Bishop Cormac, we have seen before, has recorded them as objects of antiquity in his own time; and this being, at the latest, within the ninth century, they must have had existence before the seventh; else they could not well be deemed ancient two centuries after.
The Ulster annals record the destruction of fifty-seven of them by an earthquake, A.D. 448; they must, therefore, have existed before that century also. But the Royal Irish Academy say no; because that tradition connects a person called the Goban Saer, and “the historical notices relative to whom have been collected into Mr. Petrie’s essay ... with the erection of this (the Antrim Tower), as well as others in the north of Ireland!”[431] As every notice, therefore, respecting so important a character must be eagerly sought after, I shall take leave to transcribe what the same high authority tells us of him, in the following words, namely:—
“I have not learned the particular period at which he flourished, but tradition says that he was superior to all his contemporaries in the art of building; even in that dark age when so little communication existed between countries not so remotely situated, his fame extended to distant lands. A British prince, whose possessions were very extensive, and who felt ambitious of erecting a splendid palace to be his regal residence, hearing of the high attainments of the Goban Saer in his sublime science, invited him to court, and by princely gifts and magnificent promises induced him to build a structure, the splendour of which excelled that of all the palaces in the world. But the consummate skill of the artist had nearly cost him his life, for the prince, struck with the matchless beauty of the palace, was determined that it should stand unrivalled on the earth, by putting the architect to death, who alone was capable of constructing such another, after the moment the building received the finishing touches of his skilful hand.
“This celebrated individual had a son, who was grown up to man’s estate; and anxious that this only child should possess, in marriage, a young woman of sound sense and ready wit, he cared little for the factitious distinctions of birth or fortune, if he found her rich in the gifts of heaven. Having killed a sheep, he sent the young man to sell the skin at the next market town, with this singular injunction, that he should bring home the skin and its price at his return. The lad was always accustomed to bow to his father’s superior wisdom, and on this occasion did not stop to question the good sense of his commands, but bent his way to town. In these primitive times it was not unusual to see persons of the highest rank engaged in menial employments, so the townsfolk were less surprised to see the young Goban expose a sheep-skin for sale, than at the absurdity of the term, ‘the skin and the price of it.’ He could find no chapman, or rather chapwoman (to coin a term), for it was women engaged in domestic business that usually purchased such skins for the wool. A young woman at last accosted him, and upon hearing the terms of sale, after pondering a moment agreed to the bargain. She took him to her house, and having stripped off all the wool, returned him the bare skin, and the price for which the young man stipulated. Upon reaching home, he returned the skin and its value to his father, who learning that a young woman became the purchaser, entertained so high an opinion of her talents, that in a few days she became the wife of his son, and sole mistress of Rath Goban.
“Some time after this marriage, and towards the period to which we before referred, when the Goban Saer and his son were setting off, at the invitation of the British prince, to erect his superb palace, this young woman exhibited considerable abilities, and the keenness of her expressions, and the brilliancy of her wit, far outdid, on many occasions, the acumen of the Goban Saer himself; she now cautioned him, when his old father, who did not, like modern architects, Bianconi it along macadamised roads, got tired from the length of the journey, to shorten the road; and, secondly, not to sleep a third night in any house without securing the interest of a domestic female friend. The travellers pursued their way, and after some weary walking over flinty roads, and through intricate passages, the strength of the elder Goban yielded to the fatigue of the journey. The dutiful son would gladly shorten the road for the wayworn senior, but felt himself unequal to the task. On acquainting his father with the conjugal precept, the old man unravelled the mystery by bidding him commence some strange legend of romance, whose delightful periods would beguile fatigue and pain into charmed attention. Irishmen, I believe, are the cleverest in Europe at ‘throwing it over’ females in foreign places, and it is pretty likely that the younger Goban did not disobey the second precept of his beloved wife. On the second night of their arrival at the king’s court, he found in the person of a female of very high rank (some say she was the king’s daughter), a friend who gave her confiding heart to all the dear delights that love and this Irish experimentalist could bestow. As the building proceeded under the skilful superintendence of the elder Goban, the son acquaints him with the progress of his love, and the ardent attachment of the lady. The cautious old man bade him beware of one capable of such violent passion, and take care lest her jealousy or caprice might not be equally ungovernable, and display more fearful effects. To discover her temper, the father ordered him to sprinkle her face with water as he washed himself in the morning—that if she received the aspersion with a smile, her love was disinterested, and her temper mild; but if she frowned darkly, her love was lust, and her anger formidable. The young man playfully sprinkled the crystal drops on the face of his lover—she smiled gently—and the young Goban rested calmly on that tender bosom, where true love and pitying mildness bore equal sway.
