Legends of Saints & Sinners. Collected and Translated from the Irish

by Unknown

THE STORY.

[The druid foretold that a man was coming to Ireland who would banish all the snakes, dragons and serpents. The great Ollpheist, or worm, or serpent, was at this time in the pool near the Arigna mountains, from which the Shannon partly takes its rise. It heard of this prophecy and was greatly concerned about its future. It determined to leave Ireland and make his way to the sea before the man came who should have the power to kill or banish serpents. The man the druid had prophesied about was Saint Patrick.]

The story describes the desperate efforts of the great worm to make a waterway for itself by cutting away the hole in which it was enclosed. It was its efforts to escape which made the river Shannon. At every prominent part of the Shannon its adventures are related. As it went on its way, working a channel for itself by which to swim out to the sea, it used to commit the most terrible depredations on cattle and sheep, and destroy the country wherever it happened to be. The adventures of the worm at Jamestown, Athleague, Lanesborough and other places are described. Near Athleague the people, led by a drunken piper called O'Rourke, made head against it, but it swallowed the piper at one gulp. The noise of the pipes was too much for it and it threw him up again, after a time, but it lost several days work at the river. After getting rid of the piper who had so troubled its inside it began to work hard to make up for the time it had lost[85] for it was greatly afraid of the good and powerful man who was to come.

After a week or so O'Rourke was blind drunk again, and he faced for the place where the Great Worm had been before, but by this time it had worked its passage far away from that place. The piper, however, walked into the river, and everyone thought that he was drowned, but one of the enchanted eels was left in the hole and the eel put O'Rourke under enchantment too, and it was not long until they heard him playing music in the hole. But he never came up on land since. Only every morning and evening they used to be listening to him playing music in the hole, and from that day to this there is no other name on that same spot but the Piper's Hole. And everybody in Athlone knows the Piper's Hole as well to-day as the people who were alive a thousand years ago knew it.

The Great Worm went on very well until it came to the place which is now Lough Ree. There was a great tribe of venemous serpents there and they attacked it. Some went in front of it, others came behind it, others came on each side of it. They fought for seven nights[86] and seven days; they made the hard ground soft and the soft ground hard. They sent stones and great rocks flying more than half a mile up in the air. Floods of blood were running as plentiful as the water itself, and indeed people thought that it was the end of the world that was in it. The battle went on for a month without any signs of victory on one side or the other, and the people of the villages round about were in great fear; but as the old saying puts it, every battle has an end. When the most of the serpents were dead they asked the Great Worm for peace. He granted that and both sides were rejoiced. The Great Worm was wounded and bruised and in much pain.

After that great battle, the Worm had to take a rest, and that gave great ease to the people of the villages, because it ate neither cow nor sheep nor pig for the space of three months, but it ate up all the serpents that it had killed in the fighting. It never left so much as a bit of bone behind it, and the people began to think that it would never claim its food off them any more. But so soon as it set to work again they had to supply it with cows, sheep, and pigs once more, because it thought that this was its [lawful] wages for cutting out the river for them. And everyone knows that the river did much good for the country on each side of it; and only for the Great Worm there would have been no river.

The Worm worked hard and went on well until it came to the place which is now Lough Derg. The venemous serpents were collected before it in that place and they gave it battle. If hundreds attacked it in Lough Ree thousands attacked it in Lough Derg, and the first battle was only sport in comparison to this one. They attacked before, behind, and on every side, and some of them made holes under its belly so that they might be able to thrust it through in that place, and such a cutting and scalping and tearing and killing there had never been in the world before, and it's likely that there won't be again. They made the dry earth wet, the wet earth dry, and they sent stones and great rocks flying into the air quick as lightning, and God help the man one of them would fall on, it was a warrant of death for him. They fought for a month without appearance of victory on either side, and during all that time the lake was red (dearg) with blood, and the old people say that this is the reason it was called Loch Dearg or Derg. After a month of fighting the Worm gained the battle. It rose of one leap in the air, and came down on top of the serpents, making a mash of them, and those that were not killed went off over the country.

The Worm was torn and wounded and in great pain after this hard battle, and had to take a long rest. But it never went in pursuit of food from the people of the villages, because it ate its enough of the serpents every day until the last of them was eaten by it.

As soon as its wounds were closed and it had rested, it began working again, and nothing wonderful happened to it until it came to the place where the city of Limerick is to-day. In that place there was a great troop of enchanted heroes near the spot where the Treaty Stone is now. The warriors threatened it and told it not to come any further, but it challenged them to battle. They attacked it with battle-axes and great clubs, and they were cutting it and beating it throughout the day until they thought it was dead. Then they went away. But as soon as the sun went down it came to itself again and it was as strong as it was at the commencement of the battle. It came up on land and went to the castle of the enchanted warriors. They were asleep, and it threw down the castle on top of them and killed every mother's son of them. Then it returned to go in face of its work.