[196] _Imrama_ still continued to be written, and the late mediæval story of Tadg Mac Céin (published, with a translation, in Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady’s _Silva Gadelica_), presents a very admirable specimen of its class. That work, however, is a more purely literary production, consciously imitative, and deliberately archaic in style. [197] The summary in the text follows the Irish version contained in _La Vision de Tondale_, V. H. Friedel and Kuno Meyer (Paris, 1907), which also contains two French versions in prose, and a fragment of an Anglo-Norman version in verse. The Irish translation was made in 151-, by Muirgheas Mac Páidin ui Maoilchanaire (_op. cit._, Introduction). The original Latin has been edited by Scade, Halle, 1869, and A. Wagner (with an O. G. version), Erlangen, 1882. For translations into modern languages see _op. cit._, Introduction, and Ancona, _op. cit._, p. 53 _n._ [198] In Christian art, Hell was often symbolised by a picture of the Dragon, his open mouth filled with flames, into which the wicked were impelled. This image survived in book illustrations into the eighteenth century at least. It occurs in many of the mediæval visions; possibly the Vision of St. Paul may have been the immediate authority. It appears so early as the Vision of Esdras, if not before. [199] This lake corresponds to the sea haunted by strange monsters which swarm about the hero’s curach in the early _Imrama_ and in the modern romantic folk-tales. [200] Signor D’Ancona (_op. cit._) suggests that the apologue of the bridge in the _Fioretti_ of St. Francis (cxxvii.) is an imperfect quotation from Tundale, as also a similar passage of Joachim of Flora. [201] See the remarks in the preceding section upon a similar conception in the _Fis Adamnáin_, and contrast the treatment of it by the two authors. [202] The destruction of the guilty soul, and its reintegration for a renewal of its suffering, dates back to Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesios. See Sect. I _ante_. [203] Cp. the analogous ideas in the Shepherd of Hermas, and the vision in St. Gregory’s Epistle. [204] It is said that the Hells of the Oriental religions even surpass those of mediæval Christendom in the morbid cruelty and obscenity, and in the childish extravagance of their descriptions. [205] The angel who came to Tundale’s rescue may also be compared to the angel who came to the aid of Dante and Virgil when their entrance into the City of Dis was opposed by the demons (_Inf._ ix.). Signor D’Ancona (_op. cit._, p. 55 _n_.) compares the approach of Tundale’s angel, ‘with a radiance as of a star,’ to the approach of the angel in _Purgatorio_ xii. 89 _sq._, _nella faccia, quale Par tremolando mattutina stella_, citing the passage from the Latin Tundale, where the resemblance is still closer--_longe venientem velut stellam lucidam._ [206] _Purg._ xxvii. 130 _sqq._