"New Grange was first described by Edward Llhuyd the antiquary, who, writing in 1699, makes no mention of any human remains being found in it, but notes 'a great many bones of beasts and some pieces of deers' horns' lying under foot."
It will be seen that these accounts vary in several respects. One curious discrepancy is that relating to the shallow stone "trays" in the recesses of the central chamber. Dr. Molyneux states that the northern recess contained one of these, and his young namesake shows such a "tray" in his plan; and yet Llhwyd, writing twenty-five years earlier, distinctly says that "in the apartment straight forward there was none at all." That this is the case at the present day will be seen from the plan by Mr. W. F. Wakeman. It is noteworthy that Colonel Leslie also gives the number as three; but he speaks in the past tense when referring to the north recess, and he probably only echoes Molyneux. But Llhwyd's statement is so distinct that, considering his priority of date, his version must be accepted as the true one, in spite of the fact that young Molyneux (who, although he is stated to have drawn his plan "on the place," may have supplemented it from memory) represents the inner "apartment" as occupied by one of those "trays."
As for the theories of the two earlier writers, on the subject of the origin and purpose of this "mount," it will be observed they differ widely. Molyneux has no doubt about its being the work of the ninth-century Danes, while Llhwyd, arguing from the discovery of Roman coins on the outer crust, infers that it was erected by "the ancient Irish." Although the coins cannot be held to constitute a strong reason for accepting Llhwyd's conclusions, other good grounds for doing so are obvious to every reader of the foregoing pages.
Again, while Molyneux states very definitely that "when first the cave was opened, the bones of two dead bodies entire, not burnt, were found upon the floor," Llhwyd merely remarks that "they found several bones in the cave, and part of a stag's (or else elk's) head, and some other things," and Forbes-Leslie asserts that "there is no authentic record of human remains having been discovered" in this chambered mound.
All of the writers quoted differ also as to the uses to which this structure was put. It was "some place of sacrifice or burial," according to Llhwyd; Molyneux is sure that it was a "sepulchre"; and Forbes-Leslie regards the whole matter as undecided. But, although the last-named writer is of opinion that this, and similar mounds, may have been dwellings, he nevertheless admits that undoubtedly many of them, if not all, have also been used as places of burial. And these two beliefs are quite reconcilable, if one accepts what Professor Boyd Dawkins refers to as "the hypothesis of the origin of chambered tombs invented by Prof. Nilsson." "Chambered tombs, according to that great authority, were originally the subterranean houses in which the deceased lived, and there the dead were laid literally each 'in his own house.'" Whether human skeletons were really found in "the Brugh of the Boyne" or not, it seems clear that the mound at Dowth was ultimately, at any rate, a place of sepulture. "The most remarkable difference" between it and its more famous neighbour was, says Colonel Leslie, "that in Dowth fragments of burned human bones were discovered." And it is to be noted that tradition speaks of this place as "the cave (or 'weem') of the grave of Bodan, above Dowth:" (Uaimh Feirt Bodan os Dubath). Dowth, or Dubath, may have denoted the mound itself; in which case the word signifying "above" or "upon" might refer to an exterior burial, in the "crust" of the mound, of which there are many examples. For instance, although tradition speaks of the Inverness Tomnahurich as an inhabited "brugh," yet its exterior was used as a place of burial at a very early date, as is testified by the discovery, a few years ago, of a stone "kist," containing a human skeleton, buried some feet below the surface of the mound.[339] However, the word Dubath (conjectured on a previous page to have signified dubh-ath, "the black ford") probably did not originally denote the mound itself, and it therefore was "above Dubath," and the central chamber of the mound constituted "the weem of the grave of Bodan," who was presumably the owner of the "burned human bones" referred to by Colonel Leslie.
But, while a description of the "Brugh of the Boyne" would be very imperfect without a reference to the subject of burial in chambered mounds, the various traditions which have been collected in these pages (themselves a minute fraction of the whole) show that such mounds, whatever their secondary use, are pre-eminently distinguished in the memory of the people as the dwelling-places of a certain peculiar "underground" race.