Now St. Patrick left the poets all their rights of divination by wisdom, and all their ancient rights over story-telling with the music of the harp, three hundred and fifty stories being allowed to the chief poet. He also secured just judgments for their professional rights; so that if land was mentioned in their songs as having been walled and trenched by them, that was considered to be sufficient legal evidence of title to the soil.

But what they received of St. Patrick was better, he affirmed, than all the evil rites to devils which they had abandoned; along with the profane practice of magic by the two palms, called Imbas for Osna, by which lucid vision and the spirit of prophecy was supposed to come on them after invocations to idols and demons—all of which evil practices St. Patrick abolished, but left to the poets the skilled hand in music and the fluent tongue in recitation; for which none can equal the Bards of Ireland throughout all the world.

The ogham writing on the poet’s staff is mentioned in very old manuscripts as in use in the Pagan period, before St. Patrick’s time, thoug............