The Comb of the Bean-Tighe (Lough Gur, Co. Limerick)

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comb

Editor’s Note: Count John de Salis gave these legends and they were written out by Evans-Wentz with the help of Rev J.F. Lynch

The Bean-tighe, the fairy housekeeper of the enchanted submerged castle of the Earl of Desmond, is supposed to appear sitting on an ancient earthen monument shaped like a great chair and hence called Suidheachan, the ‘Housekeeper’s Little Seat,’ on Knock Adoon (Hill of the Fort), which juts out into the Lough. The Bean-tighe, as I have heard an old peasant tell the tale, was once asleep on her Seat, when the Buachailleen or ‘Little Herd Boy’ stole her golden comb. When the Bean-tighe awoke and saw what had happened, she cast a curse upon the cattle of the Buachailleen, and soon all of them were dead, and then the ‘Little Herd Boy’ himself died, but before his death he ordered the golden comb to be cast into the Lough. Evans-Wentz 81-82

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