638 REPORT—1896. 
monastic purposes has left the Kildare example shorn of other primitive 
characteristics, except perhaps the substitution of an artificial kindred, 
the monastic group, for the real kindred. There are also two divergent 
elements, p, g, in the virgin attendants and the circular form of the fire. 
It leads us, however, to the action of the Church elsewhere. In the 
island of Inismurray is the church of Teach-na-Teinedh, or the Church of 
Fire, and there was formerly a remarkable flagstone upon which, accord- 
ing to tradition, the monks kept a fire always burning for use by the 
islanders.'. The flagstone is called Leac-na-Teinidh, the Stone of Fire. 
It consists of seven stones, four of which are placed on edge and set 
deeply in the ground in the manner of a cist. The sides face as nearly 
as possible the cardinal points, and are in position not coincident with 
the surrounding walls of the church. The natives aver that here of old 
burnt a perpetual fire, from which, all the hearths on the island which 
from any cause had become extinguished were rekindled.2 Here we have 
elements a, d, and e, and the fact of perpetual fire. In England, church- 
wardens’ accounts contain entries of payment for fuel ‘for the holy fire ;’# 
and the explanation of these entries is that hallowed or holy fire was 
kindled in the church porch on the morning of Easter Eve, and was 
obtained from the sun by means of a crystal or burning glass if the 
morning was bright, or a flint and steel if the weather was unpropitious. 
This fire was blessed by the priest, and from it the Paschal candle, the 
lamps of the church, and the candles on the altar were lighted for Easter 
Day. The people, too, took home with them a light from the sanctuary, 
and the hearth that had been allowed to become cold and brandless then 
became warm and bright once more, and the evening candle shone 
brightly again with a flame from the new hallowed fire. This would 
seem almost to be a direct handing on of the pagan sacred fire to the 
Christian priesthood. At least four elements, a, c, d, and e, of the type 
are preserved, the continuation of the light from Easter eve to Easter 
morn being of the same characteristic as that from New Year’s eve to 
New Year’s morn already dealt with, as Easter was looked upon by the 
early Church as the beginning of the Christian year.’ 
Finally we turn from the church to the record evidence of the Irish 
tribal system. In an ancient tract which was written at the time of the 
break-up of the Irish tribal system, and shows the transition from blood- 
ties to economical ties, a chieftain, who is not noble, but who represents 
the tribesmen as their chief official, stands out as the outcome of this 
1 Wood-Martin, Pagan Ireland, 93. 
2 Journ. Roy. Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Ireland, 4th Series, vii. 228-9. 
3 Bilson, Leicestershire County Folklore, 75. Municipal accounts also contain 
entries of payments for ‘coals for the new fire on Easter Eve,’ Hist. MSS. Com. iv. 
432, vi. 495 (Hythe and Bridport). 
* Rock, Church of Our Fathers, iv. 94. Dr. Rock quotes only one passage from 
an English authority for his facts about the Anglo-Saxon ritual, namely, Bede, De 
Tabernaculo (lib. iii. cap. 1) ; but he rightly points out that to understand this passage 
the ceremony above described is necessary, and he Craws it up ‘from the older ritual 
and the early liturgical writers in those parts of Germany which heard and took their 
Christian belief from Anglo-Saxon preachers.’ 
5 There may be something of archaic significance, too, in Dr. Rock’s observation 
that ‘ for church use at least this fire might truly be said to have lived the whole year 
through, for as lamp was lighted from lamp it thus kept on burning from one Holy 
Saturday to another’ (loc. cit.). 
