“The Taltenean sports,” says Sir James Ware, “have been much celebrated by the Irish historians. They were a sort of warlike exercises, something resembling the Olympic games, consisting of racing, tilts, tournaments, or something like them, and other exercises. They were held every year at Talten, a mountain in Meath, for fifteen days before and fifteen days after the first of August. Their first institution is ascribed to Lugaid-lam-fadhe, the twelfth King of Ireland, who began his reign A.M. 2764, in gratitude to the memory of Tailte, the daughter of Magh Mor, a prince of some part of Spain, who, having been married to Eochaid, King of Ireland, took this Lugaidh under her protection, and had the care of his education in his minority. From this lady both the sports and the place where they were celebrated took their names. From King Lugaidh the first of August was called Lugnasa, or the memory of Lugaidh, nasa signifying memory in Irish.” The truth is, that those games were called _Tailtine_ (whence the English _Tilts_), and the place _Tailton_, from _Tailte, which, in our language, signifies a wife_; and the sports, there exhibited, made but a representation of the victory which Budha gained over _Mara_, the great tempter, who had attacked him on the day of his attaining to perfection, with an innumerable host of demons. The conflict is said to have lasted for fifteen days, at the end of which Budha reduced them to submission, and to the acknowledgment of his pretensions as the Son of God. The _battle-scenes_, therefore, with which the _Tuath_-de-danaan crosses and obelisks are decorated, bear reference, all of them, to this religious achievement: and to this hour you will find those identical games celebrated in various parts of the east, and for the same number of days! In Egypt, also, there was a place called Tailtal,[441] and named from the same cause. Nay, the name of the Eleusinian mysteries was _Tailtine_! but this the Greeks not comprehending, they bent it, as usual, to some conformity to their own language, and made _Teletai_ of it! and then they were at no loss in making a _reason_ for it in like manner, namely, that no one could be _finished_ until _initiated_ therein! But it is not alone as assigning those edifices to their real proprietors that this “stanza” is of value; but as giving us an insight into that mysterious personage whom our modern chroniclers would fain represent as the father of Heber and Heremon. A greater error, whether voluntary or accidental, was never incurred. Heber and Heremon were the sons of Gallamh, and invaded this island at the head of a Scythian colony,[442] distinct in all respects, save that of language,[443] from their Tuathan predecessors. These predecessors were headed by three brothers, Brien, Iuchordba, and Iuchor, the sons of King Miledh, a Fo-morian, by a queen of the Tuath-de-danaan race, agreeably to this record in the Book of Leccan, viz.:--