Collectanea. 477
Clare prince Murchad, son of King Brian, and, like his father, slain at the moment of victory in 1014, is described as "the second powerful Hercules who destroyed and exterminated //zV/i- and monsters."^ It is interesting to note how the deserted forts, even in pre-Norman tinies,* were believed to be the haunt of strange monsters, and to afford an equivalent to "big game shooting " for the local warriors :
"He slew the spectre of Drom Cliabh, And the spectre and serpent of Lough Ree. Fionn banished from the raths Each piast he went to meet. A serpent in the refulgent Shannon He slew by frequenting the "lake.""^
First in importance amongst the peists is the " Cata." St. Senan (about A.D. 500) found that this monster dwelt in Iniscatha, now Scattery, in the estuary of the Shannon, where Finn had killed a like infester. The Cata devoured the saint's smith, Narach, but Senan brought him forth again alive. The subsequent combat promised great things, but ended tamely. The Cata advanced " its eyes flashing flame, with fiery breath, spitting venom and opening its horrible jaws," but Senan made the sign of the cross, and the beast collapsed and was chained and thrown into Doolough near Mount Callan (the black lake, " Nigricantis aquae juxta montem Callain in Tuamonia ").^ In the oldest (metrical) Life of Senan, the peist appears as the "immanis bellua" or "bestia," while Iniscatha is rendered "Belluanam Insulam." The legend is alluded to even in the late eighth-century Calendar of Oengus under March 8th, " Senan of InisCathaig gibbetted Naroch's foe." The story is remembered widely, and among all
•* Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill (ed. Dr. Todd, Rolls Series), p. 187. This curious and bombastic panegyric proves statistically that the valour of Murchad was xirsTrTt^' PS"'^ of that of Hector of Troy, who was seven times more valiant than the Tuatha De Danann god Lug-long-hand.
^ The Normans held similar beliefs. Giraldus Cambrensis gives an account of spectral apparitions in a fort during the conquest of Leinster.
5 Transactions of the Ossianic Society, vol. vi. ; cf vol. ii., p. 58.
- Prose Life of St. Senanus, Colgan, Acta S. Hib., under March 8th,
Section xxxviii. See also Wh. Stokes, Lives of the Irish Saints from the Book of Lis more.
