bath. And a bath was always a common courtesy to which to treat a newly arrived guest.

The women had mirrors made of highly polished metal. They used cosmetics, and had combs which were often beautifully wrought, and embossed cior-bolgs (comb bags) in which they carried comb, veil, and personal ornaments. Both sexes devoted the greatest attention to the care of their hair, which was often elaborately curled, and often also plaited in several long plaits the ends of which were fastened by little golden balls-one or two large ones on the heads of the men, and six or seven small ones on women's heads. Both women and men (of noble rank) wore beautifully wrought brooches, for fastening their mantle, and beautifully wrought girdles, also. Other ornaments were bracelets, rings, neck torques, diadems, crescents, of gold and silver-beautiful specimens of all which may be seen in the National Museum in Dublin and in the British Museum. Veils and gloves were in use-and sandals likewise.

The chief articles of dress were, in the case of the women, one long robe that reached to the ankles, and of the men a short jacket combined with a sort of kilt. Over these both sexes frequently wore a cloak or mantle. The substance of the dress was usually either of linen or wool. But sometimes it was of silk or satin, imported.

The cloak or mantle was a distinctive and prized article of dress, the one to which most thought was given, and on which most value was expended. In details of gifts and tributes told of in the old stories, and in accounts of beautiful cavalcades, the mantle gets prominent place. For instance, the Book of Rights detailing the tuarastal payable from the king to subordinate kings

says:

"Seven mantles with wreaths of gold,

And seven cups for social drinking,
Seven steeds not accustomed to falter,
To the king of Kerry of the combats.

"The prosperous king of Rathlenn is entitled
To the stipend of a brave great man;
Ten swords, and ten drinking horns,
Ten red cloaks, ten blue cloaks.

"The king of Ara of beauty is entitled

From the king of Eire of the comely face,
To six swords, six praised shields,

And six mantles of deep crimson."

In the poem of the Bruidean da Derga, the Saxon chief Ingcel, in describing King Conaire Mor as he saw him in the Bruidean, gives a glorified description of a king's dress in the early days:

"I saw his many-hued red cloak of lustrous silk,

With its gorgeous ornamentation of precious gold bespangled upon its surface,

With its flowing capes dexterously embroidered.

"I saw in it a great large brooch,

The long pin was of pure gold;

Bright shining like a full-moon

Was its ring, all around-a crimson gemmed circlet

Of round sparkling pebbles

Filling the fine front of his noble breast

Atwixt his well proportioned fair shoulders.

"I saw his splendid linen kilt,

With its striped silken borders,—

A face-reflecting mirror of various hues,
The coveted of the eyes of many,—

Embracing his noble neck-enriching its beauty.
An embroidery of gold upon the lustrous silk-
(Extended) from his bosom to his noble knees."

The law prescribed that sons of kings in fosterage were to have satin mantles, of scarlet, purple, or blue; scabbards for their little swords, ornamented with silver. Sons of the higher kings were to have their mantles fastened with a brooch ornamented with gold. A son of a king of a tuath, a brooch ornamented with silver.

Mantles and capes were sometimes trimmed with furs of native animals, seals, badgers, otters and foxes.

In welcoming a guest the usual courtesy was for the household to arise to their feet. Sometimes also the host greeted him with a kiss on each cheek. At larger assemblies, as for instance at the king's court, the visitor was sometimes received "with clapping of hands." The custom of the hand-shake was not used or known.

The guest was feasted with the best that could be had, and he was entertained with story and with poem, with music of the harp, the pipe, or the tympan. Chess was the game always provided the great and universal game, in which the Irish were highly skilled.

Another entertainment, which however was peculiar to Courts,

was that provided by professional jesters and jugglers, buffoons and druiths. The same Ingcel whom we just quoted describes Conari Mor's three court jesters:

"I saw there," said he, "three jesters at the fire. They wore three dark grey cloaks; and if all the men of Eirinn were in one place, and though the body of the father or the mother of each man was lying dead before him, not one could refrain from laughing at them."

And of Tultinne, the king's juggler, Ingcel says:

"He had ear-clasps of gold in his ears; and a speckled white cloak upon him. He had nine swords in his hand, and nine silvery shields, and nine balls of gold. He throws every one of them up (into the air), and none of them falls to the ground, and there is but one of them at a time upon his palm; and like the buzzing of bees on a beautiful day, was the motion of each passing the other."

