COLLECTANEA.
County Clare Folk-Tales and Myths, II. (continued from p. 106).
(With Plates III.-V.).
Plate III. shows the limestone rock named Cloughlea, the straight gashes on which are said to have been made by the sharpening of the swords of Finn and his band, as I have already described, (vol. xxiii., p. 90).
4. Semi-Historical Tales.
Crimthann mac Fidach, a reputed High King of Erin, had a sister Mong finn (Fair Hair), and was poisoned by her in a.d. 377. In her anxiety to disarm her brother's suspicions and to secure the monarchy for her sons, she drank first of the poisoned chalice and died. The dying king bade his followers take him southwards, and was brought to a flank of the Cratloe Hills opposite Limerick City. There he died, and was buried in haste under a cairn. "Crimthann mac Fidach's poor tumulus" long remained, and the hill was called Sliabh oided an righ (the hill of the king's death). A shadow of the story clung to the king's cairn up Glennagross, but is now on the point of being forgotten. The heap has been nearly removed, and is unmarked on the maps,—a most unpardonable omission. Before 1872 Michael Hogan, "The Bard of Thomond," went to examine the cairn, and found all taken away to make fences except the principal slab. The peasantry called the hill Knock Righ Crimthan at that time. I hear from Dr. George Fogerty, R.N., that the site is still shown.
Crimthann had a foster son, Conall of the swift steeds, son of
