314 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



which tradition claims as bhe battlefield of the northern 

 Moytura. In my opinion these are the works of an Age, not 

 the erections following a battle. It is not in the nature of 

 things that victors should pause after a conflict to raise 

 mem^orials to the fallen — they had something else to do, like 

 all victors— and these memorials would take time, trouble, 

 and expense even now. We examined a number of these so- 

 called " Druids' Altars," but the evidence they have yielded 

 themselves plainly tells their true use as graves. Many 

 call them " giants' graves," but the term giant can be fairly 

 descriptive of exceptional intellect as well as of exceptional 

 physical proportions. The words " giants' graves " give the 

 cue to their purpose. All ages, all nations, both the cultured 

 and the savage, have loved to honour their great men when 

 they have passed away. We honour them even now — some- 

 times by a wretched so-called memorial costing some few 

 pounds, collected in half-crowns from reluctant donors; but 

 these men honoured their illustrious dead by manual labour 

 beyond the power of estimation. Many of these monuments 

 have vanished under the modern contractor's energy ; one, 

 perhaj)s the oldest, largest and best, whose inner vault was 

 covered with stone like a cairn, and whose circumference was 

 marked out with monolithic sentinels, was sold at eighteen- 

 pence a load, and considered while it lasted a valuable quarry, 

 quite an asset on the estate. Many of our party entered the 

 old vault, whose covering stone is ten feet square and two 

 feet thick, weighing about fifteen tons. The last one of this 

 series I give is the greatest of all, the reputed grave of Queen 

 Meave, which crowns the lofty summit of Knocknarea, one 

 thousand and 'seventy-eight feet above sea level, a fitting rest- 

 ing-place for our warrior Queen, and of whom Shakespeare 

 weaved the thread into Mab, Queen of the Fairies, in the 

 Midsummet Night's Dream. This cairn once had a circum- 

 ference of six hundred and fifty feet and a height of eighty 

 feet, but the quantities have diminished somewhat, as it was 

 also useful as a quarry, but this enterprise has now ceased. 

 The cairn has never, I believe, been opened, but it is sur- 



