Wkstropp — The Earthworks, Sfc, of 8. E. Co. Limerick. 157 



the Sid" "champion of the cairn," "champion of Segomo," and "champion of 

 (the goddess) Nar." 



Legend tells how Gliu was a harper who came to Baine's Sid, a place so 

 sacred that the very " Book of Rights '" forbade anyone to walk on it " by the 

 light of red fire," like the mounds of Slievereagh, that men dared not sit 

 upon " for dread of the Tuatha Do,''" and the procession with flaming " wisps " 

 at Aine's mound. Cliu became harper to King " Sinirdub," and used to play 

 on two harps at once, whence the mountains were called Grotta Clinch. 



He went to the " Sid of the Men of Femen," where Bodb dwelt, to carry 

 off his daughter Ooncheun. The inhabitants tried to drive him off by magic, 

 but in vain ; so, after a year, the lady Baine lost patience, and sprang out in 

 dragon's shape, when Cliu died of the fright. Hence the lake was called 

 " Loc bel draceon." 3 It was evidently not the place of its name in 

 Westmeath, but the lake in the Galtees, at which Oengus of the Brug, 

 aided by Bodb Derg, won his swan-wife, " Caerib Orineith," daughter of 

 Ethal Anbual of Sid Uamain in Connacht, whom he found with her 

 transformed maidens sporting on Loc bel draceon. 4 The Leabar Breac 5 tells 

 a nearly identical story, but the king is called " Smirdubh mac Sm&il " of the 

 Three Passes of Sliab Ban, and Oliu seeks Bodb's daughter at Sid Femen, till 

 the water bursts up under his feet, and forms Loch Beal Sead, on the mountain. 

 On this " Coerabarboeth," swan-daughter of Ethal, and her fifty companions 

 float ; it is also " Loc Crotta Cliach " and " Loc bel dragan." It is evidently 

 some lake, still unidentified, on the Galtees. Barely in Western Europe do 

 we tread so closely in " the footsteps of the dead old gods " as around Conn 

 Febrat and the Galtees. 



Cuil AND Neciitan. — Neehtan and Nuada Necht are sometimes taken as 

 son and father, and sometimes as identical. Neehtan encouraged the family 

 of Eogabal to settle on Knockainey ; and Cuil, wife of Neehtan, was patroness 

 of the chief cemetery ami fair of the Dergthene, called 'Oenach Chulimna, 

 Nechtain, and 'Oenach Clochair." Neehtan brought the first pregnant cow to 



districts, the word Niu not occurring — yet there is no evidence for a district of Cliodhna 

 near Kmly in the Mairteue territory. 



1 "Book of Rights,'' pp. 5, 21, the present Knockmany, a Bronze Age cairn chamber. 

 There was also a Cnoc Maine near Kilfinnan (Silva (Jadeliea, ii, p. 123), probably the 

 place referred to as Sid Bain in the Cliu legend. Could it be the mound of Kilfinnan ! 



2 Agallamh, ii, p. 124. 



3 Rennes Dind S. (Rev. Celt., xv. p. 441). 



4 "Dream of Oengus" (Rev. Celt., iii, pp. 347-355). 

 6 " Manners and Customs," p. 246. 



The place-name " Sciath Nechtain," where Olchobar, king of Casliel. defeated the 

 Norse in 847, suggests the disc barrow of "Cu Chulaind's shield " at Tara and "Sciath 

 Gabhra " where the MacGuires were inaugurated. There was i "Sciath na lifeart" 

 (shield of tho burial-place) in Roscommon, and another "'Sciath Nechtain" in the 

 Eoghanacht territory. 



