the Crucifixion the bat mocked at the agony The 

 of the Saviour, and while the redbreast was Summer 

 trying to pull out a thorn, now from Christ's era s * 

 hand, now from His foot, the bat whirled to 

 and fro crying, * See how lovely I am! See 

 how swift I am ! ' Christ turned His eyes 

 and looked at it, and the blue and the white 

 went out of the bat like the ebbing wave out 

 of a pool, and it became blind and black and 

 whirled away till it met the rising of night 

 and was drowned in that darkness for ever- 

 more. And that is why the bat is seen in 

 the dusk and at night, and wheels to and fro 

 in such aimless wandering flight, with his thin 

 almost inaudible voice crying, ' See how blind 

 I am ! See how ugly I am ! ' 



From the same source I had dealan-dhu 

 bais, the little black flame (or flash) of death, 

 and a still stranger note to the effect that bats 

 are the offspring of lightning and smitten 

 trees : the connection being more obvious to 

 Gaelic ears, because dealan-bas is one of the 

 names of lightning. 



The other name I heard as a child, and it 

 long puzzled me. Beuban-an-Athar- Uai- 

 bhreach: literally, the malformed one of the 

 Haughty Father. Now why should the bat 

 be called beuban, a thing spoiled, wilfully 

 malformed ? ' An t' Athair Uaibhreach ' (of 



