it impossible that such fine work could have been executed by native artists. Quoting again from Mr. Akerman, he says that "Asser, in his life of the Great Alfred, informs us that the king brought over cunning artificers in goldsmiths' work. The artificers of this description were in such repute among the Franks that, by their law, the wer-gyld for a slave, who was a good worker in gold, was higher than that of a free person of humble rank. We find nothing of the kind in the Anglo-Saxon laws; and the natural inference is that the more costly articles of personal ornament were generally imported."

With regard to the chieftain-for it seems impossible that he could have been other than a great chief-whose funeral inventory has just been reviewed, it appears unlikely that he could have lived at a time when Christianity had made much way in Saxon England.

The great size of the tumulus, the quantity of the relics, which is collectively greater than any series of the Saxon period hitherto found in this country, and the profuseness of the ornamentation, all point to a Pagan interment of early date. When we consider, however, the reverence, or rather perhaps the fondness, felt by people of all countries for ancient usages, and that Christianity made very unequal progress in England, we need not feel surprise at finding that the interment appertained to any Pagan period. I have not been able to find any notice of the tumulus in the Anglo-Saxon Charters, as a boundary mark or other, a purpose to which such conspicuous objects were frequently applied. Mr. Akerman dates these tumuli from the period of the arrival of the Saxons in Britain to the middle of the eighth century, when Christian sepulture was introduced. This comprehends a very wide margin. There is no doubt that the tumulus contained an Anglo-Saxon; and as Buckinghamshire, in which Taplow is situated, formed part of Mercia at the time of the Octarchy, it is not beyond the bounds of probability that he was a Mercian Angle of distinction.

In a short paper in a local journal, Mr. Walter Money, F.S.A., expresses his accordance as to the interment

1 Akerman's Index, p. 128.

being Anglo-Saxon; and states that "he thinks it is very probable that the tumulus represents the burial place of some Saxon chieftain or leader slain in one of the many conflicts with the Danish men along the valley of the Thames, which are fully narrated in the Saxon Chronicle by Gaimar, and our other early historians". He then goes on to say that he desires to point out "as correlative to the subject, that at Chippenham, not far from Taplow, stood a royal residence of the Kings of Mercia, which was in later times occasionally occupied by the Kings of England of the Norman line, as is shown by the foundation charter of Burnham Abbey being dated at this place". There is no doubt that the importance of the remains, as essential to early Saxon history, will be the means of maintaining a living interest, which may in the future result in bringing to light more conclusive evidence regarding the occupant of the tumulus.

The thanks of all who are interested in the preservation of early relics are due to Mr. Rutland for the efforts made by him to secure such a valuable antiquarian acquisition; and to Major Cooper King, also, thanks should be accorded for his able assistance during the entire period of the excavations, and for the light which he has thrown on the discovered remains.

SAUL, IN ULSTER, AND ITS LOCALITY,

WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO ST. PATRICK.

BY R. A. DOUGLAS LITHGOW, LL.D, F.S.A.,
F.R.S.L., ETC.

(Read April 18, 1883.)

FOR the early history of Ireland, previous to the introduction of Christianity about the middle of the fifth century, we are for the most part dependent upon the songs of the ancient bards, or earliest poets of the Celtic tribes, who are said to have existed in the country from the date of the supposed Milesian invasion, which, in the "Annals of the Four Masters" is fixed as A.M. 3500. Unfortunately the historical chronicles of these bardic annalists cannot be regarded as altogether trustworthy, inasmuch as the very functions which they were instituted to discharge, namely, the recountment of the heroic deeds, the exalted virtues, and the illustrious pedigrees of their Celtic chieftains, compelled them, in the composition of their eulogistic songs, to employ the glowing language of the poet rather than that of the unromantic and more prosaic annalist. Lucan' thus describes the office of the Bards :

"You, too, ye Bards, whom sacred raptures fire
To chaunt your heroes to your country's lyre;
Who consecrate in your immortal strain
Brave patriot souls in righteous battle slain."

