Footnotes

1 Since 21 June 1765 the Lord of Man and the Sovereign of the United Kingdom have been the same natural person. At present the representative of the Lord of Man in Man is the Lieutenant-Governor; cf. Timothy Darvill, An Archaeological Survey of Tynwald Hill and St. John’s Plain, German, Isle of Man (Bournemouth 1996) p. 50 note 9; Peter W. Edge, Manx Public Law (Douglas 1997), p. 14.

2 From 1594 (see also below) to 1753 Tynwald was held on 24 June on the Julian Calendar. In 1753 the Gregorian Calendar (by the omission of 11 days) was introduced into Man, and since that year the Tynwald Fair Day has traditionally been held on 5 July (on 6 or 7 July if the 5th should be a Saturday or Sunday).

3 Manx National Heritage, National Monuments Register Number SC28SE/7.

4 P.M .C. Kermode, The Manx Archaeological Survey. A reissue of the first five reports (1909-1918) 1909-1935 (Douglas 1968), Darvill (1996: 1).

5 Darvill (1996: 37-39).

6 For which see George Broderick, Place-Names of the Isle of Man (Tüebingen 1994-2004, 7 vols.), Vol. 1, p.249.

7 Darvill (1996: 5); J. J. Woodcock, In search of a cultural identity: a study of the Manx Bronze Age in its Irish Sea context. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Liverpool (2001), pp. 2/88-89. 2 volumes.

8 e.g. A. W. Moore, A History of the Isle of Man (London 1900), P.M. C. Kermode, ‘Tynwald’ Proceedings of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society I (1906-12) (1910), pp. 336-340; G. Fred. Clucas, ‘Tynwald in Ancient Days’, Proc. IOMNHASII (1912-25) (1925, pp. 160-163); H. G. Mullens, ‘Magic and Primitive religion’, Proc. IOMNHAS IV (1940), pp. 473-486 (Tynwald 480-481); David Craine, Tynwald. Symbol of an Ancient Kingdom (Douglas 1961); Robert Kelly, The Vikings and Tynwald (Douglas 1971); R. H. Kinvig, The Isle of Man. A social, cultural, and political history (Liverpool 1975); Basil R. S. Megaw, ‘Norseman and Native in the Kingdom of the Isles. A reassessment of the Manx evidence’, Scottish Studies (1976) 20, pp.1-44 (24-25). Revised version in Man and Environment in the Isle of Man, edited by Peter J. Davey, British Archaeological Reports (British Series) (Liverpool 1978), pp.265-314 (287-88),
Robert A. Curphey, Tynwald. Ancient Centres of Government of the Isle of Man (Douglas n.d. [1987]); Susan Lewis, ‘National Day: Achieving Collective Identity on the Isle of Man’, British Subjects. An Anthology of Britain, edited by Nigel Rapport (Oxford 2002), pp. 49-65. The only known detailed study of the history of the site to date, albeit provisional, is that of Timothy Darvill.

9 Cronica Regum Mannie & Insularum. Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, edited and translated with Introduction by George Broderick (Douglas 1995). Reprint 1999.

10 For Tynwald as a place-name in Man and elsewhere and its significance, see Gillian Fellows-Jensen, ‘Tingwall, Dingwall and Thingwall’. North-Western European Language Evolution (Odense 1993), Vol. 21/22, pp. 53-67, Gillian Fellows-Jensen, ‘Tingwall: the significance of the name’, Shetland’s Northern Links, edited by Doreen Waugh (Edinburgh 1996), pp. 16-29.

11 For details see R. Andrew McDonald, The Kingdom of the Isles. Scotland’s Western Seaboard c. 1100 - c.1336 (East Linton 1997) and W.D. H. Sellar, ‘Hebridean Sea Kings: The Successors of Somerled, 1164-1316’, Alba. Celtic Scotland in the Medieval Era, edited by E. J. Cowan, R. Andrew McDonald (East Linton 2002), pp. 187-218.

12 For a discussion on the various titles used by the Manx kings, see Wilson McLeod, ‘Rí Innsi Gall, Rí Fionnghall, Ceannas nan Gàidheal: Sovereignty and Rhetoric in the Late Medieval Hebrides’, CMCS 43 (Summer 2002), pp. 25-48.

