"was to fast upon the lands of the king for whom the poem was to be made, and the consent of thirty laymen, thirty bishops"--a Christian touch to make the passage pass muster--"and thirty poets should be had to compose the satire; _and it was a crime to them to prevent it when the reward of the poem was withheld_"--a pagan touch as a make-weight on the other side! "The poet then, in a company of seven, that is, six others and himself, upon whom six poetic degrees had been conferred, namely a _focloc, macfuirmedh, doss, cana, clí, anradh,_ and _ollamh_, went at the rising of the sun to a hill which should be situated on the boundary of seven lands, and each of them was to turn his face to a different land, and the _ollamh's_ (ollav's) face was to be turned to the land of the king, who was to be satirised, and their backs should be turned to a hawthorn which should be growing upon the top of a hill, and the wind should be blowing from the north, and each man was to hold a perforated stone and a thorn of the hawthorn in his hand, and each man was to sing a verse of this composition for the king--the _ollamh_ or chief poet to take the lead with his own verse, and the others in concert after him with theirs; and each then should place his stone and his thorn under the stem of the hawthorn, and if it was they that were in the wrong in the case, the ground of the hill would swallow them, and if it was the king that was in the wrong, the ground would swallow him and his wife, and his son and his steed, and his robes and his hound. The satire of the _macfuirmedh_ fell on the hound, the satire of the _focloc_ on the robes, the satire of the _doss_ on the arms, the satire of the _cana_ on the wife, the satire of the _clí_ on the son, the satire of the _anrad_ on the steed,[8] the satire of the _ollamh_ on the king." These instances that I have mentioned occurring in the books of the poets' instruction, are evidently remains of magic incantations and terrifying magic ceremonies, taken over from the schools and times of the druids, and carried on into the Christian era, for nobody, I imagine, could contend that they had their origin after Ireland had been Christianised.[9] And the occurrence in the poets' text-books of such evidently pagan passages, side by side with allusions to Athairné the poet--a contemporary of Conor mac Nessa, a little before the birth of Christ, Caoilte, the Fenian poet of the third century, Cormac his contemporary, _Laidcend mac Bairchida_ about the year 400, and others--seems to me to be fresh proof for the real objective existence of these characters. For if part of the poets' text-books can be thus shown to have preserved things taught in the pre-Christian times--to be in fact actually pre-Christian--why should we doubt the reality of the pre-Christian persons mixed up with them?