the habits of nations who are wont to regard idiots and maniacs as inspired persons, a view which can also be studied now and then in our own country. In the case of the Celts we see this idea in the superstition as to the hardship which a man should undergo on Cader Idris or Snowdon in order to be inspired as a bard; but he might become a madman, that is to say, the inspiration might prove different from that of the bard. Perhaps the distinction is not old enough to be considered; at any rate, we have an instance of the idiot of the family playing the part of a prophet in the Irish story concerning the formation of Lough Neagh.[1] Moreover, the idea of inspired raving is familiar to the reader of the classics: take, for example, the Sibyl whom Vergil in the Æneid calls a sanctissima vates, and of whom he gives an unlovely picture, vi. 46—51:
'Cui talia fanti
Anto fores subito non vultus, non color unus,
Non comtae mansere comae; sed pectus anhelum,
Et rabie fera corda tument; majorque videri,
Nec mortale sonans; afllata est numine quando
Jam propiore dei.'
And a little later, vi. 77—80:
'At Phoebi nondum patiens, immanis in antro
Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit
Excussisse deum; tanto magis ille fatigat
Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.'
To return to the words which I have begun to discuss, the idea underlying them all was that of saying or uttering, and secondarily perhaps of singing, chanting or muttering, whether as a poet or as a raving madman. So Gwyd Gwydion might be rendered Say of Saying, or Say
- ↑ Book of the Dun, 39b; Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, pp. 100-1.
