recognized centre for irregular pagan marriages of short duration.
4. The Óenach Tailltinn.
We can only very briefly abstract all that shows what other rites were celebrated at this great Celtic and pre-Celtic sanctuary. As we saw, the real centre of the ceremonies is the god Lug and his marriage with Eriu. The allegation that children were sacrificed at Tailltiu, it is true, rests on a mistranslation of a corrupt text,[1] “burning of the first fruits, or chief descendants,” being really “burnings of empty steadings.” Prof. Gwynn renders it “The three havocs which Patrick forbade in it (Tailltiu), stealing of oxen in the yoke, killing of cows in milk, burning of empty steadings”—some mss. add “not a primitive tradition” or “round a noble family.” Nevertheless, in face of the exuberance of human sacrifice among the Celts of Gaul and Britain and the cases of it in Ireland[2]—the man sacrificed at Emania; the children at Tara and before the pillar of Crom (or Cenn) Cruach (perhaps a Christian nickname for Lug) and the substituted killing of swine at the foundation of Dun Fidne, about A.D. 580, not to speak of the children given to be devoured by the mountain goddess Echtge, almost necessitates a belief that Tailltiu was defiled by these horrible rites. Such Irish sacrifices, denied so angrily by Dr. Joyce and other advocates in Ireland, and also the allegations that there was
- ↑ (Sir) S. Ferguson in Proc. R.I.Acad. i. ser. ii. (1870), p. 267. I owe the correction to the kindness of Prof. E. Gwynn, F.T.C.D.,and Prof. Bergin. “Fogla,” a legal term for “havoc,” was read “fola” (blood).
- ↑ For these standard cases, see Emania, Three Ir. Gloss. p. 70; Tara, “Echtra Airt,” Eriu, iii. pp. 149, 155 Echtge, Rennes Dind S. Rev. Celt. xv. p. 458; Dun Fidne, “Life of St. Cellach,” Silva Gadelica, ii. pp. 169-170. Man sentenced to death by the king of a Sid mound (i.e. a god or demi-god), Bruden Da Derga, Rev. Celt. xxii. p. 368; see also article on human sacrifice, in Eriu, ii. p. 86. Compare the boy sacrificed at Dun Enirys in Nennius, ed. Stephenson, p. 31, and Irish Nennius, ed. O’Donovan, p. 93. Prof. MacNeill thinks the rile died out ante 430.
