a vessel from Ireland bound for Gaul, or Britain, the cargo proved to be a load of Irish wolf-hounds. These animals formed articles of tribute in the Danish period, and a Northern Saga preserves an account of one of these dogs, whose sagacity and quickness so won the admiration of Olaf Tryggvason that he begged the Irish peasant to sell it to him. When the farmer presented the dog to him in gratitude for the consideration shown by the Norse king in sparing his cattle, the Prince gave him in return a heavy gold ring (Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, chap, xxxv).[1]
The whole of Irish romance literature is filled with accounts of the esteem in which the large hounds were held. Examples are the killing of the great hound by Cuchulain in his youth, the story of the Hound of Mac Datho, and the story of Dermot and Grainne. The large place given to the faithful hound in the story of Tristrem and Iseult goes far to prove that the tale is influenced by Irish thought. The hound is not frequently mentioned in battle in Ireland, but that it was so employed may be gathered from a remark in the mythical battle of the Táin Bó Cualnge, in which, in describing a great rout, it is said, that ‘wolf-dog, horse, and man were indiscriminately heaped up together.’ In the historical battle of Magh Rath or Moira, County Down, fought in 637 A.D., though the hound is not actually mentioned as taking part in the battle, a furious dog of great size is found in the tent of the Prince, who is contending for the throne of Ulster with the King of Ireland (Battle of Magh Raih, ed. O’Donovan, Irish Arch. Society, 1842).[2]
We have not attempted in this paper to enter upon the wider subject of the ethical standard and moral habits of the Celt. This would lead us too far. All we have attempted to
- ↑ See Rev. Dr. Hogan on the Irish Wolf-dog, p. 153 and p. 11, and Joyce, Social History of Ireland, vol. ii. p.452.
- ↑ This battle is the Bella Roth of Adamnan (see Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, Book III. chap. v.). Although the fullest account we have of it is largely mixed with legendary details, the records contained in such writings may safely be taken as illustrating manners. As repositories of information regarding the ancient modes of life and thought among the Irish these historic tales, though mixed with romance, are of unique importance to the historian of manners and ethics.
