The which an athar is the genitive) is one of the 



Summer evasive names used by the Gael for Satan 

 Heralds 



"... for that proud and glorious angel, the 



Father of Evil, who fell from his high estate 



through inconquerable pride. Why, then, 



was the bat the malformed creature of Satan ? 



It was years afterwards before I had the story 



told me, for my old nurse (from whom T heard 



the phrase) did not think the tale fitting for a 



child's ears. When Judas hanged himself on 



a tree, so the tale ran, and his soul went out 



lamenting on the wind, the Haughty Father 



flung that wretched spirit contemptuously 



back into the world. But first he twisted it 



and altered it four hundred and forty -four 



times, till it was neither human nor bird nor 



beast, but was likest a foul rat with leathern 



wings. ' Stay there till the last day,' he said, 



'in blindness and darkness, and be accursed 



for ever' . . . and that is why the bat (the 



triollachan dhorchadas, 'the little waverer of 



the dark,' or triollachan fhcasgair, or little 



waverer of the dusk, as a more merciful 



legend has it) flies as he does, maimed, blind, 



accursed and feared, and shrieking in his 



phantom voice Gu la bais ! Gu la' baisf 



('till the day of death' . . . i.e., the Last 



Day). 



In some parts of Argyll the bat is said to 



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