MYTHOLOGY IN IRELAND.

Patea Mail, 26 May 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

MYTHOLOGY IN IRELAND.

In Ireland the nix and mermaid myths seem to gradually pale and disappear ; at least it is difficult to learn something about them among the people. From inquiries my daughter, Mrs. Charles Hancock, made on a recent journey with her husband in Ireland, she gathered the following : “At Dunluce Castle, an old ruin standing by the Giant’s Causeway, I was told by the driver of a car that an old woman had told him that she saw for the space of three minutes, a mermaid sitting on the rocks under the castle. The mermaid lived in a cave still shown, and came up every night to Dunluce Castle, which stands on a high cliff jutting into the sea. The mermaid sat every day on the rocks, combing her long black hair, which was particularly fine. The mermaid had a tail; but ou my asking how she could get up from the cave to the castle, my narrator answered, ‘ Perhaps she flew some!’ ” Here the mermaid has not the Germanic yellow hair, nor the full human shape. However, in this somewhat obscured Irish myth we may possibly trace the idea of an ancestress who visits at night her ruined castle. As to the Giant’s Causeway, “ this spot is so called because a giant at Portrush wanted to fight another giant in Scotland. His wife got a lot of large rocks collected in her apron, and dropped them at intervals to make a pathway across the sea for him. Hence the name of Giant’s Causeway given to these great rocks.” The story strangely reminds us of the wondrous bridge which the IndoAryan hero, Rama, made across the sea to Lanka (Ceylon), in order to battle with a giant. Struggles between leaders in Ireland and Scotland, in grey antiquity, may be the basis of the tale of the Giant’s Causeway. —Karl Blind, in Contemporary Review.