"What angry madness is on you, son?" said the tutor.
"Nothing much, my tutor," said Taircheal, "it was the Fuaths who were hunting me;" and he told him the story how he had leaped [ling] from Luachair in his three leaps.
"Great is your leap [ling] my pupil," said the priest, "and it was for you that the angel Victor made the prophecy, and Moling [=my leap] of Luachair shall be your name henceforth from the leaps that you have leapt."
This proverb, "as I've burnt the candle I'll burn the inch," must be old, and appears to have been well-known, for Maolmuire Ua hUiginn, Archbishop of Tuam, used it over 300 years ago, in a poem beginning "Slán uaim don da aodhaire," of which I have a manuscript copy.
[uncial: Tig raoirse andiaidh ró-bhruroe, Tar éir dubhuig tig roinieann, Fuilnge feadh an órlaigh-si, Mar do caitheadh an choineall.]
_i.e._, freedom comes after hard-captivity, after darkness comes fine weather, it is to be endured for the space of this inch, since the [rest of the] candle has been burnt.
I have found another version of the very curious story of the Death of Bearachan. It was sent in many years ago in a collection by some unknown collector competing for a prize in folk lore at the Oireachtas, under the [uncial: ainm-bréige] of [uncial: Seághan Crón]. In this version Bearachan is not a saint but a druid, and the three kings are Finn Mac Cumhaill king of the Fian, one of the provincial kings, and the hound Bran, the king of all hounds. The thing that wailed so piteously outside the door is called an "iarmhar," pronounced Eervar or Eerwar--there is no such creature known to me. The word is used by Keating as meaning a "remnant." He talks of the Iarmhar or Remnant of the Fir Bolg. I have never met the word in any other sense. There is nothing said in this version about its growing large when it got the heat, and the relationship to the Breton Buguel Noz is not so apparent as in the other story.
[uncial: DÁS BHEARACHÁIN NA RÁRDHTE GCLISDE..
Bhí sean-draoi ann, fad ó, gur bh'é ainm a bhí air ná Bearachàn, agus táinig Fionn Mac Cúmhaill agus righ eile d'á fhiosrughadh, oidhche airíghthe.
Do bhíodar ag caitheamh na h-oidhche leó féin ann--ag déanamh gach aon chaitheamh-aimsire o' fhéadadar dóibh féin.