Matheson Collection > Popular tales of the west Highlands > Volume 4

264 BRITISH TRADITIONS.
King of Greece. 3. A Persian spear. 4. The horses
and chariot of Doghoir innseficlhe. 5. The seven
swine of Easol, King of Colchos. 6. A whelp in the
possession of the King of Toruath. 7. Some magic
rods from an island in the Tyrrhene sea, and seven other
articles of magic properties, which are not given in the
abstract. They were also to utter three cries on the
summit of the hill of Miodachan. After sixteen quarto
pages of adventures, they return with the articles, but
have not uttered the three cries, so they ask for a magic
curach and go. The eldest brother, in a cover of glass,
explores the sea for fifteen days. They get a magic
rod, utter the three cries on the top of the hill, after a
severe battle return to Ireland, die, and are buried.
This manuscript is supposed to have been written
about say 1750. "It is evidently a transcript." The
language bespeaks high antiquity. The man in a glass
case occurs in a story mentioned to me in Uist in 1859,
and the tale of the sons of Tuireann is one of those
mentioned by Professor O'Curry as probably composed
before a.d. 1000.
Now let these Irish tasks be compared with the Welsh
tasks, and they will be found to resemble each other in
nature, though they are not the same ; and they also
resemble, in the same general way, the labours of
Hercules and the tasks in the Battle of the Birds, in the
Master Maid, in Straparolas' Fortunio, and in many of
Grimm's German stories.
When the Welsh heroes set off to accomplish their
tasks it is the same thing. They go to the beasts, birds,
and fishes for information, as men go to the winds in
the Norse tale of East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon ;
and the three old men who herd the beasts, and the
birds, and the fishes in the Three Princesses of White-