Macaltster — Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions of Tara. 359 



Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, quotes vol. ii. p. 891) a note 

 of his own, not, be it confessed, very lucid, but apparentlj to the effect that 

 a Selkirkshire schoolmaster from Cantire — who happened to be a namesake 

 of my own — told him that the first bull-roarer " in this quartet' [Cantire?] 

 fell from Juppiter." 



The last event of the inauguration was the gairm rig, the proclamation or 

 acknowledgment of the royalty of the new king. Some passages bearing on 

 this act will be found referred to in the note in Meyer's edition of Cath 

 Finntvdija, p. 82 ; but the locus classicus is certainly the curious paragraph in 

 the Life of Col man mac Luachdin, in which the saint is conferring a reward 

 on one of his followers. 1 The whole incident is very remarkable and worth 

 summarizing briefly. Gonall Guthbind king of Meath had killed Mael-Odrdn, a 

 refugee with Colman. Colman said, " Let the earth swallow up the horses 

 and chariots of the island whence thou hast come " f and so it fell out. 

 Conall came to slay Colman, but was driven astray by a magic mist. He fell 

 into the hands of his enemies Blathmac and Diarniait, kings of Temair, but 

 escaped from them, only to fall into the power of Mael-Umae, a relative and 

 tenant of Colman. Mael-Umae slew him ; Conall uttered a dying curse 

 that every king who held Temair should revenge his, Conall's, death upon 

 Mael-Umae. 



Mael-Umae came and reported the matter to Colman, who revoked the 

 curse, substituting the blessing — that to Mael-Umae and his descendants 

 should be the privilege of proclaiming the gairm rig over every new king in 

 Temair. Here an unknown glossator has drawn a pen-picture of the scene in 

 the margin of his MS.; the note has become incorporated with the text, but 

 is easily separated from it. He describes the king " standing at the foot of 

 Cairthe na nGudl," that is, of course, Lia Fail ; and the herald " standing on a 

 flagstone below." Of this flagstone we do not hear elsewhere, but that is no 

 reason why it should not have existed. It reminds us not a little of Saxo's* 

 statement that ''the ancients, when they were to choose a king, were wont to 

 stand on stones planted in the ground, and to proclaim their votes, in order 

 to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones that the deed would be 



1 Tudd Lectures, vol. xvii, p. 72. 



-Is cell duibsin talamdia slueud—aa idiomatic expression for an imperative, not a 

 permissive. To translate it literally " the earth has leave to swallow them " is childish. 



3 Saxo, tr. Elton and Powell, p. 16. See Frazer's observations on the custom in his 

 Essay Folklore in the Old Testament (Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 132), Mr. 

 Armstrong has reminded me of this reference. 



B.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV, SECT. C. [-49 J 



