Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology. 2 43 



' paying " for it with a stone from the ballast or some other object of little or 

 no value ; giving fire out of a house on May Day, and taking a holy stone 

 from Caher Island. 



For luck, bonfires are lighted on St. John's Eve, and people make the sun- 

 ward turn round them seven times in the name of the Trinity ; cinders from 

 the fire are thrown into the potato field to ensure a good crop ; a small offering 

 of a pin, button, rag, fish-hook, or even pebble should be offered on visiting 

 Caher Island, and the iishermen used to take off their hats and reverence 

 St. Patrick on passing it. Of the " good people " or " gentry," i.e., fairies, 

 firm belief subsists. Dr. Browne met a man who had seen over 100 fairies 

 dressed in white, running on a mountain-side in the spring of 1896 ; other 

 people had rescued a child from them. Fairies are mischievous beings— the 

 least wicked of the fallen angels — allowed to haunt the earth till the Day of 

 Doom. They steal new-born children and injure (or even mutilate) cattle ; 1 

 women, children, and cows are protected from them by tying on a red cord. 

 They produce the Will-o'-the-Wisp, the mirage, fairy islands, and phantom 

 ships in which they sail over the islands. 3 Seals, too, are thought to be 

 enchanted people, and to have stolen a girl from Bofin. If, however, one is 

 shot, the following days are sure to be stormy. These animals do not like to 

 meet a priest, and plunge into the sea if they see a man in a black coat. 

 Ghosts are feared, but little is known about them ; the puca infests a lake on 

 Gliara, and gives its name to Foheraphuca near Dugort, in Achill, and the 

 banshee is not unknown in Inishbofin. Blacksmiths are believed to have 

 dangerous powers of cursing, especially by turning the anvil. Another 

 evil rite is fasting for several days and boring a hole in a coin in the name 

 of the devil, uttering an evil wish against a person. This is believed to be 

 of deadly efficacy and is much reprobated. 3 Of cures (beside those wrought 

 at Toberfelabreed, Caher Island, and Clochan Leo, on Inishark), head-measur- 

 ing closes the skull and so cures headache. Herbal cures are in repute 

 (usually nine herbs are boiled in milk), while the curative power of butter for 

 erysipelas is well established in popular pharmacy. Sick cattle are cured by 



1 See Otway, " Erris and Tyrawley," pp. 33, 72-77. 



2 See ibid., pp. 94, 95, for electrical phenomena and luminous insects on the west coast of this 

 country. Mr. Henri saw a ball of fire on his flagstaff like the St. Elmo's fire. 



3 The horrible superstition of the " spancel, " an unbroken ring of skin cut off from round a dead 

 body, seems to have been confined to the Cross and Termon Carra district before 1840 (see Otway, 

 " Erris," p. 90) : " "We have strooke hands to league with Death and made covenant with Hell." 

 So also the " Cashlaun flaineen," which I have had the good fortune to photograph on Galway Bay, 

 where it is still used as a fisluDg charm, was believed to wreck vessels in North Mayo in 1839 (" Erris," 

 p. 3s9). The " Caslaau Pleminliiu" was a miniature castle of nine stones with its doorin thedirection 

 from which the wind was desired ; in Co. Galway it is a miniature dry-stone fort of about 20 stones. 

 See my photograph, Proc. R. I. Acad., vol. vi, ser. iii, plate xxiii. 



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