[628] _LU_ 2_a_. Of Eochaid is told a variant of the Midas story--the discovery of his horse's ears. This is also told of Labraid Lore (_RC_ ii. 98; Kennedy, 256) and of King Marc'h in Brittany and in Wales (Le Braz, ii. 96; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ 233). Other variants are found in non-Celtic regions, so the story has no mythological significance on Celtic ground.
[630] Campbell, _WHT_ iv. 300 f.; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 284; Waldron, _Isle of Man_, 147.
[631] Macdougall, 296; Campbell, _Superstitions_, 195. For the Uruisg as Brownie, see _WHT_ ii. 9; Graham, _Scenery of Perthshire_, 19.
[632] Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ ii. 431, 469, _HL_, 592; _Book of Taliesin_, vii. 135.
[633] Sébillot, ii. 340; _LL_ 165; _IT_ i. 699.
[635] See Pughe, _The Physicians of Myddfai_, 1861 (these were descendants of a water-fairy); Rh[^y]s, _Y Cymmrodor_, iv. 164; Hartland, _Arch. Rev._ i. 202. Such water-gods with lovely daughters are known in most mythologies--the Greek Nereus and the Nereids, the Slavonic Water-king, and the Japanese god Ocean-Possessor (Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, 148; Chamberlain, _Ko-ji-ki_, 120). Manannan had nine daughters (Wood-Martin, i. 135).
[636] Sébillot, ii. 338, 344; Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 243; Henderson, _Folk-Lore of the N. Counties_, 262. Cf. the rhymes, "L'Arguenon veut chaque année son poisson," the "fish" being a human victim, and
"Blood-thirsty Dee Each year needs three, But bonny Don, She needs none."
[638] _Rendes Dindsenchas_, _RC_ xv. 315, 457. Other instances of punishment following misuse of a well are given in Sébillot, ii. 192; Rees, 520, 523. An Irish lake no longer healed after a hunter swam his mangy hounds through it (Joyce, _PN_ ii. 90). A similar legend occurs with the Votiaks, one of whose sacred lakes was removed to its present position because a woman washed dirty clothes in it (_L'Anthropologie_, xv. 107).
[640] Girald. Cambr. _Itin. Hib._ ii. 9; Joyce, _OCR_ 97; Kennedy, 281; O'Grady, i. 233; Skene, ii. 59; Campbell, _WHT_ ii. 147. The waters often submerge a town, now seen below the waves--the town of Is in Armorica (Le Braz, i. p. xxxix), or the towers under Lough Neagh. In some Welsh instances a man is the culprit (Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ i. 379). In the case of Lough Neagh the keeper of the well was Liban, who lived on in the waters as a mermaid. Later she was caught and received the baptismal name of Muirghenn, "sea-birth." Here the myth of a water-goddess, said to have been baptized, is attached to the legend of the careless guardian of a spring, with whom she is identified (O'Grady, ii. 184, 265).