[333] In the volume already referred to as containing Llhwyd's description, and other papers.
[334] A slip for "south."
[335] The writer has evidently overlooked his previously expressed belief that the whole "mount" was artificial; or else he has assumed that the builders first raised a solid "pyramid" of stones, and then burrowed into it; which is obviously absurd.
[336] This tract was published in 1725. The "young gentleman's" illustrations have been re-produced in the present volume, in the plates facing pp. [124] and [126].
[337] Dr. Molyneux assumes throughout that such "mounts" were erected by the Danes; and this origin is very often ascribed to them by Irish and Hebridean tradition. But Lady Ferguson's observation that the "Danes" and the "Dananns" or "Tuatha De Danann," are evidently confounded in the popular memory, is worth considering here. It is clear, at any rate, that the "Danes" of the year 861 who plundered those Boyne mounds cannot have been the people who reared them.
[338] Of all these terms the "shallow tray" (or "saucer," if a new one may be added) is the most appropriate. From the plan of the Dowth mound (ante, p. [138]) it will be seen that the central chamber there also has one of those large stone "trays." No satisfactory solution has yet been offered of the purposes for which these "trays" were made.
[339] Described in the Edinburgh Courant of January 6, 1886.
[340] Antiq. Amer. p. 182n.
[341] P. 43, note a.
[342] Pages 180-1. It ought to be added that the version which is given on p. 149 has svartir ("swarthy" or "black") instead of smáir. But whichever of these versions has the correct word, the small stature of the Skrælings is beyond dispute.