13 Such monarchs include: King Edgar of England 973, King Diarmaid of Dublin 1060, King Magnus Barefoot of Norway 1098, King Henry II of England 1156, King John of England 1205, again 1213, King Inge of Norway 1208, King Kenry III of England 1218, Pope Honorius III 1219, King Hakon Hakonsson of Norway 1239, King Alexander III of Scotland 1264 (cf. also Edge 1997: 123).

14 War fleets were made available: to Dublin 1091, ca. 1155 and 1171, to Anglesey 1094 and 1193, to Ulster 1154 and 1205, to Caithness 1199 (on behalf of the king of Scots) (cf. Megaw 1976: 26).

15 H.J. Edwards, Caesar. The Gallic War (Cambridge, Massechusetts 1917). Loeb Classical Library. Reprint 1997.

16 M. Hutton, Tacitus. Germania (Cambridge, Massechusetts 1914). Loeb Classical Library. Revised by E. H. Warmington 1970, reprinted 1996.

17 Gillian Fellows-Jensen (personal communication 11.02.03) reminds me that ‘This [the clashing of spears] is supposed to lie behind the origin of the term Wapentake, which corresponds to [the land division] Hundred in some of the English counties with many Scand[inavian] settlers’.

18 J. Frederick Gill, The Statutes of the Isle of Man (London 1883). Vol. 1 (1883: 3-4).

19 The title King and Lord of Man had become simplified to Lord of Man by the time of the reign of Thomas III, Second Earl of Derby (1504-21) (Edge 1997: 129).

20 J. Frederick Gill, The Statutes of the Isle of Man (London 1883). Vol. 1 (1417-1824).

21 Edge (1997: 124).

22 Chronicles of Man f.40r, s.a. 1183.

23 Chronicles of Man f.44v. s.a. 1237.

24 see also Edge (1997: 124).

25 Gill (1883: 4).

26 Sodor is derived from Scandinavian suðr-eyjar, Latin Sodorenses, i.e. the ‘Southern Isles’ or the Hebrides (as seen from the Norwegian perspective). The ‘Northern Isles’ would be Orkney and Shetland. Later Sodor came to refer to the diocese of Man and the Hebrides, then later still to St. Patrick’s Isle (at the entrance to Peel harbour in the west of the island) on which stands the ruins of St. German’s Cathedral, the cathedral church of the diocese of Sodor (erected 1248; see CM1257 f.46v.).

27 Edge (1997: 125).

28 The term sheading is evidently derived from Sc. séttungr ‘sixth part’ (Carl J. S. Marstrander, ‘Treen og Keeill’. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap VIII (Oslo 1937), pp. 410, 413), though the spelling (and perhaps the concept) is influenced by Middle English sheding ‘division’. Sheading may represent a replacement of an earlier (?British) term comparable with the Welsh cwmwd ‘commot; locality, neighbourhood; a unit […] in which a court of law was held […]’ (Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, p. 643).

29 see also Edge (1997: 125).

30 For a possible early tiering of Tynwald Hill see §6 below.

31 See Tynwald Fair Day programmes for the present-day protocol.

32 At the 1691 meeting of Tynwald the laws were promulgated in Manx only (see Appendix), as the English overlords and administrators would presumably already know them.

33 Gill (1883: 52-53).

34 Moore (1900: 161).

35 For the meaning of Tynwald Fair today as a badge of identity or symbol of national / nationalist sentiment or otherwise, see Lewis (2002: 49-65).

36 Given the similarity in the organisation of early societies in Europe, based as they seem to have been around the household, that similar conventions are also found in adjacent territories should therefore not be surpris-ing.

37 D.A. Binchy, Críth Gabhlach (Dublin 1941). Reprinted 1979.

38 Críth Gablach §46, translation after Francis John Byrne, ‘Early Irish Society (1st - 9th centuries)’ The Course of Irish History, edited by T. W. Moody, & F. X. Martin (Cork 1967), p. 47.

