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Cughtagh

From the "Second Manx Scrapbook"

The Cughtagh is not now spoken of by that title, but it seems likely that some of the numerous and stillremembered bugganes of the coastal caves were once called Cughtaghs ; for this personage was a dweller in the caverns under the cliffs. The Cughtagh and the Keymagh are coupled (both in the plural) in a bloodstopping charm in Manx 5 -a rare honour, for Manx charms are otherwise consistently Christian in their invocations. The Cughtagh is easily identifiable with a denizen of the Scottish Isles called Ciuthach (with many variants), who in current lore is a nasty personage inhabiting sea-caves, but in the older stories was a giant of a gentlemanly character with whom the Fianna enjoyed single combat. He also figures in the Irish romance of Dermat and Grania, whom he visits after they have taken possession of his cave during his absence at sea in his canoe. Professor W. J. Watson 6 comments upon him in the following terms:
" In view of the fact that traces of Ciuthach are found, one may say, from Clyde to the Butt of Lewis, it is clear that at one time he played a great rőle in the traditions of the West. Among all the confusion of the traditions as they have come down to us, there may be, and probably is, an ultimate historical basis. It may not be unreasonable to surmise that the Ciuthach was a broch-dweller, who degenerated in the tales, and perhaps in fact, into a cave-dweller. . . . Throughout the references to him there runs the feeling that Ciuthach was a hero, or the hero, of a race different from the Gael . . . The conclusion suggested is that Ciuthach was a hero of the Picts." Professor Watson suspects the name to mean a cave-man. The Manx form of the word, as we now have it, appears rather to allude to its owner's uncleanliness, and the name has probably suffered in the Island a degeneration corresponding to that of the tradition. In justice to the Cughtagh, he might be defined as a Fenoderee who has taken to the sea.
In the next number of the Celtic Review David MacRitchie, on the strength of a description of the Ciuthach in a version of " Diarmaid and Grainne " (Dermat and Grania), claims him as a representative of the " Finn-men " who frequented the coasts of Scotland in their little skin-canoes. In that event the Manx Cughtagh, in his earlier and more romantic days, might be recognized in the strange visitor who haunted the Dalby coast and entertained the people with his singing, and from whose repertoire has survived the " Arrane Ghelby," the Dalby Song.