Quite a different version of the story is found in the Book of Lecan, a book which contains a great miscellany, awaiting most desirable publication, of excerpts from older writings, especially excerpts of material which does not accord with what one may call the received teachings of later times on matters of Irish legend and tradition. This particular passage contains what is doubtless the oldest extant account of the Fir Bolg. Its language, in my opinion, is of not later date than the eighth century. Like the accepted story, it says that they were a branch of the race of Nemed, but unlike the accepted story, it does not say that they left Ireland in a body and came back to it in a body after many years. On the contrary, it tells us that they continued to inhabit Ireland all the time, but carried on a particular trade with the eastern world. The manner of their trade was this. They put Irish earth into leathern bags and exported it to the east, where they sold it to the Greeks to be spread on the ground around their cities as a protection against venomous reptiles. From this trade they got the name of Bagmen. Dubhaltach Mac Fir Bhisigh, in the unpublished introduction to his Book of Genealogies, tells us that Fir Bolg was the specific name of a particular section of the pre-Gaelic population, but became extended in common usage so as to be applied to the whole of that population. Of this statement we have abundant corroboration, with details enabling us to locate the abode of various sections of the Bag-folk properly so called. One section, called Bolgraighe, was the principal Rent-paying community of the ancient Tir Conaill, a territory of much smaller extent than the Tir Conaill of later times. Another section inhabited the district of Sliabh Badbgna (Slieve Baune) in the east of County Roscommon, where, I have been told, popular tradition still recognises their descendants. Another section dwelt in the district of Cong in the south of County Mayo, another in Sliabh Eachtgha (Aughty) in the south of County Galway. The manufacture of bags from hide or leather was no doubt not a highly esteemed occupation, and it was probably out of contempt that the name Fir Bolg was extended to the whole conquered population by the Celtic ascendancy. The subject communities produced not only skilled artisans but men of great piety and learning in early Christian times. Saint Mo-Chuarog, for example, who is called _Sapiens_, "the Learned," and who introduced a reform into the Irish chronography of his time, was a member of the Rivet-folk, the Seamonraighe of the Déisi. But the general attitude of the Gaels towards the older population was undoubtedly disdainful. The passage quoted by Dubhaltach from "an ancient book" is familiar to many in O'Curry's translation: