the north of Ireland.

[Illustration: CELT.]

Log-houses were also used, and were constructed of beams and planks of
timber, something like the Swiss _chalet_. One of these ancient
structures was discovered in Drumhalin bog, county Donegal, in 1833. The
house consisted of a square structure, twelve feet wide and nine feet
high: it was formed of rough planks and blocks of timber; the mortises
were very roughly cut--a stone celt,[246] which was found lying upon the
floor, was, probably, the instrument used to form them. The logs were
most likely formed by a stone axe.[247] The roof was flat, and the house
consisted of two compartments, one over the other, each four feet high.
A paved causeway led from the house to the fire-place, on which was a
quantity of ashes, charred wood, half-burnt turf, and hazle-nuts. So
ancient was this habitation, that twenty-six feet of bog had grown up
around and over it. It is supposed that this was only one portion of a
collection of houses, which were used merely as sleeping-places. A
slated enclosure was also traced, portions of the gates of which were
discovered. A piece of a leathern sandal, an arrow-headed flint, and a
wooden sword, were also found in the same locality.

[Illustration: STONE AXE.]

It is probable that wattles and clay formed the staple commodity for
building material in ancient Erinn. Planks and beams, with rough blocks
of wood or stone, were most likely reserved for the dwelling-place of
chieftains. Such were the material used also for the royal residence in
Thorney Island, a swampy morass in the Thames, secured by its insular
position, where the early English kings administered justice; and such,
probably, were the material of the original _Palais de Justice_, where
the kings of Gaul entrenched themselves in a _pal-lis_, or impaled fort.

From the description which Wright[248] gives of Anglo-Saxon domestic
architecture, it appears to have differed but little from that which was
in use at the same period in Ireland. The hall[249] was the most
important part of the building, and halls of stone are alluded to in a
religious poem at the beginning of the Exeter Book: "Yet, in the earlier
period at least, there can be little doubt that the materials of
building were chiefly wood." The hall, both in Erinn and Saxon land, was
the place of general meeting for all domestic purposes. Food was cooked
and eaten in the same apartment; the chief and his followers eat at the
sam