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XIV. 



THE BLACK PIG'S DYKE: THE ANCIENT BOUNDAEY 

 EOETIFICATION OF ULADH. 



By W. F. DE VISMES KANE, M.A., M.E.I.A. 

 (Plate XVI.) 



[Read February 22. Ordered for Publicatiou March 24. Published May 11, 1909.] 



During the summer of 1907 I interested myself in the progress of the 

 Ordnance Survey work in the Co. Monaghan, with the object of getting the 

 ancient remains which survive correctly entered on the new maps. I found 

 that the officers in charge of the Survey had given directions to mark the site 

 of all ancient structures. There is a district about 4 miles square lying 

 between Eossmore Park and the southern boundary of the barony of Dartrey, 

 as well as a contiguous portion of the barony of Farney, which has a considerable 

 number of giants' graves and cromlechs, most of which, however, have been 

 destroyed by the peasantry. But my attention was especially arrested by 

 the vestiges of a great embankment and ditch running along the county verge, 

 most of which has been levelled, but sections of which still remain in fair 

 condition, and challenge notice by their huge size. Further inquiry showed 

 that isolated lengths existed also near Culloville, in the east, as well as here 

 in the parish of Currin, in the west end of the county. The names attached 

 to the earthwork are strange. " The Black Pig's Eace," or " Eut," or "Valley " 

 (gle^rin u^ muice "ouilDe), and the "Worm Ditch," or "Dyke." The legends 

 attached to the former name are very grotesque; and their main drift is that a 

 magical pig, originally from Meath, raged westward through Ireland, and tore 

 up this deep furrow with its snout. 



The Worm or pei]'c was a dragon whose folds left the sinuous track over 

 hill and dale. Later on the various legends will be given ; but their value 

 mainly consists in their almost universal reference to Meath as connected 

 somehow with the origin of the Ditch; as also the fact of supernatural 

 agencies being introduced to explain its origin, which is a token of great 

 antiquity. An analogous testimony is offered by the appellation of " Wayland 

 Smith's Cave," attached to a certain conspicuous cromlech in England. This 

 is a corruption of " Welandes Smithan," or the Saxon " Vulcan's Smithy," an 



R. I. A. PROC, VOL. XXVII., SECT. C. [45] 



