P. W. Joyce recorded the legend in 1870 in The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places. Of Slaghtaverty in the parish of Errigal, he said its name meant the sepulchral monument of the abhartach or dwarf. This dwarf was a magician and a dreadful tyrant who was at last vanquished and slain by a neighbouring chieftain, some say Fionn Mac Cumhail. He was buried standing, but the very next day he appeared again in his old haunts, more cruel than before. The chief killed him a second time and buried him as before, but he escaped again and spread terror through the country.
Later versions name the chieftain Cathan, say Abhartach demanded bowls of his subjects' blood, and add that a wise man, a druid or a holy figure, told the chieftain that Abhartach was one of the neamh-mairbh, the walking dead, and could only be restrained. He was to be killed with a sword made of yew wood, buried upside down, with thorns around the grave and a large stone on top. This was done and he did not rise again. Spirited Isle adds that the thorn branches took root as the lone hawthorn that stands at the site.
The grave, a dolmen of one large and two small stones under a hawthorn, is known locally as the Giant's Grave and lies in the townland of Slaghtaverty near Garvagh. Spirited Isle says that in 1997 an attempt to cut the tree was followed by failing machinery and an injury, a story I could not verify. Some modern writers link the legend to Bram Stoker's Dracula; that is conjecture. The monument is on private land and legally protected.
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