Keeronagh, the Devil's mother

Keeronagh, the Devil's mother

Lough Derg--Mythology--Folklore--Monster

"They here shew a bass relief of Keeronagh, the devil's mother, rudely done on a coinstone of one of the chapels, a figure somewhat resembling that of a wolf, with a monstrous long tail and a forked tongue..."

Philip Skelton, 1707–1787

Skelton, Philip, "An Account of Lough Derg, in a Letter to the Right Reverend the Bishop of Clogher", in The Complete Works of the Late Rev. Philip Skelton, Rector of Fintona: Several Essays; and Juvenilia: Consisting of Truth in a Mask, Etc, vol. 5, p. 19-20

London, R. Baynes; [etc., etc.]

1824

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Public domain

Print edition

English

Collected works

Text

DD_0050

54.6083, -7.8714

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433068205800

"They here shew a bass relief of Keeronagh, the devil's mother, rudely done on a coinstone of one of the chapels, a figure somewhat resembling that of a wolf, with a monstrous long tail and a forked tongue.—It seems this infernal princess, allured, we may believe, by the coolness of the element, took up her habitation in this lake in the third generation after Phin-Macool (when he lived every slender chronologer knows as well as I), and from thence sallying out every day, devoured great numbers of the inhabitants here and there throughout the neighbouring countries. But at length the poor people brought her to terms, not very untoward, considering who she was, namely, to abstain from her customary depredations, on the condition of having one annual victim chosen out by lot, placed on the top of a mountain about three miles from the lake, from whence, such was the force of her suction, she drew him into her mouth, and at one gulp swallowed him. Connon, the grandson of Phin-Macool, that is, of the great Irish hero, voluntarily undertook to be the victim, was drawn in, and cut his way out at her broad-side. So great a quantity of blood followed him through the aperture, that the whole lake looked red, and was ever since sirnamed Derg. But as she had been ac- customed to breakfast on burning brimstone, so great was the heat of her maw, that his suit of armour was melted off, and all his hair and skin singed away, from which time he was always called Connon Muil, that is, Connor the bald or hairless." (vol. 5, pp. 19-20

6 v. 23 cm