Macalister — Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions of Tarn. 345 



The bull-roarer is a lath of wood attached to a string and whirled round 

 in a wheel or circle. Descriptions of the instrument and of the noise that it 

 makes are contained in Lang's Custom and Myth, and in Haddon's Study of 

 Man, chap. x. It is used by the primitive populations in Africa, North and 

 South America, and Oceania for a variety of purposes, tabulated in the latter 

 work, to which the reader may be referred for authorities, and for geogra- 

 phical and other particulars. In general we may say that these different 

 uses fall into the following groups : — 



(a) In mysteries, initiation ceremonies, and the like: used (i) as the creden- 

 tial of a person of authority; (ii) to summon those who are to take part ; 

 (iii) to scare oft' non-initiates, and especially women ; or (iv) as a sacred noise- 

 making instrument in the ceremonies themselves. 



(b) At funeral ceremonies, to scare oft' spirits. 



(c) As a, weather-control, to make (i) wind, (ii) rain, or (iii) thunder and 

 lightning. 



(d) To drive cattle : it appears that the noise terrifies them. In the 

 Malay Peninsula, to imitate the noise of a tiger, and so to scare away 

 elephants. 



(e) As a hunting and fishing charm. 



The following beliefs held about it in different places are noted by Haddon, 

 op. cit. 



(a) That it is a god, and its sound the voice of a god. 



(6) That playing with ii will invite a storm of wind. 



(c) That any woman seeing it will die (in some places she would be killed, 

 as would a person who showed it to a woman . Children also would die were 

 they to see it. Other misfortunes (floods, scarcity, and the like) are threatened 

 if this prohibition should be broken. 



The evidence for the use of the bull-roarer in ancient Ireland centres in 

 the personality of a druid or magician known as Mug Ruith. This name 

 means "slave of a wheel." As we have already noticed, the prefix Mug gives 

 a theophorous sense to a name, and indicates that the second element of a 

 name in which it occurs is something divine, if not actually a divinity. The 

 "wheel," therefore, is a divine wheel. 



For a deity Roth, ancestor of a elan, we have evidence in two Ogham 

 stones, one at Drumloghan, in Waterford, reading BIB MAQl MUCO] rottais; 

 and the other at Lamogue, Co. Kilkenny, reading (as I have ascertained by a 

 recent visit) severrit (MAyi mucoi ro)ttais. The top of the latter Btone is 



[47*] 



