e shelter of the great central woods. The
Sons of Milid pursued them, and, overtaking them at Tailten on the
Blackwater, some ten miles northwest of Tara, they fought another
battle; after it, the supremacy of the De Danaans definitely
passed away.

Yet we have no reason to believe that, any more than the Fomorians or
Firbolgs, the De Danaans ceased to fill their own place in the land.
They seem, indeed, to have been preponderant in the north, and in all
likelihood they hold their own there even now; for every addition to our
knowledge shows us more and more how tenacious is the life of races, how
firmly they cling to their earliest dwellings. And though we read of
races perishing before invaders, this is the mere boasting of
conquerors; more often the newcomers are absorbed among the earlier
race, and nothing distinctive remains of them but a name. We have
abundant evidence to show that at the present day, as throughout the
last three thousand years, the four races we have described continue to
make up the bulk of our population, and pure types of each still linger
unblended in their most ancient seats; for, though races mingle, they do
not thereby lose their own character. The law is rather that the type of
one or other will come out clear in their descendants, all undefined
forms tending to disappear.

Nor did any subsequent invasion add new elements; for as all northern
Europe is peopled by the same few types, every newcomer,--whether from
Norway, Denmark, Britain or Continental Europe,--but reinforced one of
these earlier races. Yet even where the ethnical elements are alike,
there seems to be a difference of destiny and promise--as if the very
land itself brooded over its children, transforming them and molding
them to a larger purpose. The spiritual life of races goes far deeper
than their ethnic history.

It would seem that with the coming of the Sons of Milid the destiny of
Ireland was rounded and completed; from that time onward, for more than
two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth and settled life and
ideals; a period whose history and achievements we are only beginning to
understand. At the beginning of that long epoch of settled life the art
of working gold was developed and perfected; and we have abundance of
beautiful gold-work from remote times, of such fine design and execution
that there is nothing in the world to equal it. The modern work of
countries where gold is found in quantities i