Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/236

 2 1 4 Collectanea.

Leochain, who was slain in 1024. The King of Cashel (over-king, therefore, of North Munster) was forbidden to pass a night at Latteragh in northern Tipperary at the beginning of harvest ; to encamp for nine consecutive nights at the river Suir ; to hold a border meeting at Gowran ; and to listen to the groans of women (in a raid) in southern Tipperary. The King of Connacht was not to go in a speckled cloak, — the prose adds " on a piebald horse," — to the heath of Luchaid in Clare. On the other hand, the ruler of Cashel brought good luck by plundering cattle in Connacht while the cuckoo sings ; burning north Leinster ; passing over Sliabh Cua, — "on a Tuesday," says the prose, — to pacify south Munster; crossing Magh Ailbhe with a light grey host; and rest- ing six weeks (of Lent) every year at Cashel. It was most unlucky for him to wait for a feast at Killarney Lake for a full week from a Monday. At the present day some families still have their own tabus, lucky and lucky deeds and days, dreams, and omens, which sometimes even run counter to beliefs generally received, — e.g. that the Friday falling on the thirteenth of any month, or to dream of a wild cat or other wild animal, is lucky.

Witch hare.^^ — Anthony Bruodin {Brteodinus or Prodinus), a Franciscan of Quin Abbey, tells in Corolla Oecodetniaz Minorities (Prague, 1664, p. 73) how his uncle {patruus), Florence of Moynaeo (Moynoe on Lough Derg) went out at the dawn of the first of May with his eldest son Bonaventura, (who died in Spain in 1643), and with their hounds to hunt hares. At last the servants saw one sucking a cow. The hounds chased it, biting it as it escaped, into a cottage, where an old woman was found torn behind.

Glasgeivnagh co7v.^^ — Vague legends are told of her living at Treanahow, Shallee, and Ballygannon.

Ghosts or fairy men. — Mary (Mescal) Doyle, of Newmarket-on- Fergus, tells how she saw two ghostly men in black walking on a road near that village.

Stolen bride. — A legend of a stolen bride at Querin on the Shannon is told in Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends etc. of Ireland (1887), vol. i., p. 49- •

^^ Addendum to vol. xxii. p. 449. ^* Addendum to p. 89 supra.