"She gave a name to her fair cahir,
The woman with the prosperous royal smile.
* * *
It is a mystery not to be uttered."
Mr. Petrie's Paper, p. 134.
F.R.A. Glover: Whether or not the direct succession of the Irish Royal House from the Royal House of Judah, was that to which the legend alludes as a thing which it was necessary, in the counsels of God, should be kept out of sight of man until the time come that it is to be known ("Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself." Isa. 45:15), I dare not say. But if the Prophet Jeremiah were in Ireland, and set up the Stone of Jacob, with a promise that the Sceptre - the Sceptre of Judah (subaudi, i.e., sensed but not expressed) - was to abide with it for ever it could not, as has been seen, have been the Stone alone, that he set up with such a promise. He must, along with the Stone, have had one of the Seed of the House of Judah there present, by whom and by whose progeny alone, the promised Sceptre could be wielded (Jer. 22:26-30); and, as this points to the presence of "the King's Daughters " with the Prophet, it is of importance to establish that point; that being the point, on which the whole subject, in so far as the connexion or identity of the Sceptre of England with that of Judah, turns.
It will be, doubtless, readily admitted, that, if the prophet Jeremiah, on leaving Judea, had been accompanied by "the King's Daughters;" .. and that, on his arrival in Ireland, his representations concerning the Seed Royal of Judah were such as to induce the monarch of Ireland to seek alliance with the Illustrious Stock; .. and that the King had, consequently, allied with one of them, either by himself or a kinsman, in the hands of whose sons and sons' sons or daughters, from that time to this, a Sceptre had continued, .. there would then be no doubt, but that the present wielder of such Sceptre would be a Ruler of the Stock of Judah.
It will also be admitted that though there be no proofs whatever existing, nor any shadow of proof, that such is the case, yet, that absence of proof, is no proof that such is not the case.
Nevertheless, it is reasonable, perhaps, to suppose, that some vestiges of such event, - one so fraught with important issues, - might have left their marks visible in a country so full of ancient reminiscences as Ireland is: albeit, perhaps in no country have the marks of an early civilization been so ruthlessly handled, .. of mental culture with so reckless a vandalism destroyed; sad to relate, in the name and in honour of Christianity.
The first step towards proving that the Seed Royal of Judah was in Ireland, must certainly be to quote Jeremiah, chapters 41:10, and 43:5, 6; from which passages of Scripture - from their mention of the King's Daughters - we see that a possibility existed of the Prophet having been accompanied by such members of the Seed Royal; all that were left of the Royal House : for all the King's sons were cut off, and no male was to sit on the throne of David, in Jerusalem, (that is in Judah, Jer 32:30) from that time forth. Yet, as Jeremiah was to re-habilitate the Royal House (Jer. 1:10, 15:11), and, as that could not be done by him in his lifetime, there, in Jerusalem, even if it had been lawful to do so, - inasmuch as Jerusalem was to be waste according to the terms of his own prophecy, seventy years (Jer. 25:11), - it was necessary that he should do that needful work elsewhere.
Why Ireland should have been chosen, it is not for any man to be expected to declare. That may appear hereafter, which may account for it: but no man dare say why this or that has been done, when there is no revelation of the mind of God on the subject. The way to Ireland was the gang-way of traffic in those days; and if it was remote, remoteness may have been an object with the Prophet, for reasons best known to him. The Irish are, and call themselves, Canaanites, and had a reputation in matters spiritual in Heathendom, - at a period when people were more zealous in the worship of their idols than a good many Christians, so-called, are now for the honour and praise of the great and good God, who has allowed His children to call Him, Father, - that, we can hardly realize in these times of rationalistic semi-Christianity. The people, who had constantly led Israel astray with idolatrous practices, were there in great force. Those who had escaped or fled from "Joshua the Robber," had transferred to Ireland, all that, for which they were driven out of the land of Canaan.
The new country of the Refugees was, naturally, well known to those who had succeeded them in the old; from which, also, their descendants had never been entirely ejected. A communication would, therefore, ever be kept up between those of Tyre and Sidon and the newly planted colonies in Ireland. Hence, traffic existing in the time of Jeremiah, and intercourse of which he might be disposed to take advantage, - and, as he had means at command to redeem his inheritance (Jer. 32:10), we may very well suppose him to have been able to carry out all such arrangements as would be needful for effecting, a voyage in those days, - there is, then, every reason to conclude, that, while this ground was open to him to choose, and as there were no impediments existing to his choosing it, he, (in accordance with the traditions of the people of Ireland who declare, to this day, that Jeremiah was the teacher of one of the Irish Kings,) actually did sail for and reach Ireland.
Having arrived in Ireland, the Prophet would naturally be an object of note and respect to the kings of the country. An alliance with a Royal Race, to which such promises and blessings were declared, by such a Prophet, to attach, would be a most natural thing for a king to desire. Such an arrangement the Prophet would, also, certainly promote. Is there then any proof existing of any such alliance having been made between a Princess arriving in Ireland over sea from the East, and an Irish Chief Monarch about this time?
There is something that looks very much like it, which drops out in the Legends of the Historiographers of the Irish Monarchy.
