_Parallels._--Prof. Zimmer's paper contains three other accounts of the _terra repromissionis_ in the Irish sagas, one of them being the similar adventure of Cormac, the nephew of Connla, or Condla Ruad as he should be called. The fairy apple of gold occurs in Cormac Mac Art's visit to the Brug of Manannan (Nutt's _Holy Grail_, 193).
_Remarks._--Conn, the hundred-fighter, had the head-kingship of Ireland 123-157 A. D., according to the _Annals of the Four Masters_, i., 105. On the day of his birth the five great roads from Tara to all parts of Ireland were completed: one of them from Dublin is still used. Connaught is said to have been named after him, but this is scarcely consonant with Joyce's identification with Ptolemy's _Nagnatai_ (_Irish Local Names_, i., 75). But there can be little doubt of Conn's existence as a powerful ruler in Ireland in the second century. The historic existence of Connla seems also to be authenticated by the reference to him as Conly, the eldest son of Conn, in the Annals of Clonmacnoise. As Conn was succeeded by his third son, Art Enear, Connla was either slain or disappeared during his father's lifetime. Under these circumstances it is not unlikely that our legend grew up within the century after Conn--_i. e._, during the latter half of the second century.
As regards the present form of it, Prof. Zimmer (_l. c._ 261-2) places it in the seventh century. It has clearly been touched up by a Christian hand, who introduced the reference to the day of judgment and to the waning power of the Druids. But nothing turns upon this interpolation, so that it is likely that even the present form of the legend is pre-Christian--_i. e._, for Ireland, pre-Patrician, before the fifth century.
The tale of Connla is thus the earliest fairy tale of modern Europe. Besides this interest it contains an early account of one of the most characteristic Celtic conceptions, that of the earthly Paradise, the Isle of Youth, _Tir na n-Og_. This has impressed itself on the European imagination; in the Arthuriad it is represented by the Vale of Avalon, and as represented in the various Celtic visions of the future life, it forms one of the main sources of Dante's _Divina Commedia_. It is possible, too, I think, that the Homeric Hesperides and the Fortunate Isles of the ancients had a Celtic origin (as is well known, the early place-names of Europe are predominantly Celtic). I have found, I believe, a reference to the conception in one of the earliest passages in the classics dealing with the Druids. Lucan, in his _Pharsalia_ (i, 450-8), addresses them in these high terms of reverence: