stature lay buried, and that over his breast and back were plates of pure gold, and on his fingers rings of gold, so large that an ordinary man might creep through them. The place was so exactly described, that two persons there present were tempted to go in quest of the golden prize, which the harper's song had pointed out to them. After they had dug for some time they found two thin pieces of gold, circular, and more than two inches

in diameter.

"This discovery encouraged them the next morning to seek for the remainder; but they could meet with nothing more. The passage is the more remarkable, because it comes pretty near the manner of discovering King Arthur's body by the directions of a British bard (in the reign of King Henry the Second)."

"Nothing," adds Harris, "can call this relation in question, but that the rings mentioned in the song were not found as well as the plates. But that particular, as well as the size of the man, might have been introduced by the bard, as a partial exaggeration, by means of the Bara or Animi impetus of that sort of people."Antiq., vol. ii., p. 126.

Notices of a remarkable discovery of silver ornaments at Largo in Fifeshire.-No. 23 of the Archæological Journal.

Speaking of the value of popular tradition, the author, Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston, after exemplifying the truth of his observation by some facts, and among them that recorded by Bishop Gibson, says, " Another striking circumstance of a similar nature has occurred in more recent times. Some years previous to the golden corslet at Bryn-yr-Ellyllon (the Fairies' or Goblins' Hill) near Mold, in Flintshire, now deposited in the British Museum, an aged woman returning late from Mold, imagined that she had seen a spectre cross her path to the identical mound where the skeleton, encased in gold, was subsequently found; she described the phantom as of gigantic size, and clad in a coat of gold shining like the sun. This she related the next morning to the farmer, whose workmen actually found the corslet in 1833, and there can scarcely be a question that a lingering remembrance of a tradition which she had heard in early years associated with the 'Goblin's Hill,' presented to this woman's imagination such a golden effigy."

"A corslet of gold, sold for £600 to a goldsmith at Cork, was found near Lismore."-Walker's Dress of the Irish, p. 177.

NOTE, p. 47.

"No chief like Finn, the world around,
Was e'er to bards so generous found,
With gifts of ruddy gold."

THE bard seldom loses an opportunity of extolling the generosity of the Fenian chiefs, intending his praises as a modest hint to his

patron or entertainer to follow so laudable an example. O'Donovan informs us that "a king always considered it his duty to give presents to poets at public banquets and assemblies." "When the poets, at the desire of Domhnal, went after Congal to persuade him to stop; Congal, perceiving them approaching, exclaimed, 'the munificent character of Ulster is tarnished for ever, for we gave the poets no presents at the banqueting house, and they are following us to upbraid us.' The poets came to Congal-he bade them welcome, and gave them great presents, and they told him their embassy."-Dun-na-n-Gedh.

A poet, speaking of his prince, Brian O'Neill, in a poem, says,

"He gave twenty horned cows

For my poem; it was a goodly purchase;
Were they twenty cows with golden horns,
My honour was greater and better."

The Welsh bards "frequently addressed poems to their princes and lords, in which they solicited presents, such as a horse, a bull, a sword, or a garment; and they were seldom, if ever, refused."Warington's Wales, p. 269.

NOTE, p. 50.

"Nor thy crozier here, nor white book remain,
Nor thy bells be heard for ever."

THE bards had no respect for the croziers and bells of the priests, nor indeed had they any reason to respect them; for, as we are told in a note to "The Banquet of Dun na-n-Gedh" (p. 38), "The ancient Irish saints were accustomed to curse the offending chieftains while sounding their bells with the tops of their croziers."

In Wales the monks and the bards were bitter enemies. "Indeed the bard was generally a heretic, and much given to look through the deeds of the clergy. As monks and bards increased in number, they became more and more enraged against each other; they were rival beggars, and therefore in each other's way. In these encounters (begging) the monks were overmatched, for the wit of the bards was aided by the popular contempt into which the mendicant friars had fallen. The reader of Chaucer will perceive that the same sentiments prevailed on the other side of the Severn."-pp. 110, 111.

NOTE, p. 50.

"With chessmen played."

IN the introduction to Leabhar na-g-Ceart, the Book of Rights, p. lxi., may be seen the following description of an Irish chessboard, quoted from Leabhar na-h-Uidhri, a MS. of the twelfth century :

"It was a board of silver and pure gold, and every angle was illuminated with precious stones, and a man-bag of woven brass wire."

"The chessman is frequently referred to in old tales, as in the very ancient one called Tain bo Cuailghne, in which the champion Cuchullain is represented as killing a messenger, who had told him a lie, with a fear fitcille," i. e. a chessman.

"Cuchullain and his own charioteer, Leogh, son of Riangabhra, were then playing chess. It was to mock me,' said he, thou hast told a lie about what thou mistakest not.' With that he cast one of his chessmen at the messenger, so that it pierced to the centre of his brain."

"O'Neill's bard boasts of the victories which Brian O'Neill and his ancestors had gained in their own province over their immediate neighbours in Eastern Ulster, and over the kindred race of Tir-Conaill. He next speaks of the proud circumstance that Brian's ancestors had in their hall a chess-board formed of the bones of their hereditary enemies, the Leinster men, which is rather a barbaric boast in 1260."-Miscellany, 182, 183. The bard sings:

"Chess of the shin-bones of Leinster men,

In our workshop was constructed;

Smooth chessmen were on the tables of our ancestors,

Of the bare bones of Leinster men."

NOTE, p. 51.

"The son of Luno's skill."

THIS Luno, the celebrated Ossianic fabricator of swords, was not unknown in the Highlands of Scotland. Donald Macqueen, minister of Kilmuir, in the Isle of Skye, says, in a letter to Dr. Blair, "I have just now before me a poetical relation by Ossian, of the interview betwixt Fingal and his friends, and Luno, the son of Leven, who made the swords of which I sent you a description-in which Luno is pointed out as a very wild savage, going upon one leg (lame like his great grandfather Vulcan), with a staff in his hand, clad in a mantle of black hide, with an apron of the same stuff before, and his complexion much of the colour of his garb, skipping off to his smiddy with the fleetness of a March wind, and the bobbing of the hard untanned skin behind him, was the principal point of view as he flew over every rising ground before them."-App. Highland Society, p. 33.

Why should Luno be called “a wild savage" for appearing in his proper costume, and not as a man above his trade? The writer here quoted says he has just esteem for Macpherson's genius, that he believes there is "a foundation in the ancient songs for every part of his work," but that he "hath tacked together into the poem, descriptions, similes, names, &c., from several detached pieces."

NOTE, p. 68.

"And many a spit with haunch of deer."

THE mention of spits may suggest to the reader that the art of cookery had been well understood and practised in Ireland at this period. Some have alleged that the most characteristic definition of man is, that he is a cooking animal, and that superiority in the art of cookery is demonstrative proof of elegance and refinement. The curious reader may see in Dr. Petrie's Essay on Tara, in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, an amusing account of the "arrangements of the dining-hall at Tara, the customs of which were preserved, though on a limited scale, in the household of every chief, not only in Ireland, but also in the Highlands of Scotland, as late even as the 16th century."

*

*

Martin, in his description of the Western Isles of Scotland, says, "Before money became current, the chieftains of the Isles bestowed the cow's head, feet, and all the entrails upon their dependents; such as the physician, orator, poet, bard, musician." The smith had the head-and "this ancient custom is preserved in many parts of Ireland to this day, viz., that when a farmer kills a beef or pig, it is customary to send the head to the smith, whose kitchen often presents the spectacle of 50 to 100 heads obtained in this manner."--p. 212.

A most laudable custom, and by none of the smiths disapproved. Our learned and venerable friend the author of the Essay on Tara, informs us, on the authority of ancient MSS., that "the spits used in the Teach Miodhchuarta at Tara have been deemed worthy of a particular description, and even the names of their supposed fabricators, perhaps inventors, have been preserved by the bards."

In the book of Glendaloch is depicted the Bir bruinneas, a particular kind of spit, "on which the daul or waiter, is roasting a les, or round of beef."

Bir Nechin, or Dechin, is the spit of Dechin the chief smith of Tara in the time of the Tuatha-De-Danans. A spit, of curious construction, called the Inneoin of the Daghdha, made by Drinne, the son of Luchair, is thus described:-"It was thus: a stick at each end of it, and its axle was wood, and its wheel was wood, and its body was iron; and there were twice nine wheels on its axle that it might turn faster, and there were thirty spits out of it, and thirty hooks and thirty spindles, and it was rapid as the rapidity of a stream in turning; and thrice nine spits, and thrice nine cavities (or pots), and one spit for roasting, and one wing used to set it in motion."

NOTE, p. 75.

"Blind Gaul renowned in fight."

GAUL, like Hannibal, was blind of an eye. An Irish bard might have exclaimed with the Roman satirist,

O qualis facies et quali digna tabella!

NOTE, p. 77.

"And with his keen remorseless blade

Smote off her lovely head."

ATROCIOUS as was the deed of Conan in cutting off the head of the Grecian maiden, it was not more so than that of Macpherson's Starno, who came with a false story to Corman-trunar and his daughter, by whom he had been hospitably received, but in the dead of night, when sleep descended on them-“I rose,” says Starno, who tells his own story, "I rose like a stalking ghost. I pierced the side of Corman-trunar. Nor did Fiona Bragal escape. She rolled her white bosom in blood."-Cathloda.

In the Welsh Ode on the Death of Hoel, mention is made of another Conan,* of a very different description, thus versified in Mason's notes :

"Conan's name, my lay, rehearse,
Build to him the lofty verse,
Sacred tribute of the bard,
Verse, the Hero's sole reward.
As the flame's devouring force;
As the whirlwind in its course;
As the thunder's fiery stroke,
Glancing on the shivered oak;
Did the sword of Conan mow
The crimson harvest of the foe."

In a paper by the Rev. William Hamilton, in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 1787, he informs us that in a legend in verse, ascribed to Ossian, he met the following passage:

"The fierce and mighty Conan was not in the desperate battle of Gabhra; for in May the preceding year (Am Bealtaine an Bliadhain roimhe) the dauntless hero was treacherously slain by the Fenii of Fin, at an assembly met to worship the sun :-His sepulchral monument was raised on the north-west! His wailing dirge was sung! And his name is inscribed in Ogham characters on a flat stone on the very black mountain of Callan!"

NOTE, p. 79.

"A deed that gave to Oscar's name

A glorious and immortal fame."

THESE lines seem to form a proper conclusion to the Lay of Glennasmol. But in the literal translation by Mr. Eugene Curry, there are four additional stanzas, in which the Grecian princess, as she lies on the ground, mortally wounded, laments her fate, and utters grievous maledictions on her father, who, by his magical arts, had transformed, and then banished her from his

*This hero's name, however, is otherwise spelled Kynon, Chynon. "He is frequently mentioned by the bards of the middle ages, and celebrated both for his bravery and for his devotion as a lover."-Mabinogion,-note, p. 95.