Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

where it was used as a seat of justice by Gathalus, contemporary with Moses." Boece declares this Gathalus was the son of Cecrops of Athens, and that he married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh. Haydn's Dictionary of Dates relates that "the Lia Fail, on which the Kings of Munster were crowned, was laid in the Cathedral of Cashel."

The Royal Irish Academy had the full Tara story from Dr. Petrie's pen. Referring to what he considered the Lia Fail, the author mentioned its position by the Mound of Hostages, though removed to the Forradh Rath in 1798, over some graves after the Tara fight. "But the mound," said he, "is still popularly called Bed Thearghais; that is, **** Fergusii, an appellation derived from the form of this stone." Other MSS. "identify the Lia Fail with the stone on the Mound of the Hostages." Elsewhere he said--"Between the Irish and Scottish accounts of the history of this stone there is a total want of agreement, which shows that the Scottish writers, when they recorded their tradition, were not acquainted with, or disregarded, the accounts of it preserved by the Irish. The Irish accounts uniformly state that the Lia Fail was brought into Ireland from the north of Germany by the Tuatha de Danaan colony."

The conclusion of Dr. Petrie is as follows--"It is an interesting fact, that a large obeliscal pillar stone, in a prostrate position, occupied, till a recent period, the very situation, on the Hill of Tara, pointed out as the place of the Lia Fail by the Irish writers of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries; and that this was a monument of pagan antiquity, an idol stone, as the Irish writers call it, seems evident from its form and character."

It is, in fact, the remnant of an ancient object of worship, the honouring of the symbol of production, or source of life.

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