507 
wand a costly ring of gold, walked unmolested from one extremity of 
Ireland to the other:— 
“Lady ! dost thou not fear to stray, 
So lone and lovely, through this bleak way ? 
Are Erin’s sons so good, or so cold, 
As not to be tempted by woman or gold ?” 
“Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm,— 
No son of Erin will offer me harm ; 
For though they love woman and golden store, 
Sir Knight, they love honour and virtue more.” 
It was then also that Brian is said to have made roads and bridges, 
erected round towers, built and restored churches, strengthened for- 
tresses, and improved harbours in every part of Ireland ; it was then also 
that he enacted many useful laws, and promoted, in various ways, the 
arts of civilization and peace. 
Amongst other things, we are told* that surnames were instituted 
by him, which seems apocryphal, although it is perhaps true that in his 
time the patronymics which have since become surnames began to be 
assumed by the principal Irish families. 
But notwithstanding these halcyon days of peace, honour, and virtue, 
the Annals exhibit their usual records of assassinations, outrage, battles, 
and plunder; nor does chronology allow time sufficient for the golden 
age of Brian, so celebrated by his eulogists, between his becoming King 
of Ireland in 1002 and his death in 1014. His circuit of Ireland, made 
to demand hostages and secure the peaceful submission of the minor 
chieftains, is dated by the Four Masters 1005, and is not by them re- 
presented to have been so completely successful as the romantic histories 
of his reign would make us believe. 
But we must come now to the battle of Clontarf. It was probably 
two, or perhaps three years, before that event that Maolmordha, King 
of Leinster, arrived at Cencoradh,{ or Kincora, where Brian then resided 
in his hereditary mansion. Gormlaith was there at the time, in the 
character of Brian’s wife. Maelmordha had brought with him three 
large pine-trees, fit to make masts for ships, probably constituting his 
annual tribute, or a part of his tribute, as one of Brian’s vassals. He 
wore also on the journey a coat or tunic, which Brian had given him, 
with a border of gold, and silver buttons. This was, perhaps, also a 
token of vassalage. On the road a dispute having occurred between his 
men, Maelmordha himself stepped in to save one of the trees from falling. 
In the effort he made, one of the buttons of his tunic broke. On his arrival 
at Brian’s palace, he applied to his sister Gormlaith to replace the button. 
She appears to have just then conceived that hatred of her husband 
Brian which the Njal Saga attributes to her. She took her brother’s 
* Keating. 
+ See Dr. O’Donovan’s Introduction to the Topographical Poems of O’Duggan and 
O'Heerin, now in course of publication by the Irish Archeological and Celtic Society, in 
which a curious and valuable history of Irish surnames will be found. 
{ The word signifies ‘‘ The head of the weir.” 
