For greater security, dwellings were often constructed on artificial islands made with stakes, trees, and bushes, covered with earth and stones, in shallow lakes, or on small flat natural islands if they answered. These were called by the name _Crannoge_. Communication with the shore was carried on by means of a small boat, commonly dug out of one tree-trunk. The remains of these crannoges may still be seen in some of our small shallow lakes. In most of them old ferry-boats have been found, of which many specimens are now preserved in museums. CHAPTER XV. HOW THEY ATE, DRANK, FEASTED, AND ENTERTAINED. Dinner, the principal meal of the day, was taken late in the afternoon; and there was commonly a light repast or luncheon, called ‘Middle-meal,’ between breakfast and dinner. It was the custom to have better food on Sundays and church festivals than on the other days. Among the higher classes great care was taken to seat family and guests at table in the order of rank; and any departure from the established usage was sure to lead to quarrels. The king was always attended at banquets by his subordinate kings, and by other lords and chiefs. Those on his immediate right and left had to sit at a respectful distance. While King Cormac Mac Art sat at dinner, fifty military guards remained standing near him. The manner of arranging the banquets at Tara was generally followed at other royal entertainments. The Banquet-hall here was a long building, with tables arranged along both side-walls. Immediately over the tables were a number of hooks in the wall at regular intervals to hang the shields on. Just before the beginning of the feast all persons left the hall except three:--A _Shanachie_ or historian: a marshal to regulate the order: and a trumpeter. The king and his subordinate kings having first taken their places at the head of the table, the professional ollaves sat down next them. Then the trumpeter blew the first blast, at which the shield-bearers of the lordly guests (for every chief and king had his shield-bearer or squire) came round the door and gave their masters’ shields to the marshal, who, under the direction of the shanachie, hung them on the hooks according to rank, from the highest to the lowest. At the next blast the guests all walked in leisurely, each taking his seat under his own shield (which he knew by special marks). Only one side of the tables was occupied, namely, the side next the wall: and in order to avoid crowding, the shields were hung at such a distance that when the guests were seated “no man of them would touch another.” This arrangement at table according to rank was continued in Ireland and Scotland down to a recent period, as Scott often mentions in his novels; and it continues still everywhere, though in a less strict form.