39 Gill (1883: 47).

40 The Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon (London 1894). 1691 Tynwald, pp. 255-258.

41 The Deemsters expressed their decision with the formula ‘We give for law’ until 1594 (Gill 1883).

42 Gill (1883: 11, §28).

43 C.R. Cheney, ‚Manx Synodal Statutes, AD 1230(?)-1351. Part I: Introduction and Latin Texts’, CMCS 7 (Summer 1984), pp. 63-89, ibid. ‚Manx Synodal Statutes, AD 1230(?)-1351. Part II: Translation of Latin Texts’, CMCS (Winter 1984), pp. 51-63.

44 see Megaw 1976, McDonald 1997, Sellar 2002.

45 This would have given something like /kjo:s/ or /ko:s/.

46 Kinvig ( 1975: 75, fn.2).

47 Note also that in the Old English cognate céosan, as elsewhere in Germanic, Verner’s Law applies and gives the preterite plural and past participle as curon, coren. This was later removed by analogy with the present to give the current ‘chosen’, but a stage with -r- would have made the past participle, as in Modern Icelandic kjörinn ‘elected’, even more unlikely as a starting point for key /ke:/, Old English caeg (personal communication: Robert L. Thomson 25.03.03).

48 cf. cais 2 ‘serjeant of the peace, keeper of the peace, beadle, catchpole, tax-gather, publican’ (GPC 390). See also William Rees, ‘Survivals of Ancient Celtic Custom in Medieval England’ Angles and Britons, edited by William Rees (Cardiff 1963), pp. 148-168 (p. 155).

49 English ‘chase’ < Old French chace, Modern French chasse < Medieval Latin captiare (frequentative of capio) Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. chase. Eng. ‘catch’ < Old Norman French cachier < Old French chacier, Modern French chaser OED s.v. catch.

50 Manx Place-Names, IV, pp. 217-18.

51 Manx Place-Names,VI, pp. 392-93.

52 In A. W. Moore, A History of the Isle of Man (London 1900), 2 vols, p. 161.

53 Gill (1883: 2).

54 Gill 1883.

55 cf. Sellar (2000: 190, fn.15).

56 ‘[…]. But if a strange Point had come, the which the Lieutenant will have reserved to the Tynwald twice in the Yeare, and by Leave of the Lieutenant the Deemster there to call of the best to his Coucell in that Point as he thinketh to give Judgment by. And without the Lord’s Will, none of the 24 Keys to be’ (Gill 1883: 11, §28).

57 ‘Alsoe we give for Law, that the Lord or his Lieutenant may hold a Court or Tynwald wheresoever pleaseth him, and doe Execution as oft, and whereas pleaseth him, within his Land of Mann, except the Passion Week, at which Time Execution of Life and Lymme ought not to be done; but as for Courts of Challenge, all Times in the Yeare, an Execution to be done’ (Gill 1883: 11, §30).

58 See also Curphey (1987: 35-40).

59 According to the Anglican Prayer Book, St. John has two Feast Days: (nativitas) 24 June, (decollatio) 29 August. If the latter this would put the meeting of Tynwald in August, as for 1422 and 1429, i.e. near the Celtic festival of Lugnasad.

60 St. Mary has seven Feast Days: 2 February, 25 March, 2 July, 15 August, 8 September, 21 November, 8 December.

61 Gill 1883.

62 See also Darvill (1996: 14-16).

63 Darvill (1996: 51, n. 20) notes that excavations at the passage grave at La Hougue Bie in Jersey show that the chamber included stones brought from several different parts of the island.

64 see also G. L. Gomme, Primitive folk-moots (London 1880).

65 Stuart Piggott, The Druids (London 1968), pp. 41-44. See also §5 below.

66 The ‘Goidelic’ period in Man traditionally dates from c. 500AD on the basis of the Ogam inscriptions. One such inscription (Andreas 500, cf. Kenneth H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh 1953), p. 173), dated to ca. 500AD, is the bilingual Ogam (Goidelic) / Latin (British) ‘Knock y Doonee Stone’, indicating the presence of both British and Goidelic speech in Man at that time. As in Britain, British Celtic speech in Man probably enjoyed a similar timespan of existence and very likely continued on in a Goidelic milieu for some time until it was eventually ousted by that language, which later developed into Manx Gaelic. The place-name Hentre, Hentrae in the late 13th-century Abbeyland Bounds attached to the Chronicles of Man (CM1280, f.53r.) (cf. Welsh hendref ‘old farm’, Gaelic sean bhaile, Manx shenn valley), if interpreted correctly, would be a relic of the British period in Man.

