We find a remarkable instance of this in the following passage, taken from a work already mentioned: "Perhaps this [King Laeghaire's oath] may not be considered an absolute proof of the king's paganism.

To swear by the sun and moon was apparently, no doubt, paganism.

But is it not also paganism to represent the rain and wind as taking vengeance?
...

for this is the language copied by all the monastic annalists, and even by the Four Masters, Franciscan friars, writing in the seventeenth century." The passage is improved by a "note," in which the author mentions this as a proof that such superstitions would not have been necessarily regarded two centuries ago as inconsistent with orthodoxy.

Now, in the first place, the Catholic Church has always[137] condemned superstition of every kind.