Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/379

Rh 1350) describes King Torlough, about 1286, returning from a successful raid, which has left its mark very clearly on the legal rolls of the day, ravaging the English lands round the mountains of eastern County Limerick and northern Tipperary, and march- ing up the western (Clare) shore of Lough Derg. A lovely maiden appeared, " modest, strange in aspect, glorious in form, rosy-lipped, soft-taper-handed, pliant-wavy-haired, white-bosomed." She was the " Sovereignty of Erin " come to rebuke the chief for letting De Burgh dissuade him from attempting the reconquest oi all Ireland, and vanished in a lustrous cloud. The author's intent here is unmistakable. MacCraith has one other passage, so suggestive and remarkable that it can only be regarded as a literal statement of the beliefs of the warriors at the burial of some of whom his father, Ruadri, presided, a few years later, in 13 1 7. Donchad, a prince of the Clan Torlough line, aided by William de Burgh, gave his deadly enemy, Richard de Clare, a severe defeat near Bunratty in 131 1. At the moment of victory De Burgh was captured by the foe, and the victors fled in indescribable confusion, — the English to their nearest castles, and the Irish to their stone strongholds, the great terraced mountains of Burren. De Clare and his protege, Prince Dermot, camped on two ridges at Cruchwill and Tullycommaun, a long ridge capped with tumuli, dolmens, and " forts." Donchad lay across the valley and lake on the spurs of Slieve Carran opposite. The soldiers of Donchad, we are told, " were disturbed by phantoms and delusive dreams, lights shone on the fairy forts," the waves of Erin ^ groaned, " the deep plaint resounded from the woods and streams," shades were seen, and hollow groans were heard. This is evidently a true tale of the reminiscences of the depressed and anxious men who lay looking at the foes' camp fires opposite. I have often heard with wonder on these lonely hills

" undescribed sounds That come a swooning over hollow grounds And wither drearily on barren moors,"

the noise of the winds in the rocks and bushes, the strange prattle of streams in crannies deep down in the rocks, the cry of night

^ Misfortune was foretold by great waves at four spots on the Irish coast, to which later belief added a fifth at Malbay in Clare.