_Remarks._--Dr. Hyde (_l. c._ Pref. xxix.) thinks our tale cannot be older than 1362, because of a reference to one O'Connor Sligo which occurs in all its variants; it is, however, omitted in our somewhat abridged version. Mr. Nutt (_ap._ Campbell, _The Fians_, Introd. xix.) thinks that this does not prevent a still earlier version having existed. I should have thought that the existence of so distinctly Eastern a trick in the tale, and the fact that it is a framework story (another Eastern characteristic), would imply that it is a rather late importation, with local allusions supperadded (_cf._ notes on "Conall Yellowclaw," No. v.).
The passages in verse from pp. 149, 153, and the description of the Beggarman, pp. 149, 154, are instances of a curious characteristic of Gaelic folk-tales called "runs." Collections of Conventional epithets are used over and over again to describe the same incident, the beaching of a boat, sea-faring, travelling and the like, are inserted in different tales. These "runs" are often similar in both the Irish and the Scotch form of the same tale or of the same incident. The volumes of _Waifs and Strays_ contain numerous examples of these "runs," which have been indexed in each volume. These "runs" are another confirmation of my view that the original form of the folk-tale was that of the _Cante-fable_ (see note on "Connla" and on "Childe Rowland" in _English Fairy Tales_).
_Source._--Campbell, _Pop. Tales_, No. 4. I have omitted the births of the animal comrades and transposed the carlin to the middle of the tale. Mr. Batten has considerately idealised the Sea-Maiden in his frontispiece. When she restores the husband to the wife in one of the variants, she brings him out of her mouth! "So the sea-maiden put up his head (_Who do you mean? Out of her mouth to be sure. She had swallowed him_)."
_Parallels._--The early part of the story occurs in No. xv., "Shee An Gannon," and the last part in No. xix., "Fair, Brown, and Trembling" (both from Curtin), Campbell's No. 1. "The Young King" is much like it; also MacInnes's No. iv., "Herding of Cruachan" and No. viii., "Lod the Farmer's Son." The third of Mr. Britten's Irish folk-tales in the _Folk-Lore Journal_ is a Sea-Maiden story. The story is obviously a favourite one among the Celts. Yet its main incidents occur with frequency in Continental folk-tales. Prof. Köhler has collected a number in his notes on Campbell's Tales in _Orient und Occident_, Bnd. ii., 115-8. The trial of the sword occurs in the saga of Sigurd, yet it is also frequent in Celtic saga and folk-tales (see Mr. Nutt's note, MacInnes's _Tales_, 473, and add Curtin, 320). The hideous carlin and her three giant sons is also common form in Celtic. The external soul of the Sea-Maiden carried about in an egg, in a trout, in a hoodie, in a hind, is a remarkable instance of a peculiarly savage conception which has been studied by Major Temple, _Wide-awake Stories_, 404-5; by Mr. E. Clodd, in the "Philosophy of Punchkin," in _Folk-Lore Journal_, vol. ii., and by Mr. Frazer in his _Golden Bough_, vol. ii.