the murderer and his party to an empty house where they had been cooking fish on a stone, with Lomna's Head on a spike by the fire. The first charge cooked on the stone Cairbre divided, we are told, among his thrice nine followers; but he did not put a morsel of it in the mouth of Lomna's Head. Now this was a gess, 'prohibition,' to the Fiann, and the Head sang a very obscure verse about the fish. The second charge cooked on the stone was distributed as before, and the Head sang another verse, referring to the unjust division and foretelling the retribution that was quickly to follow. Cairbre then said to his men, 'Put out the Head, though it is an evil word for us.' No sooner had the order been obeyed than the Head outside uttered a third verse, and Finn with his Fiann arrived on the spot.
The association of poetry, prophecy and idiocy with one another is so thoroughly Celtic as to need no remark, and I would only point out that the offence taken by the Head at being refused a morsel of the meal which Cairbre and his men were making, seems to imply, that it was a custom to set apart some of one's food as an offering to the Celtic Dis, and that meals began with a religious ceremony of that nature.
Minor Divinities.
The foregoing gods and goddesses formed the leading figures in the fashionable circle, so to say, of the Gaulish pantheon; but some notice must now be taken of the crowd of minor gods and goddesses that also belonged to it. We must begin with the Genius Loci. Every Gaulish city, and British too probably, had its eponymous divinity, under whose protection it was supposed to be.
