At all state banquets particular joints were reserved for certain chiefs, officials, and professional men, according to rank. A thigh was laid before a king, and also before an ollave poet; a haunch before a queen; a leg before a young lord; a head before a charioteer, and so on. A similar custom existed among the ancient Gauls and also among the Greeks. A remnant of this old custom lingered on in Scotland and Ireland down to a period within our own memory. Seventy years ago in some parts of Ireland, when a farmer killed a bullock or a pig, he always sent the head to the smith, so that at certain times of the year you might see the smith’s kitchen garnished with forty or fifty heads hanging round the walls. In the time of the Red Branch Knights, it was the custom to assign the choicest joint or animal of the whole banquet to the hero who was acknowledged by general consent to have performed the bravest and greatest exploit. This piece was called _curath-mir_, i.e., ‘the hero’s morsel or share’; and there were often keen contentions among the Red Branch heroes, and sometimes fights with bloodshed, for this coveted joint or piece. This usage, which prevailed among the continental Celts in general, and which also existed among the Greeks, continued in Ireland to comparatively late times. Tables were, as we have seen, used at the great feasts. But at ordinary meals, high tables, such as we have now, do not seem to have been in general use. There were small low tables, each used no doubt for two or more persons. Often there was a little table laid beside each person, on which his food was placed--the meat on a platter. Forks are a late invention: of old the fingers were used at eating. In Ireland, as in England and other countries in those times, each person held his knife in the right hand, and used the fingers of the left instead of a fork. The Greeks and Romans had no forks at meals: they used the fingers only, and were supplied with water to wash their hands after eating. As early as the eighth or ninth century the Irish of the higher classes used napkins at table, for which they had a native word _lambrat_, i.e., ‘hand-cloth.’ I suppose the chief use they made of it was to wipe the left-hand fingers; which was badly needed. It was the custom, both in monastic communities and in secular life, to take off the shoes or sandals when sitting down to dinner; which was generally done by an attendant. The Romans we know had the same custom. The Irish did not sit up at dinner as we do now; but, like the Romans, they reclined on couches on which the feet also rested; and this was why the shoes were taken off.