Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/121

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Water Horses and other Monsters.

There are two small lakes in the neighbourhood of Mohill, Co. Leitrim, which I have been often assured contain water horses — Drumdart L. and one near Drumard. These are generally seen grazing on the shore in the early morning before people are astir, and when disturbed throw themselves into the lake and disappear.

When I visited Coole Park, Lady Gregory's place near Gort, I was told by a gamekeeper that not long since his father, early one morning coming down to the lake from the high ground, saw on the side of a hedge on the lake shore a short stout animal grazing, just like a thick-set horse of moderate size. He managed to get very near it before it took alarm, and throwing itself into the water disappeared into its depths. My informant, a very intelligent man, asked if I could tell him if there was any such fresh-water animal known, or if what his father had seen was supernatural.

References to the Scottish Gaelic folklore of water horses are given in the note on Tale VIII. of No. III. Argyleshire series of Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition (David Nutt, London). It is described as similar to a real horse, except its wild staring eyes, slimy skin, and webbed feet. He sometimes grazes on the lake margin and tempts the wayfarer to get on his back, upon which he plunges into the depths, and feasts upon the unhappy rider. Seen in the day-time the water horse is a black úsp or shapeless mass moving through the water, but at the setting of the sun or before sunrise he ventures out on the land.

Should one be killed, nothing is left but a pool of water; if buried, it gives rise to a spring!

Lake Coomshinaun, Co. Waterford.

Here an extraordinary phenomenon can be witnessed every seven years. A huge mass of some sort rises high above the water, no matter how calm the day, and then after a short time falls back with an enormous splash, making a commotion over the whole surface of the lake.