Chapter XXVI
It will be borne in mind that everything hitherto advanced on the various topics which we have been discussing, was the sheer result of internal reasoning and of personal circumspection—that, wherever extrinsic aid was brought forward in support of this unbeaten track, it was uniformly in the shape of conclusions deduced from the premises of reluctant witnesses. I rejoice, with delight unspeakable, that I have it at last in my power to range myself side by side with an author whose testimony in this matter must be considered decisive, but which, however, by some strange aberration of intellect, has never before been understood!
Cormac,421 the celebrated bishop of Cashel, and one of the first scholars who ever flourished in any country, when defining the Round Towers in his Glossary of the Irish Language, under the name of Gaill422 says, that they were “Cartha cloacha is aire bearor gall desucder Fo bith ro ceata suighedseat en Eire,”—that is, stone-built monuments within which noble judges used to enclose vases containing the relics of Fo (i.e. Buddh), and of which they had erected hundreds throughout Ireland!
Knowing that the Ceylonese Dagobs, a name which literally signifies houses of relics, were appurtenances of Budhism, I intreated of a very intelligent native of that island, who attended the Vihara, at Exeter Hall, some time ago, that he would favour me with a written outline of his views of those structures. After a few days, he very civilly obliged me with the following:—
“Travellers to the Eastern countries often have their notice attracted by numerous buildings of a singular form and enormous sizes, both in ruins and in preserved states, about the origin and objects of which many inquiries have been made, and various conclusions drawn. These are monuments raised in ancient times to the memory of deified persons, and called Chaityas, to which places devotees used to resort for meditation, especially those who had any particular veneration for the deceased, whose relics are supposed to be deposited within, and on whose virtues they quietly reflect, availing themselves of the solitude of such places; and if in their own imaginations the personages are deified, they make offerings of lamplight, etc.
“In exploring the ruins of these pyramids, the inside of the globes are found to contain loose earth, merely filled up after the arches had been raised; in such loose earth are found ancient coins of various metals, supposed to be thrown in, in token of respect or veneration, whilst building; but in the very centre of the globe is always found a square well, paved with bricks, and the mouths covered by hewn granite, borne on granite supporters, standing in the four corners of the square (sometimes triangular). In this well, if the monument of a king (and if not robbed by ancient invaders), will be found the urn containing the relics of the deceased, and treasure to a considerable worth. Sometimes there may be discovered a piece of beaten gold, or other metal, with engravings, mentioning the name and other circumstances of the deceased. If a Buddhist king, idols of Buddha might be found in it—but in others, sometimes earthen or metallic lamps, and heads of cobra de capellas.
“In similar monuments, erected for the relics of Buddha, are three different compartments or depositories; one in the bottom of the foundation, one in the heart of the globe, and one at the top of the globe within the column. This column always has its basis upon the granite covering of the well. In monuments of this description are supposed to be much buried treasure, especially in the foundations. The Paly book, Toopahwanse, gives account of the distribution of the Buddha’s relics to the different parts of the world, and the erection of such monuments over them.
“Monuments of eminent Buddhist high priests are sometimes erected very high, but no treasure is to be expected in them, excepting sometimes books engraved on metal; but the tomb of the poorest prince is never without (at least in models) a golden crown, a sword of the same metal, a pair of metallic shoes, and a similar parasol.
“Besides having learnt from tradition and ancient documents, the writer has seen the discovery of the tomb of a prince, in which these articles were found, with a plate of gold, stating the name of the prince, his age, death, etc., which he had the pleasure to transcribe; the characters were in a different form from those now used in the same language, and hardly intelligible.
“The writer had also the pleasure of exploring the ruins of a very lofty Dagob that stood opposite to the establishment of the Church Missionaries in Ceylon. It was found to have been the tomb of a monarch, and had the appearance of having been robbed of the wealth it very likely contained, upwards of a century ago, as the trees that were growing on it indicated. A large quantity of ancient coins, and metal of different kinds, melted into various shapes (perhaps with burning of the corpse), were, however, collected.
