Page:Foras feasa ar Éirinn - Keating; Comyn, Dinneen.djvu/39

Rh host, as may be read in Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is stated by that the Romans had fourteen garrisons to oppose the Scots and Picts, and that the Scots and Picts kept disturbing Britain, despite the Romans, from the time of Julius Caesar to that of the, during the space of five hundred years; and the year of the Lord was four hundred and forty-seven when the Romans abandoned the suzerainty of Britain: and it is before that epoch a dispute arose between  and , whence it resulted that Maximus led with him a great body of the people of Britain to [French] Armorica, which is called [little] Brittany, and having banished the people who were before them in the land, he gave the country to the company who went with him to inhabit, so that some of their posterity are still there.

There are some ancient authors who lay lying charges against the Irish; such as, who says in his fourth book that the Irish are a man-eating people. My answer to Strabo is, that it is a lie for him to say that the Irish are a people who eat human flesh; for it is not read in the ancient record that there was ever one in Ireland who used to eat human flesh, but Eithne the loathsome, daughter of, son of , king of Leinster, who was in fosterage with the Deisi of Munster: and she was reared by them on the flesh of children, in hope that thereby she would be the sooner marriageable. For it had been promised to them that they should receive land from the man to whom

are in F, not in C. 6., C. 8., MS.. , MSS. 10., C. 11. C and H. in all the MSS. and H. 12. , C., C. , C. , H.