In those days, as in the so-called middle ages, ladies exercised their skill in the healing art; and we find honorable mention made of the Lady Ochtriuil, who assisted the chief physician (her father) and his sons in healing the wounds of the Tuatha De Danann heroes.  These warriors have also left many evidences of their existence in raths and monumental pillars.[41] It is probable, also, that much that has been attributed to the Danes, of right belongs to the Dananns, and that a confusion of names has promoted a confusion of appropriation.  Before we turn to the Milesian immigration, the last colonization of the old country, let us inquire what was known and said of it, and of its people, by foreign writers.

[Illustration:  CAVITY, CONTAINING OVAL BASIN.  NEW GRANGE.]

[Illustration:  THE SEVEN CASTLES OF CLONMINES]

FOOTNOTES: 

[24] Hibernia.—­Chronicum Scotorum, p. 3.

[25] Tradition.—­O’Curry, p. 13.

[26] Names.—­Four Masters, O’Donovan, p. 3.

[27] Abraham.—­Chronicum Scotorum, p. 5.

[28] Years.—­Four Masters, p. 5.

[29] Inver.—­Inver and A[=b] er have been used as test words in discriminating between the Gaedhilic and Cymric Celts.  The etymology and meaning is the same—­a meeting of waters.  Inver, the Erse and Gaedhilic form, is common in Ireland, and in those parts of Scotland where the Gael encroached on the Cymry.  See Words and Places, p. 259, for interesting observations on this subject.

[30] Year.—­Annals, p. 7.

[31] Ireland.—­Ib. p. 9.

[32] Annals.—­Ib.  I. p. 9.

[33] World.—­See Conell MacGeoghegan’s Translation of the Annals of Clonmacnois, quoted by O’Donovan, p. 11.

[34] Maol.—­The Teutonic languages afford no explanation of the name of Britain, though it is inhabited by a Teutonic race.  It is probable, therefore, that they adopted an ethnic appellation of the former inhabitants.  This may have been patronymic, or, perhaps, a Celtic prefix with the Euskarian suffix etan, a district or country.  See Words and Places, p. 60.

[35] Ulster.—­Neither the Annals nor the Chronicum give these divisions; the above is from the Annals of Clonmacnois.  There is a poem in the Book of Lecain, at folio 277, b., by MacLiag, on the Firbolg colonies, which is quoted as having been taken from their own account of themselves; and another on the same subject at 278, a.

[36] Hand.—­Four Masters, p. 17.

[37] Reliance.—­O’Curry, p. 243.

[38] Spears.—­O’Curry, p. 245.

[39] Eye.—­There is a curious note by Dr. O’Donovan (Annals, p. 18) about this Balor.  The tradition of his deeds and enchantments is still preserved in Tory Island, one of the many evidences of the value of tradition, and of the many proofs that it usually overlies a strata of facts.