Such was the battle which is called in Irish _Mag Tuireadh na b-Fomorach_, that is to say, the “Plain of the Towers of the Fomors”, and, more popularly, the “Battle of Moytura the Northern”, to distinguish it from the other Battle of Moytura fought by the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fir Bolgs farther to the south. More of the Fomors were killed in it, says the ancient manuscript, than there are stars in the sky, grains of sand on the sea-shore, snow-flakes in winter, drops of dew upon the meadows in spring-time, hailstones during a storm, blades of grass trodden under horses’ feet, or Manannán son of Lêr’s white horses, the waves of the sea, when a tempest breaks. The “towers” or pillars said to mark the graves of the combatants still stand upon the plain of Carrowmore, near Sligo, and form, in the opinion of Dr. Petrie, the finest collection of prehistoric monuments in the world, with the sole exception of Carnac, in Brittany.[138] Megalithic structures of almost every kind are found among them—stone cairns with dolmens in their interiors, dolmens standing open and alone, dolmens surrounded by one, two, or three circles of stones, and circles without dolmens—to the number of over a hundred. Sixty-four of such prehistoric remains stand together upon an elevated plateau not more than a mile across, and make the battle-field of Moytura, though the least known, perhaps the most impressive of all primeval ruins. What they really commemorated we may never know, but, in all probability, the place was the scene of some important and decisive early battle, the monuments marking the graves of the chieftains who were interred as the result of it. Those which have been examined were found to contain burnt wood and the half-burnt bones of men and horses, as well as implements of flint and bone. The actors, therefore, were still in the Neolithic Age. Whether the horses were domesticated ones buried with their riders, or wild ones eaten at the funeral feasts, it would be hard to decide. The history of the real event must have been long lost even at the early date when its relics were pointed out as the records of a battle between the gods and the giants of Gaelic myth. The Tuatha Dé Danann, following the routed Fomors, overtook and captured Bress. He begged Lugh to spare his life. “What ransom will you pay for it?” asked Lugh. “I will guarantee that the cows of Ireland shall always be in milk,” promised Bress. But, before accepting, Lugh took counsel with his druids. “What good will that be,” they decided, “if Bress does not also lengthen the lives of the cows?” This was beyond the power of Bress to do; so he made another offer. “Tell your people,” he said to Lugh, “that, if they will spare my life, they shall have a good wheat harvest every year.” But they said: “We already have the spring to plough and sow in, the summer to ripen the crops, the autumn for reaping, and the winter in which to eat the bread; and that is all we want.”