433 



in Ireland to couple it with the introduction of Christianity. 

 Lucretius (lib. ii.) furnishes an instance of the use made of 

 bell-cymbals by the Romans in their religious ceremonies. 

 Virgil (Georg. iv.), and Juvenal (Sat. 6), ' Tot tintinnabula 

 dicas pulsari,' refer to similar usage. Potter (Antiquities, 

 vol. ii.) mentions that the ancient Greeks, at the moment of 

 a dying person's soul separating from the body, beat brazen 

 kettles to drive away evil spirits. 



" While I suppose that the Dowris crotals have been 

 manufactured for Druidic purposes, 1 am not ignorant that a 

 learned and justly esteemed antiquary, to whose opinion the 

 greatest deference is due, believes them to have been intended 

 for suspension from the trappings of steeds employed in war. 

 Such an opinion, deduced from ancient sculptures, seems to me 

 to be strongly supported by a passage in the prophecy of 

 Zacharias. The words of the prophet alluded to are : ' In 

 that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, holiness 

 unto the Lord.' The word used in the original may mean 

 either bells or bridles; and while the authorized version of the 

 Church of England adopts the translation < bells,' it places 

 the word ' bridles' in a marginal note. The vulgate renders 

 it more generally by ' quod super frenum equi est,' and the 

 Rheims Roman Catholic English Bible adopts the term ' bridle.' 



" Notwithstanding the silence of these crotals, they, 

 nevertheless, might have been appended as ornaments to horse 

 trappings, as were the still more dumb stones known by the 

 name of cruan. These were attached to the bridles. In the 

 Book of Rights (Income^of Uladh) we meet 



pichi rpian, yiyieacach, focal, 

 00 chyiuan. ....... 



The laborious and learned O'Donovan, to whom Irish litera- 

 ture is so much indebted, says, in a note to this passage, that 

 ' Cpuan was a stone of a red and yellow colour.' It was, in 

 fact, a kind of cornelian or agate. I send for inspection some 



