Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/132

 1 04 Collectanea.

Corrsliabh to the east of Bangor Erris, where he is slain with all his followers by another giant, the Amadan Barroosky, who buries him in Fanny leach Feargois at Sheskin, The recollection of Donnell Doolwee and Kirtaan has not yet died out at the two forts, but I heard nothing of the fate of the lady or any legend at Rathmorgan save that the fort is " the real place " from which the townland is named ; the name Dun Flidhais is unknown.

2, The Battle of Cross.

The long, low peninsula of the Mullet lies broadside to the Atlantic, beyond the great creeks of Blacksod Bay and Broad- haven, with the little town of Belmullet upon the isthmus- Standing on the rampart of Dundomhnall we see the great sand- hills and little church tower of Binghamstown beyond the former bay. The sandhills are a singularly weird and lonely tract, famous for strange apparitions such as St. Elmo's fire, and reputedly the haunt of fairies and ghosts. They abound with small circles and cists, and in the centre a perfect and conspicuous little pyramid of slabs is called the Leacht air lomits, or tomb of the slaughter of Erris.^ It is hard to find out how far the legends existed while the monuments were hidden away under the unremembering sands. Dr. Pococke in 1752 heard of "the tombs of Lugna- dumme " (hollow of the sandhills), " but now they were all covered again by the sand"; and Knight tells us how all recollection had died out some sixty years later, save the name Lachta ard, " the high grave." One very stormy night twenty feet deep of the sand was blown away and the cairn disclosed, " the adjacent plain showing the exposed bones of thousands." Crampton told his friend, Rev. Caesar Otway,^ that the Leacht waar Erris was laid bare in 181 1, and before that time old people had pointed out "the place where a monument ought to be." Legend told how a great battle was fought against an invading army from Munster.

'^Journal Royal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland, vol. xlii., p. 112 ; vol. xliv., pp. 67, 73. Pococke's Tour in Ireland, pp. 90-91. Otway (1841), Erris and Tyrawly, pp. 89-92, 95. Knight, Erris in the hish Highlands, p. no. See also Proceedings Royal Irish Academy (Dr. Charles Browne), vol. iii., ser. iii., p. 641.

"^ Erris and Tyrawly, pp. 238-241.