Historical and genealogical essay upon the family and surname of Buchanan

FAMILY OF BUCHANAN. 157
to assist at the solemnity, fearing nothing that the
Irish would or could do in such low circumstances.
The general at the same time sent orders to the
Irish nobility and gentry, to send to Limerick
against the king's birth-day a thousand, or as others
say, two thousand of the most beautiful of their
daughters, to dally with the Danish officers at that
festival. Of this the Irish king getting intelligence,
resolved to send the desired number of the most
clear complexioned youths could be found, clothed
in women's habit, with long Irish skiens, or dag-
gers, below their clothes, with orders that, so soon
as they went to bed with their several paramours,
being generally drunk on such occasions, they
should stab them with these concealed daggers,
and afterwards seize upon their guard-house,
where their arms were laid by, and if matters suc-
ceeded, to give a signal by kindling a large fire
upon the town wall ; the Irish king with a small
party being absconded in a wood near by, in ex-
pectation of the event. These Irish viragoes put
their orders in execution to the utmost, and having
given the concerted signal to the king, introduced
him and his party to the town, who, without any
mercy or resistance, killed all the Danes in the
garrison, being destitute of sense, officers, and
arms, reserving their general Turgesius for fur-
ther punishment, which was inflicted upon him by
drowning, which then, and as yet, is reputed the
most ignominious death among the Irish. Most
of all the other Danes throughout the kingdom
were shortly after cut off. This massacre was a
kind of parallel to another of that nature commit-
O