In the year of our Lord, 513, the Irish Kings and Grandees, oppressed by a consciousness that something mysterious existed in the foundation of the ancient muniments of Tara, assembled, with great circumstance, to inquire into all that Bards and Seneachies could declare concerning the ancient foundation and the ancient times. They devoted themselves to the pious labour, with fasting and prayer, for three days continuously. Alas! such had been the destruction of records in the confusion of the times, and the struggle of the Baalitish Priests to recover the ascendancy which they bad lost during the time of the Hebraizing of their chief stronghold, - this very Tara, - that nothing could be ascertained farther on the matter in hand, than that it was a subject shrouded in deep mystery, and connected in some way with the existence of a woman from over the great plain - the Sea - "with a Royal Prosperous Smile:" and who - such had been the intensity of respect of their ancestors for this illustrious scion of royalty, concerning whom, also, there was some mystery, too deep to be uttered, - was buried in a tomb sixty feet long and wide.
A Poem or Record was composed on this occasion by one Amergin, (Quaere, Does the word Amergin mean Chief Bard in Irish? If not, either Amergin had a very long life, or the name was common among Bards), Chief Bard to King Dermod, monarch of Ireland in the Sixth Century, from information communicated to him by an old sage, called Fintan. The following verses are from a literal translation of this Poem, as presented to us in the Notes of the "Annals of the Four Masters," p. 294.
"Temor of Bregia, whence so called?
Relate to me, O learned Sages.
* * *
When was the place called Te-mor
(When was Teamair Teamair? - Mr. Petrie's Paper.)
Was it in the time of Partholan of battles?
Or at the first arrival of Caesaire?
Tell me, in which of these invasions
Did the place obtain the name of Tea-mor?
O Tuan! O generous Finnchahb!
O Bran! O active Cu-alladh!
O Dubhan! ye venerable Five,
Whence was acquired the name of Te-mor?"
It appears that it bad been once called "Hazelwood," and three other names in succession.
"Until the coming of the agreeable Tea,
The wife of Heremon of noble aspect."
Then was the name changed.
"A Rampart was raised around her house,
For Tea, the daughter of Lughaidh.
She was buried outside in her mound,
And from her it was named Tea-mur."
We accept the fact without the parentage as signed in this distich.
"The Seat of the Kings it was called,
The princes, descendants of the Milesians:
Five names it had ere that time,
That is from Fordruim to Temor.
I am Fintan the Bard,
The Historian of many tribes:
In latter times I have passed my days
At the earthen fort above Temor."
Such was the substance of the record declared one thousand years after the facts, concerning which the inquiry was made, had occurred.
The following, is from a Poem on Tara, 500 years later, by a celebrated bard, Cu-au O'Cochlain, A.D. 1024: a considerable man, and, for a time, once, Regent of Ireland.
"It gave great happiness to the women
When Temor was erected.
* * * *
Where, after her death, was Tea's monument;
Which event perpetuated her fame.
* * * *
The grave of the great Mergech,
A sepulchre which was not violated.
The daughter of Pharaoh of many champions,
Tephi, the most beautiful that traversed the plain,
Here, formed a fortress, circular and strong, (otherwise, Formed a cahir, strong the circle)
Which she described with her breast-pin and wand.
She gave a name to her fair fortress,
This Royal Lady of agreeable aspect, (otherwise, the woman with the prosperous royal smile)
The fortress of Tephi, where met the assembly,
Where every proceeding was conducted with propriety.
It may be related without reserve
That a mound was raised over Te-phi as recorded,
And she lies beneath this unequalled Tomb,
Which mighty Queens had formed there.
* * * *
It is a mystery not to be uttered, (Mr. Petrie's Paper)
* * * *
The length and breadth of the Tomb of Tephi
Accurately measured by the sages,
Was sixty feet of exact measure,
As Prophets and Druids have related.
Tephi was her name; she excelled all virgins,
And unhappy for him who had to entomb her,
Sixty feet of correct admeasurement (apportionment)
Were marked as a sepulchre to enshrine her.
The mournful death of Tephi, who had come to the North,
Was not for a moment concealed.
* * * *
**** a meeting should be held to select a sepulchre
In the South, as a Tomb for the beloved Tephi.
Temor, the impregnable, of lasting resources, (a reference possibly to the Stone, the Race, the Standard, and the College of Ollams)
Which conferred, on the women, high renown."
Now all this, it is to be observed, was at Tara, called also Teamar; where the Stone, which came from over the sea, was set up, with the promise of blessing and perpetuation, at the time that the Jacob's Pillow disappeared from Judea. And this Woman, mysterious and royal, is declared to have caused the importance and consequence of Teamar; and to have given it a new name, as the Stone was said to have done also to Tara. That her name also should be Teamar, or Teamair, is not without significance, considering that Tamar, as a woman's name, occurs twice in the nomenclature of her ancestry; i.e., if she be allowed to have come of Judah. And our Eastern Princess may naturally have been thought to be the daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt, since she who came almost direct from Taphnis, the royal Egyptian city, may, in the confusion of persons, places, and things, at that distance of time - in the records of oral tradition - well have been held to be a daughter of the only great Eastern potentate of whom the Bard, 1500 years later, had ever heard.
