THE BEAR. 23 
As regards the former existence of Bears in the 
Highlands, a shadow of their memory, says Stuart * 
is preserved in their Gaelic name, Magh-Ghamhainn;t 
and the traditions of some remote districts which 
retain obscure allusions to a rough, dark, grisly 
monster, the terror of the winter's tale, and the 
origin of some obsolete names, in the depths of the 
forest and the dens of the hill{ Hence fuigh-na- 
beiste, the monster’s slope, Loch-na-beiste, the monster's 
lake ; for best in Gaelic signifies generally, not, as 
might be inferred from its similarity to the English 
word, a mere animal (which is beathach or ainmihidh), 
but something beyond an ordinary creature, a mon- 
ster, a beast of prey. Thus, in the above instances, 
we believe it to have been derived from the myste- 
rious and exaggerated recollection of the last solitary 
Bear which lingered in the deep recesses of the forest, 
the terror of the hunter and of the herdsman. 
Thompson states that although he is not aware of - 
any written evidence tending to show that the 
Brown Bear was ever indigenous to Ireland, a tradi- 
tion exists of its having been so. It is associated 
with the Wolf as a native animal in the stories handed 
down through several generations to the present 
* “Lays of the Deer Forest,” ii. p. 215. 
+ Literally “the paw-calf,” from mdg, a paw, and ghamainn, a 
yearling calf. The name is now often corrupted into math-ghamainu 
the calf of the plain, which has no meaning, for bears are not 
characteristically inhabitants of plains ; but the implied allusion to 
the size and colour of a calf, with the distinction of the paw, is 
descriptive of the beast. 
£ Traditions of this kind will be found in the story of ‘ The Brown 
Bear of the Green Glen,’ related in Campbell’s “‘ Popular Tales of the 
West Highlands,” vol. i. pp. 164-170. 
