Cirein-cròin

Ceirean,[1] Cirein-cròin[1] or cionarain-crò[2] was a large sea monster in Scottish Gaelic folklore. An old saying claims that it was so large that it fed on seven whales: Local folklores say this huge animal can disguise himself as a small, silver fish when fisherman come in contact with it.[3] Other accounts state the reason for the disguise was to attract its next meal; when the fisherman would catch it in its small silver fish form, once aboard it changed back to the monster and ate him.[4]

A saying goes:[5]

Gaelic Translation Notes
Seachd sgadain, sath bradain; Seven herrings, a salmon's fill;
Seachd bradain, sath ròin; Seven salmon, a seal's fill;
Seachd ròin, sath mial-mòr-mara Seven seals, a large whale's fill (Mial here is archaic; killer whales eat seals, but baleen whales do not.)
Seachd mial, sath Cirein-cròin Seven whales, a cirein-cròin's fill

According to Alexander Robert Forbes, cionarain-cro is substituted for the cirein-croin in different saying, and ranks second to the "great sea animal".[2]

Forbes identifies the creature as a large sea serpent,[6] but this is arguable. He also proposes it as a dinosaur:[7]

It is not known what this monster animal was, though it may well have been one of these "Giant fish-destroyers," so ably, inler alia, described by Dr Carmichael M'Intosh, which waged war in sea and on land against all and sundry as well as against each other, viz., the gigantic Deinosaurs [sic], some of which, notably the Atlantosaurus, reached to one hundred feet in length with a height of thirty feet, and proportionately awful of aspect.

References
  1. Forbes p7; Dwelly
  2. Forbes, p385
  3. http://foxiv-pirates.blogspot.com/2009/01/cirein-crin.html
  4. http://foxiv-pirates.blogspot.com/
  5. Forbes, pp61, 226, 384, 385; Dwelly
  6. Forbes, p384
  7. Forbes, p61
  • Forbes, Alexander Gaelic names of beasts (mammalia), birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc. (1905); available here
  • This article incorporates text from "Dwelly's [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary" (1911). (Cirein-cròin, ceirean)
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