“Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born! Or of th’ Eternal co-eternal beam! May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear’st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun, Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite.”[87] But to prove that they were not appropriated to the ritual of fire-worship, _nay, that their history and occupation had been altogether forgotten when that ritual now prevailed_, I turn to the glossary of Cormac, first bishop of Cashel, who, after his conversion to Christianity, in the fifth century, by St. Patrick, thus declares his faith:-- “Adhram do righ na duile Do dagh bhar din ar n’ daone Lies gach dream, leis gach dine Leis gach ceall, leis gach caoimhe.” That is-- “I worship the King of the Elements, Whose fire from the mountain top ascends, In whose hands are all mankind, All punishment and remuneration.” No allusion here to “_towers_” as connected with that _fire_ so pointedly adverted to. And lest there should be any doubt as to the _identity_ of this fire with the religious element so frequently referred to, we find the same high authority thus critically explain himself in another place: “dha teinne soinmech do gintis na draoithe con tincet laib moraib foraib, agus do bordis, na ceatra or teamandaib cacha bliadhna”--that is, the Druids used to kindle two immense fires, with great incantation, and towards them used to drive the cattle, which they forced to pass between them every year. Nay, when St. Bridget, who was originally a _pagan vestal_, and consequently well versed in all the solemnities of the sacred fire, wished, upon her conversion to Christianity, A.D. 467, to retain this favourite usage, now sublimated in its nature, and streaming in a more hallowed current, it was not in a “tower” that we find she preserved it, but in a cell or low building “like a vault,” “which,” says Holinshed, whose curiosity, excited by Cambrensis’s report,[88] had induced him to go and visit the spot, “to this day they call the fire-house.” It was a stone-roofed edifice about twenty feet square, the ruins of which are still visible, and recognised by all around as once the preservative of the sacred element. When Cambrensis made mention of this miraculous fire of St. Bridget, why did he not connect it with the _Round Towers_, which he mentions elsewhere? He knew they had no connection, and should not be associated.