166 SUMMBE-TIDE IN A HIGHLAND FOREST 



lest a refusal should bring some worse evil than blindness 

 upon him, or whether he thought even blindness not too 

 high a price to pay for riddance from his terrible guest, 

 he tore out his eye, and handed it to Aithirne. Then, 

 leaning on an attendant's arm, he bade him lead him down 

 to the lake, where he stooped and washed his gory face. 



' Lo and alas ! ' exclaimed the servant, ' the very waters 

 of the lake are reddened with the blood of a royal line.' 



' Then,' said the king, ' let its name be Loch-deairg-dherc 

 — the Lake of the Red Eye — for evermore.' 



Other waters there are in Ireland named from their 

 colourless transparency, such as Finisk, a tributary of the 

 Blaokwater. The name is a compound of fionn uisc, 

 white water, and has undergone strange metamorphosis 

 in the metropolis of Ireland. Where the great pillar 

 stands outside the grounds of the Vice-regal Lodge there 

 springs a clear, bubbling source, which flows as a rivulet 

 through the Zoological Gardens. Fionn uisc [feen isk] 

 the Erse called it of old — the clear water — which, when 

 the English conquerors set up their pale and decreed that 

 the sound of the ancient language should no more be 

 heard within it, became easily corrupted to Phoenix. 

 Lord Chesterfield confirmed the illusion in 1745, when he 

 set up the pillar aforesaid, crowning it with the figure of 

 the mythical bird rising from its own embers ; and now, 

 most people will tell you gravely that the Phoenix Park 

 took its name from the pillar ! 



Thus, on the Cree (the crioch, or boundary, between 

 eastern and western Galloway) you may still see the 

 marsh which gave its name to Linloskin, the pool of the 

 frogs. The heather has all been ploughed away from 

 Linree (Unn fhraoich), and no badgers may now be 



