348 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Old inhabitants who know the lake well affirm that it contains 
just such a beast, and that a strong country lad with his wolf- 
hound once came across it. After a long struggle it escaped ; but 
later, when the lake went down, it was found decaying in a rocky 
hole. The like is also seen in other lakes in Ireland; it is called 
Dobanchu, Anchu, or Water-dog.” 
Thus does the whiskey-heated imagination of the Irishman 
embellish his country’s fauna. According to another version it 
was St. Kevin, with his wolf-hound, who quieted the serpent of 
Lough-na-Peiste. 
i ee a ie 
Crofton Croker (p. 328) describes the lake-serpent, the 
Payshtha, as a great lake-eel, seven ells in length, and as large 
round as the body of a bull, with a mane on his neck like a 
horse. An animal of this description, a sort of dragon, is repre- 
sented on Irish metal and in wood-work of the Middle Ages, 
initials of manuscripts, &c.* 
It is somewhat remarkable that those nations, which, like the 
Irish, have no snakes,—or, like the Scandinavians, only a single 
small and rarely-occwrring poisonous species,—should think so 
much of the serpent; far more, in proportion, than those which 
have a superabundance of these reptiles. The reason may be, 
to quote Tacitus, in the mystery of ignorance—in the excitable 
imagination which loves to depict horrors in the strongest, most 
wonderful form. An explanation may also be found in mythology, 
and the superstitions which have sprung from it. Celts and 
Germans imported serpent-worship from Asia. The “ Payshtha,” 
the treasure-keeper of the Irish, is no other than the “ Fafnir” of — 
the North Germans, or the treasure-guarding dragon of the South 
of Germany ; just as the ‘‘ sea-serpent” which appears periodically 
in the North of Europe is no other than the old Norse ‘“‘ Midgard’s 
serpent.” 
The legend of the banishment of reptiles by St. Patrick is 
symbolical of the expulsion from heathendom of the devil, “that 
old serpent,” by Christianity. The lay of St. Kevin typifies the 
extinction of the last signs of heathendom. Subsequently the 
* See the specimen given in Wakeman’s ‘Handbook of Irish Antiquities’ 
(Dublin, 1858); Worsaae, ‘ Norkiske Oldsager’ (Copenhagen, 2nd ed. 1859, figs. 417, 
505 and 508); Montelius, ‘ Antiquités Suédoises’ (Stockholm, 1873, figs. 424, 511, 
543, 649 and 651). : 
