Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/362

 330 Folk-Tales from Western Ii-eland.

eyes lit on the fire on the hearth I fell down in a faint. It was well I had not seen a light before, for if I had seen one when out on the road I might have fallen into a bog-hole, or on the road and died."

I asked why she fainted when she saw the light, and was told that if you have "seen anything strange" you will faint at sight of the first light you see afterwards. This idea seems the survival of some early ethnic belief; in attributing a m}'sterious power to light, and regarding a a coal of fire at night carried in the hand as sacred and able to guard the bearer from the preternatural beings that wander in the dark, we seem to have a ray from the sun- god Lugh smiting again "the grim and ill-lookifig band."

A Mysterious Bull.

A story somewhat similar to Biddy Lavan's experience was told me by a young man. One night he was returning to the village of Bohola from a house where he had been playing cards. It was between one and two in the morn- ing, and there was a full moon. The road leading to the village was a long, straight one, and he could see the whole way to the village. When about one hundred yards from the first house he suddenly saw a bull standing in the middle of the road where nothing had been a moment before. It was a big, dark animal, and it stood still with its face towards him. He knew there was no bull in any of the fields that bordered the road. When he got close to it, he went on the grass to go by. At the same moment the bull turned its head and licked the flank nearest to him. A great fear seized Byrne, and he hastened his steps. Looking back a second later he found the bull had vanished. On reaching the village, he roused up a friend, who lit a candle, whereupon Byrne fainted. Here the same result occurred on the appearance of a light as had happened in the case of Biddy Lavan,