Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/222

 1 86 Collectanea.

The reaping the grain was always called '■'■ shearing iho. corn."

The " churn " exhibited is one of six, the trophies of the six

years last past, hanging in the hall of my house. Six years ago

the old " churns," ten or more in number, were burnt, as they had

become shabby.

H. W. Lett.

Aghaderg Glebe, Loughbrickland, County Down.

Fin MacCoul's Pebble. {A7ite, p. 130.)

Brien Boru, Malachi of the golden collar, and the rest of the kings of Ireland were parvenus compared with Fin, and the Halls of Tara a modern villa residence compared with his abode under the vault of heaven. He and his wife dwelt in and about Carlingford, County Down, on the banks of Carlingford Lough, looking across to Rostrevor.

He was a determined giant, and ruled his v^^ife with an iron hand, but the blood of giants did not run in her veins for nothing, so one day when Fin was more than usually unpleasant she told him that she would stand his nonsense no longer, calmly stepped across Carlingford Lough to where Rostrevor now stands, and ran up the green slope now called Rostrevor Mountain. Fin was not only surprised but incensed, so he picked up the nearest pebble and threw it at her. She was fleet of foot and it did not hit her; but there it remains to this day, a huge and slightly oscillating boulder known as Fin McCoul's Pebble, or otherwise as Cloughmore Stone. If any one can get on the top of it and wish, the wish is sure to be granted.

What became of the wife I never heard, but the giant can still be seen any day in the form of Carlingford Mountain, which from some points of view might bear a resemblance to the profile of a man with a receding forehead, an aquiline nose, and a rudimentary chin, surmounting an aldermanic figure.

L. J. Dennis.