In those early days poetic licence was less restrained than it is even in our own, and so we can readily understand that, in these impassioned narrations, the truthfulness of historic detail was generally subjected to the imagination of the bard, and almost invariably surrounded by a halo of romance.

Referring to this subject, a writer thus forcibly observes" If we are to judge of the labours of this class. of historians before the introduction of writing, by what was accomplished by them after that event, we shall not

1 i, 447 (Rowe).

be inclined to put much faith in their veracity; for no sooner (through the introduction of Christianity) was the story of the Creation, the lives of the Patriarchs, and episodes of classic history made known to them through early ecclesiastics, than they endeavoured, with great ingenuity, to connect their most renowned kings and chiefs with the principal personages in the Old Testament, and in the histories of Greece and Rome, and even to show that their own nation had an independent existence before the Jewish or the classic." Whilst, however, we cannot regard the historical element in these Bardic songs as worthy of much reliance, it must be acknowledged that veritable history is found incorporated with much that is merely poetic or fictitious, although there is every reason to believe, as the writer from whom I have just quoted has pointed out, that "we are safe in regarding the substratum of fact in their narratives as belonging to a far more modern date than that ascribed to them".

The province of Ulster was one of the five provinces into which Ireland at an early period was divided, viz., Ulster, Munster, Connaught, Leinster, and Meath (the latter having become merged into Ulster and Leinster), and is the northernmost province in the country. The original name of this province was Uladh, said by Harris to have been derived from one Ulagh, a Norwegian, who flourished here long before the Christian era, and the inhabitants were called Ullta. As the Norwegians, under the title of Ost-men, did not land in Ireland until the end of the eighth century, it is probable Ulagh belonged to the Fomraigh or Sea-rovers (Fomorians), who from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, often, in early times, plundered the Irish coasts. The modern name of the province is a compound of Uladh with the Norse suffix ster, thus constituting the word Uladh-ster, which in process of time became changed into Ulster. O'Flaherty says that the inhabitants of Finland, as well as those of Denmark and Norway, were called Fomorians, and there can be, at any rate, little doubt that they were a seafaring people who, during several ages, made raids upon 1 Belfast Naturalists' Field Club Papers. 2 Harris' History of County Down.

2

the Irish coast. It may here be incidentally remarked that Joyce, in his Irish Names of Places, interprets the Celtic name of the Giant's Causeway as meaning " the stepping-stones of the Fomorians".

We learn from the historians who flourished during the first few centuries of the Christian era, and who were careful in gleaning reliable facts from the annalists who preceded the introduction of Christianity, that the ancient province of Uladh was ruled by a succession of thirty-one kings from the year B.C. 305 to A.D. 332, who were descended for the most part from a certain Rudhraidhe Mor, and hence described as belonging to the "Clanna Rury".

In the year A.D. 108, the head of another tribe, by name Fiatach Finn, began to reign, and is said to have become King of Ireland in A.D. 116. From him descended the Dal Fiatach; and these two tribes or families, namely the Clanna Rury and Dal Fiatach, having been at an early period engrafted into each other, became the two ruling tribes of the province.

The royal residence and seat of government for the kingdom or province of Uladh was situated about two miles west of the present city of Armagh, and called Eamhain Macha, or Emania. The palace was destroyed by "the three Collas" in A.D. 332, during their conflict with the two before-mentioned tribes; but the ruins of very extensive earth-works still remain to mark the royal dwelling of the ancient kings of Uladh.

The princes to whom I have alluded as "the three Collas", contending for the sovereignty of Ulster, succeeded in driving the two former ruling tribes into the eastern part of the province in 332, and thenceforth the name of Uladh was applied to the district now represented by the modern County of Down, and part of the County of Antrim. After this period the Dal Fiatach appear to have become the leading family in this circumscribed Uladh, for, as Dr. Reeves informs us, they furnished it with more than three-fourths of its kings during a period of seven centuries"; and it may be here interesting to state that, from the circumscription of Uladh in 332 to A.D. 1200, sixty-seven kings ruled over this district-a list of whom is still preserved.

1 Rev. Dr. Reeves.