98 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



named in the ' Bruckee ' legend at Rath. All the versions agree as to the six ' saints ' 

 failing to overcome the monster. I heard that it was 'a badger as large as a cow,' before 

 1894. It was chained by MacCreiche and thrown into the lake. When the other saints 

 prayed, it only ran out and ate and killed more cattle and people. 



" I have never heard what became of the hachall and bell of Mac Creiche. There is 

 same faint traditional idea of their former preservation. For Rath see Journal R.S.A.I., 

 1894 ; see also my Clare legends in 'Folk-lore,' xxi, p. 478, and note. I think the notes 

 in the republication of Archdall's ' Monasticon ' under Co. Clare are from O'Looney." 



Thus far Mr. Westropp. There is a Life of this Mac Creiche in the well- 

 kuown O'Clery Hagiological MS. at Brussels. It has, however, no reference 

 to Inis Cealtra ; but the fight with the monstrous badger is related in detail, 

 agreeing to a remarkable extent witli the living legend recovered by Mr. 

 Westropp. It also contains the extraordinary story already printed in 

 O'Curry's " Manuscript Materials," [i. 630, in which Mac Creiche contends 

 with the pestilence Crom-Chonaill, personified as a monster ; and it opens 

 with a passage which is of importance for the explanation of one of the 

 most remarkable buildings on Inis Cealtra, and which, therefore, is printed 

 below, in connexion with the description of that building (the Anchorite's 

 Cell), infra, p. 135. 



This Life, it may be confessed, gives little support to a theory that 

 suggests itself on reading the extracts above quoted from the Codex 

 Salmaticensis : namely, that in the original story Mac Creiche was the last 

 pagan " incumbent," if we may use this intentionally indefinite term, of the 

 sacred island. For the incident of the tree, still to be discussed, is very strong 

 evidence that the first Christian hermits inherited an island that was already 

 sacred under the old order. It is, of course, only what we might expect, if in 

 the process of converting Mac Creiche from a pagan to a Christian saint the 

 pagan elements of his story should have become expurgated away ; and it is 

 suggestive that in the Life there is no mention whatever of Inis Cealtra, 

 the connexion of Mac Creiche with which spot would have been entirely 

 forgotten had it not been for the casual mention in the Codex Salmaticensis. 

 But may not his success with the " fairy badger," on which all the Christian 

 saints failed to make any impression, have its primary roots in an anti- 

 Christian story, told during the struggle of the rival religions for supremacy ? 

 It would by no means be the only case of the kind in Irish literature. 



The sacred tree, of which on this hypothesis Mac Creiche was the last 

 pagan minister, makes no appearance in the O'Cleiy Life. In discussing 

 this incident, we must keep before us the instructive parallel afforded us by 

 the story of the tree of Lorrha. According to the Latin Life of St. Euadhan,' 

 tliere was at Lorrha a ti/ia, the juice of which sufficed both for food 



' Plummer, " Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae," I, p. cliii : II p. 244. 