“Ceylon contains many ancient pyramids of the kind in a preserved state, and protected by the people, which are supposed to contain much wealth, but the superstitious do not dare to explore, and others fear the laws, which will permit violence to no man’s feelings.”423
Having before shown how that the religion of the ancients was interwoven with their funeral observances, this ocular testimony was alone requisite to gain credence for my proofs. I can still further adduce the authority of Dr. Hurd,424 to show that the Gaurs of India, to this day, make use of the Round Towers425 in their neighbourhood as places of burial, lifting up the dead bodies to the elevated door by means of ladders and pulleys. None of those three writers have attempted anything more than a statement of the actualities, therefore will I be excused if, in addition to what has been already detailed, I observe that, sublime and philosophic as was the intent of the phallic configuration of those edifices, applied to religion, it was incomparably more so, considered in reference to sepulture; for while, in the former, it merely typified the progress of generation and vitality, in the latter it suggested the more ennobling hope of a future renascence and a resurrection.
That the reader, now aware of the “secret” which directed the form and elevation of our Sabian Towers, should not be surprised at the affinity which I have before pointed out between them and the two “pillars” which stood at the door of Solomon’s temple,426 I shall tell him that the whole internal construction of this latter edifice, as well as those outer and partial ornaments, bore direct relation to the anatomical organism of man himself.
To instance only the most prominent of those analogies, you will find the “holy” and the “most holy” bear the same relation to each other, as the cerebrum and cerebellum of the human mechanism. Nor need this at all be wondered at, seeing that, from the very faintest reflection, it must suggest itself to the most indolent that the divine ingenuity most prominently shines forth in the human anatomy; and that, therefore, from the exalted sentiments which this is calculated to inspire of the Godhead, “the noblest study of mankind is man.”427
Viewing it in this light, and coupling it with that piety which is known to have animated the bosom of David’s anointed son, I cannot pass on without participating in that sublime exclamation, which bespoke at once his gratitude and his humility, after the consummation of his mighty task. “But will God,” said he, “indeed dwell on earth! Behold! the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have builded!”428
Now to the era for the erection of our Round Towers. “As they have neither dates nor inscriptions,” say Sir John Ware, “and as history is silent on that head, it cannot be expected that I should point out the time when they were erected in this country.”429 A very cheap way, certainly, of getting over a difficulty! The same was the mode adopted by him, and with equal candour, a few pages earlier, as to the development of their destination, when he says: “I confess it is much easier to combat and overthrow everything that has been hitherto advanced by writers in favour of the Danish claim to these monuments of antiquity and the uses of them, than to substitute anything solid and satisfactory in their room.”430 But inasmuch as the latter problem has been solved, one is led to conclude that the obstacles to the former are but imaginary also.
To begin then. Camden, speaking of them, in the thirteenth century, says he believes them to have been erected in the seventh, but does not know by whom! But I put it to any rational thinker to say whether, if they had been a creation of the seventh century, it would be possible for a writer of the thirteenth to have been ignorant of their origin, and that too at a time when tradition was universal? and every father made it a point to instil into his son the events and circumstances that happened in his own day? This writer’s testimony is sufficient, at all events, to show that they existed in the seventh century.
Bishop Cormac, we have seen before, has recorded them as objects of antiquity in his own time; and this being, at the latest, within the ninth century, they must have had existence before the seventh; else they could not well be deemed ancient two centuries after.
The Ulster annals record the destruction of fifty-seven of them by an earthquake, A.D. 448; they must, therefore, have existed before that century also. But the Royal Irish Academy say no; because that tradition connects a person called the Goban Saer, and “the historical notices relative to whom have been collected into Mr. Petrie’s essay... with the erection of this (the Antrim Tower), as well as others in the north of Ireland!”431 As every notice, therefore, respecting so important a character must be eagerly sought after, I shall take leave to transcribe what the same high authority tells us of him, in the following words, namely:—
“I have not learned the particular period at which he flourished, but tradition says that he was superior to all his contemporaries in the art of building; even in that dark age when so little communication existed between countries not so remotely situated, his fame extended to distant lands. A British prince, whose possessions were very extensive, and who felt ambitious of erecting a splendid palace to be his regal residence, hearing of the high attainments of the Goban Saer in his sublime science, invited him to court, and by princely gifts and magnificent promises induced him to build a structure, the splendour of which excelled that of all the palaces in the world. But the consummate skill of the artist had nearly cost him his life, for the prince, struck with the matchless beauty of the palace, was determined that it should stand unrivalled on the earth, by putting the architect to death, who alone was capable of constructing such another, after the moment the building received the finishing touches of his skilful hand.
