Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/325

Rh were born, ordered thorn to be burnt, that the incest might not remain in the land. 'Give me,' said Cairbre's druid, 'that Corc there, that I may place him outside Erinn, so that the incest may not be within it.' Corc was given to the druid, and the latter, with his wife, whose name was Bói, took him to an island. They had a white cow with red ears, and an ablution was performed by them every morning on Corc, placed on the cow's back; so in a year's time to the day the cow sprang away from them into the sea, and she became a rock in it; to wit, the heathenism of the boy had entered into her. Bó Búi, or Bói's Cow, is the name of the rock, and Inis Búi, or Bói's Isle, that of the island. The boy was afterwards brought back into Erinn. Such is the story how Corc was purged of the virulence of his original sin, and the scene is one of the three islets called the Bull, the Cow and the Calf, not far from Dursey Island, in the gulf called Kenmare River.

Now I have only to reproduce, word for word, as it occurs in the Book of Leinster, the account of another