one?” Dan answered:—

“‘Twas me, yer Riverence, I said that the Hill had hould of Black Murdock, and could hould him tight.”

“Pooh! pooh! man; don’t talk such nonsense. The fact is, sir,” said he, turning to me after throwing a searching glance round the company, “the people here have all sorts of stories about that unlucky Hill—why, God knows; and this man Murdock, that they call Black Murdock, is a money-lender as well as a farmer, and none of them like him, for he is a hard man and has done some cruel things among them. When they say the Hill holds him, they mean that he doesn’t like to leave it because he hopes to find a treasure that is said to be buried in it. I’m not sure but that the blame is to be thrown on the different names given to the Hill. That most commonly given is Knockcalltecrore, which is a corruption of the Irish phrase Knock-na-callte-crōin-ōir, meaning, ‘The Hill of the Lost Golden Crown;’ but it has been sometimes called Knockcalltore—short for the Irish words Knock-na-callte-ōir, or ‘The Hill of the Lost Gold.’ It is said that in some old past time it was called Knocknanaher, or ‘The Hill of the Snake;’ and, indeed, there’s one place on it they call Shleenanaher, meaning the ‘Snake’s Pass.’ I dare say, now, that they have been giving you the legends and stories and all the rubbish of that kind. I suppose you know, sir, that in most places the local fancy has run riot at some period and has left a good crop of absurdities and impossibilities behind it?”

[Pg 31]

[Pg 31]

I acquiesced warmly, for I felt touched by the good priest’s desire to explain matters, and to hold his own people blameless for crude ideas which he did not share. He went on:—

“It is a queer thing that men must be always putting abstract ideas into concrete shape. No doubt there have been some strange matters regarding this mountain that they’ve been talking about—the Shifting Bog, for instance; and as the people could not account for it in any way that they can understand, they knocked up a legend about it. Indeed, to be just to them, the legend is a very old one, and is mentioned in a manuscript of the twelfth century. But somehow it was lost sight of till about a hundred years ago, when the loss of the treasure-chest from the French invasion at Killala set all the imaginations of the people at work, from Donegal to Cork, and they fixed the Hill of the Lost Gold as the spot where the money was to be found. There is not a word of fact in the story from beginning to end, and”—here 

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