286 Griddle or Greidell Ine or Een, [Sess. 



Tuatha De Danann celebrated this fair as long as they occu- 

 pied Erin (Ireland). 



The Fair of Tailte was instituted, according to the 

 Dinsenchas, 3500 years B.C.; according to the Annals of 

 the Four Masters, Anno Mundi 3370, which, reckoned by 

 the Julian period, was the year 1343 B.C. 



The great Fair of Tailte was held at the Duma na N'Gall, 

 or the Mound of the Foreigners, which was built at Tara by 

 Eochad Garbh in memory of Tailtiu, his wife. She requested 

 her husband to have a fair instituted in her name and held at 

 her grave. This fair, although instituted in pagan times 

 beyond the reach of real chronology, was celebrated, according 

 to the Dinsenchas, on the first Monday of August each year 

 down to about 942 a.d. The Annals of the Four Masters 

 says it was celebrated down to the time of Roderick 

 O'Connor, the last King of Erin, or to the end of the twelfth 

 century. 



The Mithal Tuatha was an assembly of the free-holders of 

 a Tuath (or clan) called together to make a dun or house, a 

 fert or grave, &c., for the King, and possibly for other 

 purposes. — (O'Curry, vol. i. p. cclii.) 



Guilds are supposed to be of pagan origin. " Indeed, the 

 oldest direct evidence on the subject of Guilds hitherto known 

 is English, as the laws of Ine are anterior to the Capitulary of 

 Charlemagne of the year 779." 



" In the Anglo-Saxon laws of Ine the word Gegilda occurs 

 in connection with the legal protection of strangers." 



" Gegildan, there seems no reason to doubt, were members 

 of associations like those known at a later period as Frith 

 Gilds." " Several of these Gilds developed later on into great 

 political institutions like those of London." ■'• 



The Ine here referred to is probably the King of the West 

 Saxons, who reigned, one account says, for twenty-seven years, 

 and another, for thirty-seven. He died while on a visit to 

 Rome in either the year 726 or 728 a.d. 



We are told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Thorpe's 

 edition, vol. ii. p. 39) that Ine built Taunton, which was 

 destroyed by ^thelburh in either the year 721 or 722 A.D. 

 Ine fought against the South Saxons. He must have been a 



^ * Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish,' E. O'Curry, vol. i, p. ccxiii. 