The druith is often interpreted to be a buffoon-but he must have been of an entirely different and indeed far superior order, when we recall the druith Ua Maighlinne (who belonged to the court, at Ailech, of Fergal the son of Maelduin, in the beginning of the eighth century). On the eve of the great battle of Almain (Allen) he entertained the northern warriors by narrating the battles and triumphs of these northmen, and also of their enemies the Leinstermen, from the earliest time down to the time that was then present. And this Ua Maighlinne, taken prisoner in the battle and about to be beheaded, was asked to give the Geim Druath, or druith's cry, before he died. And so loud, beautiful, and melodious was this peculiar cry that for three days and three nights after his death the enchanting soft echoes of it were still reverberating about the spot.

The description given of that other wonderful and versatile entertainer, Donnbo, who went on the same expedition, and lost his life in the same battle, may well describe the druith. And, because of its dramatic beauty, we shall make room for it here:

"And there was not in all Eirinn one more comely, or of better shape or face, or more graceful symmetry, than he; he was the best at singing amusing verses and telling of royal stories in the world; he was the best to equip horses, and to mount spears, and to plait hair; and his was the best mind in acuteness of intellect and in honour."

So famed and so popular was the clever and witty Donnbo that when Fergal summoned the men of Leth Cuinn to go with him upon this expedition, what each of them answered was: "If Donnbo go upon the expedition, I will."

And on the night that was the eve of the battle, on the hill of Allen, when Ua Maighlinne told them the stories, it was Donnbo who had been asked to amuse them, but had refused because his heart was weighted with sad prescience of the morrow's disaster. But he promised that if Ua Maighlinne amused them to-night he would make amusement for his royal master, wheresoever he should be, on the next night. On the next night his royal master and thousands of his devoted ones, not only warriors, but pipers and trumpeters, and harpers, were dead upon the field of carnage. And Donnbo, like his royal master, had had his head severed from his body. A warrior of Murchad, the victorious King of Leinster, who, on a dare from his king came alone to the battlefield at dead of night to bear from it a trophy, heard a voice in the air above the battlefield, calling upon Donnbo, in the name of the King of the Seven Heavens to make amusement to-night, as he had promised, for Fergal the son of Maelduin. And in answer the warrior first heard the dead singers and trumpeters and harpers make music the like of which he never heard before or after. And next, from a cluster of rushes, he heard the head of Donnbo raise the dord-fiansa, the sweetest of all the world's music: for Donnbo was keeping his promise to amuse the king. The warrior wished to take back the head of Donnbo to amuse the Leinster king, but Donnbo's head said: "I prefer that nothing whatever should carry me away unless Christ, the son of God, should take me. And thou must give the guarantee of Christ that thou wilt bring me back to my body again." The warrior, giving the guarantee, carried to his king's camp the head of Donnbo.

"Pity thy fate, O Donnbo," said Murchad and his company, "comely was thy face. Make amusement for us, this night, the same as thou didst for thy lord, yesterday." That it should be the darker for him Donnbo turned his face to the wall, and raised the dordfiansa on high. "And it was the sweetest of all music ever heard on all the surface of the earth! So that the host were all crying and lamenting with the plaintiveness and softness of the melody."

Same books as for preceding chapter, together with:
Carbery, Ethna: In the Celtic Past.

CHAPTER XXXIV

STRUCTURAL ANTIQUITIES

THE structural antiquities which we can still observe in Ireland arrange themselves under five heads: cromlechs, tumuli, the great duns of the west, ancient churches, and round towers.

The cromlechs, sometimes called dolmen, are each composed of three great standing stones, ten or twelve feet high with a great flat slab resting on top of them, and always inclined toward the east. Sometimes these are surrounded by a wide circle of standing stones. The cromlechs are of such very remote antiquity— ancient, at the beginning of the Christian era-that all legends of them are lost. The invariable inclination to the east of the covering slab suggests altars dedicated to sun-worship. The name cromlech may mean either bent slab or the slab of the god Crom. And this latter derivation suggests to some that they were sacrificial altars used in the very ancient worship of that god.

But some of the best authorities have concluded that they were tombstones-because beneath every one of them under which excavations were made, were found the bones, or the urns and dust, of the dead. From this, however, we cannot necessarily conclude that they were erected as tombstones-any more than we should conclude that the various Christian temples and altars under which honoured ones have been interred were only intended as monuments to the dead beneath them.

Excavations made beneath many cromlechs have turned up, besides urns and bones of the dead, tools of flint and stone, axes, hammers, chisels, spear-heads, knives, and also rings of shale and jet-thus showing that the cromlechs were erected in the far-away Stone Age. And, as Miss Margaret Stokes points out, an advanced religious condition for such age is evidenced by the fact that they then celebrated funeral rights in tombs of imposing grandeur, with cremation, and sometimes urn burial.

The tumuli or enormous burial mounds found in the Boyne section of eastern Ireland show the race in a much more advanced stage of civilisation. These tumuli, as proved by the decorative