Mr. Petrie on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 223 



this rqund being ever next the heap. The Protestants in the Hebrides are 

 almost as much addicted to the Deisiol, as the Papists. Hereby It may be seen, how 

 hard it is to eradicate Inveterate Superstition. This custom was us'd three thousand 

 years ago, and God knows how long before, by their ancestors the antient Gauls 

 of the same religion with them ; who turn'd round right-hand-wise, when 

 they worshiped their Gods, as Atheneus* Informs us out of Posidonius 

 a much elder writer. Nor is this contradicted, but clearly confirm'd by Puny, 

 who says, that the Gauls, contrary to the custom of the Romans,\ turn'd to the 

 left in their religious ceremonies ; for as they begun their worship towards the 

 east, so they turn'd about, as our Ilanders do now, from east to west according 

 to the course of the Sun, that is, from right to left, as Pliny has observ'd ; 

 whereas the left was among the Romans reputed the right In Augury, and in all 

 devotions answering it. Nor were their neighbors, the Aboriginal Italians, most 

 of 'em of Gallic descent, strangers to this custom of worshipping right-hand- 

 wise, which, not to allege more Passages, may be seen by this one in the Cur- 

 culioX of Plautus, who was himself one of them : when you worship the Gods, 

 do it turning to the right hand ; which answers to turning from the west to the 

 east. It is perhaps from this respectful turning from east to west, that we re- 

 tain the custom of drinking over the left thumb, or, as others express it, accord- 

 ing to the course of the Sun ; the breaking of which order, is reckoned no small 

 Impropriety, if not a downright indecency, in Great Britain and Ireland. And 

 no wonder, since this, if you have faith in Homer, was the custom of the Gods 

 themselves. Vulcan, in the first book of the Iliad,^ filling a bumper to his 

 mother Juno, 



To th' other Gods, going round from right to left, 

 Skenk'd Nectar sweet, which from full flask he pour'd." 



To the north-east of the Cam of the Hy-Niall youths, that is the northern 

 Carn, according to the prose, was situated the Rath of Colman, the son of Cael- 



* 'Ouroi ^sw; irpooTivvoviny, sin rat, Ss^ia, o-rpe4)0ju,En>i. — Lib. 4. p. 132. 



f In adorando dexteram ad osculum referimus, totumque corpus circumagimus ; quod in laevum 

 fecisse Galli religiosius credunt. Hist. Nat. lib. 28. cap.2. 



t Si Deos salutas, dextrovorsum censeo. Act. I. Seen. I. ver. 70. 

 § Auraf S rot; OLXXuKn fleoij cvSe^ia, irairtv 



iivsp^oej, yXuxu yexrap airo x.^i^Trjpos a^ua'<ruiY.—Jl. 1. ver. 597. 