Whether or not, in that wonderful tomb, was deposited any sacred relic of the Law, in Two Tables, called by the Hebrews Torah, and from which the Mount of the Covenant might have gotten its name, is more than one can say. The Buddhists have changed Torah - the same Word, with the same meaning - into Ura: the sounds are almost alike. Possibly, also, the Canaanitish emigrants may have done the same.
At all events, the assembled sages knew nothing of the name of the place, nor of the woman, nor where she came from, but this; viz., that a remarkable woman came to the north and from the East, certainly as a Pharaoh's daughter (General Vallancey says that this is a false translation); that of those who came, she was the most beautiful, and that she became the wife of one King, Heremon, "of noble aspect," the king contemporary with Ollam Fola, and who has been confounded with him, - that imaginary king with five names, Eochaid-Ollam-Fola-Heremon-Ardri; - that the foundations of the fortress Teamor, were, as it were, laid in her, to do her honour; and that at her decease - which seems to have been thought very odd - possibly they had conceived that she was to have lived to take the Stone back again herself to the East - she was honoured with a Temple or Mausoleum, sixty feet square; and that, at the time of the inquiry, all knowledge failed "the venerable five" to determine any thing positive about her farther than has been declared.
Withal, all the reasons assigned, as explanatory of the naming Temair after the lady in question, were so unsatisfactory to the more recent chronicler of the events, that he ventures a derivation of his own. He would have Temoria, into which word he changes Temair, or Tara, to suit his theory, to be derived from Theooreoo (Gk.), to perceive; because Temor is conspicuously placed. All this wild conjecture, and the fusion of two names into one, not less than the shifting name of the chief person, proves that the real cause of the change of name was unknown to them all alike; that they had lost the record of the real name after which Tamor was called, which was, in all probability, the name of the lady herself, viz. Tamar. For,
She gave a name to her fair cahir,
The woman with the prosperous royal smile."
Mr. Petrie's Paper.
How many of these particulars, including the name of the fortress after the lady's own name, fit the case of the "king's daughter," who might have accompanied the Prophet, the reader is able to judge for himself. A handsome daughter of an Eastern monarch is found, no cause assigned, - there was "a mystery not to be uttered" connected with her, - having strayed into Ireland. What would a daughter of Pharaoh have to do, straying away from home? The daughter of Judah had no home in the East. She, even as those had, who wailed beside the waters of Babylon, had lost hers "in Jerusalem." In her presence in Ireland, therefore, there was, at the time that she could have allied with King Heremon, just as much sense and probability, as in the case of a daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt being there, there would be neither one nor the other.
Considering that the supposition set up, viz., that one of the king's daughters, who accompanied Jeremiah, had, on landing, attracted the attention and admiration of the monarch of the country, and had married him, required some corroboration from the traditions of the country, the most critical will admit that in the substance of the above-quoted lines, and the causes that led to the creation of the earlier poem, there is something that looks very much like it.
It may be, also, that this inquiry has thrown more light on the subject of that conference, so painfully carried out, than the whole position of things has ever yet received, since the time that the words Tara and Teamor were confounded. That the true import of the foundation of Teamor should have been lost sight of in the lapse of ages, is a thing perfectly to be understood, when, records having been destroyed, - beside that the name of the illustrious lady was never uttered but with bated breath, - traditions were handed down viva voce, but only by the privileged and hereditary bards; of whom some were as fit for their office probably, as those hereditary heralds to whom Moore pleasantly introduces us, who had every requisite for office but the voice for which they were wanted (From Herodotus, vol. i. p. 115.).
So, even as King Josiah had occasion to lament the lapses of his people to gross misconduct, from having lost all knowledge of the Law, - (and all the copies of the Law were lost, save the one copy that Hilkiah the priest discovered in the Temple, 2 Chron. 34:15, though religion was maintained by an endowed body of priests,) - we need hardly be surprised that, in however perfect a state a Prophet of God may have left things at his death, amongst a Canaanitisb people, they had become in such a condition, one thousand years later, that little or nothing should be known, or could be declared with certainty on so grave and important a subject; especially when it is remembered that there was a displaced body of priests of Baal, who, superseded by the Ollams of Ollam Fola, as Teachers, and by the Jodhan Morans, as Judges, gnashed their teeth at the first, at the institution of the Ollams, when established by an influence that they were as little able to resist (see Chapter xiv), as were the priests of Baal that of Elijah in the days of Ahab (I Kings 18).
But, the Prophet being dead, in the confusion arising from conflicting interests, and the successful efforts of the priests of Baal to outroot the newly imported doctrines from Judea, every thing perishable went the way of all perishable things. The imperishable, the Stone of Jacob, and the Seed of Judah, remained; and, the Standard of Judah. And these, in process of time, King Fergus transferred to another country (Chapter xiii); from whence they have reached in safety their present sanctuary, ready to be revealed in due time.
From: "England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim", written by F.R.A. Glover, M.A., Chaplain to the Consulate at Cologne. Published by Rivingtons, London, 1861. Based on research commenced in 1844.