¹⁴Borlase, William Copeland. The Dolmens of Ireland: Their Distribution, Structural Characteristics, (...). Vol. 2. London: Chapman & Hall, 1897. 553-54.
Quoting a 1660 text by John Picardt, Borlase writes: "also dolmen- mounds, the hollow vaults in the centres of which were, he tells us, 'according to the general belief, inhabited by White Women, and the memory of some of their deeds was,' he adds, 'still fresh in the minds of many old people.' The natives all agreed in saying that round about these mounds a great deal of witchery had of old been practised, and that mournful cries have been heard in them. Also, that these witches used to be fetched by night and day by women in childbirth, and that they could afford them help when all else had failed. They told fortunes, too, and could indicate the whereabouts of stolen property. Some of the inhabitants said that they had themselves been inside these mounds, and seen and heard incredible things, but that they had promised not to tell them. They (the witches) were swifter than any creature. They always dressed in white, by reason of which they were called Wiite Wyven, or simply DeWitter. 'A large number of mounds,' it is added, 'were called Witten for this same reason, although their colour might be black.'" Borlase also wrote of a woman who lived iin another Co. Cork monument, called "Carrick Cliona." Cliona was known as a "loose woman," who was in the habit of attending the market fairs in the area and enticing off any young man who might please her. The moral people of the area tried to drive her out by cultivating her ground with potatoes but Cliona was heard in her mound "piteously wailing" at the desecration. The people then desisted. (v. III, 832-33).