Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/245

 The Black Pig of Kiltrtistan 235

beginning with Muc, i.e. Mucduff, Muckelty, and Muck Island, and eighty-one others throughout Ireland. Names beginning with Muc, "a pig," or Tore, "a boar," are found in every part of the country, and an old name for Ire- land is Muic-inis, or " hog-island," because it appeared to the early invaders to take the shape of a hog as they approached it.

The hunt of magical boars or swine is the theme of many tales. In the Battle of Magh Mucramha, or the " Plain of Swine-counting," magical pigs issued from the Cave of Cruachan in Roscommon. Nothing green would grow for seven years in any district where they passed. Nor could they be numbered, and when Meave and Ailill attempted to count them, they fled from the country and disappeared.^ In the " Colloquy " we have the killing of the " Pig of Preservation," a huge boar with nine tusks slain by Caeilte and Donn, and distributed by Patrick to the men of Ireland to preserve them against their enemies. It is said to have been the last ''prophylactic pig" in Ireland, and seems to have been a sacrificial beast. A former pig of the same kind is mentioned in the story as being the cause of the feud of Clan Morna with Clan Baeiscne {i.e. of the Connaught clans with Leinster). Magical pigs were hunted by the hounds of Manannan Mac Lir, and there is a place called Muc-inis (Pig Island) in L. Conn, Co. Mayo, where magical pigs were slain by Mod. One of the most Irish of the old Welsh tales is the Hunt of the Twrch Trwyth, the terrible enchanted boar that had " laid waste the fifth part of Ireland." "^ Other similar hunts that occur to us are the Chase of the Boar of Ceis Choraind, of the red drove of swine by Nel on Magh Ai, and of the six red magic men- and women-swine of Drebriu, which were under the protection of Angus Mac ind Oc, and were chased

^ Si/va Gadelica, cd. Standish Hayes O'Grady, Trans, p. 353; ibid. pp. 158-160.

'• Kilhwch and Olwen, on the "Twrch Trwyth," in the Mabinogion.