and Scotland still in use for rites connected with marriage[1] we might conjecture that the Fál at Tailltiu was one, and that, when it was removed, the plank, with the hole (through which couples handfasted, at the “Telltown marriage”), was substituted. The whole consensus of th facts from such miscellaneous sources indicates an unusual prominence of marriage rights at Tailltiu; and the boast of the Oenach of Carman[2] is that it was “without impurity,” “as for elopement it was not heard of there, neither a second husband,” “the games of the women were not visited by the men.” All these strong statements are probably to contrast it with other Assemblies, like Tailltiu.
3. The “Telltown Marriages.”
Whether actual, or symbolic, as was probably the case in later days, curous temporary marriages were celebrated at the sports of Tailltiu, it is said till 1770. The two townlands of Telltown and Oristown adjoin each other (the first mered by the Selen, or Blackwater, to the south-west), about halfway between the towns of Navan and Kells. In Oristown is part of a huge earthen Ring, with a fosse inside its ramparts and a banquette, or terrace, inside the fosse, clearly for celebrations and not for residence or defence. The field is crossed by an ancient sunken road which widens into a hollow at a well; thought the hollow is a fence, and it is called Luganeany, “The hollow of the Óenach.” It has a great Ring, “the Rath of the mar-
- ↑ “Traces of the Elder Faiths in Ireland” (Wood Martin), i. pp. 315, 321; ii. pp. 237-247. For Dolmens, see Borlase, “Dolmens of Ireland,” 482, 555; Hely Dutton, “Statistical Survey Co. Clare,” Folk-Lore, xxii. pp. 51, 52; Celtic Review, x. p. 263. I am not free to tell a cofirmatory example known to me. For Basin Stone, R. R. Brash on the “Dagda’s Stone” (Ir. Ecclesiastical Archt. p. 119; Roy. Soc. Antt. Ir. xxxiii. pp. 375-377. The “Dagda’s Stone” named in the Irish Traids was in Connacht (Todd Lec. Ser. xiii. p. 33).
- ↑ Metr. Dind S. x. pp. 11-19, from a poem of Flan (circa 1050), long after the Óenach of Tailltiu had died out of annual usage.
