The Tipperary Antiquarian

By Darkone CC BY-SA 2.0 The first time I ever heard of Hag-stones was this year. They are more commonly known as Adder stones and described on wikipedia as follows: " An adder stone is a type of stone, usually glassy, with a naturally occurring hole through it. Such stones have been discovered by archaeologists in both Britain and Egypt ."  In Britain they are also called hag stones , [1] witch stones , serpent's eggs , snake's eggs , or Glain Neidr in Wales , milpreve in Cornwall , adderstanes in the south of Scotland and Gloine nan Druidh ("Druids' glass" in Scottish Gaelic ) in the north. In Germany they are called Hühnergötter ("chicken gods"). In Egypt they are called aggry or aggri . Adder stones were believed to have magical powers such as protection against eye diseases or evil charms, preventing nightmares , curing whooping cough , the ability to see through fairy or witch disguises and traps if looked at ...

Leaba na Muice or the Black Pig's Bed on the edge of Lough Gur in Limerick from the archives (circa 2006). "Leaba na Muice" is supposed to have been the abode of a famous black pig which did considerable damage to all other animals - especially cows - in the neighbourhood. This famous animal was of considerable size and was fery ferocious and often "mangled" other animals much larger than herself. Finally the people became exasperated and decided to take the offensive against this destructive animal. The "Clarion Call" went forth and the people armed with forks, knives and patches assembled on Cnoc Aine which would be about 4 miles from the abode of  the Black Pig. The people were not sure where she had her headquarters as she was often seen miles away from "leaba na muice", and hence they decided to comb the whole district for her. They even knew of three other haunts where they expected she might be. One of those haunts was co...

  EDIT: I wrote this post based on secondary sources that had taken information by Hervey Morres as being accurate. In the post I wondered was this effigy (pictured) - Geoffrey De Marsico as outlined in Morres's book (see pg 334 of the Google book version). However the table tomb that the sketch shows no longer exists (and likely never did). Manning in his piece in History Ireland states "A print of the effigy of a knight at Hospital, Co. Limerick, from Morres’s 1828 book. He added the fictitious tomb surrounds with the de Montmorency arms, and further embellished the print by adding an inscription to the base of the tomb surround." https://www.historyireland.com/hervey-morres-and-the-montmorency-imposture/ Some reputable sources such as Hunt's Irish Medieval Sculpture Figures records the effigy as De Marisco and so does the Trinity website. http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/38941/ertk2167.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y The SMR note on archa...