Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/243

 The Black Pig of Kilt rust an 233

demi-god possessed of Druidical arts into a schoolmaster ; he was a magician of great power who used to turn his two pupils into animals for sport. In revenge the school- master was changed by the mother of the boys, a red-haired woman, into a black pig. He fled across country, leaving a deep track behind him, until he reached the Shannon, where, at Roosky, he was overtaken and slain by the woman at Crook-na-muck {Cnoc-na-muice), " the hill of the pig." In a version of the story given by O' Donovan, the boys were changed into swine and were chased by O'Neill's dogs and ran, one towards Lough Neagh (the Dane's Cast) and another westward along the Dyke or Worm's Ditch, while a third crossed the Lake at Mucknoe, near Castleblayney. Near Drogheda and the Boyne, the story goes that it was a king of Tara who changed the school- master into a black pig and chased him northwards, where he tore up the furrow. Most of the legends are associated with Meath and Tara. Elsewhere it is a demon who assumes the form of a black pig, and it is followed and killed by St. Patrick.^

Col. Wood-Martin has an interesting version of the story in his Rude Stone Monuments of Sligo (p. 230). He says that in the immediate neighbourhood of Scurmore is a tumulus styled " The Grave of the Black Pig." It gives its name to the townland of Mucduff (" Black Pig "). This tumulus or earth-covered cairn is about 126 feet in circum- ference, 8 feet in height, 39 feet in N. and S. and 35 feet in E. and W. diameter. The legends regarding it are as follows : Many years ago there was in the North of Ireland an enormous magical boar, which committed great devasta- tions throughout the country. All the huntsmen of the kingdom assembled with the determination to pursue and kill the animal. This so much annoyed the boar, that,

1 In addilion to Mr. Kane's papers, see an article by Mr. L. Murray, in the Louth Archicological Journal, i. No. 2, 1905, and N. O'Kearney's Prophe<its of St. Colnnibkille, 1856 (Introduction).