67 e.g. Cubbon 1967, Kermode 1910, Kinvig 1975, Mullens 1940, and Rev. Canon Quine, ‘Historical Note on Tynwald Hill’, Proc. IOMNHAS I (1906-12) (1910), pp. 341-342. A possible comparison of Tynwald with the óenach and airecht in Ireland is acknowledged in Kinvig (1975: 72-73, fn. 1), but a Norse provenance is preferred nonetheless.

68 These tracts originate in the 7th and 8th centuries AD. For the texts see D. A. Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici (Dublin 1978) and for comment Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law (Dublin 1988).

69 cf. Kelly (1988: xxiii).

70 cf. Welsh wynebwerth ‘honour-price’ (lit. ‘the value (gwerth) of his face (wyneb)’) (cf. Kelly 1988: 8). The honour-price for a provincial king, for example, would be 42 milch-cows, that for a fer midboth a yearling heifer.

71 For details see Kelly (1988: 9).

72 For the term nemed see Kelly (1988: 9).

73 Kelly (1988: 9).

74 Kelly (1988: 10).

75 Kelly (1998: 33-35).

76 Kelly (1988: 11).

77 The quarterland was the principal holding in Man until 1911 when the rents were redeemed. It may owe its origins to an early land system of possible British provenance (cf. Megaw 1978: 281, R. H. Moore, ‘The Manx multiple estate: evidence for undertones in the Manx land system?’, Recent archaeological research on the Isle of Man, edited by Peter J. Davey (Liverpool 1999), pp. 171-82. BAR Series.

78 e.g. in deeds of sale and mortgage in the Manx Museum Archive, Douglas.

79 see Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings (London 1973), p. 7.

80 For details of the term slógad ‘hosting’ see Binchy (1941: 106).

81 cf. D. A. Binchy, ‘The Fair of Tailtiu and the Feast of Tara’ Ériu 18, pp. 113-138.

82 see Kelly (1988: 3-4).

83 cf. Byrne (1973: 30-31).

84 Binchy (1941: 102).

85 Edward Dwelly, The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary (Glasgow 1901; Repr. 1971), p. 40, s.v. aonach.

86 Eoin MacNeill, Early Irish Laws and Institutions (Dublin 1935), p. 97.

87 Fergus Kelly, ‘An Old Irish Text on Court Procedure’ Peritia 5 (1986), pp. 74-106.

88 The law-texts recognise a number of grades of king. For details see Kelly (1988: 17-18).

89 For details of this term see Binchy (1941: 80).

90 Kelly (1988: 17-18). In cases of murder a payment of blood-money, the éraic /e:rik´/, was often accepted (Byrne 1967: 49).

91 Hardy (1894: 257). See also Appendix.

92 Curphey (1987: 38).

93 Kelly (1988: 19).

94 For details and implications of this term see Binchy (1941: 104).

95 Binchy (1941: 95). Kelly (1988: 22, fn. 34) quotes Thomas Charles-Edwards as saying that much medieval legislation was concerned to re-enact or confirm existing laws which had been flouted, rather than to introduce legal innovations. As noted in Kinvig (1975: 72, fn. 1), Norse analogies suggest that law-making was only an exceptional part of the business, the main part comprising a recital of the traditional laws or part of them by the lawmen. The law might or might not be written, but this was how the knowledge of it was spread.

96 Kelly (1988: 21-22).

97 William Gillies, ‘Some thoughts on the Toschederach’ Scottish Gaelic Studies XVII (1996), pp. 128-142.

98 The aigne can be equated with the modern advocate. His job was to plead the case of his client in court and if successful he was entitled to one third of his client’s award (Kelly 1988: 56). This term has not survived in Man.