“This celebrated individual had a son, who was grown up to man’s estate; and anxious that this only child should possess, in marriage, a young woman of sound sense and ready wit, he cared little for the factitious distinctions of birth or fortune, if he found her rich in the gifts of heaven. Having killed a sheep, he sent the young man to sell the skin at the next market town, with this singular injunction, that he should bring home the skin and its price at his return. The lad was always accustomed to bow to his father’s superior wisdom, and on this occasion did not stop to question the good sense of his commands, but bent his way to town. In these primitive times it was not unusual to see persons of the highest rank engaged in menial employments, so the townsfolk were less surprised to see the young Goban expose a sheep-skin for sale, than at the absurdity of the term, ‘the skin and the price of it.’ He could find no chapman, or rather chapwoman (to coin a term), for it was women engaged in domestic business that usually purchased such skins for the wool. A young woman at last accosted him, and upon hearing the terms of sale, after pondering a moment agreed to the bargain. She took him to her house, and having stripped off all the wool, returned him the bare skin, and the price for which the young man stipulated. Upon reaching home, he returned the skin and its value to his father, who learning that a young woman became the purchaser, entertained so high an opinion of her talents, that in a few days she became the wife of his son, and sole mistress of Rath Goban.
“Some time after this marriage, and towards the period to which we before referred, when the Goban Saer and his son were setting off, at the invitation of the British prince, to erect his superb palace, this young woman exhibited considerable abilities, and the keenness of her expressions, and the brilliancy of her wit, far outdid, on many occasions, the acumen of the Goban Saer himself; she now cautioned him, when his old father, who did not, like modern architects, Bianconi it along macadamised roads, got tired from the length of the journey, to shorten the road; and, secondly, not to sleep a third night in any house without securing the interest of a domestic female friend. The travellers pursued their way, and after some weary walking over flinty roads, and through intricate passages, the strength of the elder Goban yielded to the fatigue of the journey. The dutiful son would gladly shorten the road for the wayworn senior, but felt himself unequal to the task. On acquainting his father with the conjugal precept, the old man unravelled the mystery by bidding him commence some strange legend of romance, whose delightful periods would beguile fatigue and pain into charmed attention. Irishmen, I believe, are the cleverest in Europe at ‘throwing it over’ females in foreign places, and it is pretty likely that the younger Goban did not disobey the second precept of his beloved wife. On the second night of their arrival at the king’s court, he found in the person of a female of very high rank (some say she was the king’s daughter), a friend who gave her confiding heart to all the dear delights that love and this Irish experimentalist could bestow. As the building proceeded under the skilful superintendence of the elder Goban, the son acquaints him with the progress of his love, and the ardent attachment of the lady. The cautious old man bade him beware of one capable of such violent passion, and take care lest her jealousy or caprice might not be equally ungovernable, and display more fearful effects. To discover her temper, the father ordered him to sprinkle her face with water as he washed himself in the morning—that if she received the aspersion with a smile, her love was disinterested, and her temper mild; but if she frowned darkly, her love was lust, and her anger formidable. The young man playfully sprinkled the crystal drops on the face of his lover—she smiled gently—and the young Goban rested calmly on that tender bosom, where true love and pitying mildness bore equal sway.
