[CLXXIX.] Slieve Cullinn, now Slieve Gullion mountain in Armagh.
[CLXXX.] For a full account of the Highland traditions regarding Dermat, and of the Highland monuments that commemorate his name, see "Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisnach" (p. 255), a very valuable and interesting book, recently published, which came into my hands after I had written the above.
[CLXXXI.] The above legend is taken from "The Boyish Exploits of Finn Mac Cumal," published, with translation, by John O'Donovan, LL.D., in the fourth volume of the Ossianic Society's Transactions, from a MS. transcribed in 1453, now lying in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. But the internal evidence of the language shows that the piece is far more ancient than the fifteenth century. The legend of Finn and the Salmon of Knowledge is still current among the peasantry; and a modern popular version of it may be seen in the Dublin Penny Journal, Vol. I. page 110.
As to the process of putting his thumb under his tooth of knowledge, even the English-speaking peasantry of the south still retain a tradition that it was painful; for they say that Finn "chewed his thumb from the skin to the flesh, from the flesh to the bone, from the bone to the marrow, and from the marrow to the smoosagh."
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Inconsistent and archaic spelling retained.