d him), so that from the uproar of the battle, the
frantic pranks of the demons, the clashing of arms, and the sound of the
heavy blows reverberating on the points of heroic spears, and keen edges
of swords, and warlike borders of broad shields, the hero Suibhne was
filled and intoxicated with horror, panic, and imbecility; his feet
trembled as if incessantly shaken by the force of a stream; the inlets of
his hearing were expanded and quickened by the horrors of lunacy; his
speech became faltering from the giddiness of imbecility; his very soul
fluttered with hallucinations, and with many and various phantasms. He
might be compared to a salmon in a weir, or to a bird after being caught
in the strait prison of a crib," &c. "When he was seized with this frantic
fit, he made a supple, very light leap, and where he alighted he was on
the boss of the shield of the warrior next him; and he made a second leap,
and perched on the crest of the helmet of the same hero, who,
nevertheless, did not feel him. Then he made a third active, very light
leap, and perched on the top of the sacred tree which grew on the smooth
surface of the plain in which the inferior people and the debilitated of
the men of Erin were seated, looking on at the battle. These shouted at
him when they saw him, to press him back into the battle again; and he in
consequence made three furious leaps to shun the battle, but through the
giddiness and imbecility of his hallucination, he went back into the same
field of conflict; but it was not on the earth he walked, but alighted on
the shoulders of men and the tops of their helmets," &c.

In this state, Suibhne flits off the field of battle like a bird, or a
waif of the forest, without weight, and betakes himself to the wilds,
where he "herds with the deer, runs races with the showers, and flees with
the birds," as a wild denizen of the wilderness; but with his ecstacy of
terror, he receives the gift of prophecy. Dr. O'Donovan, in a note on this
curious passage, observes, "it was the ancient belief in Ireland, and
still is in the wilder mountainous districts, that lunatics are as light
as feathers, and can climb steeps and precipices like the
somnambulists."--See _Buile Suibhne_, a bardic romance on the madness of
this unfortunate warrior. This latter romance is occupied with Suibhne's
adventures as a mad prophet, _Omadh_, in Irish. Query did the Bacchus
_Omadios_ of the Greeks derive his name from a similar source?