From the same source I had _dealan-dhu bais_, the little black flame (or flash) of death, and a still stranger note to the effect that bats are the offspring of lightning and smitten trees: the connection being more obvious to Gaelic ears, because _dealan-bàs_ is one of the names of lightning. The other name I heard as a child, and it long puzzled me. _Beuban-an-Athar-Uaibhreach:_ literally, the malformed one of the Haughty Father. Now why should the bat be called _beuban_, a thing spoiled, wilfully malformed? ‘An t’ Athair Uaibhreach’ (of which _an athar_ is the genitive) is one of the evasive names used by the Gael for Satan ... for that proud and glorious angel, the Father of Evil, who fell from his high estate through inconquerable pride. Why, then, was the bat the malformed creature of Satan? It was years afterwards before I had the story told me, for my old nurse (from whom I heard the phrase) did not think the tale fitting for a child’s ears. When Judas hanged himself on a tree, so the tale ran, and his soul went out lamenting on the wind, the Haughty Father flung that wretched spirit contemptuously back into the world. But first he twisted it and altered it four hundred and forty-four times, till it was neither human nor bird nor beast, but was likest a foul rat with leathern wings. ‘Stay there till the last day,’ he said, ‘in blindness and darkness, and be accursed for ever’ ... and that is why the bat (the _triollachan dhorchadas_, ‘the little waverer of the dark,’ or _triollachan fheasgair_, or little waverer of the dusk, as a more merciful legend has it) flies as he does, maimed, blind, accursed and feared, and shrieking in his phantom voice _Gu la’ bais! Gu la’ bais!_ (‘till the day of death’ ... _i.e._, the Last Day).