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of old Druidic teaching. Thus in an ancient Breton ballad Tina passes through the lake of pain, on which float the dead, white robed, in little boats. She then wades through valleys of blood3.

As this myth has been exhaustively treated by Mr. Thomas Wright (S. Patrick's Purgatory; by T. Wright, London, 1844), it shall detain us no longer. I differ from him, however, as to its origin. He attributes it to monkish greed; but I have no hesitation in asserting that it is an example of the persistency of heathen myths, colouring and influencing Medieval Christianity. We will only refer the reader for additional information to the Purgatoire de Saint Patrice; légende du xiii Siècle, 1842; a reprint by M. Prosper Tarbé of a MS. in the library at Rheims; a Mémoire by M. Paul Lacroix in the Mélanges historiques, published by M. Champollion Figeac, vol. iii.; the poem of Marie de France in the edition of her works, Paris, 1820, vol. ii.; an Histoire de la Vie et du Purgatoire de S. Patrice, par R. P. François Bouillon, O. S. F., Paris, 1651, Rouen, 1696; and also Le Monde Enchanté, par M. Ferdinand Denys, Paris, 1845, pp. 157-174

' Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte: Band III., Die Kelten, p. 29.

The Terrestrial Paradise

HE exact position of Eden, and its present

THE

condition, does not seem to have occupied the minds of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, nor to have given rise among them to wild speculations.

The map of the tenth century in the British Museum, accompanying the Periegesis of Priscian, is far more correct than the generality of maps which we find in MSS. at a later period; and Paradise does not occupy the place of Cochin China, or the isles of Japan, as it did later, after that the fabulous voyage of S. Brandan had become popular in the eleventh century'. The

1 S. Brandan was an Irish monk, living at the close of the sixth century; he founded the Monastery of Clonfert, and is commemorated on May 16. His voyage seems to be founded on that of Sinbad, and is full of absurdities. It has been republished by M. Jubinal from MSS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi, Paris, 8vo., 1836; the earliest printed English edition is that of Wynkyn de Worde, London, 1516.

site, however, had been already indicated by Cosmas, who wrote in the seventh century, and had been specified by him as occupying a continent east of China, beyond the ocean, and still watered by the four great rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, which sprang from subterranean canals. In a map of the ninth century, preserved in the Strasbourg Library, the terrestrial Paradise is, however, on the Continent, placed at the extreme east of Asia; in fact, is situated in the Celestial Empire. It occupies the same position in a Turin MS., and also in a map accompanying a commentary on the Apocalypse in the British Museum.

According to the fictitious letter of Prester John to the Emperor Emanuel Comnenus, Paradise was situated close to—within three days' journey of— his own territories, but where those territories were, is not distinctly specified.

"The river Indus, which issues out of Paradise," writes the mythical king, "flows among the plains, through a certain province, and it expands, embracing the whole province with its various windings there are found emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyx, beryl, sardius, and many other precious stones. There too grows

the plant called Asbestos." A wonderful fountain, moreover, breaks out at the roots of Olympus, a mountain in Prester John's domain, and “from hour to hour, and day by day, the taste of this fountain varies; and its source is hardly three days' journey from Paradise, from which Adam was expelled. If any man drinks thrice of this spring, he will from that day feel no infirmity, and he will, as long as he lives, appear of the age of thirty." This Olympus is a corruption of Alumbo, which is no other than Columbo in Ceylon, as is abundantly evident from Sir John Mandeville's Travels, though this important fountain has escaped the observation of Sir Emmerson Tennant.

"Toward the heed of that forest (he writes) is the cytee of Polombe, and above the city is a great mountayne, also clept Polombe. And of that mount, the Cytee hathe his name. And at the foot of that Mount is a fayr welle and a gret, that hathe odour and savour of all spices; and at every hour of the day, he chaungethe his odour and his savour dyversely. And whoso drynkethe 3 times fasting of that watre of that welle, he is hool of alle maner sykenesse, that he hathe. And thei that duellen there and drynken often of that welle, thei nevere han sykenesse, and thei semen alle

weys yonge. I have dronken there of 3 or 4 sithes; and zit, methinkethe, I fare the better. Some men clepen it the Welle of Youthe: for thei that often drynken thereat, semen alle weys yongly, and lyven withouten sykenesse. And men seyn, that that welle comethe out of Paradys: and therefore it is so vertuous."

Gautier de Metz, in his poem on the "Image du Monde," written in the thirteenth century, places the terrestrial Paradise in an unapproachable region of Asia, surrounded by flames, and having an armed angel to guard the only gate.

Lambertus Floridus, in a MS. of the twelfth century, preserved in the Imperial Library in Paris, describes it as "Paradisus insula in oceano in oriente:" and in the map accompanying it, Paradise is represented as an island, a little south east of Asia, surrounded by rays, and at some distance from the mainland; and in another MS. of the same library—a mediæval encyclopædiaunder the word Paradisus is a passage which states that in the centre of Paradise is a fountain which waters the garden-that in fact described by Prester John, and that of which story-telling Sir John Mandeville declared he had "dronken 3 or 4 sithes." Close to this fountain is the Tree of Life.

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