LEGENDS OF THE COUNTY CLARE.
About two miles from the village of Corofin, in the west of Clare, are the ruins of the Castle of Ballyportree, consisting of a massive square tower surrounded by a wall, at the corners of which are smaller round towers: the outer wall was also surrounded by a ditch. The castle is still so far perfect that the lower part is inhabited by a farmer's family; and in some of the upper rooms are still remaining massive chimney-pieces of grey limestone, of a very modern form, the horizontal portions of which are ornamented with a quatrefoil ornament engraved within a circle, but there are no dates or armorial bearings: from the windows of the castle four others are visible, none of them more than two miles from each other; and a very large cromlech is within a few yards of the castle ditch. The following legend is related of the castle:—When the Danes were building the castle (the Danes were the great builders, as Oliver Cromwell was the great destroyer of all the old castles, abbeys, &c. in Ireland),—when the Danes were building the Castle of Ballyportree, they collected workmen from all quarters, and forced them to labour night and day without stopping for rest or food; and according as any of them fell down from exhaustion, his body was thrown upon the wall, which was built up over him! When
the castle was finished, its inhabitants tyrannised over the whole country, until the time arrived when the Danes were finally expelled from Ireland. Ballyportree Castle held out to the last, but at length it was taken after a fierce resistance, only three of the garrison being found alive, who proved to be a father and his two sons; the infuriated conquerors were about to kill them also, when one of then proposed that their lives should be spared, and a free passage to their own country given them, on condition that they taught the Irishmen how to brew the famous ale from the heather—that secret so eagerly coveted by the Irish, and so zealously guarded by the Danes. At first neither promises nor threats had any effect on the prisoners, but at length the elder warrior consented to tell the secret on condition that his two sons should first be put to death before his eyes, alleging his fear, that when he returned to his own country, they might cause him to be put to death for betraying the secret. Though somewhat surprised at his request, the Irish chieftains immediately complied with it, and the young men were slain. Then the old warrior exclaimed, "Fools! I saw that your threats and your promises were beginning to influence my sons; for they were but boys, and might have yielded: but now the secret is safe, your threats or your promises have no effect on me!" Enraged at their disappointment, the Irish soldiers hewed the stern northman in pieces, and the coveted secret is still unrevealed.
In the South of Scotland a legend, almost word for word the same as the above, is told of an old castle there, with the exception that, instead of Danes, the old warrior and his sons are called Pechts. After the slaughter of his sons the old man's eyes are put out, and he is left to drag on a miserable existence: he lives to an immense old age, and one day, when all the generation that fought with him have passed away, he hears the young men celebrating the feats of strength performed by one of their number; the old Pecht asks for the victor, and requests him to let him feel his wrist; the young man feigns compliance with his request, but places an iron crow-bar in the old man's hand instead of his wrist; the old Pecht snaps the bar of iron in two with his fingers, remarking quietly to the astounded spectators, that "it is a gey bit gristle, and has not much pith in it yet." The story is told in the second volume of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, first series, I think; but I have not the volume at hand to refer to. The similarity between the two legends is curious and interesting.
Francis Robert Davies.