mythology; but in order to guess the signification of them, it is necessary to go into the legendary history of early Ireland at some length. The outlines of it were contained in the Book of the Dun,[1] so they date not later than the year 1106; still they clearly form a redaction—and relatively a late and clumsy one—of old materials by somebody who was acquainted with what passed for history among other nations. He was anxious, for example, to connect Irish legend with the Biblical account of Noah and his descendants.
So there had been, he says, five distinct invasions or colonizations of Erinn after the deluge, and the first took place under the leadership of one Partholon son of Sera, who arrived with twenty-four married pairs in his train. They multiplied in the land and became 5000, when in the course of one week they all died of a plague, except a single man destined to tell the story of his friends' fate. According to the usual custom of the Irish, whose good-nature does not permit them to abandon a favourite pagan to the risk of hell-fire, he is made to survive, after passing through many scenes and changes, to become a Christian, and the whole story is put into his mouth; but so far as regards this portion of it, the greatest puzzle it contains is the name Partholon, which has sometimes been supposed to be merely a form of the Biblical name Bartholomew: Giraldus calls him 'Bartholanus, Sere filius, de stirpe Japhet filii Noe.'[2] The next to take possession of the country was one of the same race as Partholon: he was called Nemed son of Agnoman, and
