Wakeman — The BiiUdns, or Roch -basins, found in Ireland. 263 
know that in days anterior to Christianity a peculiar mode of cursing, 
in which the turning of stones was part of the proceedings, prevailed 
amongst the people of Erin. Sir Samuel Perguson, in ''The Burial 
of King Cormac," one of his charming and truly national poems, thus 
refers to this archaic system of anathematizing. The incident appears 
to have been recorded in one of our earliest manuscripts. 
" They loosed their curse against the king ; 
They cursed him in his flesh and bones ; 
And daily in their mystic ring 
They turned the maledictive stones." 
The cursing- or swearing-stones of pagan days were, in all proba- 
bility, plain. Those found on early Christian altars, as at Inismurray, 
are sometimes decorated with crosses, more or less chaste in design. 
Portion of the work on one of the Inismurray stones is of extremely 
early character, and reminds one most forcibly of a scribing which 
occurs on the interior of the pagan earn of jN'ewgrange. 
I may, perhaps, be permitted to remark, in passing, that in some 
of the primitive symbolic or decorative designs figured in our greater 
earns, we may discover the first germs of a style of art, vaguely named 
Celtic," for the cultivation and development of which Erin, during 
the earlier ages of Christianity, and even down to the close of the 
twelfth century, was pre-eminently distinguished. (See Plate XYII., 
fig. 1.) 
At a place called Keim-mi-eigh, situated in an extremely wild dis- 
trict of the county Cork, may be seen a grand five-holed hulldn rock. 
As at Killinagh, each of its basins contains a stone ; but the purpose 
for which the latter had been used is now quite forgotten by the 
neighbouring people. A very absurd legend concerning them re- 
mains. They are supposed to have been originally rolls of butter 
which a certain woman had churned from milk dishonestly ob- 
tained. Fiachna, a local saint, is stated to have been highly indig- 
nant when, contrary to his exhortations, the ill-minded vantigh would 
still persist in supplying herself surreptitiously with the milk of other 
people's cows. He determined at length to make an example of the 
delinquent ; and this he accomplished by turning her, as well as some 
butter she was carrying, into stone. A dallan, about six feet in 
height, rudely resembling a draped female figure, stands pretty close 
to the hulldn. 'No doubt, in this real or fancied resemblance the trans- 
formation story originated. It is well worthy of remark that here, as 
at Drumgay, we find a pillar-stone in apparent connexion with the 
