[Footnote 283: This name imports the "Tribe or Family of Cas.">[

"For him shall not be accepted from them
Gold, nor silver, nor land,
Nor hostages, nor cattle, O man:
Tell them this, and go!"

The Fight At Dunlavin.

There now remained no obstacle to the placing of the crown of Leath Mogha, [Footnote 284] the southern portion of the island, on the head of the brother and avenger of Mahon. He took hostages from the chiefs of Desmond, (Deas, South, Muimhe, Munster,) allowed sundry Danish groups of people to occupy places of trade, and finally, in the year 998, came to a conference with Malachy II., King of Leath Cuinn or northern portion of Erinn. We have no objection to Brian's triumphant procession up the Shannon, but are not clear about the privilege assumed by his Dalcassians, of making hostile visitations to districts on each side as they went up-stream. However. Malachy had set them a bad example a short time before.

[Footnote 284: The boundary line of these portions connected the bays of Dublin and Galway.]

The natives and Danes of Leinster getting up an insurrection soon after this treaty with Malachy, Brian proceeded toward Dublin to bring them to their duty. They met him at Glean-Mama (Glen of the Gap) near Dunlavin, but sustained signal defeats at that pass and other points where they afterward rallied. The curious in topographical details will find much to interest them at pages cxliv., etc., of the introduction. The editor has made himself well acquainted with the natural features of the neighborhood of Dunlavin, having received some valuable information from Rev. Mr. Sherman, formerly Roman Catholic curate in the neighborhood. The site of the old fort is marked by an ancient cemetery, pagan tumuli, and fragments of stone circles, called by the inhabitants, Pipers' Stones. We must here make use of one of Dr. Todd's many and valuable archaeological notes:

"The Danes expected to reach Dunlavin, and perhaps to encamp there to meet the forces of Meath (under Malachy) and Munster. But Brian met them in the narrow defile of Glen Mama, thus cutting off their retreat. Here there was no room for a regular engagement, and the flight must have been immediate. The main body of the Danish army flew across the sloping land through Kinsellastown, to the ford of Lemmonstown, where a stand seems to have been made by them, and where it is said thousands fell in the conflict. To this day their bones are turned up in the fields about the ford, and some mounds on the banks of the stream are so filled up with them that the people leave them untilled, as being sacred repositories of the dead. The remnant of the defeated army fled to Holywood, about a mile to the east of the ford, and thence to the ford of the Horse-pass on the Liffey, about Poul a Phouca, (the Pooka's Hole,) where they were utterly routed. At the close of the last century the wild lands of Upper Crihelpe were reclaimed, and many relics of this retreat were brought to light, chiefly in a line from Tubber Glen (Well of the Glen) to Lemmonstown ford. The workmen, coming on the pits where the bodies of the slain lay buried, left them intact, closing them up again. In the defile of Glen Mama, during the first week of May, 1864, one of these pits was accidentally opened, bones were turned up, and also the fragments of a Danish sword, (now in the possession of Dean Graves, Pres. R. I. A.) The clay was found black and unctuous, as if thoroughly saturated with human remains."

In the now nearly unknown cemetery of Crihelpe lie the remains of Harold the Danish prince, by the side of a granite post, furnished with an aperture for a wooden shaft, to convert it into a cross. It is called Cruisloe, (Crois laech, warrior's cross,) and serves as a rubbing-post for cattle.

This was considered one of the most important victories gained over the foreigners, both from the number of the slain and the spoils recovered—"Gold, silver, bronze, (finndruine,) precious stones, carbuncle gems, buffalo horns, and beautiful goblets. Much also of various vestures of all colors was found there likewise;" for, in the words of the text,