[54] Mr Wilde, in an interesting paper "On the Unmanufactured Animal Remains belonging to the Royal Irish Academy," read before the Academy on the 9th and 25th of May, 1859, to which I am indebted for the foregoing poem, cites the following legend, which we might have referred to the _Megaceros_, but that he appears to consider the animal in question the Red Deer or Stag:--"On another occasion St Patrick and his retinue, with Cailte MacRonain, came to the house of a rich landholder who lived in the southern part of the present County of Kildare, near the river Slaney. The farmer complained to Cailte that although he sowed a great quantity of corn every year, it yielded him no profit, on account of _a huge wild Deer_ which every year came across the Slaney from the west when the corn was ripe for cutting, and, rushing through it in all directions, trampled it down under his feet. Cailte undertook to relieve him, and he sent into Munster for his seven deer-nets, which arrived in due time. He then went out and placed his men and his hounds in the paths through which the great deer was accustomed to pass, and he set his deer-nets upon the cliffs, passes, and rivers around, and when he saw the animal coming to the Ford of the Red Deer on the river Slaney, he took his spear and cast a fortunate throw at him, driving it the length of a man's arm out through the opposite side; and 'The Red Ford of the Great Deer' is the name of that pass on the Slaney ever since; and they brought him back to Drom Lethan, or 'The Broad Hill,' which is called 'The Broad Hill of the Great Wild Deer.'" [55] The Editor of "The Indian Field;" in the _Zoologist_, p. 6427. [56] The Welsh "Triads," supposed to have been compiled in the seventh century, say that "the Kymri, a Celtic tribe, first inhabited Britain; before them were no men here, but only bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen with high prominences." Were these Bisons? [57] See Vol. i, 203, _supra_. [58] This is the more interesting because it includes the _Urus_ as well as the "_Schelch_," which latter, though the meaning of the word is not certain, some are disposed to identify with the Giant Deer of Ireland. [59] See note [56] on p. 68. [60] M.S. H. ii. 13. [61] _Blackwood's Magazine_, January 1849. [62] "Travels," 4th ed., 1677. [63] Sloane MSS., No. 1839. [64] _Zoologist_, p. 4298. [65] _British Birds_, iii. 477, (Ed. 2.) [66] Dr Charlton, in the _Trans. Tyneside Nat. Hist. Soc._ [67] _Nat. Voy._, ch. ix. [68] Lecture; reported in the _Athenæum_ for May 21, 1859. [69] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. viii. II. THE MARVELLOUS.