by the Turks at the time the romance was invented to make the inventor suppose that it had always belonged to them, even in the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages.[1] We know that romances of this kind continued to be invented at a much later date, but I fancy none of these ever penetrated to Scotland. One of the most popular of romantic tales with the scribes of the last century and the first half of this, was "The Adventures of Torolbh MacStairn," and again, the "Adventures of Torolbh MacStairn's Three Sons," which most of the MSS. ascribe to Michael Coiminn, who lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century,[2] and whose romance was certainly not propagated by professional story-tellers, as I have tried to prove was the case with the earlier romances, but by means of numerous manuscript copies; and it is also certain that Coiminn did not relate this tale as the old bards did, but
- ↑ In a third MS., however, which I have, made by a modern Clare scribe, Domhnall Mac Consaidin, I find "the Emperor Constantine," not the "Emperor of Constantinople," written. O'Curry in his "Manuscript Materials," p. 319, ascribes "Conall Gulban," with some other stories, to a date prior to the year 1000; but the fighting with the Turks (which motivates the whole story, and which cannot be the addition of an ignorant Irish scribe, since it is also found in the Highland traditional version), shows that its date, in its present form, at least, is much later. There is no mention of Constantinople in the Scotch Gaelic version, and hence it is possible—though, I think, hardly probable—that the story had its origin in the Crusades.
- ↑ I find the date, 1749, attributed to it in a voluminous MS. of some 600 closely written pages, bound in sheepskin, made by Laurence Foran of Waterford, in 1812, given me by Mr. W. Doherty, C.E.
