06 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
from the first molar tooth through the osseous tissue. Another was 
broken across to the right of the symphysis menti between the canine 
and first premolar tooth; and further, with one solitary exception, all 
these skulls had the marks of perforating fractures such as would 
result from a large nail, a dagger-point, or the sharp spike of a battle- 
axe driven with force through the cranial bones: indeed a searching 
examination of the appearances thus produced impressed me with the 
conviction that they had been killed one after the other in utter 
wantonness of cruelty, in a similar manner, by fracturing their skulls 
with the point of a dagger; and judging from the close resemblance of 
the injuries they had all alike sustained, probably by the hands of 
one individual. The calvaria of this group, of which I retained six, 
all belonged to persons, male and female, of advanced years ; and from 
the sutures being in progressive stages of obliteration, and the bones 
themselves of considerable hardness, it was obvious that they were 
the remains of persons far advanced towards the decline of life. To this 
circumstance I would ascribe their preservation, though the bones of 
the face had become broken and detached. Of these, one calvarium 
was pierced at the antero-superior part of the left parietal bone; 
another had sustained a perforating wound on the centre of the left 
parietal, and sword-cuts over the left orbit and forehead; a third 
skull had a perforating wound on the lower part of the left parietal 
bone; a fourth had a wound apparently caused by an arrow or spear- 
point that had also produced a perforating fracture on the lower and 
anterior portion of the left parietal; and a fifth was perforated in the 
angle of junction of the frontal, parietal, and temporal bones. All 
those fractures, as might be expected, were attended with removal of 
bone of the inner plate of cranium to a greater extent than the 
external wound. The practice of inflicting wounds of the scalp and 
skull of this nature is described as being an ordinary Danish custom 
in warfare ; and the savage habit of decapitating the heads of their 
slain enemies is often recorded in the Celtic stories of battles in those 
early ages. In the Look of the Dean of Lismore containing trans- 
lations of Gaelic ballads written down about a.p. 1530 in Argyl- 
shire, and published in Edinburgh in 1862, sucha custom 1s described. 
In the poem of the Heads, p. 58, we have recorded several details 
of human heads hewn from the bodies of the slain in revenge for the 
death of Cuchullin. Again, the savage practice is recorded by our 
Trish annalists as one that was followed by the Danes, both those of 
Scandinavian origin and the more ferocious Danar or pirate invader : 
but it appears far stranger to learn that the native Irish Christians, 
when engaged in warfare against these Norsemen, thought themselves 
justified in adopting a similar course of procedure in retaliation for 
their outrages. Thus ina.p. 851, after the battle of Carlingford, ‘‘ the 
Danes killed thrice their own number and they beheaded every one 
they killed;”’ see Three Fragments of Irish Annals, &c., p. 117, pub- 
lished by the Irish Archeological Society, 1860. 
Again in a.p. 852, ‘A battle was given by Aedh, king of Ailech, 