99 Brithem is anglicised as brehon, breghan, brehowne,etc, forms based on the g.sg. and pl. britheman and n.pl. brithemain, and survives in the Connacht surnames as Brehon, Brehony, Breheny (Judge), anglicisations of Mac an Bhreitheamhan, Mac an Bhreitheamhnaigh ‘son of the judge’ (Kelly 1988: 51). In Man it survives as the Mx. surname Brew (G. britheamh) and in place-names as Ballabrew (in the parish of Kirk Braddan), Knock y Vriew (Kirk Malew), etc.

100 cf. Kelly (1988: 51-52).

101 Kelly (1988: 51-53).

102 Edge (1997: 79-81). On 20.11.1636 (Gill 1883: 83) the Lord of Man (James Stanley) directed the Deemsters to detail breast law, as the Lord disapproved of the Deemsters being privy to law unknown to himself or his Council. The directive was evidently ignored, as on 21.09.1667 (Gill 1883: 134) the Lord (Charles Stanley) issued a similar order, which was itself ignored. However, abstracts of the traditional laws were committed to writing by Deemster John Parr in 1690 (see An Abstract of the Laws, Customs, and Ordinances of the Isle of Man; compiled by the Worshipful John Parr, Deemster, edited by James Gell (Douglas 1866; Manx Society, Vol. XII)), William Cubbon, A Bibliographical Account of Works relating to the Isle of Man (Oxford 1933/39), p. 291; cf. also Edge (1997: 80-81).

103 For a discussion and possible etymology of this name see T. F. O’Rahilly, ‘On the origin of the names Érainn and Ériu’ Ériu 14, Part I (1946), pp. 7-28..

104 For a discussion on the kingship of Tara and its political realities, and on the Feast of Tara, see Binchy 1958.

105 The word feis is the verbal-noun of foaid ‘spend the night, sleep with; coition, espousal’ (cf. DIL F s.v. feis 2). To complete the process the king had symbolically to consumate his espousal to the goddess through drink. However, for a differing view of all this see Bart Jaski, Early Irish kingship and succession (Portland 2000), pp. 63-66.

106 Old Irish rí (g. ríg), Old Welsh (dou)rig, Gaulish (Dumno-)rix, Latin rēx (g. rēgis), Skt. rāt ‘king’ from PIE root (H)rēg- ‘rule, direct’, cf. PIE 3 sg. (H)rēk-ti, L. reg-it ‘rules, dircts’, OIr. rig-id ‘rules, directs, stretches (out)’, cf. PIE root h3reĝ ‘stretch (out)’ (cf. Kim McCone, ‘King and Queen in Celtic and Indo-European’ Ériu 49 (1998), pp. 1-12 (p. 4)), i.e. that the king is he who stretches out his hand / arm as protector of the people (cf. D. A. Binchy, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Kingship (Oxford 1970), pp. 3-4), though these roots had become homonymous after laryngeal loss and ought to be kept separate (McCone ibid.). However, that they had fallen together would suggest that the notion of stretching out the hand / arm is here bound up with the notion of kingship.

107 Gill (1883: 4).

108 Eleanor Megaw, ‘The Governor’s Staff of Office’ Journal of the Manx Museum V (1945-46), pp. 172-173.

109 For a discussion of succession to the kingship in Ireland and Wales see Eoin MacNeill ‘The Irish law of dynastic succession’ Studies 8 (1919), pp. 367-382, 640-653, Donnchadh Ó Corráin, ‘Irish regnal succession: a reappraisal’ Studia Hibernica 11 (1971), pp. 7-39, Thomas Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh Kingship (Oxford 1993), and of the heir-apparent see D. A. Binchy, ‘Some Celtic legal terms’ Celtica 3 (1956), pp. 221-231, Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘The heir-apparent in Irish and Welsh law’ Celtica 9 (1971), pp. 180-190, Robin Chapman Stacey, ‘King, Queen and Edling in the Laws of Court’ The Welsh King and his Court, edited by T. M. Charles-Edwards, Morfydd E. Owen & Paul Russell (eds.) (Cardiff 2000).

110 Byrne (1967: 49-50).

111 Chronicles of Man ff.40r/v. s.a. 1187.

112 The wording quia ad ipsum iure spectabat hereditas has a faint echo of the Welsh gwrthrychwr for the heir-apparent (personal communication: Patrick Sims-Williams 14.07.03.).

