Note 9 — PREFACE.

In a third MS., however, which I have, made by a modern Clare scribe, Domhnall Mac Consaidin, I find “the Emperor Constantine,” not the “Emperor of Constantinople,” written. O’Curry in his “Manuscript Materials,” p. 319, ascribes “Conall Gulban,” with some other stories, to a date prior to the year 1000; but the fighting with the Turks (which motivates the whole story, and which cannot be the addition of an ignorant Irish scribe, since it is also found in the Highland traditional version), shows that its date, in its present form, at least, is much later. There is no mention of Constantinople in the Scotch Gaelic version, and hence it is possible—though, I think, hardly probable—that the story had its origin in the Crusades.