work his destruction. He crossed that 'bridge of dread,' however, in spite of them, and found himself in Scáthach's Isle; there were more obstacles to be overcome before reaching Scáthach's abode, but he surmounted them also, including a bridge that was low at both ends, high in the middle, and so constructed that, when a man stepped on the one end, the other end would rise aloft, and he would be thrown down. He was received with surprise by Scáthach, and with ardent love by her daughter Uathach, who instructed him how to force her mother to teach him. There is a general similarity between this journey and the voyage which Cúchulainn undertook in quest of the sons of Doel Dermait, a story now familiar to you; and the parallel extends even to the internal affairs of Scáthach's country. We read that Scáthach was challenged to battle by another queen of Hades named Aife, and sometimes called Scáthach's daughter. The fighting took place in part on the cord over the Perilous Glen,[1] and Cúchulainn duels on it with Aife, and succeeds in carrying her away to Scáthach's camp, where she is compelled to give hostages to Scáthach. Now Scáthach's abode was the land of death; and the accesses to it are variously described.
But before proceeding further, let us recur for a moment
- ↑ The Irish name is glenn ngaibthech, which appears also in the Vision of Adamnan (Windisch's Irische Texte, p. 185), as does also the Vicious Bridge (ib. p. 184), but placed across the Glen, and called droichet analta, or Cliff Bridge, which O'Curry (ij. 309), influenced probably by a slightly different reading, calls the Bridge of the Pupils. I mention these as instances of Irish mythology worked into the religious tales of the converted Irish. The idea of future punishment is introduced, and hell-fire liberally borrowed from Christian sources, but the pagan geography of Hades remains little changed.
