384 Mr. PETEIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



" Unless he was of the goodly dark race, 



Who went from Tara with the heroic Lugh, 



Not known the race, by God's decree, 



Of the man of the feats from Traigh Tuirbi." 



It is not, of course, intended to offer the preceding extract as strictly his- 

 torical : in such ancient documents we must be content to look for the substra- 

 tum of truth beneath the covering of fable with which it is usually encumbered, 

 and not reject the one on account of the improbability of the other; and, 

 viewed in this way, the passage may be regarded as in many respects of interest 

 and value, for it shows that the artist spoken of was not one of the Scotic, or 

 dominant race in Ireland, who are always referred to as light-haired ; and fur- 

 ther, from the supposition, grounded on the blackness of his hair and his skill 

 in arts, that he might have been of the race of the people that went with 

 Lughaidh Lamhfhada from Tara, that is of the Tuatha De Danann race, who 

 are always referred to as superior to the Scotiinthe knowledge of the arts, we 

 learn that, in the traditions of the Irish, the Tuatha De Dananns were no less 

 distinguished from their conquerors in their personal than in their mental cha- 

 racteristics. The probability, however, is, that Turvy was a foreigner, or 

 descendant of one, who brought a knowledge of art into the country not then 

 known, or at least prevalent. 



I should add, also, that we have, at least, one historical authority which, to 

 my mind, satisfactorily proves the erection of a Round Tower in the sixth cen- 

 tury, namely, in the Life of St. Columba, written about the year 680, by St. 

 Adamnan, and which is found in the fifteenth chapter of the third book of this 

 life. The chapter, with its original heading, as published by Pinkerton in his 

 Lives of the Scottish Saints, from a MS. of the twelfth century, preserved in 

 the British Museum, is as follows : 



" CAP. XV. De Angela Domini, qui alicui fratri, lapso de monasterii culmine rotundi, in Eoboreti 

 Campo opportune tarn cito subvenerat."* 



" ALIO in tempore vir sanctus dum in tuguriolo suo scribens sederet, subito ejus immutatur 

 facies, et hanc puro de pectore promit vocem, dicens : ' Auxiliare, auxiliare.' Duo vero Fratres ad 

 januam stantes; videlicet COLGIUS filius CELLACHI, et LUGNEUS MOCUBLAI, causam talis subits 

 interrogant vocis ; quibus vir venerabilis hoc responsum dedit, inquiens : ' Angelo Domini, qui nunc 



a Cumin, c. 10. 



