The well that should remain closed
Ecca leaves his father's territory with a large company. At the Boyne, Angus destroys the travelers' horses to force them onward, then supplies a single extraordinary horse capable of bearing their goods. He warns that it must never stop. When the people reach their intended settlement and unload their possessions, they forget the instruction; a spring opens beneath the animal's feet.
Ecca encloses the spring and appoints a woman to keep its door shut. Curnan repeatedly predicts disaster, but the inhabitants dismiss him. When the door is left open, the water inundates the plain and forms the lake. Joyce explicitly says in his preface that he has rearranged some incidents of the underlying narrative for readability.
Source: The Overflowing of Lough Neagh and the Story of Liban the Mermaid — Joyce adaptation · The Overflowing of Lough Neagh: departure, Angus’s horse, enclosed spring, Curnan’s warnings and flood; prefatory account
A changed body and a continuing memory
Ecca's daughter Lí Ban survives with her small dog in a chamber beneath the water through divine protection. After a year she wishes to move freely like the salmon around her. Her body becomes fishlike while her face and upper body remain human; the dog becomes an otter. She travels through the waters for three hundred years.
When Beoc hears her singing during his journey to Rome, she arranges a future meeting and asks to be brought ashore. She promises burial at his monastery. Once captured in a net, she still remembers her father: a visitor's purple cloak recalls the clothing he wore at his death. Her extraordinary longevity preserves particular attachments rather than erasing her former life.
Source: The Overflowing of Lough Neagh and the Story of Liban the Mermaid — Joyce adaptation · The Overflowing of Lough Neagh: underwater survival, transformation, Beoc’s voyage, appointed capture and purple cloak
Who may claim a survivor?
The encounter also exposes human competition. A warrior kills her companion animal, and Lí Ban condemns the act. Religious men then dispute entitlement to her on grounds of territory, capture, and prior promise. Prayer leads to an arrangement in which oxen carry her to Beoc's church, settling the dispute through a sign attributed to divine judgment.
Offered another long earthly life or immediate death after baptism, she chooses baptism and death. The account ends by recognizing her among holy women and connecting her with miracles. Its movement is therefore from catastrophe to sanctity, not simply from human to monster and back. The Christian framework is integral to this selected witness, whose medieval textual ancestry reaches Joyce through historical editions and his own literary adaptation.
Source: The Overflowing of Lough Neagh and the Story of Liban the Mermaid — Joyce adaptation · The Overflowing of Lough Neagh: killing of the otter, competing claims, oxen, baptismal choice and concluding sanctity
- Period / witness
- Irish literary romance in Joyce’s historical adaptation; the consulted printed edition is dated 1920.
- Recording context
- Read through P. W. Joyce’s Old Celtic Romances, a literary translation and adaptation whose preface acknowledges freely recast wording, comparison of manuscript copies, and added chapter divisions. The 1920 print witness is distinct from the age of its underlying tale.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
Explore time & place →Read the sources
These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
The Overflowing of Lough Neagh and the Story of Liban the Mermaid — Joyce adaptation ↗
Irish literary narrative; translated and adapted by Patrick Weston Joyce (1827–1914) · Consulted print edition dated 1920; preface to the third edition dated 1907; Project Gutenberg release 17 November 2011
Edition & rights note