Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/118

 I o 2 Collectanea.

The Scottish versions of this tale are well known, and have more classical analogies than the Clare tale.-* In the versions of north Ireland the Glasgavlin cow descends from the sky, and more closely resembles the rain cows of the Vedas, to which also a striking analogy is found in a subsequent appendix to the Clare tale. The cow has habitats at Cluainte (Kerry), Howth (Dublin), Glen an Arrible (Waterford), Ballynascreen (Londonderry), and opposite Torry Island in Donegal, where she and another smith figure in the archaic tale of Balor and Mac Kineely.-^ The cow is also found in Kerry, and in Glenganlen in Cavan. Finn's cow, the Glasghoilean, has a bed in the Isle of Skye. The tale was minutely localised (m Glasgeivnagh Hill and Slievenaglasha before 1839. At first our enquiries seemed to show that the story had died out, but after a couple of years Dr. MacNamara found it still subsisting amongst a few old folk and herdsmen near Teeskagh. As neither of us referred to the 1839 story, we were much struck by the perfect agreement after the lapse of two generations. I took down one recension at Tullycommaun in 1896, from John Finn. The main story is identical with that given above, and it ends as follows : — " At Slievenaglasha were the Glas. cow's beds. No grass ever grows on them. She used to feed near the herd's house [at the dolmen of Slievenaglasha] and over Cahill's moun- tain, where she could get plenty of water out of Teeskagh. And

-^ I refer to a few in The Journal of the Koyal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxv., p. 227.

" Ulster Journnl of Archaeology, vol. i. (O.S.).' See also Annals of the Four Masters (ed. O'Donovan), vol. i., p. 18 n. ; P. A. Joyce, Irish Natnes of Places, vol. i., cap. iv. ; Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland, pp. i, 283 ; The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 315, for Howth. The Bothair ?ia bo ruadh is said, p. 318, to run all round the Irish coast at a dis- tance of three casts of a dart from high-water mark. I only note one Borzi well on Ardoilean or High Island. Like the Bo ruadh well at Elmvale, Clare, it is now misnamed after King Brian Boru. The Rev. P. Power of Portlaw gives a Waterford legend of the Glas cow's tail cutting Gleann an earball in Desies without Drum, ( The Journal of the IVatefford and South East Ireland Archaeological Society, vol. x. (1907), p. 117). The Balor legend is also given, from Shane O'Dugan of Co. Donegal, by O'Donovan in Annals of the Four , Masters, vol. i., p. 18 w. W. Larminie, West Irish Folk Tales, p. i, gives a Glass Gavlen tale from Achill, and J. Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland, the tale of the sieve in Elin Gow and the cow Glas Gainach at Cluainte, Co. Kerry.