incident is only to be found in a British Museum MS. of about 1300. In
this Cuchulain finds that the daughter of Ruad is to be given as a
tribute to the Fomori, who, according to Prof. Rhys, _Folk-Lore_, ii.
293, have something of the night_mare_ about their etymology. Cuchulain
fights _three_ of them successively, has his wounds bound up by a strip
of the maiden's garment, and then departs. Thereafter many boasted of
having slain the Fomori, but the maiden believed them not till at last
by a stratagem she recognises Cuchulain. I may add to this that in Mr.
Curtin's _Myths_, 330, the threefold trial of the sword is told of
Cuchulain. This would seem to trace our story back to the seventh or
eighth century and certainly to the thirteenth. If so, it is likely
enough that it spread from Ireland through Europe with the Irish
missions (for the wide extent of which see map in Mrs. Bryant's _Celtic
Ireland_). The very letters that have spread through all Europe except
Russia, are to be traced to the script of these Irish monks: why not
certain folk-tales? There is a further question whether the story was
originally told of Cuchulain as a hero-tale and then became
departicularised as a folk-tale, or was the process _vice versa_.
Certainly in the form in which it appears in the _Tochmarc Emer_ it is
not complete, so that here, as elsewhere, we seem to have an instance
of a folk-tale applied to a well-known heroic name, and becoming a
hero-tale or saga.

XVIII. LEGEND OF KNOCKMANY.

_Source_.--W. Carleton, _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_.

_Parallels_.--Kennedy's "Fion MacCuil and the Scotch Giant," _Legend.
Fict._, 203-5.

_Remarks_.--Though the venerable names of Finn and Cucullin (Cuchulain)
are attached to the heroes of this story, this is probably only to give
an extrinsic interest to it. The two heroes could not have come
together in any early form of their sagas, since Cuchulain's reputed
date is of the first, Finn's of the third century A.D. (_cf._ however,
MacDougall's _Tales_, notes, 272). Besides, the grotesque form of the
legend is enough to remove it from the region of the hero-tale. On the
other hand, there is a distinct reference to Finn's wisdom-tooth, which
presaged the future to him (on this see _Revue Celtique_, v. 201,
Joyce, _Old Celt. Rom._, 434-5, and MacDougall, _l.c._ 274). Cucullin's
power-finger is another instance of the life-index or external soul, on
which see remarks on Sea-Mai