Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/102

 90 Collectanea.

The Vow is evidently a Teutonic name for an equivalent to the Banshee, Caonteach, and Bean Nighidh.

In the district of Carradale in Kintyre is a point called Sroin na h-Eannachair ; as our reciter said, " the haunt of a supernatural being which makes a fearful noise before the death of any of the Clan Macmillan." Eannachar is evidently the local name for the Caonteach of the Macmillans, and a translation of the name shows the union of innocence and a connection with a pass and water such as we find in the case of the Washer Woman and of the Vow. Eaiiach (Dinneen), eantiech (O'Reilly), and eatmach (Armstrong) all mean "innocent," "free from sin," "spotless," "pure," as we should expect from the descriptions we have of the Caonteach. Eanach (Dinneen and O'Reilly) is "a marsh," "a lake, "'common in place names, e.g. Annaghbeg, Annaghbane, etc., and is con- nected with can (a bird, fowl of any sort), bearing out the descrip- tion of the Caonteach having red feet webbed like a duck. Eanach (a marsh) is the haunt of wild fowl. Eanach is also given as "a pass," "a road," recalling the preference of the Vow for fords.

We advance the thesis that all these stories have some common origin in nature, and we suggest that the weird calling at night of wild animals such as wolves and owls, when they vary a little from the more usually recognised sounds, are the probable cause from which these traditions have been built *up ; the appearance ascribed is not merely from something seen, but also the result of after consideration of the names applied or applicable. In support of this the Banshee seems to be a modern expression for what appears in old Irish romance as the Bodb, the goddess of battle, naturally connected with families of importance to whom she may be supposed to have rendered service. She is the bodhbh or grey crow, the so-called royston, scald crow, as being "noisy," "blus- tering," and as the goddess of battle presided over sudden death.

Hilpert in his Dictionary gives wauwau as provincial for a "bugbear," "old bogie," an onomatopoeia for the barking of a dog, which at once shows the connection of the Vow with noise. May not bodb, bodhbh be a Gaelic nominative formed from bhodhbh (vov), the b taking the place of what was considered its asperated form? In Moray to howl is expressed as wow, the same