Elizabeth Andrews reports a widespread belief throughout Ireland that the Danes made heather beer and that the secret died with them. An old woman at the foot of the Mourne Mountains told her that the Danes had the land in old times, but were at last conquered, and only a father and son remained alive. When pressed to reveal how heather beer was made, the father said, 'Kill my son and I will tell you our secret.' When the son was killed he cried, 'Kill me also, but our secret you shall never know.'
Andrews says that a similar story is known in Scotland, told of the Picts, and that she heard the story in Down, Kerry, Donegal and Antrim, always with a father and son as the last of the Danes. She takes the Danes of the folk tradition to be a reminiscence of an older people.
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