black ram to St. Brendan on Inisglora. The saint rushed at his ghostly enemy, who ran away, assuming his proper form in the flight. The saint, who had been praying and blessing the ground as he ran, was startled and stopped, so the last spots on which Satan sprang are burned bare patches to this day. Once the Devil had the hardihood to appear to a woman in a chapel (I think at Ballycroy—somewhere near Achill), but he explained that he went to the church because people were so careless and the women went to criticize each other's clothes. Demoniacal possession is a matter of practical belief, and a circumstantial tale is told of one case, between Portacloy and Bangor Erris, at Mount Jubilee, about a possessed man.[1] Most of the appearances of the Devil are connected with local saints; he is more usually there, as in the less retired parts of the earth, seen in the works of evil. Despite the piety and usual kindliness of the peasantry, malignant rites have been performed in his name. Roderic O'Flaherty in 1684 records such usage of the Caslán Flainin (or Plemínhin) to wreck a boat; usually it is an innocent charm for fishing. On Inishark a woman went to St. Leo's well because she had been called a bad name by a neighbour. She poured water on the ground in the Devil's, name, with the terrible malediction "so may he be poured out like water," and went round it "against the sun." She then threw a stone at each station ejaculating "so may the curse fall upon him and the power of the devil crush him." The victim soon after was lost at sea in a gale. The woman had little cause to rejoice at her unhallowed success for, as she stood on a rock, gloating over her victim's end, his corpse rose in the water and she was blown into the sea and never seen again.
Another woman, by a similar charm, broke her enemy's leg. I was told of "winnowing weights of nothing in the Devil's name" somewhere in Connemara, but not on good authority, or with details, or the actual place. I see no reason to believe the statement that boys are dressed in petticoats to deceive the Devil as to their sex. The people of Inishturk denounce with horror charms done in the Devil's name by smiths' turning
- ↑ Proc. R.I. Acad., vol. iv. ser. iii. pp. 104-5.
