Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/483

 The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas. 475

ba head on Tir Cluichi Midhir 3 Ma/c in Og. Luid^ fon indas cetna Midhir ■] [fo. 4^ i] cucu ^ capall cengalta lais, gon rallsat a crod fair, gonos-rug leo gorigi Mag nDairbthean fi^rsa ta in loch. Laighid in gerran ann ] Coheir a mhun gor'bo tiprat, gor' muidh tairsib. Ribh ainm in rig. baiter in Rib. \}inde Loch Ri[bh] 3 Loch nEchach nowinata sunt.

Baidhis M.v\gus Eocho uais tre fhual a eich go n-athluais, doluidh Midhir, brigh ro«-lean, gor' baidh Rib i Maigh Dairbthenn.

Loch n-Echach, whence was it named ?

Ribh, son of Mairid, and Eocho, son of Mairid, the twain went from the south out of Irluachair on a flitting, and separated at Belach da Liacc, " the Pass of the two Flagstones". One of the twain, even Eocho, went westward on Bregia and set up on the Plain of Mac ind Oc. He (the Mac ind Oc) went to them in the shape of a land-holder, with his nag in his hand, and told them that they should not bide on the Plain. They said to him that they had no power to carry their load of goods (?) without pack-horses. " Put," says he, "the full of the plain wherein ye stand into bundles with their straps upon this nag, and he will carry them with you to the place where he will lie down thereunder." So they went thence till they reached Liathmuine. Therein the nag lies down beside them, and there he stales, and made of his urine a well which came over them. So that is Loch n-Echach, to wit, Eochu the king and his horse's water, which there spread out.

Howbeit Ribh himself went around westward and set up on Magh Find : now that was the Playing-ground of Midir and of Mac ind Oc. In the same way Midir went to them, having a haltered horse with him, and they put their wealth upon the horse, and he carried it off with them as far as Magh Dairbthenn, whereon the lake now lies. There the nag lies down and passes his urine until it became a well, which broke over them. Ribh is the king's name. Ribh is drowned.

Whence Loch Ribh and Loch nEchach were (so) called.

Oengus drowned haughty Echo

By means of his steed's urine, with great speed :

Midir went — force followed him —

And drowned Ribh on Magh Dairbthenn.

Also in BB. 390 a 31 ; H. 49 a ; and Lee. 496 a, where the story is more fully told. Printed, without a translation, in Silva Gadelica, ii, 484, 532. See also Aided Echach mate Maireda, LL. 39 a — 39 b, edited by Crowe in 1870, from which it appears that the "flitting" was an elopement with Eochaid's stepmother Ebliu.

Irluachair, in the south-east of the county of Kerry.

1 MS. Luig.