Haigh — Earliest Inscribed Monuments. 425 



than in Scotica, and their hahitations and royal forts were built there. 

 Thence is named Dinn Tradui, *. e. ' Triple-fossed fort ' of Crimthann 

 the Great, son of Fidach, king of Ireland and Alba to the Ictian sea ; 

 and thence is Glastonbury of the Gael, i. e. a church on the hru of the 

 Ictian sea. It is there was Glass, son of Cass, swineherd of the king 

 of Hiruaith, with his swine feeding ; and it was he that S. Patrick 

 resuscitated at the end of six score years after he was slain by the 

 soldiers of Mac Con. And it is in that place is Dinn map Lethain, in 

 the lands of the Cornish Britons, i. e. ' the Fort of mac Liathain.' Thus 

 every tribe divided on that side, for its property to the east was equal 

 to that on the west." 



These particulars are stated as introductory to a story of how the 

 son of a king of Ireland, about a. d. 260, cheated a Briton out of his 

 lap-dog, and introduced the breed into his native land — possibly true, 

 and not improbable. The chief, indeed the only, value of this story 

 consists in this ; that it was believed in Ireland that there were Irish 

 settlements in Somersetshire, Devon, and Cornwall, in the third and 

 fourth centuries of our era, and constant intercourse between these 

 colonies and the mother country ; for this is of the third, and the other 

 allusions above cited are to personages and events of the fourth. 



The old English name of Glastonbury, Glcest-inga-lyrig, supports 

 the idea of an early connexion with a person named Glrest or Glass, 

 (st in old Irish passing into ss), whose descendants gave name to it. 

 According to this story, he should have lived early in the fourth cen- 

 tury. 



Bliruatha (or Hirotae, "Lib. Arm." 14 a) represents the modern 

 hundred of Hartland, Devon, as Heorot (of the lay of Beowulf) re- 

 presents Hart in Durham. 



Dinn Tradui appears to be Dundry in Somersetshire. Its con- 

 struction is here assigned to Crimthann, king of Ireland, a. d. 366 to 

 379. 



It would be futile to look for the fort of Liathan's son, unless we 

 knew his name. 



The Scottish occupation, then, of the districts north of the British 

 Channel came to an end in the latter part of the fourth century ; but 

 with regard to those to the south, it may have continued long after- 

 wards, for it is not pretended that the conquests of Cuneda's children 

 extended beyond the Channel. 



In illustration of these statements it is interesting to compare the 

 oldest inscribed monuments of Devon, Cornwall, and Wales, with 

 those of Ireland. The former present clear indications of settlements 

 of certain families south, as well as north, of the Channel ; and many 

 of the names they bear are either the same as those that appear on the 

 Irish monuments, or are formed out of the elements from which Irish 

 names are formed. Some Irish dialectic peculiarities, and the charac- 

 teristic Irish writing, too, are found on monuments on both sides of 

 the Channel ; and it seems undeniable that there was a considerable 



