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170 Gaelic Society of Inuerness.
from the traces they have left behind, that the reiiiuaiit of the
Druids sought shelter in the other Mona after the slauglder, and
had sacred groves and circles there until the time of St Patrick.
Man is, in fact, a perfect museum of Druidic, Celtic, and Scandinavian
antiquities. Before the necromancer's time, and peihajjs
centuries after him as well, the large, big-horned elk or " Ion"
browsed in the glens of ]\Ian, and looked out from the heights
upon the few coracles sailing on the surrounding sea. The Duke
of Athole, who was the last " King in Man," sent to the Edinburgh
Royal Museum an almost pei'fect skeleton of the great elk,
which was found in a bed of marl near Ballaugh, in Man. The
tailless cat exists to tlie present day, and is not at all in danger of
being extinguished by imported cats. The tailless cat is supposed
to have had some friendly connection with the necromancer, and
to have received a perpetual guarantee of existence within the
Kingdom of Man. The Romans themselves must have seen it,
for an altar presei'\'ed at Castleton shows that towards the end of
their rule in Britain they had a military station in Man. The
inscription tells that the altar was erected to Jupiter, by Marcus
Censorius, son of Marcus Flavius Volinius, of the Augustensiau
Legion, Prefect to the Tungrian cohort of the Province of Narbonne.
Had Celts, Norwegians, and Danes inscribed their Manx
monuments in Roman fashion, what a singular tale of changes
they would have told us.
Gildas, who was born in 493, and died in 57C, in his gloomy
treatise " concerning the calamity, ruin, and conquest of Britain "
by the Saxons, mentions incidentally that in x.D. 395, in the reigns
of Arcadius and Honorius, a Scot named Brule was Governor of
Man. It is probable that Brule came to Man from Ireland, as
the Scots had scarcely begun to plant colonies in Scotland at that
time. In 517 the island was conquered by Maelgywn, Prince of
North Wales, and it continued to be ruled by a dynasty of his race
until Anarawd, the last Welsh King of Man, died in 913.
Shortly afterwards the Scandina\ian sea-ro\er, Gorree or Orry,
concjuered the island, and formed the Kingdom of Man and the
Isles. Gorree is supposed to have instituted the Tynwald Court,
established the Taxiaxi, now called the House of Keys, and
divided the island into sheadings. The last king of his dynasty
di(;d about 1040. He was succeeded by Goddard, son of Sygtrig,
King of the Danes. This Goddard was, after confusions and
invasions, succei'ded l)y his .son Fingal. Goddard Crovan or
Chrouban, son of Harold the Black of Iceland, in 1077 slew
King Fingal, completely subdued Man, and brought most of