356 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Kurnai version of the universal deluge-myth ; it also contains a warning of 

 what will happen again should anyone show a hull-roarer to a woman. With 

 this in mind, it is not difficult to reconstruct, at least in outline, the Irish tale 

 on which the prophecies quoted above are based . it would run somewhat as 

 follows : — 



"Once upon a time there was a Midsummer corroboree at Cnanichoill. 



Mug Buitfa was there, swinging the bull-roarer. The voice of the Bull-roarer 



1 iil. and whoever sees it without authority becomes blind. 



whoever hears it bee if, whoever touches it dies. But some profane 



per- •.here, and he So waters broke forth, and lightning 



flashed, and there came a powerful whirlwind, and three-fourths of those 

 who were there perished." 



We b ive to le ive blank in the middle, as it is useless to speculate on 

 what the particular prohibition might have been in Ireland, the breach of 

 which >■ . - this would naturally differ in different 



surroundings. But it may well 1 in Australia, an exclusion of 



women. Die connexion _ rith the wheel does not necessarily rule 



this out : for the Kurnai have two bull-roarers — one large, called I 

 the other small, called rukut t* Tundun's wife " ;' yet women are 



excluded from so much as the sight of them both. There may have been two 

 bull with the magician Mug Ruith, and the 



other with his daughter Tlachtga ; and possibly we may see a hint at an 

 D of women in the smaller instrument in the mysterious 



. lachtga's the Roth Raniach. 



hat Mug Ruith is rather the name of an official 

 than of a pe: - nt of the Wheel " was the particular druid 



on the dnl : . • bull-roarer on ceremonial occas: 



leatinj [*.S lition, ii, 320) bear- this 



out. Mng Ruith la a water-finder, and we are told that 



he lived dur: . .ineteen kings: a passage most easily explained 



he functionary called U _ . lith " was referred to in 



md that the ' official historians " 



nal name. In the passage in Keating we aie told that 



M . : lith threw into the air a magic spear (g» and where it fell 



•vater b lis a record of the use of the divining 



rod? 



We uow :•;* the -L'nificance of the statement that St. Ibar was "like 

 John the L who founded the monastery came to 



Beg Eire, that island was the scene of Midsummer ceremonies. 



ed in Haudon, oj>. cit., p. 313. 



