CRANNOGES, the name given in Ireland and in Scotland to the fortified islands in lakes which were in common use as dwelling-places and places of refuge among the Celtic inhabitants. The etymology of the word is uncertain, but it is believed to refer to the timber which was employed either in the fortification of the island, or in the construction of the houses which were placed upon it.
The earliest notice of such lake-dwellings which has been observed, is in the pages of Herodotus (book v. chap. 16). Writing of the Persian invasion of Thrace and Mace donia under Darius—about 500 years before the Christian era, and less than 100 years before his own death—lie relates how the satrap Megabazus, warring against the Pxonians, led certain tribes of them captive into Asia, but failed to conquer those who inhabited lake Prasias. " He sought, indeed," says the historian, " to subdue the dwellers upon the.lake, but could not effect his purpose. Their manner of living is the following. Platforms, supported upon tall piles, stand in the middle of the lake, which are approached from the land by a single narrow bridge. At the first, the piles which bear up the platforms were fixed in their places by the whole body of the citizens; but since that time the custom which has prevailed about fixing them is this• They are brought from a hill called Orbelus, and every man drives in three for each wife that he marries. Now, the men have all many wives apiece, and this is the way in which they live. Each has his own hut, wherein be dwells, upon one of the platforms, and each has also a trapdoor giving access to the lake beneath; and their wont is to tie their baby children by the foot with a string, to save them from rolling into the water. They feed their horses and their other beasts upon fish, which abound in the lake to such a degree, that a man has only to open his trap-door, and to let down a basket by a rope into the water, and then to wait a very short time, when he and it up quite full of them. The fish are of two kinds, which they call the'paprax and the.tilon. ' The lake Prasias of the father of history seems to lie the modern lake Takinos, on the Strymon or Kara-su, a river which, rising on the borders of Bulgaria, flows southward through Itoumelia, and, after expanding its waters into a lake, falls into the gulf of Contessa.
The fish named by Herodotus have not been identified by naturalists; lake Takinos abounds in carp, tench, and eels.
The island-dwellings of lake Prasias met with comparatively little attention until archaeologists, quite recently, found the remains of similar habitations in other parts of Europe. The first discovery was made in Ireland in 1839, by Mr. W. R. Wilde, one of the secretaries of the royal Irish academy. The small .lake of Lagore, near Dun shauglilin, in the county of Meath, having been drained, a circular mound which bad been an island in its waters, was observed to be thickly strewed with bones. As these were to be carted away for manure, it was found to lie an artificial structure. Its cir cumference, measuring 520 ft., was formed by upright piles of oak about 7 ft. long, mortised into oak planks laid tlat upon the marl and sand at the bottom of the lake. The upright piles were tied together by cross-beams, and the space which they inclosed was divided into compartments by oak beams, some of which had grooves, so as to allow panels to be driven down between them. The compartments finis formed were filled with bones and black peaty earth. Portions of a second tier of upright piles were observed rising from the first tier. The bones were ascertained to be those of several varieties of oxen, of swine, deer, goats. sheep, dogs, foxes, horses, and asses. Along with them were found a vast number of weapons, ornaments, and utensils, fashioned of stone, bone, wood, bronze, and iron; such as swords, knives, spears, javelins, dag gers, whetstones, querns (or hand-mills), beads, pins, brooches, combs, horse-trappings, shears, chains, axes, pots, and bowls. On reference to the ancient annals, in which Ireland is so rich, it was seen that, in 848 A.D., a hostile Irish chief "plundered the island of loch Gabhor [as Lagore was then written], and afterwards burned it, so that it was level with the ground;" and that again, in 933 A.D., island of loch ()abhor was pulled down" by the piratical Norsemen.