Note 26 — Chapter VI · The Folklore of the Wells

Professor Meyer has given a number of extracts concerning her in his notes to his edition of The Vision of Mac Conglinne (London, 1892), pp. 131–4, 208–10, and recently he has published The Song of the Old Woman of Beare in the Otia Merseiana (London, 1899), pp. 119–28, from the Trinity College codex, H. 3, 18, where we are told, among other things, that her name was Digdi, and that she belonged to Corcaguiny. The name Béara, or Bérre, would seem to suggest identification with that of Bera, daughter of Eibhear, king of Spain, and wife of Eoghan Taidhleach, in the late story of The Courtship of Moméra, edited by O’Curry in his Battle of Magh Leana (Dublin, 1855); but the other name Digdi would seem to stand in the way. However none of the literature in point has yet been discovered in any really old manuscript, and it may be that the place-name Berre, in Caillech Bérri, has usurped the place of the personal name Béra, whose antiquity in some such a form as Béra or Méra is proved by its honorific form Mo-mera: see O’Curry’s volume, p. 166, and his Introduction, p. xx. ↑