eagerly warned of the disasters to which they might be liable for saving anyone from the sea.[1]
There are several tales about storm spirits collected by Lady Wilde and by Otway, but I found none in my journeyings on that coast.
Of the mer-folk, most of the tales merge into those about seals, under which heading they are best treated. A local wise woman, Biddy Toole, near Portacloy, living at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign, used to tell how she got some fishermen to row her to a rocky islet to gather duileasg (edible seaweed, "dulse" or "dillisk"). They carried her out to sea for mischief and to enjoy her sarcastic and witty talk, she being a very merry and pleasant woman. They let down their lines, got a strong bite and pulled up a green "fishy looking child," a boy, in every respect save its colour like a human child. The terrified captor, when all had looked at his "catch," threw back the creature into the water, but, whether from imagination or some other cause, he pined and died before the end of the year, though apparently in robust health[2] on the ill-fated expedition. The fishermen at Lettermullen and Gorumna on Galway Bay tell much of a local merman.[1] He was a drowned fisherman, and more than one person claimed to have seen him. He had long black hair, a flat face, a double chin and webbed hands. Far more attractive seems to have been a local mermaid who came to the more western coast to announce the coming of the three magic cows Bo finn (whence Inishbofin), Bo ruad (whence the "Red Cow's path," a spear's-cast wide, along the coast and the "Borua well"[3] on Ardillan), and the "Bo duff," of which I heard no local legends. She was very beautiful and named "Berooch."
At Inishark low music is heard under the water before an accident or a wreck. The best preservative is for the fishers
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 I have to thank Miss Matilda Redington of Kilcornan for several notes on the subject.
- ↑ Some fifty years since I often heard my mother argue girls among the Limerick peasantry into hope and recovery from some imagination or superstition, a simple "remedy" and much faith sufficed.
- ↑ "Brian Boru's well" is a surveyor's "little learning" foisted on to the maps both in Ardillan and near Corofin, Co. Clare.
