at what ceremonies or state occasions the above oath was used. Another peculiar form of oath was the one which was taken at the grave of the affirm ant's dearest relation. The writer has been unable to learn the origin of this oath, but is strongly of the opinion that it is of pagan origin. In O'Clery's "Annals of the Four Mas ters," we find that Ugaine Mor, before his death, anno mundi 4606, exacted oaths, by all the elements visible and invisible, from the men of Erin in general that they would never contend for the sovereignty of Erin with his children or his race." Oaths in Ireland have invariably been of two kinds, the judicial and extra judicial. In the judicial oath the affirmant invokes the pains and penalties of perjury in case he speaks falsely; in the extra-judicial oath, the affirmant invokes the Divine vengeance in case he speaks falsely. A man taking a false extra-judicial oath does not incur the pains and penalties of perjury: he commits a sacri lege, and stamps himself as a moral de linquent. Oaths have been universally respected in Ireland. In no country in the world is an informer more abhorred and detested. How can language in its poverty paint the wretch who "takes his perfidy to Heaven and seeks to make an accomplice of his God. From the day when Judas, that distinguished informer of antiquity, seized with remorse, threw away his blood-money, and hanged himself, in formers have been universally loathed and despised." The Celtic mind has always had a distinc tive leaning towards the mystical and the supernatural, and the various ruins of raths
and cromlechs are manifest evidences of the religious observances of the Druidical priests, who were a powerful influence in the days of old. A people who dwelt in this " ultima thule" of Horace, and were imbued with such an intense religious fervor, must have had a regular system of religious oaths as well as civil. Long before the English system of juris prudence had been formed from the inchoate mass of early legal maxims, we find a com plete system of legal ethics in early Ireland, and this also shows that the judicial oath was known and observed there. The cultured Greek writers spoke of this land as an island rising out of the sea, the fairest and most beautiful of all the sea's productions, and were wont to bestow upon it the appellation of "Ogygia," "the most ancient land." When Greece, the home of philosophy and art, produced writers who thus referred in terms of affection to this modern "Niobe of Nations," and placed ort record their belief in its history of antiquity, we can very easily deduce the inference that literature and art and legal lore flourished there in the very earliest days, and oaths, as well as other ob servances, were in vogue. If a magic wand could dispel the clouds that enshroud the past of romance and litera ture, antiquarians would revel in a field of delightful research. In the present revival of the study of ancient Celtic lore and his tory and language, literateurs the world over are looking forward with hope and cheer, in the conviction that these researches will be crowned with glorious success.
