Charts until after 1850. If many people tried to find it and failed, why
should not Kirwan have tried and succeeded? And as to his stretching his
story a little by throwing in a few enchanters and magic castles, there
was not a voyager of his period who was not tempted to do the same.



XIV

THE ISLE OF SATAN'S HAND


The prosperous farmer Conall Ua Corra in the province of Connaught had
everything to make him happy except that he and his wife had no children
to cheer their old age and inherit their estate. Conall had prayed for
children, and one day said in his impatience that he would rather have
them sent by Satan than not have them at all. A year or two later his wife
had three sons at a birth, and when these sons came to maturity, they were
so ridiculed by other young men, as being the sons of Satan, that they
said, "If such is really our parentage, we will do Satan's work." So they
collected around them a few villains and began plundering and destroying
the churches in the neighborhood and thus injuring half the church
buildings in the country. At last they resolved to visit also the church
of Clothar, to destroy it, and to kill if necessary their mother's father,
who was the leading layman of the parish. When they came to the church,
they found the old man on the green in front of it, distributing meat and
drink to his tenants and the people of the parish. Seeing this, they
postponed their plans until after dark and in the meantime went home with
their grandfather, to spend the night at his house. They went to rest, and
the eldest, Lochan, had a terrible dream in which he saw first the joys of