curse performed in heathen fashion, with one foot, one hand, one eye, and one breath, could cause death. He was an augur and could interpret dreams and find lucky days. He could hide his clients from their foes under magic fogs or by means of shape-changing. He could make a lethe-drink, could raise the elements, and by his magic wisp, the dlui fulle, he could cause insanity or idiocy.[1] The privileges of the poets were so great, and such full advantage was taken of them, that they were twice publicly attacked, and only saved by powerful intercession. Public banquets were made in honour of the poets as late as 1451, and their circuits were continual sources of easy emolument. There was every encouragement for a man of good birth, fine wit, to enter the Ollamh's school, and become historian, poet, tale-teller, or judge, to his clan.[2] For from the ranks of trained scholars the hereditary poets and judges (brehons) were chosen. Remnants of this organisation went on to the beginning of the seventeenth century, when it passed away after at least 1800 years of existence from the days of Cæsar to those of James II. The oral teaching in the little dark huts of the scholars that flocked from various quarters, the system of memorising vast masses of verse and prose, dealing with various natural and human phenomena deemed of the highest importance, the privileges of the doctors and the generous maintenance of the scholars, were alike under
- ↑ It is curious but not at all wonderful that much of the reverence and awe felt for the magus in Ireland has descended upon the priest, who is firmly believed to "know the word" and to be able to make anyone he wishes to afflict insane, or paralytic or epileptic, or to "change" him. And this fear of the priest's anger and secret powers is no small element in the veneration and obedience he unquestionably gets. In mid England I know of a case in which a village wizard was believed to be able to cause the falling sickness, and have heard an instance of his power and the way it might be defeated.
- ↑ It was not till the days of the high-king Concobhar Mac Nessa, at the beginning of the Christian era, that the office of poet no longer of necessity carried with it the position of brehon or judge, in consequence of the obscure pleadings of Fercertné and Neidé when they contende for the office of High Ollamh of Erin, before the kings of Ireland.
