Tomnahurich, near
Inverness, though Mr. MacRitchie seems to think that an investigation,
were such possible, of its interior, might lead to a different
explanation.

[Footnote A: _Anthrop. Mems._, ii. 294.]

In other cases, and these are of great importance in coming to a
conclusion as to the origin of fairy tales, the mounds inhabited by the
little people are of a sepulchral nature. This is the case in the instance
of Willey How, which, when explored by Canon Greenwell, was found, in
spite of its size and the enormous care evidently bestowed upon its
construction, to be merely a cenotaph. A grave there was, sunk more than
twelve feet deep in the chalk rock; but no corporeal tenant had ever
occupied it.

This fact is still more clearly shown in the remarkable case mentioned by
Professor Boyd Dawkins. A barrow called Bryn-yr-Ellyllon (Fairy-hill),
near Mold, was said to be haunted by a ghost clad in golden armour which
had been seen to enter it. The barrow was opened in the year 1832, and was
found to contain the skeleton of a man wearing a golden corselet of
Etruscan workmanship.

The same may be said respecting that famous fairy-hill in Ireland, the
Brugh of the Boyne, though Mr. MacRitchie seems to regard it as having
been a dwelling-place. Mr. Coffey in a most careful study appears to me to
have finally settled the question.[A] He speaks of the remains as those of
probably the most remarkable of the pre-Christian cemeteries of Ireland.
Of the stone basins, whose nature Mr. MacRitchie regards as doubtful, he
says, "There can be hardly any doubt but that they served the purpose of
some rude form of sarcophagus, or of a receptacle for urns." Mr. Coffey
quotes the account from the Leadhar na huidri respecting cemeteries, in
which Brugh is mentioned as amongst the chief of those existing before the
faith (i.e. before the introduction of Christianity). "The nobles of the
Tuatha de Danann were used to bury at Brugh (i.e. the Dagda with his three
sons; also Lugaidh, and Oe, and Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan the Poetess, and
Corpre, the son of Etan), and Cremthain followed them, because his wife
Nar was of the Tuatha Dea, and it was she solicited him that he should
adopt Brugh as a burial-place for himself and his descendants, and this
was the cause that they did not bury at Cruachan." Mr. Coffey also quotes
O'Hartagain's poem, which seems to bear in Mr. MacRitchie's favour:--

"Behold the sidhe before your eyes:
It is