21. draideċt ⁊ genntlideċt ⁊ sénaireċt, LBr. 258b, 81.
Kuno Meyer.
February, 1894.