"Thin she said the other charm that called the inchanter an’ he come at wanst. She towld him phat she done an’ he said it was right av her, an’ as she was a purty smart woman he said he’d marry her himself. So he did, an’ bein’ that the island was cursed be rayzon av the king’s crimes, they come to Ireland wid all the payple. So they come to Connemara, an’ the inchanter got husbands fur all the king’s wives an’ homes fur all the men av the island. But he inchanted the island an’ made it so that the bad king must live in it alone as long as the sun rises an’ sits. No more does the island stand still, but must go thravellin’ up an’ down the coast, an’ wan siven years they see it in Kerry an’ the next siven years in Donegal, an’ so it goes, an’ always will, beways av a caution to kings not to cut aff the heads av their wives."
[Illustration: Initial: "How the Lakes were made"]
Among the weird legends of the Irish peasantry is found a class of stories peculiar both in the nature of the subject and in the character of the tradition. From the dawn of history, and even before, the island has been crowded with inhabitants, and as the centres of population changed, towns and cities were deserted and fell into ruins. Although no longer inhabited, their sites are by no means unknown or forgotten, but in many localities where now appear only irregular heaps of earth and stones to which the archæologist sometimes finds difficulty in attributing an artificial origin there linger among the common people tales of the city that once stood on the spot; of its walls, its castles, its palaces, its temples, and the pompous worship of the deities there adored. Just as, in Palestine, the identification of Bible localities has, m many instances, been made complete by the preservation among the Bedouins of the Scriptural names, so, in Ireland, the cities of pagan times are now being located through the traditions of the humble tillers of the soil, who transmit from father to son the place-names handed down for untold generations.
Instances are so abundant as to defy enumeration, but a most notable one is Tara, the greatest as it was the holiest city of pagan Ireland. Now it is a group of irregular mounds that the casual observer would readily mistake for natural hills, but for ages the name clung to the place until at last the attention of antiquaries was attracted, interest was roused, investigation made, excavation begun, and the site of Tara made a certainty.