[188] This and the several subsequent quotations from Bardic “Philosophy” are taken from the collection published in 1862, by the Welsh MSS. Society, under the title Barddas. Whatever may be the precise date of these axioms the ideas they express well repay careful consideration.
[189] According to Cæsar the Druidic philosophy was transmitted orally for the purpose of strengthening the memory. The disciples of Pythagoras followed a similar precept, hence when the majority of them were destroyed in a fire the axioms of Pythagoras were largely lost. That the traditional tales of Ireland were maintained in their verbal integrity for untold years is implied by Mr. Yeats’ statement: “In the Parochial Survey of Ireland it is recorded how the story-tellers used to gather together of an evening, and if any had a different version from the others, they would all recite theirs and vote, and the man who had varied would have to abide by their verdict. In this way stories have been handed down with such accuracy, that the long tale of Dierdre was, in the earlier decades of this century, told almost word for word, as in the very ancient MSS. in the Royal Dublin Society. In one case only it varied, and then the MSS. was obviously wrong—a passage had been forgotten by the copyist. But this accuracy is rather in the folk and bardic tales than in the fairy legends, for these vary widely, being usually adapted to some neighbouring village or local fairy-seeing celebrity.”—Yeats, W. B., Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, p. 11.
[190] Cf. Yeats, W.B., Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, p. 318.
[191] Keightley, T., Fairy Mythology, p. 346.
[192] Myth, Ritual and Religion, 1. 186.
[CHAPTER V]
GOG AND MAGOG
“Scarce stand the vessels hauled upon the beach,
And bent on marriages the young men vie