* The Modern Irish phrase saol eile may denote ‘another world’ in Lucan’s sense of a faraway place, such as China or Paraguay. In the poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (b. 1952) and elsewhere in contemporary Irish usage an saol eile is a spiritual world that lies beyond empirical examination.
* The reference ‘Annals’ without prefix usually refers to what is called in English ‘The Annals of the Four Masters’, compiled by Micheál Ó Cléirigh and three others in the seventeenth century, translated by John O’Donovan in the seven-volume Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1849–51) and much reprinted.
* Possibly named for local hero Fergus Caisfiaclach [crooked tooth], whose sobriquet was Bód fo Bregaigh [fire of Brega]; allusions to the two Ferguses may have become conflated in the 1830s when the Lia Fáil was erected.
* This sword was attributed to many heroes, more often Fergus mac Róich, and is often thought to be an antecedent of Arthur’s Excalibur.
Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference) Page 54
