ma 
1888.] 285 [Mooney. 
respect to the dead. In Connemara the one who carries in front must, 
when relievd, take the place of the one behind him, and so on with the 
others, so that after the first start each man takes a turn at both front and 
back. In other parts of the country all the bearers ar relievd at the same 
time. Shoulda man fall while carrying the coffin he wil die within a 
year. If there be several ways of reaching the churchyard the longest 
road is always chosen, as it is thought disrespectful to the dead to take ¢ 
short cut. No one should look at the passing funeral from the threshold 
or through the window, but must stand in the middle of the room or out- 
side the door until the procession has gon by. Any person violating this 
rule runs the risk of being the next corpse, as does also the one who 
should attempt to cross in front of the procession. It is also unlucky to 
let a corpse fall to the ground, or to meet a man on a white horse while 
going witha funeral. Any one coming from the opposit direction wil 
turn back and take Zi Coisméid na Trécaire,* ‘three steps of mercy,”’ 
with the funeral. In some parts it is customary, on coming to a crosroad, 
to halt fora moment and offer up a prayer for the deceasd, a practice 
which formerly existed also in Wales.+ In some parts of Ulster it is cus- 
tomary to set the coffin down for a moment on coming to the boundary of 
the farm or garden plot upon which the dead man resided and here the 
caoine is raised again. 
While the procession thus moves on toward the churchyard the women 
raise the icaoine as already described. In the neighborhood of Bally- 
bunion, Kerry, the men, instead of the women, raise the caoine while 
passing through a town, if the deceased was a man of special worth or 
promis. The reason given for this custom throws a curious light upon 
some other Irish beliefs: In the old days, when a young man fel in love 
with a girl whos parents objected to him he raisd his faction and carried 
her off by force without waiting to get her consent. On one occasion a 
young lover, with the help of his friends, had thus seized a girl about 
midnight and was bearing her away to his own district, holding her 
in front of him on the horse, ‘‘ because he wouldn't trust her behind him.’’ 
As they gallopd through a town she scieamd out for help, when the men 
instantly raisd a caoine to drown her voice. The people who wer awak- 
end by her screams heard the caoine and supposed that it was raisd over 
the corpse of some one who had died ina foreign land and was being 
taken home by ‘‘his good people’’—the fairies attached to his family — 
to be buried in his ancestral cemetery. Through fear of the fairies they 
kept inside, so that the lover escaped with his bride, and the custom re- 
mains to this day to commemorate the event. 
In Roscommon, Meath and the north-eastern counties, the caoine is 
never raisd for a child or young unmarried person. Instead of this the 
young friends of the deceasd, of the same sex, prepare what are calld 
‘‘garlands,’’ made by wrapping strips of scallopd white paper in a spira] 
* Pronounced Chree cushmaej na throcara. 
f Pennant, quoted in Jour. Auth. Soe., vy, 425, London, 1876. 
