The giants' chambers, like the chambers of the cromlechs, are round or oval. In those tumuli which contain round chambers, two such have several times been found near each other, each with a separate entrance. Those which are circular are from five to eight feet in diameter, and about that height. A grown man can usually stand upright in the apartment, when the earth with which it is filled is removed. For these chambers, and even the entrances, which are from sixteen to twenty feet in length, are filled with trodden earth and pebbles, the object of which doubtless was to protect the repose of the dead in their grave. The same objects are discovered in these giant chambers as are found in the cromlechs, namely, unburnt skeletons, which were occasionally placed in sand on a pavement of flat or round stones, together with implements and weapons and tools of flint or bone, ornaments, pieces of amber, and urns of clay. Skeletons are also occasionally found deposited in the passages leading to the giant chambers; a circumstance which may be explained by supposing that such giant chambers were sometimes family burial-places, which were filled as the members of the family died: and that when the chambers themselves could contain no more bodies, recourse was necessarily had to the entrance. That these giant chambers have been opened, from time to time, is evident from the fact that in general they are found to contain a quantity of fragments of broken pottery, which had been broken at some remote period.
The largest and most considerable of the giants' chambers are the long ones, which are from sixteen to twenty-four feet in length and from six to eight feet in breadth[1]. The en-
- ↑ The annexed cut, from the Journal of the Archaeological Association, (vol. i. p. 26,) shews the position of the stones, and the form of the cromlech Du Tus, or De Hus, when it was
Graine, the wife of Finn Mac Coul, eloped. Finn set out in pursuit of the fugitives, but they escaped for a year and a day, during which time they never slept in the same bed for more than one night. Hence the number of these in Ireland was 366, according to the legend. See Mr. Wakeman's excellent little "Hand-Book of Irish Antiquities, Pagan and Christian," p. 12.—T.
