"A _Tailcenn_ will come over the raging sea, With his perforated garment, his crook-headed staff, With his table at the east end of his house, And all his people will answer 'Amen, Amen.'" The allusions to the priestly vestments, the altar at the east end of the church, and the pastoral staff, are sufficiently obvious, and easily explained. The prophecy is quoted by Macutenius, and quoted again from him by Probus; but the original is in one of the most ancient and authentic Irish MSS., the Book of Armagh. [135] _Died_.--O'Curry, p. 273. [136] _Burial_.--"The body of Laeghairé was brought afterwards from the south, and interred with his armour of championship in the south-east of the outer rampart of the royal rath of Laeghairé, at Tara, with his face turned southwards upon the men of Leinster, as fighting with them, for he was the enemy of the Leinster men in his lifetime."--Translated from the _Leabhar na Nuidhre._ Petrie's _Tara_, p. 170. [137] _Always_.--National customs and prejudices have always been respected by the Church: hence she has frequently been supposed to sanction what she was obliged to tolerate. A long residence in Devonshire, and an intimate acquaintance with its peasantry, has convinced us that there is incalculably more superstitions believed and _practised_ there of the _grossest kind_, than in any county in Ireland. Yet we should be sorry to charge the Established Church or its clergy, some of whom are most earnest and hard-working men, with the sins of their parishioners. The following extract from St. Columba's magnificent Hymn, will show what the early Irish saints thought of pagan superstitions: "I adore not the voice of birds, Nor sneezing, nor lots in this world, Nor a boy, nor chance, nor woman: My Druid is Christ, the Son of God; Christ, Son of Mary, the great Abbot, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." [138] _Aengus_.-- "Died the branch, the spreading tree of gold, Aenghus the laudable." --Four Masters, p. 153. The branches of this tree have indeed spread far and wide, and the four great families mentioned above have increased and multiplied in all parts of the world. [139] _Year_ 503.--The Four Masters give the date 498, which O'Donovan corrects both in the text and in a note. [140] _Broccan's Hymn_.--This Hymn was written about A.D. 510. See the translation in Mr. Whitley Stokes' _Goidilica_, Calcutta, 1866. Privately printed. [141] _Saints_.--St. Patrick, St. Columba, and St. Brigid. See Reeves' _Ecc. Anti. of Down and Connor_, p. 225, and Giraldus Cambrensis, d. 3, cap. 18.