113 However, King Henry IV of England did not recognise Stephen le Scroop’s right to the throne of Man after his brother’s execution at Henry’s hands in 1399. Henry then granted Man to the Earl of Northumberland under conditions different from those granted to le Scroop in 1392, i.e. Henry wanted to make sure than Man from then on remained within the English orbit (cf. Edge 1997: 13).

114 Gill (1883: 4).

115 A.M. Cubbon, The Ancient and Historic Monuments of the Isle of Man (Douglas 1967), pp. 6, 33.

116 Darvill (1996: 5).

117 Darvill 1996.

118 Darvill (1996: 30-39).

119 F. Lynch, Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows (Princes Risborough 1997), p. 57.

120 F. Lynch, Prehistoric Anglesey (Llangefni 1991), pp. 91-101.

121 The tiering of Tynwald Hill is today regarded as probably the work of one of the Stanleys (1405-1736), rather than dating from the Neolithic period.

122 Lynch (1997: 56).

123 Francis Grose, Supplement to the antiquities of England and Wales II (London 1787), The Old Historians of the Isle of Man (Douglas 1871).

124 Darvill (1996: 30-33).

125 keeill, G. cill, the generic for an Early Christian cell or chapel (6th/7th cent.) in Man. However, a number of keeills may in fact have been erected towards the end of the Scandinavian period (ca. 12th cent. or later; e.g. the excavated example at Peel Castle (cf. A. M. Cubbon, P. J. Davey & M. Gelling (eds.), Excavations on St. Patrick’s Isle, Peel, Isle of Man 1982-88 Prehistoric, Viking, Medieval and Later by David Freke (Liverpool 2002), pp. 132-33, and A. M. Cubbon, ‘The Early Church in the Isle of Man’, The Early Church in Western Britain and Ireland, edited by S. M. Pearce (Oxford (British Archaeological Reports) 1982), p. 266).

126 cf. Medieval Archaeology 19 (1975), pp. 230-31; 20 (1976), p. 174; 21 (1977), p. 216.

127 For details of Tara see Connor Newman, Tara Project. The Tara Survey (Discovery Programme Reports 2 (1995), pp. 62-67, for Emain Macha see C. J. Lynn, ‘The Iron Age mound in Navan Fort: s physical realization of Celtic religious beliefs?’ Emania 10 (1992), pp. 33-57.

128 cf. Newman 1995, http://www.discovery programme.ie/Research Area/Content/TAR_SUR/TAR_SUR.htm

129 For these see Bernard Wailes, ‘The Irish ‘Royal Sites’ in History and Archaeology’ CMCS 3 (Summer 1982), pp. 1-29.

130 Darvill (1996: 34), J. B. Innes, The Dhoo Valley, Isle of Man: a paleo-environmental assessment (Douglas 1995). Centre for Manx Studies (Research Report 2).

131 The Manx Gaelic version Cronk Keeill Eoin (G. cnoc Cill Eoghain) ‘hill of St. John’s Church’ in its present form is modern (not older than the 17th century when G. cnoc /kn�k/ became cronk /kr�ŋk/ in Mx.). Earlier it would likely have corresponded with the foregoing Gaelic form. The Mx. version probably came into being whenever St. John’s Chapel and Tynwald Hill became formally associated with each other, possibly when both became enclosed in the presumed new remodelling during the Scandinavian period.
Editor's Note

132 Darvill (1996: 35).

133 cf. Byrne 1973.

134 Gillian Fellows-Jensen, ‘Nordic names and loanwords in Ireland’ The Vikings in Ireland, edited by Anne-Christine Larsen (Roskilde 2001), p. 110.

135 cf. Darvill (1996: 35).

136 Fellows-Jensen (1993: 54-55).

137 Gill (1883: 22).

138 Darvill (1996: 37).

139 The practice at Midsummer of lighting bonfires on hills and driving cattle through or over fires to keep them from disease, etc, (cf. A. W. Moore, The Folklore of the Isle of Man (London 1891), p. 118. Reprinted 1991) is usually associated with Beltane. These would readily have been transferred to Midsummer after that date had been chosen to celebrate Tynwald.

