We know the name of his
nurse, and of his children, and of his wife, and the character of
his wife, and of the father and mother of his wife, and where they
lived and were buried. We know all the striking events of his
boyhood and manhood, the names of his horses and his weapons, his
own character and his friends, male and female. We know his
battles, and the names of those whom he slew in battle, and how he
was himself slain, and by whose hands. We know his physical and
spiritual characteristics, the device upon his shield, and how that
was originated, carved, and painted, by whom. We know the colour of
his hair, the date of his birth and of his death, and his
relations, in time and otherwise, with the remainder of the princes
and warriors with whom, in that mound-raising period of our
history, he was connected, in hostility or friendship; and all this
enshrined in ancient song, the transmitted traditions of the people
who raised that barrow, and who laid within it sorrowing their
brave ruler and, defender. That mound is the tomb of Cuculain, once
king of the district in which Dundalk stands to-day, and the ruins
of whose earthen fortification may still be seen two miles from
that town.
This is a single instance, and used merely as an example, but one
out of a multitude almost as striking. There is not a king of
Ireland, described as such in the ancient annals, whose barrow is
not mentioned in these or other compositions, and every one of
which may at the present day be identified where the ignorant
plebeian or the ignorant patrician has not destroyed them.
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