Note 62.2 — PSYCHE’S TASK

Blighting effect attributed to incest by the ancient Irish. According to an ancient Irish legend Munster was afflicted in the third century of our era with a failure of the crops and other misfortunes. When the nobles enquired into the matter, they learned that these calamities were the result of an incest which the king had committed with his sister. In order to put an end to the evil they demanded of the king his two sons, the fruit of this unholy union, that they might consume them with fire and cast their ashes into the running stream.62.2 Again, Irish legend relates that Cairbre Musc “had two sons by his sister. Her name was Duben, and theirs were Corc and Cormac respectively. The children were twins, and the story of their birth is no less strange than that of Dylan and Llew, for one of them was found to have nipped off his brother’s ears before his birth. The crime of their parents caused the crops to fail, which, according to the idea prevalent in ancient Ireland, was its natural result, and Cairbre was obliged to confess his guilt to the nobles of his realm, who, when the children were born, ordered them to be burnt, that the incest might not remain in the land. ‘Give me,’ said Cairbre’s druid, ‘that Corc62.3 there, that I may place him outside Erinn, so that the incest may not be within it.’ Corc was given to the druid, and the latter, with his wife, whose name was Bói, took him to an island. They had a white cow with red ears, and an ablution was performed by them every morning on Corc, placed on the cow’s back; so in a year’s time to the day the cow sprang away from them into the sea, and she became a rock in it; to wit, the heathenism of the boy had entered into her. Bó Búi, or Bói’s Cow, is the name of the rock, and Inis Búi, or Bói’s Isle, that of the island. The boy was afterwards brought back into Erinn. Such is the story how Corc was purged of the virulence of his original sin, and the scene is one of the three islets called the Bull, the Cow and the Calf, not far from Dursey Island, in the gulf called Kenmare River.”63.1