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myths, and which frequently lends a pictorial colouring to historic events. 
According to the Annals of the Four Masters, even before the Chris- 
tian era, A. M. 4857, Kochaidh, joint sovereign of Ireland, was surnamed 
Fiadhmuine, or Eochy the Huntsman—‘‘ Quod clli: cognomen Fiadhmuine 
feat Fiadh nimirum cervum interpretatur et Muin silvam ;”’ and another 
Pagan king, Niel Sedamin, was so called because ‘‘ the cows and the does 
were alike milked” in his reign,—fiadh meaning a hind or doe. This 
art of taming deer and converting them into domestic cattle is said to 
have been received from Flidisia, the king’s mother. King Daire of old 
had a magical fawn as a familiar, of which some wonderful tales are re- 
lated. The deer tribe occupy a high place in Irish hagiology, and were, 
it is said, the subjects of many miracles. Pet deer were frequent attend- 
ants upon some of our early saints. St. Etchen, who conferred the order 
of priesthood upon Columbkille, yoked a stag to the plough; St. At- 
taracta, of Killaraght, near Boyle, yoked stags to cars to carry timber, 
the animals having first licked her feet in token of obedience. Two stags, 
obeying the sound of the bell of St. Fintan, came and carried his satchel. 
A stag carried the satchel of St. Berach, or Barry, of Kilbarry, on the 
Shannon. Stags, it is stated, carried stones and wood for St. Codocus, 
to build his monastery. St. Kieran, of Seirkicran, in the King’s County, 
had at his monastery a fox, a badger, a wolf, and a stag, so tame 
that they were called his monks. A doe licked the hands and feet of 
St. Cuanna, and remained with him during the saint’s life. A doe 
obeyed St. Gerald, of Mayo, and remained with him during its life. A 
wild doe came daily to St. Errina to be milked; others of the deer tribe 
obeyed the voice of St. Molagga. St. Patrick is said to have found a 
deer suckling a fawn in the spot where the Cathedral of Armagh stands, 
and upon his taking up the fawn, the dam followed him. A wild fawn 
obeyed the commands of St. Cairnuth, and was the cause of the death of 
King Leurig. Deer were said to have been employed to carry timber 
to build the castle of the King of Connaught, and were used for other 
domestic purposes ; and, it is said, a deer found the books of St. Columb- 
kille, which were lost. 
The stag with the branching horns was celebrated among our ancient 
Irish poems, and venison formed a portion of the feast of our early Irish 
kings. Among the perogatives of the kings of Tara referred to in the 
-‘ Book of Rights,” we find the ‘‘ venison of Nas and the swift deer of 
Luibneach.”’ 
Among the circumstances corroborative of the number of red deer in 
Ireland in former times, may be mentioned the discovery of immense 
quantities of the tips of stags’ horns, both in the great crannoge of Dun- 
shaughlin, and also, within the last few years, in sinking @sewer through 
High-street, in Dublin. These bits of bone, which are from three to 
five inches in length, were sawn off from the remainder of the horn, 
which was, in all probability, manufactured into sword and knife-handles, 
Bone bodkins, fibule, also combs, spindle-heads, dagger-hafts, and other 
~ weapons, tools, and ornaments, &c., formed from the hard bones of mam- 
mals, abound in our antiquarian collection ; and the antlers of the stag 
