The ethnic legends invariably connect the origin of the people with Biblical or Classical history, and assumes that some of the races which formed the oldest population of the country, and were really indigenous, had immigrated from some foreign land. We find it assuming two different shapes. In the one the different nations constituting the early population were separate colonies which proceeded from foreign countries and entered the land at different periods. Thus Bede tells us of the early population of Britain that it was first peopled by a colony of ‘Brittones’ who came from Armorica; that then the Picts came from Scythia, and the nation of the Scots came from Ireland; and he places these successive colonies prior to the Roman invasion of Britain. The legendary history of Ireland presents the early history of its population in the same aspect. The account of the successive colonies which occupied Ireland is supposed to have been narrated to Saint Patrick by her earliest historian Fintan, who lived before the Flood, and remained alive during the whole of the centuries which elapsed till the introduction of Christianity. The Book of Ballimote contains a poem supposed to have been written by him. If he was a real personage, he may have been Fintan Munnu, a celebrated Irish saint who died on 25th October 634, but the poem is no doubt a later composition, and a translation is here inserted as giving in short compass these successive peoplings of the island, and as a good specimen of their early legends. As the learned historian has related, namely Fintan:— 1. ‘Should any one inquire of me about Eire, I can tell most accurately Respecting every invasion which took place From the beginning of all pleasing life. 2. ‘Ceasair set out from the East, The woman who was daughter of Beatha, Accompanied by fifty daughters, As also by three men. 3. ‘The deluge came on. Bith resided at his mountain without secrecy, Ladra at Ard Ladran, And Ceasair at her corner. 4. ‘As to me, I remained a year under the flood At Tul Tinnde of strength. There had not been slept, nor will there be slept, A sleep better than that which I had. 5. ‘I was then in Ireland; Pleasant was my condition When Partholon arrived From the Grecian country in the East. 6. ‘I was also in Ireland While it was uninhabited, Until the son of Agnoman arrived, Neimead of pleasant manners. 7