[11] This was a very ancient law book, which is quoted at least a dozen times in Cormac's Glossary, made in the ninth or tenth century. [12] Thus quaintly expressed in the original, for which see O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 576: "muna ffaghuid dearbhtha iar ndeghleabhraibh é, a chuntabhairt fén do chur re a chois." [13] _See_ pp. 102, 113 of Father Hogan's "Documenta de S. Patricio ex Libro Armachano," where he is called Endae. He persecuted Cuthbad's three sons, "fosocart endae cennsalach fubîthin creitme riacâch," but Patrick is said to have baptized his son, "Luid iarsuidiu cucrimthan maccnêndi ceinnselich et ipse creditit." CHAPTER VIII CONFUSION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN Of that part of every Irish pedigree which runs back from the first century to Milesius nothing can be laid down with certainty, nor indeed can there be any _absolute certainty_ in affirming that Irish pedigrees from the eleventh to the third century are reliable--we have only an amount of cumulative evidence from which we may draw such a deduction with considerable confidence. The mere fact that these pedigrees are traced back a thousand years further through Irish kings and heroes, and end in a son of Milesius, need not in the least affect--as in popular estimation it too often does--the credibility of the last seventeen hundred years, which stands upon its own merits. On the contrary, such a continuation is just what we should expect. In the Irish genealogies the sons of Milesius occupy the place that in other early genealogies is held by the gods. And the sons of Milesius were possibly the tutelary gods of the Gael. We have seen how one of them was so, at least in folk belief, and was addressed in semi-seriousness as still living and reigning even in the last century.