Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/259

Rh is wetter, lower, lonelier, and more dismal than another. And thou shalt be a disgust to thyself and a horror to every living creature that sees thee."

The character of the smith in its trickiness, a trickiness with which the devil himself accused him, is the key to the name. Sionnach is a fox, and the meaning is evidently "Foxy's Fire." No doubt the red hide of the fox has made him godfather to the story.

In the Second Book of Kings, chapter ii. verse 11, it is said: "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold (there appeared), a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw (it)," &c. This, which has been known to the teachers of the Gael from a period long antecedent to any records by themselves of their beliefs, seems the best introduction to this portion of our subject: the Dreag, Dreug, Drook, Driug. Mr. MacBain, in his lately published Etymological Dictionary, describes it as "a meteor or portent; from the Anglo-Saxon dreag, apparition; Norse, draugr, ghost." From a folklore point of view, Armstrong's definition tells a great deal more: