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hymn was composed. Here is one that closely approaches to the form of the Lorica of Patrick :
" Between us and the Fairy Hosts,
Between us and the Hosts of the Wind, Between us and the drowning water, Between us and heavy temptation, Between us and the shame of the world, Between us and the death of captivity."
These charms should be compared with the very similar
- ranns ' collected by Dr. Alexander Carmichael, on the
Western Coasts of Scotland, and published by him in Carmina Gadelica.
Brigit (or Breed, as the name is pronounced in Gaelic), plays, next to the Virgin Mary, the largest part in the house- hold charms. She is represented as occupying the middle of the house near the hearth, while Mary is aloft on the top; there is little doubt that her name, which Dr. Hyde interprets as meaning fiery-arrow " {breoshaigit), and her position as presiding genius of the hearth, pass back beyond the Saint, whose "Virgin's fire" at her monastery of Kildare was never allowed to go out, to the pagan goddess of wisdom from whom many of her virtues and attributes are actually derived. Her wide-spreading mantle which, according to a legend preserved in an ancient church hymn, she once hung out to dry upon a sunbeam after herding sheep in the rain, plays a part in some of these charms. We may note that the English version of the " White Paternoster," which has so very un-English a sound :
" Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head, etc.,"
occurs also in Ireland (vol. ii., pp. 49 and 217).
Though parts of these volumes are unpleasant, and stories are preserved that might perhaps just as well have been for- gotten, they are, taking them altogether, a most singular record of a people whose credulity, or shall we say whose piety, seems to be in a stage hardly removed from that of the lowest superstition of the middle ages. A trace of shrewd humour and common-sense and an occasional touch of fine
