Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/404

 ^yS Collectanea.

the prince, prayed earnestly for him, and that very liour a holy hermit at Lismore, where no one had heard of Conor's death, announced that the prince's soul was saved by the prayers of a holy monk at Ennis.'*^

OQuin and the S7va?i- Maiden. — The fullest and most beautiful of the Clare folk-tales is connected in its most popular versions with Tyge Ahood {i.e. Tadgh an Comhad) O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, who reigned from 1 461-6. But it is not of his time, nor indeed of any historic time, but a local version of a world- wide myth.'^i The Inchiquin legend was first published by Dr. G. Petrie in 1840, and then in Memorials of A dare by Lord Dun- raven, who claimed descent from the O'Quins of Inchiquin. ■^^ The best and fullest modern version is given by Dr. G. U. MacNamara, whose fields run down to the lake and have in view the castle of Inchiquin and the church of Coad. The Ordtiatice Survey Letters give a recension of the same date as Petrie's. I may add that the power of the O'Quins as a tribe was really broken long before 1 460, in the opinion of some several generations before the Norman invasion, and in that of others as late as 1 180. But at any rate the O'Quins were of good standing down to the Norman invasion. Edaom, daughter of O'Quin and Queen of Munster, died on a pilgrimage to Derry in 11 88. The Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh barely mentions the family as fighting at Corcomroe in 131 7, when Mathgamhan O'Brien held Inchiquin and its island castle.

In 1839 the tale was located at the rock platform, at the upper end of the lake, called Doonaun, or, at that time, Dunean ui chuinn ("O'Quin's rock fort").^^ Conor O'Quin, the chief, walking by the lake, saw a lovely woman on the south shore, combing her hair. She vanished on his approach. This happened three times. O'Quin was consumed with love for her, and at last, seeing her

•*" L. Wadding, Annales JMuioriiin, vol. vii., p. 574.

•*! Cf. E. S. Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales, pp. 255-32, 337-52.

■*^ See also Irish Penny four nal, 1840-I, pp. 122-3; Antiquities of the Northern portion of Co. Clare, p. 66 (republished by the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in 1900 as Antiquarian Handbook No. V.).

^ Dunan (Doonaun) is a rather rare component (Dun, Dunadh, and Duneen being more common), but occurs attached to two actual promontory forts at Doonaunroe and Doonaunmore in the county.