Macalistku — Tcmair Brer/: Remains and Traditions of Tara. >H7 



as we no longer possess. There was doubtless some story about the three 

 sons of Tlaehtga, and the reason why the memory of the sacred plains thai 

 bore their names should guard Ireland from foreign vengeance. This reminds 

 us of the folk-stories which turn on the necessity of keeping some mysterious 

 and outlandish "word of power" in the memory. 1 Ireland no longer enjoys 

 the safeguard; the names are totally forgotten, and the plains cannot be 

 identified. Who Trian, for whom Tlaehtga made the three Fetishes, may have 

 been we do not know; it looks, at least at first sight, as though he were 

 a god: of tins, however, I am doubtful. Forcarthu is said to be near liath- 

 coole in Co. Dublin; of several places called Cnamehoill, the spot now called 

 Cleghile, in Co. Tipperary, is usually identified with the place mentioned in 

 our text. A search of the Ordnance map has failed to reveal any standing 

 stone now existing at or near either place. 



Some further information is to be gleaned from the poem which accom- 

 panies the prose text. As reproduced in the Book of Ballymote facsimile. 

 406 b 12-44, this poem consists of fourteen stanzas. The first names 

 Tlaehtga daughter of "the bright Slave of the Royal Wheel" (ingen Modha 

 veil Righ-Roigh) as its eponym. The next three stanzas give the names of 

 members of the family of Mug Euith : his father, Fergus of Fdl (mac Fergusa 

 Fail) son of Eos ; 2 his mother, Cacht daughter of Caithmiu ;' his foster, 

 Roth son of Eigholl, from whom he was called Mug Euith ; his sons, l!uan 

 and [Ferjcorb; his wife, Der-droighen,' sister of the mother of Cairpre 

 Liff'echair of the Corcu Bairdne of Dun Cermna. Especially interesting in 

 this connexion is the name of Mug Ruith's mother. She is called "daughter 

 of Caithmiu, king of Britain," in the prose genealogy of Mug Euith, which 

 will be found, inter alia, in the Booh of Ui Maine, 19 v I. She is therefore 

 a sister of the mysterious Camson, of whom we have heard in connexion 

 with Tephi. The fifth stanza of the poem tells us how Tlaehtga went with 

 her father to Simon Magus; and the sixth and seventh tell us of her con- 

 nexions with the three sons of Simon, whose names, it appears, were Nero, 

 Oairpeint, and Uetir. The eighth stanza tells us how Tlaehtga, in association 

 with Mug Euith and Simon, made the Wheel do Trian nir bo thfai, which 

 seems to mean "For Trian who was not feeble," though it gives us no 



1 See ou this subject Clodd's Turn Tit Tot, especially chapter ix. 



'-' Elsewhere Caindeasg mac Firglain, YBL facs. 190 a, BB L't;r, a . 



:: King of the Britons of Man (locc. oit. in previous note). 



* Otherwise Dron, daughter of Oengus Mov mac Echach Laircn (locc. Bit. in previous 



note). 



