[126] So the group of Carolingian romances, which long passed for the work of Archbishop Turpin, retained the characteristics of a barbarous society in their views concerning magic, superstition, morals, etc., though sanctified by the addition of ecclesiastical miracles, and other matters of edification, which earned for it the formal approval of Pope Calixtus II. in the year 1122.
[127] Manannán is presented in like fashion in the story of Mongán, op. cit.
[128] So in the tale of Mider, ante, where, as here, it is introduced into the description of the pagan Elysium, Magh Mór; the ecclesiastical interpolations, as here again, being brought in in the usual incongruous manner.
[129] As in the Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach, an Imram of substantially the original type, treated from a Christian point of view. The trait is copied in the Adventures of Tadg Mac Céin, a late mediæval romance composed in the archaic style, where it receives from Tadg the characteristic comment, ‘’Tis queer, though charming’; he evidently regarded it as an example intended rather for edification than imitation. It is interesting to note how the idea recurs in modern Irish poetry, as, indeed, practically, in Irish peasant life. In poor Mangan’s beautiful Love Ballad, translated or imitated from the Irish, the hero—
‘Sheltered by the sloe-bush black,
Sat, laughed, and talked, while thick sleet fell,
And cold rain.
Thanks to God! no guilty leaven
Dashed our childish mirth.
You rejoice for this in Heaven,