Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/91

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After reading Mr. Feilberg's account of the Danish belief in warning lights, published in the September issue of Folk-Lore, I was interested to find the same superstition existing in the Rannoch district. A gillie told me of a light which appeared ten years ago during the months of October and November, apparently floating on the loch at night. Two men rowed up to it, but lost sight of it as they approached, though it was still visible from the shore. The natives were much alarmed, and thought it predicted death by drowning. I was also told of two instances of lights appearing in a house previous to a death in the family.

Cheshunt Park.

I would venture to point out to Mr. Crombie a slight error into which he has fallen in his remarks on the part taken by O'Cahan in the inauguration of O'Neill. The action of the former chief in throwing the shoe cannot possibly have been intended to "mark the superiority of the thrower and symbolise his suzerainty," inasmuch as O'Cahan was subject to O'Neill, paying him tribute and furnishing a contingent to his army. Abundant proof of this statement is to be found in the writings of Moryson and the other historians of the Elizabethan period, both English and Irish. It is evident, therefore, that whatever the meaning of the shoe-throwing was, it did not imply superiority on the part of the thrower.

But, setting this aside, it is interesting to note how prominently the shoe or sandal appears to have figured at the inauguration of an Irish chief. In some clans it was customary to throw the shoe over the chiefs head; in others it was placed on his foot; while among the O'Neills both ceremonies were performed, O'Cahan throwing the shoe and O'Hagan putting it on. These offices were always performed by sub-chiefs, whose hereditary right it was.