Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/70

62 it home. For years it worked for him until he thought he had quite tamed it, when one unfortunate day he let it see the lake; when it flew like lightning into it, tore its rider to pieces, and disappeared in the water, never to be seen again. A very amusing incident happened while I was in that neighbourhood. Tom had a "lock" of malt on one of the islands in Inver lake, and he went to turn it in the gloaming. Just as he had done so, and raised himself up, he saw an aughisky making straight for him; he was into his boat in an instant, and made for the shore; when he reached it he was saluted with, "Mr. Coneelly, will you lend me the boat to go across the lake, as that blackguard old mare of mine has swam across and brought her foal with her." In Lough Treagh, Connemara, there was a famous aughisky that beat people. I have seen more than one who said they were beaten by it, and who stated, "I had not a drop in me, your honour, but I saw a mare with an elegant foal, and I stopped to look at it, and it turned on me and nearly killed me." I offered a man half-a-sovereign to go past this lake one evening with a message and he refused, although he was sure of lots of eating and drinking, and another half-a-sovereign if he went. My son, a lad of about twelve years old, and man was driving home that way one night, and they saw a mare and foal. The man immediately wanted to turn back, but the boy would not let him. When telling me he said he distinctly saw the mare and foal cross the road and go up the sand-hill, but when they came to the place he could see no track or any trace of the mare between the road and the lake. I was so curious that I went there the next day, but could see no tracks in the place he saw the mare go over. On this lake and also Garomna I have seen the aughisky on wild gusty nights when there were bursts of moonlight—on the latter you will see it to the east of the barrow called the "Fairy Mount," plunging up and down on the surface of the water. It seems due to the colliding of the blast round the barrow; but the waves at such times have such a weird appearance that it is not surprising that they are taken for something supernatural. All the stories of the different lakes are so similar that when you have heard one you have heard all; and in the wild mountainous portions of Munster and Connaught no one found dead in the hills died naturally: