Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/216

 1 84 Collectanea.

glas at Torry Island/ and the smith Lon, Caeilte and the glas on Glasgeivnagh Hill, Co. Clare,^ besides other variants in Kerry and elsewhere.

This tale belongs rather doubtfully to the Finn cycle ; to turn to the undoubted tales of the hero we find that at Down- patrick Head he, like his son Oisin in the poems, is made a contemporary of St. Patrick. A curious variant of the Geod- ruisgc legend (where a stone or spear is hurled at the saint in hostility) makes Finn so anxious to help the saint in building the little oratory that he hurled a granite boulder for its material, which fell short and used to be pointed out in Ballyglen when Otway visited the place.^ In 1839 Finn's adventures were told by the professional story-tellers in North Mayo ; the name " Seefin " attached to more than one lofty summit which the hero used as a seat. Finn's rival in love, Diarmait, and the faithless wife, Grainne, were (and are) remembered at various prehistoric monuments, not dolmens, as elsewhere, but rings of stones, as at those in Ballyglas (Tirawley) and Glengad (Erris, near Duncarton), though I suspect the one at the last to be modern derived from some book. I did not hear the lovers' names at the dolmens of Achill and Murrisk. At the dolmen in Glengad, however, " Darby " was a great giant who left the marks of his fingers on the cover of " Darby and Grania's bed," but the legend of the lovers seemed forgotten. Gal mac Morni was one of the numerous reputed builders of Doona Castle

Lady Wilde "* notes a legend near Killeries. Finn and Oscar came to Lisnakeeran fort and here its owner entertained them, but, when they tried to get up after dinner, their followers were stuck to the benches. Finn and Oscar being suspicious at not being offered chairs were left free. Finn then bit his prophetic thumb and saw a hideous warrior riding towards the fort. Knowing that all was lost if the warrior crossed a certain

'^ Ulster Journal of Architology (Edmund Getty, 1845), vol. i. 1853, pp. 140' sqq. Abstracted in Roy. Soc. Antt. Handbook, No. vi. p. 2. ^See Folk- Lore, vol. xxiii. p. 89, and xxiv. p. 100. ^ Erris and Tyrawly, p. 259. '' Ancient Legends ^\Z%-j), vol. i. p. 158.