M.wALisTEit — -Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions of Tara. 327 



Dui reigned 10 years and was killed by Muiredach son of Siomon, 

 Muiredach „ 1 year „ „ Enua son of I>ui. 



Enna „ 12 years and died of plague. 



Lngaid „ 9 ,, and was killed by Sirlam son of Finn. 



— which means that fifty-eight years intervened between the death of Finn 

 and the succession of his son Sirlamh. Improbabilities of this kind are too 

 frequent in the list of kings to make it possible to accept it literally. On the 

 other hand, it is not a mere paradox to say that the fact that such obvious 

 improbabilities exist is the best possible argument in favour of the view that 

 there is a genuine tradition underlying the list of kings. Mere forgers would 

 not have filled their work with so many difficulties. But in the light of the 

 wealth of illustrative examples which Sir James Frazer has collected from all 

 over the world, we must see in this organized slaying of the king by his 

 successor something other than a blood-feud extending through a large 

 number of generations, and involving relationships spread over impossible 

 lapses of time. Doubtless the " official historians " were puzzled by the 

 regularity with which each king met his death at the hands of his successor, 

 and felt obliged to explain it. Mot knowing of the system of the Arician 

 priesthood, they had to cast about elsewhere ; and they found a blood-feud 

 as the easiest way of accounting for the perplexing fact. The genealogies 

 were manipulated accordingly, the slayer of a slayer being assumed to be a 

 relative of the first victim; but the result only makes obvious the impossi- 

 bility of the " blood-feud " theory. 



If in the light of this we look back at what I have called the "epic " 

 dynasty, we find an unexpected corroboration of these conclusions. For the 

 practice of predecessor-killing does not begin till the Fourth name in the 

 Ultonian and the Fir Bolg lists ; the Tuatha I >e 1 >anann version is not so clear, 

 but does not contradict the observation. That is, the kings do not kill their 

 predecessors until they cease to be gods by nature and become men. 



There does not appear to be anywhere extant an indication of the process 

 whereby a candidate for royally challenged the reigning king. At Aricia the 

 candidate for the priesthood broke what was called the Golden Bough, which 

 Sir James Frazer has tried to prove was the mistletoe. This may be so; and 

 the description of the cutting of the mistletoe contained in an oft-quoted 

 passage of Pliny may not inconceivably be in some way connected with the 

 election of a new chieftain — Pliny has do information bo give us as to the 

 occasion on which, and the purpose for which, the remarkable rite which he 

 described was performed. 1 The prohibition against bringing arms into 



1 Pliny. Nat. Hist., svi, 95. 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL, XXXIV. SECT, C. [4»j 



