Alcæus, in a hymn to Apollo, says that “Jupiter adorned the new-born god with a golden fillet and lyre, and sent him in a chariot drawn by swans to Delphi, in order to introduce justice and law among the Greeks. Apollo, however, ordered the swans first to fly to the Hyperboreans. The Delphians, missing the god, instituted a pæan and song, ranged choruses of young men around the tripod, and invoked him to come from the Hyperboreans. The god remained an entire year with that nation, and, at the appointed time, when the tripods of Delphi were destined to sound, he ordered the swans to resume their flight. The return of Apollo takes place exactly in the middle of summer; nightingales, swallows, and grasshoppers sang in honour of the god; and even Castalia and Cephisus heave their waves to salute him.” Now Mr. Bryant assures us that-- “The Celtic sages a tradition hold, That every drop of amber was a tear Shed by Apollo, _when he fled from heaven_,-- _For sorely did he weep_,--and _sorrowing passed Through many a doleful region_, till he reached The sacred Hyperboreans.”[512] Words could not convey a more direct delineation of the first arrival of the Tuath-de-danaans amongst us, with their mysterious worship, after their ejectment from _Iran_, their paradise, or earthly _heaven_, for the loss of which they “sorely wept,” until at length they found a substitute in _Irin_. The _lyre_ or _harp_ which they brought with them, and solely for celebrating the praises of Apollo, continues still our national emblem; and those swans which are said to have drawn his chariot formed so essential a part of our ceremonial, that you shall be presented by and by with one of his magic implements, to which they are still attached, as they are similarly figured upon the painted vases, remaining after our allied Etrurians in the south of Italy. As to the embassy of Abaris, the direct fact is so completely authenticated by our ancient records, which narrate the circumstance, with no view to decide an historical controversy, but with indifference thereto, and as in ordinary course,--that it is inevitable but that, when the Greeks say that this philosopher had gone to them from the _Hyperboreans_,--and when we produce proofs to show that a man of the _same name_ had repaired on the _errand_ alluded to, from _our_ country to _Greece_, it is inevitable, I say, but that, when both statements so perfectly tally, the island of the _Hyperboreans_ and that of the _Hibernians_ must be one and the same. I shall now subjoin from General Vallancey’s works, as he translates it from an old Irish poem, the authentic narrative of this our Hyperborean embassy.