Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/220

 1 88 Collectanea.

The Saints.

The local stories of the early Christian period, like those of the heroic period, often lend themselves to an interesting and profitable comparison with early or mediaeval written accounts. The names and a few miracles are remembered at many of the wells and churches.

Sf. Patrick. — As might be expected, the Apostle of Ireland takes a prominent place in the legends of the saints of Mayo. We have heard ^ his legend at Downpatrick and of his stupendous faith that could say to Dunbriste " be ye moved, and it was cast into the midst of the sea." The place where the rock (or spear) hurled at him by the godless Geodruisge as he knelt in prayer, is one of the pilgrim's stations on the edge of the cliff, with a stupendous view of the great sea rock, crowned with its ancient wall. The site appears to be a hut foundation. The other points of the legend are not shown on the ground, but there are two curious stones in the half-levelled oratory near the last. One resembles an oblong box with a bold raised panel on top singularly regular and called " the Anvil Stone," the second resembles a sheep's head and is called " the Sheep Stone," but my informants knew no legend about it nor do the older writers allude to it. Otway tells us (and the legend is still told) that the other stone is called " St. Patrick's Anvil," on which he shod his ass while sojourning in Tirawley. On one of Otway's visits he found two women prostrate before it, but they were uneasy at being found in this posture, and I heard of no special veneration of the stone, though my informants did not conceal their respect for the stations, oratory and well. St. Patrick's ass is commemorated, and the mark of its knees shown in a stone further inland at a place called Leim an asail (the Leap of the Ass). 2

At Croaghpatrick, however, we find the focus of the cultus and legends of St. Patrick.^ Cruachan Aigle (or Oigle) figures in his early Lives. We read of his visit to it on the Saturday

1 Supra, vol. xxvii. p. 226.

- Ord. S. Letters, Mayo, vol. ii. p. 229.

'^E.g. Tripartite Life (Rolls series, ed. Todd), p, 113.