Chapter VIII: (pp. 91-106)

From a careful study of Eastern records and Sabaism, the author is led to take up the position that the round towers were constructed by early Indian colonists of Ireland (the _Tuath-de-danaans_), in honour of “the fructifying principle of nature,” of which the sun and moon are representative. The emblem of this principle was the _phallus_ in the case of the sun, and the _crescent_ in that of the moon. The round tower was simply a monumental _phallus_, which fact is taken to explain the terms “Cathoir ghall” and “Fidh-Nemphed” to which he alludes in chap. iv.; whilst the _crescent_ ornament by which many of these towers were surmounted is symbolical of the female nature. A corroboration of this theory is found in the circumstance that the name _Budh_, by which these towers are “critically and accurately designated, signifies in Irish, first, the _sun_, and secondly, what φαλλός, _phallus_, does in Greek and Latin,” a view which is supported by the analogy of Egyptian sun and moon worship.