398 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



pl/ifioQ, was one of the toys of Dionysus shown solemnly to the initiates : 

 that the daubing of the initiates with clay, afterwards washed off again, 

 seems to be essentially a re-birth ritual, analogous to the ritual of the stones 

 of Bloee andBluicne: and that the reverent exhibition of an ear of corn 

 reminds us of the sanctuary in the far north-west which was founded, as the 

 story went, by Tea grand-daughter of "Corn.' "We have already indicated 

 how i!i'- Persephone myth can hi- braced in the confused stories told about 

 the Irish print 



llere for the present 1 leave the subject. I close by stating a conviction 

 which this study has impressed upon myself more strongly than ever before: 

 that a knowledge of [rish tradition and Irish archaeology is essential to a full 

 comprehension ol il antiquity. In Crete and in Classical Gieecejwe 



see the highest manifestations of the native civilization of Europe. Probably 

 nowhere bettci than in Ireland can we study the crude materials of which 

 that civilization was composed, and by which it can be interpreted. 



NOTE AI'I'Kl' IN PRESS. 



The statement made on i it no survey of the site before l'etrie's 



3ta, must be modified. -Mi. Westropp has called my attention to i brief 

 tnd sketch in Bis! 1 I Ireland (ed. Stokes, 1891, 



y. 177. The sketch is distorted in the printed copy, ami must be corrected 

 byi oal, in T.C.D. Library (14 15, page 116). This 



volume is not, apparently, the autograph ; to be a transcript made 



by some scribe, n i • gered but not over-intelligent, as is indicated by his 

 writing Dun/any for the familiar name D misreading the long s) a 



few lint - _ which specially interests us. This, as well as 



the overwhelming probability that the bishop is writing entirely from 

 memory, must be borne in mind in criticising the description, which is not a 

 little puzzling. It runs thus : " 1 saw live barrows in this situation — 



North 





 O 



o 

 o 



on which it is possiLle the live kings sat ... . on the southern one is a stone 

 or pillar set up" [I omit for brevity some speculative matter of no 

 importance]. 