“The wisdom of the Goban Saer and his sapient daughter-in-law was soon manifested; for, as the building approached its completion, his lady-love communicated to the young man the fearful intelligence that the king was resolved, by putting them to death when the work was concluded, that they should erect no other such building, and, by that means, to enjoy the unrivalled fame of possessing the most splendid palace in the world. These tidings fell heavily on the ear of the Goban Saer, who saw the strong necessity of circumventing this base treachery with all his skill. In an interview with his majesty, he acquaints him that the building was being completed; and that its beauty exceeded everything of the kind he had done before, but that it could not be finished without a certain instrument which he unfortunately left at home, and he requested his royal permission to return for it. The king would by no means consent to the Goban Saer’s departure; but anxious to have the edifice completed, he was willing to send a trusty messenger into Ireland for that instrument upon which the finishing of the royal edifice depended. The other assured his majesty that it was of so much importance that he would not entrust it into the hands of the greatest of his majesty’s subjects. It was finally arranged that the king’s eldest son should proceed to Rath Goban, and, upon producing his credentials to the lady of the castle, receive the instrument of which she had the keeping, and which the Goban Saer named ‘Cur-an-aigh-an-cuim.’ Upon his arrival in Ireland, the young prince proceeded to fulfil his errand; but the knowing mistress of Rath Goban, judging from the tenor of the message, and the ambiguous expressions couched under the name of the pretended instrument, that her husband and father-in-law were the victims of some deep treachery, she bad him welcome, inquired closely after her absent friends, and told him he should have the object of his mission when he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of his long journey. Beguiled by the suavity of her manners and the wisdom of her words, the prince complied with her invitation to remain all night at Rath Goban. But in the midst of his security, the domestics, faithful to the call of their mistress, had him bound in chains, and led to the dungeon of the castle. Thus the wisdom of the Goban Saer and the discrimination of his daughter completely baffled the wicked designs of the king, who received intimation that his son’s life would surely atone for the blood of the architects. He dismissed them to their native country laden with splendid presents; and, on their safe arrival at Rath Goban, the prince was restored to liberty.”432
Gentlemen of England, where is your knowledge of history? which of your famed monarchs was it that was going to play this scurvy trick upon our Goban, and earn for himself the infamous notoriety of a second Laomedon, by defrauding this architect, who no doubt was a Hercules, of his stipulated salary? Ye shades of Alfred and of Ethelbert, I pause for a reply?
But this indignity, if offered to Goban, would be even greater than that offered by Laomedon to Hercules; for in the latter case the crime was only that of dishonesty—which is not uncommon in any age—superadded to a spice of impiety, in cheating a god; but in the former case, over and above all these, would weigh a consideration which our people would never forget, namely, a violation of the laws of gallantry, this same Goban “having been believed in this part of this country to have been a woman!”433 And yet the same vehicle that puts forth this trash has told us, in the preceding extract, that he was a father and a husband! (I do not believe in hermaphrodites), and, to crown the climax of absurdity, gives us the following specimen of the heroism of his wife, namely:—
“The Goban Saer having been barbarously murdered, together with his journeymen, by twelve highwaymen, the murderers proceeded to his house, and told the Goban’s wife, with an air of triumph, that they had killed her husband. She appearing nowise concerned, asked them to assist her in drawing open the trunk of a tree, which the Goban had been cutting up into planks. They put in their hands for the purpose, when, drawing out a wedge, she left them literally in a cleft stick, and taking up an axe, cut off all their heads at a blow”!434
But this is ludicrously trifling with the time of my readers. I am alive to the fact, and I most submissively crave forgiveness, which I doubt not I shall receive, when I state that my sole object was to expose the flimsiness of that subterfuge by which the Royal Irish Academy, or rather their council! had hoped that they could blindfold the public as well as they had succeeded in sequestrating my prize!
I do not deny indeed but that there may have been in Ireland at one time such a person as the Goban Saer: but if ever he did belong thereto, it must have been at least sixteen hundred years before the epoch which the Academy sanction—and so sanction, be it observed, because that a weak-minded poor monk, when writing the biography of St. Abhan, and torturing his invention, in all quarters, for the purpose of conjuring up miracles to lay to his score, thought the similarity of sound between Abhan and Gobhan so inviting, that he must contrive an interview between the parties; and so, with “one fell swoop,” alias, dash of the pen, cutting off the centuries of separation, he treats himself and his pupils to the following burlesque:—
“Quidam famossissimus in omni arte lignorum et lapidum erat in Hibernia nomine Gobbanus, cujus artis fama usque in finem sæculi erit in ea. Ipse jam postquam, aliis sanatis, in superflua artis suæ mercede lumen oculorum amisit, et erat cæcus. Hic vocatus est ad S. Abbanum et dixit ei: Volo ædificium in honorem Dei ædificare, et tu age illud. Et ille ait: Quomodo possum agere cum sim cæcus? dixit ei sanctus, Quamdiu illud operaberis lumen oculorum habebis, sed tibi postea non promitto. Et ita factum est, nam ille artifex apud sanctum Dei in lumine suo operatus est, et cum esset illud perfectum lumen oculorum amisit”435—that is, in the true spirit of what my countrymen call a sceal Feeneechtha, or Phœnician story, i.e. an entertaining lie (a proof, by the way, that they claim no kindred with the Phœnicians, else they would not thus confirm the well-known epithet of Punica fides); however to put this sceal Feeneechtha into English, it runs thus: “Once upon a time there lived in Erin a man most celebrated for his universal mastery over wood and stone; and whose fame, accordingly, will live therein as long as grass shall grow or purling streams flow in its enchanting scenery. This good man’s name was Gobhan, who, wallowing in wealth from the meritorious exertions of his abilities, yet incapacitated from enjoying it by the deprivation of his sight, was summoned before St. Abhan, who had already healed the rest of the world by his miraculous gifts, and who thus addresses him: ‘I wish to build a house to the honour of God; and set you about it.’ ‘How can I,’ says Gobhan, ‘seeing that I am blind?’ ‘O very well,’ says Abhan, ‘I will settle that; long as ever you are engaged in the business, you shall have the use of your eyes; but I make no promises afterwards!’ And verily it was so, for long as ever he did work with the saint he had the use of his sight, but soon as ever the work was done he relapsed into his former blindness!”
