Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/39

 of the Peasantry of Innishowen. 17

In Clonmany, a district extending from Malin to Lough Suille, is a river in which salmon and trout are never found, though these fish abound in the neighbouring streams. To prove this, some individuals managed to capture several from a river alongside, and placed them in the one men- tioned, but they immediately died. The reason given is that Columkille, the patron saint of Donegal, being on his travels in the district, and wearied and hungry, came upon some boys who had a fire kindled on the banks of the stream, in which they were roasting some trout caught from it. The saint asked for some to satisfy his hunger, but the boys refused to share the repast. Saint Columkille then pronounced a malediction, and told them that never again would a trout or salmon be found in the stream. Others tell that the saint had with him a goat which sup- plied him with milk during his wanderings, that the boys were out fishing, and coming on the animal, which was browsing on the rocks at some distance from where Colum- kille lay sleeping, they killed it, and making a fire cooked it, eating all but the hoofs and horns. The saint was so enraged on awakening and finding out what had happened, that he cursed the stream and the place.

Witches. — These (human or devil) are said to be not uncommon around here. Old women principally follow the avocation, oftentimes changing themselves into hares and roaming around during night-time or by daybreak, visiting their neighbours' byres (cow-houses), from which they are able by some mysterious power to take with them the milk and butter. Some of these witches of higher powers have no need to transform themselves, but are able by the aid of a peculiar hair-rope — made from the mane of a stallion in which there is not a single white hair — and the recital of some queer incantations to effect their object. Baeltine, or May-eve, is the only day in the year for weaving these spells and making the fetters. On several occasions these witches in the form of hares have been shot at, but without

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