Westropp — Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the N. Atlantic. 253 



O'Donnell, of Termoucarra, near Annagh, " Monaster Letteragh " rose, once 

 in seven years, outside Iniskea, and was covered with churches and a monastery 

 and tower. He had seen it himself from the " saddle of Achill " ; a delightful 

 green land with trees, houses, and people "extended many a rood." He 

 added (probably " to amuse the gentleman " in the style of the times) that he 

 had seen a woman come out of a house to cut a cabbage. Mr. George 

 Crampton, an agent, said that it was a " Thalore tha whouy Druidhaigh "' (as 

 Otway writes it), a druid land. It was arable and wooded, with a lofty castle 

 on a mountain peak like Nephin. The fortress was occupied by armed 

 giants sleeping beside their war-horses. Once in seven years a great bell 

 rings, all awake, and the island becomes visible. Its monarch " Muiganoch 

 Faigh Eee," " King of the three kingdoms behind " (Ireland), can be ques- 

 tioned as to untold heaps of gold, but at the least error in the questions the 

 Icing vanishes in mocking laughter, or in thunder. Watty 0' Kelly one 

 time invoked the king, from the cliff opposite Eagle Island, to restore him a 

 lost calf ; but he blessed himself, instead of the king, and the proud ruler " of 

 three kingdoms, each three times larger than Ireland," cursed, and vanished 

 in a peal of thunder. One Barrett, then living in the Mullet, embarked in 

 his boat with a " coal of fire," pursuing the elusive laiid for " forty " days till 

 the coal went out, so he could not disenchant it.^ I heard of Monaster Ladra 

 in North Mayo, but am unable to separate the beliefs about it and the Great 

 Sunken Land so far as collected by myself. It (Edye Eock) is 1| fathoms deep. 

 The Sunken Land. — I found no name for this in north Mayo save when 

 it was confused with Manister Ladra. Belief in it prevailed in north Erris 

 and Tirawley from DunminuUa to Downpatrick. In 1839 it was said to 

 extend from near Teelin to the Stags of Broadhaven and thence half way to 

 America. A boatman knew a woman named Lavelle who saw from the shore 

 (when gathering Carrigeen moss) a delightful country of hills and valleys, 

 with sheep browsing on the slopes, cattle in green pastures, and clothes drying 

 on the hedges. A Ballycastle boatman, a native of Co. Sligo, corroborated 

 this, adding that he had seen it twice at intervals of seven years, and if he 

 lived to see it a third time he would be able to disenchant it. He could talk 

 of nothing else, became idle and useless, and died, worn out and miserable, on 

 the very eve of the expected third appearance. Lastly, Owen Gallagher, 

 Lieutenant Henri's servant, heard of one Biddy Took, who, when gathering 



' I have to tliank Professors Macalist'er imd MacNeill lor- suggesting the Irish form " talamh 

 ala faoi dhraoidheacht." I still seek tlie equivalent of the " Muigaiiouh Faigh Eee." 



^ Otway, " Erris and Tyrawly," pp. 79, 251, 400. One recalls the anonymous Arab MS. of 14S4, 

 called " Abstract of Wonders." (" In Northern Mists," vol. ii, p. 213) "In the great ocean is an 

 island which is visible at sea at some distance . . . but, if one tries to approach it, it withdraws and 

 disappears. If one leturns to the place one started from, it is seen again as before.") 



