Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    325/344 (page 313)
    word from Ghnaini,—the guaim, or wisdom of birds. One of old styled it a cowboy’s inscription. The Book of Bally- mote had an ogham tract. In the Tain-bo-Cnailgne we read—“Cucullain cut an oak before him there, and he wrote an ogham on its side.”—“ He then made an Id (rod), and wrote an ogham in its side, and twisted it round the head of the pillar stone. The Id was put into the hands of Fergus Mac Roi, and he read the Idl O’Curry heard that in the third century there existed, at Tara, a book of wooden tablets of great age. The museums of Dublin, Edinburgh, and London have specimens of ogham writing. THE LIA FAIL, OR THE STONE OF DESTINY. Elsewhere, mention has been made of the Irish Lia Fail, Stone of Fate, Fatal Stone, or Stone of Destiny, generally believed to have been the Irish Kings’ Inauguration Stone, afterwards used for Pictish and Scottish kings at Scone, ultimately becoming the Coronation Stone in Westminster Abbey. Like other subjects connected with Irish history, this point has been considerably discussed. As the present work is mainly intended to give ordinary readers a citation of opinions upon ancient Irish religious topics, it is unneces- sary to do more here than present various authorities upon this mysterious stone. There are two competitors for the honour of authenticity, and both to be now seen ; one, a dozen feet long, standing erect, half out of the ground, on the Hill of Tara, in Ireland ; the other, twenty-si.x inches long, in the corona- tion chair at Westminster Abbey. A legend in the Scalacronica, dated 1355, declared it was Simon Brec (a name of solar association) “who brought with him a stone on which the Kings of Spain were wont