Clare Island Survey — History and Archaeology . £ 59 



in the hills, and threw down showers of fish to tempt the inhabitants to eat 

 the fairy food. A man who belonged to a confraternity was once " going- by 

 the rath side " of some unnamed fort, when a fairy man, with a long nagger 

 (iris leaf), met him and struck him on the face. The mortal at once drew 

 his black-hafted knife, and stabbed the elf, who groaned and fell. Terrified, 

 the fairy-killer ran for help, and, on his return with some men, found only 

 " a heap of slime, like what a dead frog turns into, on the spot " — the mortal 

 remains of the fairy I 1 



Mr. Cyril Allies — a member of an English family, who, till his recent sale, 

 owned the island — when out shooting was told that he was surrounded by a 

 number of fairy girls dressed in brown. His quarrymen on another occasion 

 refused to work, as the rock was too hot from all the " good people " in it. It 

 was the custom for old women on meeting a nurse with a child to spit all round 

 them for protection. 2 The other folk-lore items are noted in the Clare Island 

 section of this report, Dr. Browne's Papers, and Lady Ferguson's two books. 



Forts and Huts. 



Sand-hill Settlement, Knock. — Passing the Abbey, we find near 

 the gang-way of tidal rocks leading to Inishlyon an interesting early 

 settlement. There is first a midden of shells and burned stones at the 

 extreme south end of the sand-hills. It contains charcoal and peat, quantities 

 of limpets and periwinkles, a few oysters, mussels, and broken bones. 

 Dr. Fogerty also found a very rude-shaped hammer-stone. Almost due west 

 from the northern point of Inishlyon two huts had been built under the shelter 

 of a low jutting rock rising about 6 feet high to the west of the low crag on 

 which they stand. Each hut was surrounded by a mass of shells, but few 

 occurred inside. The northern hut retains an undisturbed portion of the 

 sand-hill, over 4 feet high in its centre, but the foundation is clear. It is not 

 quite circular, the wall running in short, straight reaches, but curving between 

 them. It is 21 feet across inside north and south, and 18 feet east and west, the 

 walls, as usual, being between 3 feet and 4 feet thick. At 15 feet to the south 

 is a more defaced oval hut-ring 3 feet thick and 18 feet north and south by 

 15 feet east and west inside. There are several other sites to the north of the 

 bay, irregular patches of stones, burned pebbles and shells, but too indefinite 

 for description. Mr. Eichard Ussher found the skull of a seal in one (I think 

 at the hut-rings), but it possibly got there in far later times than the Stone 

 Age. (Plate X.) 



1 Tour in Connaught, p. 396. 



- A. C. Haddon : A Bateh of Irish Folk-lore, " Folk-lore." vol. iv, p. 350. 



H 2 