Well, you may laugh if you chose, in future, at the simplicity of the monks; but here is one for you, who, in the very extravagance of his simplicity, and that while bursting almost with risibility himself at the speciousness of his conceit, has contrived to bamboozle a jury of umpires who pique themselves upon their contempt for everything monkish, and who actually, in any other case, had they the sworn evidence of a monk, would go counter thereto; but here, where an old doting friar is drawing upon his ingenuity, every syllable that escapes him is taken for gospel!
Now, I as readily believe, as they would fain persuade me, that “long as Gobhan did work with Abhan he had the use of his sight,” and that “soon as ever the work was done he relapsed into his former blindness.” And why? because the two men, living in different ages, never laid eyes upon each other at all, and thus were they both, morally and literally, blind to each other!
The Scythians, who were masters of this country at the Christian era, and for many centuries preceding, had a sovereign contempt for everything like architecture. “They have no towns,” says Herodotus, “no fortifications; their habitations they always carry with them.”436 The principle which actuated them, in this indifference to houses, was precisely that which governed the Britons in a similar taste—they were a race of warriors, and dreaded the imputation of cowardice more than they did the inclemency of the weather. It is not without reason, therefore, that we find Hollingshed, who wrote his Chronicles in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, complaining that “three things were altered for the worse in England: the multitude of chimneys lately erected, the great increase of lodgings, and the exchange of treen platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver and tin. Nothing but oak for building houses is now regarded: when houses were built with willow, then had we oaken men; but now our houses are come to be built of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a great many altogether of straw.”437
St. Bernard, also, in reference to the Irish, having mentioned that Malachy O’Morgan, archbishop of Armagh, was the first (of the Scythian race) who had erected a stone house in the island, introduces a native upbraiding him with it, in these terms: “What wonderful work is this? why this innovation in our country? we are Scots, and not Gauls, what necessity have we for such durable edifices?”
St. Abhan, therefore, who belonged to the sixth century, at which time the Scythians had here absolute sway, never once dreamt of erecting a stone edifice, or of evoking from the grave the manes of Gobhan, who, if he ever existed, must have been a member of the former dynasty.
Those pious fabrications which the biographers of early saints had concocted, with a view to magnify the reverence due to their subjects, remind me of one which was invented for the benefit (but in reality to the detriment) of St. Patrick, and which, even at the risk of appearing tedious, I must detail.
“Whereas,”—you perceive the record begins with all the formalities of office,—“in the year of the world 1525, Noah began to admonish the people of vengeance to come by a generall deluge for the wickednesse and detestable sinne of man, and continued his admonition for 120 years, building an arke for the safeguard of himself and his family; one Cæsarea (say they), according unto others, Caisarea, a niece of Noah (when others seemed to neglect this warning), rigging a navy, committed herself, with her adherents, to the seas, to seeke adventures and leave the plagues that were to befall. There arrived in Ireland with her three men, Bithi, Largria, and Fintan, and fifty women. Within forty days after her arrivall the universal flood came upon them, and those parts, as well as upon the rest of the world, and drowned them all; in which perplexity of mind and imminent danger, beholding the waves overflowing all things before their eyes, Fintan is said to have been transformed into a salmon, and to have swoome all the time of the deluge about Ulster; and after the fall of the water, recovering his former shape, to have lived longer than Adam, and to have delivered strange things to posterity, so that of him the common speech riseth, ‘If I had lived Fintan’s years I could say much.’”
