The field on which the four-days' battle of Southern Moytura was fought extends from five to six miles north and south. Near the centre of the space, and nearly opposite the village of Cong, is a group of five stone circles, one of which, 54 feet in diameter, is represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 54). Another, very similar, is close by; and a third, larger but partially ruined, is within a few yards of the first. The other two can only now be traced, and two more are said to have existed close by, but have entirely disappeared. On other parts of the battle-field there are six or seven large cairns of stone, all of them more or less ruined, the stones having been used to build dykes, with which every field is surrounded in this country; but none of them have been scientifically explored. One is represented ([woodcut No. 55]). Sir W. Wilde has identified all of these as connected with incidents in the battle, and there seems no reason to doubt his conclusions. The most interesting, however, is one connected with an incident in the battle, which is worth relating, as illustrating the manner in which the monuments corroborate the history. On the morning of the second day of the battle, King Eochy retired to a well to refresh himself with a bath, when three of his enemies looking down, recognised him and demanded his surrender. While he was parleying with them, they were attacked by his servant and killed; but the servant died immediately afterwards of his wounds, and, as the story goes, was interred with all honours in a cairn close by. In the narrative it is said that the well where the king had so narrow an escape is the only open one in the neighbourhood. It is so to the present day; for the peculiarity of the country is, that the waters from Lough Mask do not flow into Lough Corrib by channels on the surface, but entirely through chasms in the rock underground, and it is only when a crack in the rock opens into one of these that the water is accessible. The well in question is the only one of these for some distance in which the water is approached by steps partly cut in the rock, partly constructed. Close by is a cairn ([woodcut No. 56]), called to this day the "Cairn of the One Man." It was opened by Sir W. Wilde, and in its chamber was found one urn, which is now deposited in the Museum of the Royal Academy at Dublin, the excavation thus confirming the narrative in the most satisfactory manner.
56. The Cairn of the "One Man," Moytura.
57. Urn in the Cairn of the "One Man," Moytura.
"The battle took place on Midsummer day. The Firbolgs were defeated with great slaughter, and their king, who left the battle-field with a body-guard of 100 brave men in search of water to allay his burning thirst, was followed by a party of 150 men, led by the three sons of Nemedh, who pursued him all the way to the strand, called Traigh Eothaile, near Ballysadare, in the county of Sligo. Here a fierce combat ensued, and King Eochy (Eochaidh) fell, as well as the leaders on the other side, the three sons of Nemedh."[206] A cairn is still pointed out on a promontory jutting into the bay, about a mile north-west of the village of Ballysadare, which is said to have been erected over the remains of the king, and bones are also said to have been found between high and low water on the strand beneath, supposed to be those of the combatants who fell in the final struggle. It may be otherwise, but there is a consistency between the narrative and the monuments on the spot which can hardly be accidental, and which it will be very difficult to explain except in the assumption that they refer to the same events.
In fact, it would be difficult to conceive anything more satisfactory and confirmatory of the record than the monuments on the plain; and no one, I fancy, could go over the field with Sir William's book in his hand, without feeling the importance of his identifications. Of course it may be suggested that the book was written by some one familiar with the spot, to suit the localities. The probability, however, of this having been done before the ninth century, and done so soberly and so well, is very remote, and the guess that but one urn would be found in the cairn of the "One Man," is a greater piece of luck than could reasonably be expected. Even, however, if the book was written to suit the localities, it will not invalidate the fact that a great battle was fought on this spot, and that these cairns and these circles mark the graves of those who fell in the fight.
The collection of monuments on the battle-field of Northern Moytura is even more interesting than that on Moytura Cong, and almost justified the assertion of Petrie "that, excepting the monuments at Carnac, in Brittany, it is, even in its present state of ruin, the largest assemblage of the kind hitherto discovered in the world."[207] They have also this advantage, that the principal group, consisting of some sixty or seventy monuments, are situated on an elevated table-land, and in an area extending not more than a mile in one direction, and about half a mile in another. The country, too, is much less stony than about Cong, so that the monuments stand out better and have a more imposing look. Petrie examined and described sixty-four monuments as situated in or around this space, and came to the conclusion that originally there could not have been less than 200.[208] My impression is that there may have been 100, but hardly more, though, of course, this is only a guess, and the destruction of them is going on so rapidly that he may be right after all.