“The wisdom of the Goban Saer and his sapient daughter-in-law was soon manifested; for, as the building approached its completion, his lady-love communicated to the young man the fearful intelligence that the king was resolved, by putting them to death when the work was concluded, that they should erect no other such building, and, by that means, to enjoy the unrivalled fame of possessing the most splendid palace in the world. These tidings fell heavily on the ear of the Goban Saer, who saw the strong necessity of circumventing this base treachery with all his skill. In an interview with his majesty, he acquaints him that the building was being completed; and that its beauty exceeded everything of the kind he had done before, but that it could not be finished without a certain instrument which he unfortunately left at home, and he requested his royal permission to return for it. The king would by no means consent to the Goban Saer’s departure; but anxious to have the edifice completed, he was willing to send a trusty messenger into Ireland for that instrument upon which the finishing of the royal edifice depended. The other assured his majesty that it was of so much importance that he would not entrust it into the hands of the greatest of his majesty’s subjects. It was finally arranged that the king’s eldest son should proceed to Rath Goban, and, upon producing his credentials to the lady of the castle, receive the instrument of which she had the keeping, and which the Goban Saer named ‘Cur-an-aigh-an-cuim.’ Upon his arrival in Ireland, the young prince proceeded to fulfil his errand; but the knowing mistress of Rath Goban, judging from the tenor of the message, and the ambiguous expressions couched under the name of the pretended instrument, that her husband and father-in-law were the victims of some deep treachery, she bad him welcome, inquired closely after her absent friends, and told him he should have the object of his mission when he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of his long journey. Beguiled by the suavity of her manners and the wisdom of her words, the prince complied with her invitation to remain all night at Rath Goban. But in the midst of his security, the domestics, faithful to the call of their mistress, had him bound in chains, and led to the dungeon of the castle. Thus the wisdom of the Goban Saer and the discrimination of his daughter completely baffled the wicked designs of the king, who received intimation that his son’s life would surely atone for the blood of the architects. He dismissed them to their native country laden with splendid presents; and, on their safe arrival at Rath Goban, the prince was restored to liberty.”[432]
Gentlemen of England, where is your knowledge of history? which of your famed monarchs was it that was going to play this scurvy trick upon our Goban, and earn for himself the infamous notoriety of a second Laomedon, by defrauding this architect, who no doubt was a Hercules, of his stipulated salary? Ye shades of Alfred and of Ethelbert, I pause for a reply?
But this indignity, if offered to Goban, would be even greater than that offered by Laomedon to Hercules; for in the latter case the crime was only that of dishonesty—which is not uncommon in any age—superadded to a spice of impiety, in cheating a god; but in the former case, over and above all these, would weigh a consideration which our people would never forget, namely, a violation of the laws of gallantry, this same Goban “having been believed in this part of this country to have been a woman!”[433] And yet the same vehicle that puts forth this trash has told us, in the preceding extract, that he was a father and a husband! (I do not believe in hermaphrodites), and, to crown the climax of absurdity, gives us the following specimen of the heroism of his wife, namely:—
“The Goban Saer having been barbarously murdered, together with his journeymen, by twelve highwaymen, the murderers proceeded to his house, and told the Goban’s wife, with an air of triumph, that they had killed her husband. She appearing nowise concerned, asked them to assist her in drawing open the trunk of a tree, which the Goban had been cutting up into planks. They put in their hands for the purpose, when, drawing out a wedge, she left them literally in a cleft stick, and taking up an axe, cut off all their heads at a blow”![434]
But this is ludicrously trifling with the time of my readers. I am alive to the fact, and I most submissively crave forgiveness, which I doubt not I shall receive, when I state that my sole object was to expose the flimsiness of that subterfuge by which the Royal Irish Academy, or rather their council! had hoped that they could blindfold the public as well as they had succeeded in sequestrating my prize!