“A hero who possesses five prerogatives,
    Is the King of Laighlin of the fort of Labhraidh: 
    The fruit of Almhain [to be brought to him] to his house;
    And the deer of Gleann Searraigh;
    To drink by [the light of] fair wax candles,
    At Din Riogh, is very customary to the king."[262]

In this matter, at least, the Irish kings and princes were considerably in advance of their Anglo-Saxon neighbours.  Wright informs us[263] that their candle was a mere mass of fat, plastered round a wick, and stuck upon an upright stick:  hence the name candlestick.

It is probable that fire-light was, however, the principal means of assisting the visual organs after dark in both countries.  Until comparatively recent times, fires were generally made on square, flat stones, and these could be placed, as appears to have been the case at Tara, in different parts of any large hall or apartment.  There was sometimes a “back stone” to support the pile of wood and turf.  The smoke got out how best it might, unless where there was a special provision made for its exit, in the shape of a round hole in the roof.  At a later period a “brace” was sometimes made for conducting it.  The brace was formed of upright stakes, interlaced with twigs, and plastered over, inside and outside, with prepared clay—­the earliest idea of the modern chimney.

Macaulay[264] gives us a picture of an ancient Roman fire-side, and the occupations of those who sat round it.  We can, perhaps, form a more accurate and reliable idea of the dress, amusements, and occupations of those who surrounded the hall-fires of ancient Tara, or the humble, domestic hearths of the crannoges or wattled houses.

The amusements of the pre-Christian Celt were, undeniably, intellectual.  Chess has already been mentioned more than once in this work as a constant occupation of princes and chieftains.  Indeed, they appear to have sat down to a game with all the zest of a modern amateur.  A few specimens of chessmen have been discovered:  a king, elaborately carved, is figured in the Introduction to the Book of Rights.  It belonged to Dr. Petrie, and was found, with some others, in a bog in the county Meath.  The chessmen of ancient times appear to have been rather formidable as weapons.  In the Tain bo Chuailgne, Cuchullain is represented as having killed a messenger, who told him a lie, with a chessman, “which pierced him to the centre of his brain.”  English writers speak of the use of chess immediately after the Conquest, and say that the Saxons learned the game from the Danes.  The Irish were certainly acquainted with it at a much earlier period; if we are to credit the Annals, it was well known long before the introduction of Christianity.  Wright gives an engraving of a Quarrel at Chess, in which Charles, the son of the Emperor Charlemagne, is represented knocking out the brains of his adversary with a chessboard.  The illustration is ludicrously graphic, and the unfortunate man appears to submit to his doom with a touching grace of helpless resignation.