"[85]
And the twelfth-century scribe whom Mr. Petrie largely quotes, says that
there were fifty such mounds (_cnoc_) in the cemetery at Cruachan. This
mediaeval scholar has copied a poem on the subject, "ascribed to Dorban,
a poet of West Connaught," wherein it is said that it is not in the
power of poets or of sages to reckon the number of heroes under the
Cruachan mounds, and that there is not a hillock (_cnoc_) in that
cemetery "which is not the grave of a king or royal prince, or of a
woman, or warlike poet." In another verse, he says that _each_ of the
fifty mounds had a warrior under it; and, altogether, it appears that,
although their number could doubtless be "reckoned," yet the burial
mounds of Cruachan, in or about the twelfth century, much exceeded fifty
in number. "Fifty" is simply used by the poet and his commentator to
show that, like the two other cemeteries of the triad (each of which is
also said to have had fifty) the Cemetery of Cruachan contained about a
third of the pagan notables of Ireland.
From this we see that, about the twelfth century, the Cemetery of the
Brugh contained at least fifty sepulchral mounds such as those described
by Mr.
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