212 Mr. Petrie on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 



observ'd as a sacred bond" — a custom, the antiquity of which in Ireland has 

 been shewn at p. 121 in this memoir — ^he adds, that "before mony became cur- 

 rent, the chieftains in the Isles bestow'd the cow's head, feet, and all the entrails 

 upon their dependents ; such as the physician, orator, poet, bard, musicians, 8^c. 

 and the same was divided thus : the smith had the head, the piper had the, S^c." 

 And it may not be unworthy of remark, that a remnant of these ancient usages 

 is preserved in many parts of Ireland to this day, namely, 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 from fifty to one hundred heads obtained in this 

 manner. 



There is one feature in the first or more ancient of these tables, which 

 requires some more particular illustration than a mere explanation of its name — 

 the Bir bruinneas, or spit on which the daul, or waiter, is roasting a les, or round 

 of beef! That the ancient Irish used instruments of this description for cooking 

 is satisfactorily proved from innumerable evidences found in the most ancient 

 MSS., and 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, 

 or perhaps inventors, have been preserved by the bards. How far, indeed, these 

 descriptions may be worthy of historic credit must be left to the judgment of 

 the reader ; but they are, vmder any circumstances, worthy of preservation, as 

 evidences of the notions of mechanics existing in Ireland at the time of the 

 writers, and they may with great propriety be adduced here in connexion with 

 so many other illustrations of this locality. 



The spit, represented in the plan or table alluded to, is called Bir-hruinneas — 

 but though the word bir, which appears cognate with the Latin veru, undoubtedly 

 means a spit, the meaning of the epithet bruinneas is by no means clear, as no 

 explanation of it has hitherto been found. It is possible, however, that it may 

 mean roasting, as the word seems to have some affinity to the German brennen, 

 to burn ; or it may be formed from the word byiuinn, a caldron, as explained by 

 O'Clery, and mean boiling, roasting, or cooking generally, as the ancient Irish do 

 not appear to have had distinct words to express roasting and boiling. It appears 

 from notices found in other MSS. that the spit at Tara was known by another 

 name, partly derived from that of its inventor, namely, Bir Nechin, or Dechin, 

 the spit of Dechin, who, according to these authorities, was the chief smith of 