140 For the use or otherwise of this term in medieval Wales see Charles-Edwards 1993, Dafydd Jenkins, ‘Kings, Lords and Princes: the Nomenclature of Authority in Thirteenth-Century Wales’ Bulltein of the Board of Celtic Studies 26 (1974-76), pp. 451-462.

141 Rees (1963: 155).

142 Megaw (1976: 24).

143 see Patrick Sims-Williams, ‘The Submission of Irish Kings in Fact and Fiction: Henry II, Bendigeidfran, and the Dating of The Four Branches of the Mabinogi’, CMCS 22 (Winter 1991), pp. 31-61.

144 This quote is taken from a ms. documenting the presence of James Duke of Atholl at the Tynwald Fair Day of 1736. William Harrison (ed.), Records of the Tynwald & St. John’s Chapels in the Isle of Man (Douglas 1871), pp. 105-110, prints the ms., but its date and origin are unknown. However, the description of the 1736 Tynwald does not accord with other pre-19th century accounts and the language used (assuming Harrison’s version is faithful to the original) is not of the style that would be expected of a mid-18th century text. The quote here is therefore given tentatively.

145 Though in ms. form of ca.1770 date the poem, set in quatrains, on internal evidence can be dated to ca. 1500. It purports to give a short history of Man from before the introduction of Christianity (ca. 7th century) to ca. 1500, and though transmitted orally for much of its existence, seems likely to have originated in antiquarian speculation based on tradition, place-names and documentary history (cf. Robert L Thomson, ‘The Manx Traditionary Ballad’, Études celtiques 9 (1960-61), pp. 521-548; 10 (1962-63), pp. 60-87).

146 Heinrich Wagner, ‘Origins of Pagan Irish Religion’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 39, pp. 1-28 (16), Lilian Duncan, ‚Altram Tige Dá Medar’, Ériu 11 (1932), pp. 184-225 (208).

147 Darvill (1996: 15) notes the connection between the spreading of rushes and midsummer festivals at the two Cumbrian sites of Ambleside and Great Musgrave. That this also is a feature of Scandinavian ritual, given the similarities with other adjacent societies, should not be surprising. But this and the local thing could well have been imported from Man and the Western Isles by Scandinavians who later settled in Cumbria (cf. Gillian Fellows-Jensen, ‘Vikings in the British Isles: the place-name evidence’, Vikings in the West edited by Steffen Hansen & Klavs Randsborg (eds.) (Copenhagen 2000), pp. 135-146 (143)).

148 Wagner 1981.

149 cf. Miranda Green, The Gods of the Celts (Stroud 1997).

150 G. J. Brault, ‘A French source of the Lord Marshal’s Roll (1295-6)’ The Antiquaries Journal 73 (1993), pp. 27-36.

151 cf. A.M. Dunbar, ‘Facsimiles of the Scottish coats of arms emblazoned in the ‘Armorial de Gelre’’ Proceed-ings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 25 (1890-91), pp. 9-18. Plate 1.

152 cf. H.R. Oswald, Vestigia Insulae Manniae Antiquiora... (Douglas 1860). Manx Society Vol. V, Mullens (1940-480).

153 Chronicles of Man f.45r.

154 In addition, Samhain was the occasion of the meeting of the living with the dead (retained in the Manx tradition of Hop Tu Naa). Given the symbolic wedding of the king with the goddess of the tuath, as noted in §5.8. above, this would be a suitable occasion for the inauguration of a new king.

155 Chronicles of Man f.46v/47r.

156 from G. trian ‘third; district, quarter’. The treen was used as an administrative unit for the purposes of tax or rent collection (Megaw 1976: 19).

157 cf. Kenneth H. Jackson, Language and History of Early Britain (Edinburgh 1953), pp. 384, 582, 610.

158 cf. Gill (1883: 4).

159 Megaw (1976: 24).

160 Gillies (1996: 128-142).

161 though /d-/ would not normally give /d´-/ here.

162 That such paraphernalia were always attached to the Tynwald Fair is not known. But that would not alter their status and provenance per se.

163 Megaw (1976: 21).

164 George Broderick, ‘Irish and Welsh Strands in the genealogy of Godred Crovan’ Journal of the Manx Museum VIII/89 (1980), pp. 32-38.