Well, “to make a long story short,” this same Fintan, who was converted into a salmon, for the sole purpose of accounting for his appearance on the same theatre with St. Patrick, is introduced to the saint, when, after a very diverting episode upon his submarine adventures, a miracle, of course, is to be wrought; and, anon, we have the contemporary of Noah, and of Patrick, at once a salmon, a dolphin, and a man, renouncing his attachment to the waters and to the boat, and devoutly embracing Christianity!!!
The anachronism committed in the instance of the Goban Saer was precisely of the same character! and the very name assigned him, which is that of a class, not of an individual, exposes the counterfeit!
Gobhan Saer means the Sacred Poet, or the Freemason Sage, one of the Guabhres, or Cabiri, such as you have seen him represented upon the Tuath-de-danaan cross at Clonmacnoise. To this colony, therefore, must he have belonged, and therefore the Towers traditionally associated with his erection must have been constructed anterior to the Scythian influx.
But we are not left to such inferences to determine the point. A more substantial ally, the imperishable landmarks of history stand forward as my vouchers.
To this hour the two localities,—whereon the Tuath-de-danaans had fought their two decisive battles with the Fir-Bolgs, their immediate predecessors in the occupation of this island,—one near Lough Mask, in the county Galway, and the other near Lough Arran, in the county Roscommon, are called by the name of Moy-tura, or more correctly, in Irish, Moye-tureadh!
The meaning of this compound, beyond the possibility of disputation, is The field of the Towers! And when in both those places are still traced the ruins of such edifices, are we not inevitably forced to connect, as well their erection as the imposition of the name, with the fortunes or with the feelings of some side of the above combatants?
You will say, then, that the Fir-Bolgs were as likely to have originated the name, and built those structures upon the site, in reliance upon their divinities, as that the Tuath-de-danaans should have been the authors in gratitude to theirs?
Our only mode, therefore, is to consider the vestiges of their respective religions: and when we perceive that in the isles of Aran, whither the Fir-Bolgs betook themselves after their first defeat, for the period intervening between those two battles, commemorated by the above name, there appears not a vestige of architectural masonry approaching in character to a Columnar temple, while, on the contrary, they abound in specimens of Druidical veneration, is it not evident that they, at all events, have no claim thereto?
The worship, therefore, of the Fir-Bolgs differed altogether from that of the Tuath-de-danaans, and so they are excluded from those immortal memorials. Indeed the avidity with which they hailed the approach of a new conqueror, and tendered him their assistance for the reduction of the island, arose not so much from any fondly-cherished hope of their being themselves restored to the throne they had lost, or even allowed therein a participation, as from an illiberal aversion to the emblematic ritual of their temple-serving superiors, which their ignorant prejudices could not allow them to appreciate!
We are warranted, then, I presume, in assigning solely to the Tuath-de-danaans the affixing of the name Moy-tureadh to those two scenes of their success. And did there even a doubt remain on the mind of the most incredulous as to the accuracy of the inference, or the correctness of that reasoning, which would identify this people with the erections in general of those rotundities, it will hide its diminished head, and vanish with self-abasement, when I bring forward the testimony of Amergin, brother to Heremon and, Heber,—the immediate victors of this religious order—in the following graphic and pictorial treasure, as still religiously preserved in the Book of Leccan, viz.:—
“Aonoch righ Teambrach
Teamor Tur Tuatach
Tuath Mac Miledh
Miledh Long Libearne.”
That is—
Noble is the King of Teamor,
Teamor the Tuathan Tower,
Tuaths were the sons of Miledh,
Miledh of the Libearn vessels.
Here, then,—a circumstance which I cannot imagine how it could have escaped all before me!—we have this disputed question at length settled, and incontrovertibly adjudicated by the very head of that body which Montmorency had assured us never alluded to those edifices as a subject of national boast—I mean the Bards. For, whether we admit this Amergin to have been the person above described,438 the actual contemporary and successor of the Tuatha-de-danaans, or as the other of that name who belongs to the Christian age, and the time of St. Patrick, the supposition is equally valid, to prove the existence of those structures anterior to their respective eras! and the ascription in either case remains unshaken and irrefragable, which in the word Tuathan Tower unites the Tower erectors with the colony of the Tuatha!
