reached the shores of the wooded western Island. This
Partholan, they tell us, was a double parricide, having
killed his father and mother before leaving his native
country, for which horrible crimes, as the Bards very
morally conclude, his posterity were fated never to
possess the land. After a long interval, and when they
were greatly increased in numbers, they were cut off to
the last man, by a dreadful pestilence.

The story of the _second_ immigration is almost as vague
as that of the first. The leader this tune is called
Nemedh, and his route is described as leading from the
shores of the Black Sea, across what is now Russia in
Europe, to the Baltic Sea, and from the Baltic to Ireland.
He is said to have built two royal forts, and to have
"cleared twelve plains of wood" while in Ireland. He
and his posterity were constantly at war, with a terrible
race of Formorians, or Sea Kings, descendants of Ham,
who had fled from northern Africa to the western islands
for refuge from their enemies, the sons of Shem. At length
the Formorians prevailed, and the children of the second
immigration were either slain or driven into exile, from
which some of their posterity returned long afterwards,
and again disputed the country, under two different
denominations.

The _Firbolgs_ or Belgae are the _third_ immigration.
They were victorious under their chiefs, the five sons
of Dela, and divided the island into five portions. But
they lived in days when the earth--the known parts of it