232 Transactions of the [Sess. 



aware that there was ever any mining carried on at Oronsay, we 

 suppose that the only use the Firbolg could have in carrying soil 

 would be to lay it upon the sandy stretches at the south end of the 

 island, so as to raise better crops. 



But if this was the case, they must have had a much higher 

 civilisation than we have reason to believe, and cannot be the peo- 

 ple mentioned by Solinus, as they did not cultivate the soil. It 

 is more probable that if, as we suppose, the Firbolg came to Oron- 

 say, they suited themselves to the circumstances of their new 

 home, and became hunters and fishermen ; but that they tilled the 

 ground there appears to be no evidence to advance, and the inference 

 is that they were entirely ignorant, of agriculture. It is interesting 

 to know that whoever the people were who inhabited the Danish 

 localities where kjokken-moddings or kitchen-middens are found, 

 they were also to all appearance ignorant of the cultivation of the 

 soil. But though there are some similarities between the kitchen- 

 middens at Oronsay and those in Denmark, still there are great 

 differences, and it is possible that this may be accounted for by the 

 Scottish deposit being formed at a subsequent period to those of 

 Denmark. The wave of immigration whose population formed the 

 kjokken-moddings in Jutland would take a long time, as it con- 

 tinued on its journey from the east, before it reached the extreme 

 west of Scotland. The most striking difference in the remains is 

 in those of the sheep, which seems not to be found in the deposits 

 in Denmark ; but it must also be kept in remembrance that the 

 bones of the animal were only found at the top of the upper layer 

 of the Oronsay kitchen-midden, and that they must have been 

 deposited there during the latest period of the occupation of 

 Caisteal-nan-Gillean, or possibly at a later time, before the human 

 deposits were covered over with the blown sand.-*- 



The following description of the Firbolg is found in one of the 

 Irish manuscripts : " Every one who is black-haired, who is a 

 tattler, guileful, tale-telling, noisy, contemptible ; every wretched, 

 mean, strolling, unsteady, harsh, and inhospitable person ; every 

 slave, every mean thief, every churl, every one who loves not to 

 listen to music and entertainment, the disturber of every council 

 and every assembly, and the promoters of discord among the peo- 

 ple, — these are the descendants of the Firbolg, the Fir Gailinn of 



1 Sii' John Lnlibock, in his paper on the Danish kjokken-moddings, in 

 the ' Natural History Review,' 1861, p. 496, says : " In the lake-habitations 

 of the Stone Age in Switzerland, grains of wheat and barley, and even pieces 

 of bread, or rather biscuit, have been found. It does not appear that the 

 men of the kjokken-moddings (or Danish shell-mounds) had any knowledge 

 of agriculture, no traces of grain of any sort having been hitherto discovered 

 — the only vegetable remains found in them being pieces of burnt wood, and 

 some charred substance referred by M. Forchhammer to the Zostera marine 

 a sea-plant, which was perhaps used in the production of salt." 



