Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

Household Stories, 1
the domestic hen gives a name to a mountain in Lon-
donderry, Sliabh Cearc* and to a castle in Connaught,
Caislean na Cearca. The dog has a valley in Roscom-
mon {Glafin na Moddha) to himself, and the pig {muc),
among his possessions, owns more than one line of vale.
Fion's exploits in killing terrible birds with his arrows,
the boar that ravaged the great valley in Munster, and
the various " piasts " in the lakes, bring him on a line
with the Grecian Hercules. And as the old Pagans of
that country and of Italy, along with a wholesome dread
and hatred of the Stymphalides, hydras, and lions,
warred on by Hercules, together with the Harpies and
Cerberus, entertained for them a certain fetish reverence,
so it is not to be wondered at if the secluded Celts of
Ireland regarded their boars, and serpents, and cats,
with similar feelings. Mr. Hackett relates a legend of
a monster (genus and species not specified) who levied
black mail in the form of flesh meat on a certain dis-
trict in Cork to such an amount that they apprehended
general starvation. In this exigency they applied to a
holy man, and acting under his directions, they called
the terrible tax-collector to a parley. They represented
to him that they were nearly destitute of means to
furnish his honour with another meal, but that if he
consented to enter a certain big pot, and sleep till
* In Celtic words c and g have uniformly a hard sound : they are
never pronounced as c in cent or g in gem.
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