Morecambe Bay, and it is worthy of remark that this trad once belonged to a people called the Setantii, a name which cannot be severed from that of the Seteia supposed to be the Dee, or from that of the Σεταντίων Λιμήν,[1] the Harbour of the Setantii, the position of which corresponds to the mouth of the Ribble.[2] Hence the name Setanta.
Shortly after his return from Scáthach's Isle, Cúchulainn set out for the Gardens of Lug to carry away Emer, according to a promise he had made to her; but for a whole year he was unable to communicate with her on account of the efficient watch kept over her by Forgall's henchmen; but at last he succeeded, and appeared all of a sudden in the middle of the stronghold, where he performed such marvels of valour that Forgall lost his life in leaping terror-stricken over his own walls. Cúchulaiun then made his way out with Emer and her foster-
- ↑ The readings of Ptolemy's manuscript are various, the river being either Σετηία or Σεγηία, and the harbour Σεταντίων λ. (or Σετανίων λ.) and Σεγαντίων λ., besides less important ones: see Müller's edition (Paris, 1883), ij. 3 (Vol. i. pp. 84, 85). But if the hypothesis here suggested, for which I am indebted to Mr. Henry Bradley, prove well-founded, it will dispose of the alternative readings with γ. There is a difficulty in the retention of nt in the Irish Setanta, which it would be hard to account for except on the supposition that the name was not a native Irish word. The original may accordingly be regarded as Setantios or Setantjos, meaning a Setantian, or one of the people called the Setantii. It is worth noticing that a very obscure poem, in which Scáthach, who was, among other things, a poetess or prophetess, speaks of Cúchulainn when she prophesies for him, alludes to a Setantian stream: the words are—curoch fri sruth setinti, 'a coracle against the stream of Setanta:' see the Bk. of the Dun, 125b.
- ↑ Bradley's Remarks (in the Archæologia, xlviij) on Ptolemy (Westminster, 1884), p. 15. For Ribble, p. 74 above, read Mersey.
