Macalister — Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions of Turn. 337 



stones with the small stones in the churchyard. Though described as cloeha 

 becca, these stones must have been at least as high as a man's shoulders. 



Finally the candidate, thus " re-born," was led up to Fal, which uttered a 

 scream if he were acceptable. Dind-shenchas Erenn says that it screamed 

 under the new king, as though he stood upon it. The well-known quatrain 

 of Cinaed 6 hArtacain, beginning an clock forstad mo dl shall, " the stone on 

 which my heels stand," accords with this. The tract Sil Chonairi Hldir says 

 that it screamed " against the axle of the chariot." 



The stone variously called Fal, or Lia Fail, was the central " fetish " of 

 Temair, and it becomes a matter of great importance to find out what it was. 

 So important was it, that luis Fail, Mag Fall, are familiar names for the 

 whole of Ireland. Temair itself was Temair Fail, Fal's Prospect-hill, to 

 distinguish it from the other places called Temair in Ireland. 1 The personal 

 name Fraech Fail is also recorded. 2 The followers of Find mac Umaill are 

 the " Fiana of Fal." 3 



Whatever the camp-followers of Celtic studies may suppose (be they 

 mediaeval chroniclers or modern ecstatics of the Fiona MacLeod type , we may 

 take it for granted that the signification of Lia Fail is nothing so poetical as 

 " Stone of Destiny." " Stone of the Fence," or " of the Hedge," would serve 

 as a translation, with a possible reference to its use as aguardian of the fitness 

 of the king. In such a case, however, we should have expected the definite 

 article. The fact that it is omitted, and that the stone is frequently spoken 

 of simply as " Fal " — which, indeed, appears to be its most legitimate name — 

 indicates that Fal is to be taken preferably as a proper name, either of a man 

 or of a god. J As there does not appear to be any trace of a man of the name, 

 we prefer to interpret it as the name of a god. 



The stone Fal is called Fay Cluche in the tract Sil Chonairi Moir. Ferp is 

 a loan-word from the Latin uerpa; and Baudis infers (loc. cit. p. L06) that the 

 stone was a phallus. This inference, however, is not justified. The fact that 

 a loan-word is used is strongly against it, as indicating that we are to see an 

 ecclesiastical denunciation of a pagan monument rather than a genuine 

 tradition of the significance of the stone. 4 It is, in fact, one more of the spiteful 



1 See Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 207, and references there. 

 3 Revue celtique, xxix, 138. 



3 Festschrift Whitley Stokes, p. 9. 



4 Cormac explains fdl as ri (king). O'Dnvoren says ri m> iniiir, "king, or sea." 

 The expression " lia Fail " is used in the poem by Cinaed o hArtuuiin entitled Aided a 

 fond do hUaislib Erenn simply in the sense of "a big stone": see Revue celtique, 

 xxiii, 300, line 3, and the note on the passage, p. 333. 



6 Compare Ceuuerbe, the name given to Cenn Cniaich in Colgan'a Secunda Vita 

 Patricii. 



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