that Adamnán’s teaching or preaching may have assumed this form. Then his fame and authority, at the most active period of Irish letters, might avail to preserve a work, thus widely published, for a longer time than the 150 or 250 years which intervened between his death and the composition of the Vision, even in its present form, while if the reasons adduced in a later place (Part 11. Sec. 5, _post_) for supposing it to be of a composite character be correct, it follows that the latest author must have had before him--as in any case he probably had--materials of an earlier date. Thus the _Fis_ and the _Cáin_ appear to institute an exact parallel. We have as the basis of the extant work, in the one case, a law enacted, in the other, a Vision recited, by the saint, which a later writer has worked up into literary form, while other details relating to the same subject-matter, but entirely irrelevant, have been added later. Two versions of the _Fis Adamnáin_ exist, in two mediæval MSS., now in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. Of these, the _Lebor na h-Udri_, or ‘Book of the Dun’ (_sc._ ‘Cow’), is the oldest extant Irish MS. which contains a collection of secular literature, being copied about 1103 from another MS., probably about fifty years older, which was itself compiled from various earlier writings. The other MS., the _Lebor Brec_, ‘Speckled Book,’ was written towards the end of the fourteenth century. Both versions have been edited and printed by Professor Windisch in _Irische Texte_, vol. i. I believe that no complete translation of either version has been published in a form generally accessible, though O’Donovan made and translated extracts from it, and Dr. Whitley Stokes has edited and translated it, with notes, but printed fifty copies only for private distribution (Simla, 1870). I have had the advantage of referring to this edition, thanks to the courtesy of Mr. Alfred Nutt, to whom I am indebted for several valuable suggestions and corrections. The following translation has been made from the L.U. version. There is little difference in substance between the two versions, but the L.U. is more attractive from a literary point of view, the L.B. being somewhat overloaded in places with Latin quotations, while it wants the concluding chapter, which the L.U. possesses. 3. TRANSLATION OF THE FIS ADAMNÁIN 1. Noble and wonderful is the Lord of the Elements, and great and marvellous are His might and His power. For He calleth to Himself in Heaven the charitable and merciful, the meek and considerate; but He consigns and casts down to Hell the impious and unprofitable host of the children of the curse. For upon the blessed He bestows the hidden treasures and the manifold wages of Heaven, while He inflicts a diversity of torments, in many kinds, upon the sons of death.