176 The Irish Naturalist. Nov. Dec, 



The domesticated greyhound pig must have inhabited 

 Ireland for many centuries past. It seems to have been 

 difficult to fatten it for the market and yet the ancient 

 Irish often succeeded in fattening their domestic pigs. In 

 the " Book of Leacon " there is a description of the 

 celebrated hog of Mac Datho which is said to have had 

 nine inches of fat upon her snout, and to have required sixty 

 oxen to move her. Again we read in another ancient 

 record of hogs of broad sides, and of bull-like hogs, while 

 the preservation of pork was well-known in very remote 

 times. The Irish word saill meaning bacon occurs in 

 a manuscript of the year 942. There can be no doubt 

 therefore that the art of fattening pigs was understood 

 since early Christian times and that the Irish at all times 

 were fond of pork and bacon. 



While the domestic pig was already spread far and 

 wide over Ireland an apparently wild pig (fiadhmuc) 

 abounded in the woods and forests. "In no part of the 

 world," says Giraldus Cambrensis,-^ " are such vast herds 

 of boars and wild pigs to be found ; but they are a small, 

 ill-shaped, and cowardly breed, no less degenerate in boldness 

 and ferocity than in their growth and shape." That was 

 in the 12th century. It may be doubted whether the 

 account of Giraldus Cambrensis is correct with regard to the 

 ferocity of the wild pig elsewhere. Even the modern contin- 

 ental race of wild boar may be described as cowardly in so far 

 as it does not readily fight except during the breeding season. 

 That the wild swine of Ireland were feared may be gathered 

 from the fact that among the restrictions put upon one of 

 the Kings of Ulster, according to " Book of the Rights and 

 Privileges of the Kings of Erin " (Leabhar na g-Cart), was 

 that he was not to go into the wild boar's hunt, or to be 

 seen to attack it alone. There are other references to 

 wild pigs in early writings and there can be no doubt that 

 they coexisted in Ireland with their domesticated relation 

 since very remote times until about the seventeenth century. 

 There are several words in Irish-Gaelic for the domestic 



^ Giraldus Cambrensis, " The Topography of Ireland " (revised and 

 edited by Th. Wright), 1881. 



