into which to retreat in case of defeat. The Danaans,
on the other hand, advancing from the plains of Meath, took up their
station upon the hill known as Knockmaa[1], standing by itself about
five miles from the present town of Tuam, on the top of which stands a
great cairn, believed to have been in existence even then--a legacy of
some yet earlier and more primitive race which inhabited the country,
and, therefore, possibly the oldest record of humanity to-day extant
in Ireland.

[1] Now Castle Hacket Hill.

Three days the battle is said to have raged with varying fortunes, in
the course of which the Danaan king Nuad lost his arm, a loss which was
repaired, we are told, by the famous artificer Credue or Cerd, who made
him a silver one, and as "Nuad of the Silver Hand" he figures
conspicuously in early Irish history. In spite of this, and of the death
of a number of their fighting-men, the stars fought for the
Tuatha-da-Danaans, who were strong men and cunning, workers in metal,
and great fighters, so that at last they utterly made an end of their
antagonists, occupying the whole country, and holding it, say the
annalists for a hundred and ninety and six years--building earth and
stone forts, many of which exist to this day, but what their end was no
man can tell you, save that they, too, were, in their turn, conquered by
the Milesians or "Scoti," who next overran the country, giving to it
their own name of Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of
the twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them, who
thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the forests, whence they
emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant effect upon their conquerors, as
another defeated race did upon _their_ conquerors in later days.

As regards the early doings of these Scoti, although nearer to us in
point of time, their history is, if anything, rather more vague than
that of their predecessors. The source for the greater part of it is in
a work known as the "Annals of the Four Masters," a compilation put
together in the sixteenth century, from documents now no longer
existing, and which must unfortunately, be regarded as largely
fictitious. Were names, indeed, all that were wanting to give
substantiality there are enough and to spare, the beginning of every
Irish history positively bristling with them. Leland, for instance, who
published his three sturdy tomes in the year 1773, and who is still one
of our chief au