My opponents may now demolish, if they can, all my foregoing deductions, as speedily as they please,—nay, did the destructiveness of fire, or other untoward accident, deprive me of the deductions of my preceding labours, to this one stanza would I cling, as the palladium of my truth; to this landmark would I adhere as my “ne plus ultra” against error, in its encroachments upon history!439
In the whole catalogue of Irish deposits, there exists not one of more intrinsic value to the lover of antiquities, so far as the right settlement of history is concerned, than what those four lines present. For, in the first place, we learn that the celebrity of Teamor440 arose not from any gorgeous suit of palaces of a castellated outline. Its renown consisted in being the central convention for religious celebration to all the distant provincials once in every year; who, after attending the games in the adjoining district of Tailtine, now Telltown, adjourned, for legislative deliberations, to the Hill of Tarah, where they propounded their plans, not within the confined enclosures of any measured dome, but under the open canopy of the expanded firmament.
Teamor, then, was not a palace at all, but one of the Round Towers, or Budhist Temples, belonging to the Tuath-de-danaans; and this is further proved by the result of researches, made to explore the foundation of an edifice, confirmatory of a regal mansion, having all ended in the most confuting disappointment—no vestiges could be found save those of the Round Tower!
The importance which attaches to the Tailtine games above noticed, makes it necessary that I should bestow upon them something more than a cursory glance. Let me, therefore, first state what other writers have said respecting them.
“We attribute,” says Abbé Mac Geoghegan, “to Lugha Lamh Fada, one of their ancient kings, the institution of military exercises at Tailton in Meath; those exercises consisted in wrestling, the combats of gladiators, tournaments, races on foot and on horseback, as we have seen them instituted at Rome a long time after by Romulus, in honour of Mars, which were called ‘Equitia.’ These games at Tailton, which Gratianus Lucius and O’Flaherty call ‘ludi Taltini,’ were celebrated every year, during thirty days, that is, fifteen days before, and fifteen days after, the first of our month of August. On that account, the first of August has been, and is still called in Ireland, ‘Lah Lugh-Nasa,’ which signifies a day in memory of Lugha. These olympiads always continued amongst the Milesians until the arrival of the English. We discover to this day some vestiges of them, without any other change than that of time and place. Wrestling, which we call in France ‘le tour du Breton,’ the exercises of gladiators, and races on foot, are still on festival days their common diversion in various districts of Ireland, and the conquerors generally receive a prize.”
“Tailtean,” says Seward, “a place in the county of Meath, where the Druids sacrificed in honour of the sun and moon, and heaven and earth, on the first of August, being the fifth revolution of the moon from the vernal equinox. At this time the states assembled, and young people were given in marriage, according to the custom of the eastern nations. Games were also instituted, resembling the Olympic games of the Greeks, and held fifteen days before and fifteen days after the first of August. This festival was frequently denominated Lughaid Naoislean, or the Matrimonial Assembly.”
“This chapter,” says Vallancey, “might have been lengthened many pages, with the description and etymology of the various ornaments of female dress, but enough has been said to convince the reader that the ancient Irish brought with them the Asiatic dress and ornaments of their ancestors, for they could not have borrowed these names of Spaniards, Britons, Danes, or Norwegians.
“Thus dressed and ornamented, the youthful females of Ireland appeared at Tailetan, or the mysteries of the sun, on the first day of August in each year, when the ceremony of the marriage of the sun and moon took place, and the females were exposed to enamour the swains. The day still retains the name of Luc-nasa, or the Anniversary of the Sun. And the name of the month of August, in Sanscrit, is Lukie, whom they make the wife of Veeshnu, the preserver and goddess of plenty. So the Irish poets have made this festival, named Lucaid-lamh-fada, i.e. the Festival of Love, the consecration of hands, to be the feast of Luigh-lamh-fada, or Luigh-longumans, to whom they have given Tailte for wife, who, after his death, was married to Duach.”
“The Taltenean sports,” says Sir James Ware, “have been much celebrated by the Irish historians. They were a sort of warlike exercises, something resembling the Olympic games, consisting of racing, tilts, tournaments, or something like them, and other exercises. They were held every year at Talten, a mountain in Meath, for fifteen days before and fifteen days after the first of August. Their first institution is ascribed to Lugaid-lam-fadhe, the twelfth King of Ireland, who began his reign A.M. 2764, in gratitude to the memory of Tailte, the daughter of Magh Mor, a prince of some part of Spain, who, having been married to Eochaid, King of Ireland, took this Lugaidh under her protection, and had the care of his education in his minority. From this lady both the sports and the place where they were celebrated took their names. From King Lugaidh the first of August was called Lugnasa, or the memory of Lugaidh, nasa signifying memory in Irish.”
