We are the more disposed to trust the fidelity of the picture, since
the foundations of the Tara banquet-hall are to be clearly traced to
this day--an oblong earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety
wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked; as for the brooches
and torques of gold, some we have surpass in magnificence anything here
described, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the refinement of
spirit that conceived and the skill that fashioned them. Spear-heads,
too, are of beautiful bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket of
great excellence and charm.

[Illustration: Powerscourt Waterfall, Co. Wicklow]

For a picture of the life of that age, we cannot do better than return
to Emain of Maca, telling the story of one famous generation of warriors
and fair women who loved and fought there two thousand years ago. The
ideal of beauty was still the golden hair and blue eyes of the De
Danaans, and we cannot doubt that their race persisted side by side with
the Sons of Milid, retaining a certain predominance in the north and
northeast of the island, the first landing-place of the De Danaan
invaders. Of this mingled race was the great Rudraige, from whom the
most famous rulers of Emain descended. Ros was the son of Rudraige, and
from Roeg and Cass, the sons of Ros, came the princes Fergus and
Factna. Factna, son of Cass, wedded the beautiful Nessa, and from their
union sprang Concobar, the great hero and ruler of Ulster--in those days
named Ulad, and the dwellers there the Ulaid. Factna died while Concobar
was yet a boy; and Nessa, left desolate, was yet so beautiful in her
sadness that Fergus became her slave, and sued for her favor, though
himself a king whose favors others sued. Nessa's heart was wholly with
her son, her life wrapt up in his. She answered, therefore, that she
would renounce her mourning and give her widowed hand to Fergus the