Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/316

306 of the older workers. I have collected my share without leading questions or the desire (so apparent in some of my predecessors, like the Knights and, at times, Otway and Lady Wilde) of "making a good story." I also try to locate them as carefully as possible, for the too common custom of telling stories "out of space out of time" is misleading and unscientific. Here and there I may have been hypercritical in rejecting some of my predecessors' statements, such as the oath on the skull and the key in Knight's version of the legend of Dundonnell; but it is wisest to omit anything that savours of the artificial adornments of native legends by the writers of 1840. The peasantry, if not prompted, seem usually reliable; tourists are too rare for the establishment of that detestable by-product the story-telling guide, and one local version verifies that told by a different person. Occasionally I have found different names given to the same place, or the same name given to different places, like Leimataggart, but I hardly think this was done to deceive. It springs from careless hearsay among the younger people. In the case of "Leimataggart," it was probably caused by the transfer of the tradition from the true site to more accessible spots for the amusement of visitors. I follow the lines of my folk-lore survey of Co. Clare in these pages as far as possible.

It is probably my own limitations which prevent this section being of as much interest as ought to attach to such a study. I tried to collect names along the whole coast, but save in Cliara (Clare Island) I was rather struck with the poverty of the coast names when compared with the rich harvest of Co. Clare, and, indeed, those of Kerry, Cork and Waterford. I never found the Mayo folk churlish or unwilling to help. I was, on the contrary, most pleasantly impressed with their hospitality, courtesy and accessibility. They are most intelligent people, and ready to impart what they know, yet I failed to get many names not on the Ordnance Survey maps, especially along the north coast. Professor MacNeill gathered a rich