The truth is, that those games were called Tailtine (whence the English Tilts), and the place Tailton, from Tailte, which, in our language, signifies a wife; and the sports, there exhibited, made but a representation of the victory which Budha gained over Mara, the great tempter, who had attacked him on the day of his attaining to perfection, with an innumerable host of demons. The conflict is said to have lasted for fifteen days, at the end of which Budha reduced them to submission, and to the acknowledgment of his pretensions as the Son of God.
The battle-scenes, therefore, with which the Tuath-de-danaan crosses and obelisks are decorated, bear reference, all of them, to this religious achievement: and to this hour you will find those identical games celebrated in various parts of the east, and for the same number of days! In Egypt, also, there was a place called Tailtal,441 and named from the same cause. Nay, the name of the Eleusinian mysteries was Tailtine! but this the Greeks not comprehending, they bent it, as usual, to some conformity to their own language, and made Teletai of it! and then they were at no loss in making a reason for it in like manner, namely, that no one could be finished until initiated therein!
But it is not alone as assigning those edifices to their real proprietors that this “stanza” is of value; but as giving us an insight into that mysterious personage whom our modern chroniclers would fain represent as the father of Heber and Heremon. A greater error, whether voluntary or accidental, was never incurred. Heber and Heremon were the sons of Gallamh, and invaded this island at the head of a Scythian colony,442 distinct in all respects, save that of language,443 from their Tuathan predecessors.
These predecessors were headed by three brothers, Brien, Iuchordba, and Iuchor, the sons of King Miledh, a Fo-morian, by a queen of the Tuath-de-danaan race, agreeably to this record in the Book of Leccan, viz.:—
“D’Hine fine Fo-mora dosomh de shaorbh a athor, agus do Tuathabh Dadanann a mhathar”—that is, the father was of the race of the Fo-morians, and the mother a Tuath-de-danaan.
Again, in the Seabright Collection, this genealogy is prosecuted further, and from it, General Vallancey translates some lines, which are by no means irrelevant, as follows, viz.: “Cuill, Ceacht, and Grian, were the children of little Touraine—and their descendants, Uar, Jurca, Jurcatha; and from Uar was descended Brian, who was named Touran; and many others not here enumerated.”
But the history of those events having been destroyed by time, the degenerate Pheeleas, wishing to flatter the vanity of the existing powers, did not hesitate to ascribe to the Scythian, or modern Irish, followers of Heber and Heremon, those brilliant features of primeval immortality which appertained exclusively to the Irish of another day—the Hyperborean or Iranian Irish!
The Tuath-de-danaans having been proved the authors of the Round Towers, my ambition in the investigation is already attained. But since we are told, that this people had claimed possession of the island as inheritors of an antecedent and preoccupying eastern colony, it may be worth while to inquire whether we can discover any traces to connect those predecessors with any of these edifices. Without bestowing upon it, however, more consideration than what the exigency demands, I will briefly observe, that we are likely to find such in the history of the Fo-moraice, who are represented in our chronicles, by the party who had ejected them, under the obnoxious character of monsters and giants.444
It is high time to give up those abuses in the import of words. Fo-moraic means literally the mariners of Fo, that is, of Budh: and their religion being thus identified with that of the Tuath-de-danaans, what could be more natural than that they should have erected temples of the same shape with theirs?
This deduction will appear the more credible from the unanimity of all our historians, on the subject of this people having been perfect masters of masonry, as well as from the universally credited report in the days of Cambrensis, of some of the Towers being then visible beneath the inundation of Lough Neagh.445
I confess I am one of those persons who give faith to this tradition; for even my experience of the vicissitudes of all things earthly has enabled me to say, in the words of the philosophic poet, that—
“Where once was solid land seas have I seen,
And solid land where once deep seas have been,
Shells far from seas, like quarries in the ground,
As anchors have in mountain tops been found.
Torrents have made a valley of a plain,
High hills by floods transported to the main,
Deep standing lakes sucked dry by thirsty sand,
And on late thirsty earth now lakes do stand.”