Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

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Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

by Patrick Kennedy

[1891]

http://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/lfic/index.htm

Household Stories

IN this class is properly comprised those fictions which, with some variations, are told at the domestic gatherings of Celts, Teutons, and Slavonians, and are more distinguished by a succession of wild and wonderful adventures than a carefully-constructed framework. A dramatic piece exhibiting reflection, and judgment, and keen perception of character, but few incidents or surprises, may interest an individual who peruses it by his fireside, or as he saunters along a sunny river bank; but let him be one of an audience witnessing its performance, and he becomes sensible of an' uncomfortable change. Presence in a crowd produces an uneasy state of expectation, which requires something startling or sensational to satisfy it. Thus it was with the hearth-audiences. It needed but few experiments to put the first story-tellers on the most effective way of amusing and interesting the groups gathered round the blaze, who for the moment felt their mission to consist in being agreeably excited, not in applying canons of criticism.

The preservation of these tales by unlettered people from a period anterior to the going forth of Celt or Teuton or Slave from the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea is hard to be accounted for. The number of good Scealuidhes dispersed through the country parts is but small compared to the mass of the people, and hundreds may be found who recollect the succession of events and the personages of a tale while utterly incapable of relating it.

In remote neighbourhoods, where the people have scarcely any communication with towns or cities, or access to books, stories will be heard identical with those told in the Brothers Grimm's German collection, or among the Norse tales gathered by MM. Asbjornsen and Moë. We cannot for a moment imagine an Irishman of former days speaking English or his native tongue communicating these household stories to Swede or German who could not understand him, or suppose the old dweller in Deutschland doing the good office for the Irishman. The ancestors both of Celt and Teuton brought the simple and wonderful narratives from the parent ancestral household in Central Asia, In consideration of the preference generally given by young students to stirring action rather than dry disquisition, we omit much we had to say on the earliest forms of fiction, and introduce a story known in substance to every Gothic and Celtic people in Europe. It is given in the jaunty style in which we first heard it from Garrett (Gerald) Forrestal of Bantry, in Wexford.

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Preface

To 'Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts'

THOUGH the subject of this volume seems light and frivolous enough, it might be preceded, and accompanied, and concluded by grave and tiresome dissertations; and if our hopes were limited to its perusal by readers of an archaological turn, we would freely exhaust all the philosophy of fiction in our possession upon them. But from our early youth we have felt the deepest interest in the stories and legends which are peculiar to the Irish, or which they possess in common with all the Indo-European races, and our dearest wish is that their memory should not fade from the minds of the people. They have existed in one form or other from long before the Christian era, and have been mainly preserved by oral tradition among the unlettered.

Taking into consideration the diminishing of our population by want and emigration, and the general diffusion of booklearning, such as it is, and the growing taste for the rubbishy tales of the penny and halfpenny journals, we have in these latter times been haunted with the horrid thought that the memory of the tales heard in boyhood would be irrecoverably lost. To prevent an evil of such magnitude (in our judgment to wit), we submitted some of the treasured lore to the editor of the Dublin University Magazine in the year 1862. Though his favourite walk in fiction, in which he is excelled by no living writer, admits only of the flesh and blood beings of our own times, he was not without sympathy for story tellers and story listeners who could be interested by the naïve and broadly-defined personages of the household story. So the "Leinster Folk Lore" was allowed an appearance in that national magazine, and now, through the liberality of our present publishers, we look to the preservation of a portion of our light literature which would otherwise be probably lost.

If the large-souled man cannot look upon anything human as foreign to his sympathies, he cannot but feel interest in inventions which, however artless in structure, improbable in circumstance, and apparently destitute of purpose, have engrossed the attention of fireside audiences probably since the days of Homer. This leads us to hope for the approbation of thoughtful and comprehensive minds as well as of that of the young, and as yet unvitiated by the exciting and demoralizing pictures of unmitigated wickedness abounding in modern fiction.

The greater part of the stories and legends in this volume are given as they were received from the Storytellers with whom our youth was familiar. A few of them thus heard we read at a later period, and in an improved form, in the Bardic historians and in MSS., some kindly furnished us by the late estimable archaeologist, John Windele, of Cork. No story in the present collection is copied either in substance or form from any writer of the present or past generation. The subjects of some have of course been already used by other collectors, but they and the present compiler had a common source to draw from.

But to occupy the reader's attention with a long preface to a volume of light reading, would be worse than keeping a hungry company from a simple and scanty meal by a prolonged grace. take pleasure or interest in the mere tales, and experiences contempt for the taste of those ancestors of ours who could have relished them so much as they evidently did, perhaps he may be induced to search into the history, and the polity, and the social usages of those easily-pleased folk, and discover the cause of their want of critical acumen. In this case the acquisition of archaeological knowledge, more or less, will recompense the time lost in the perusal of a mere FOLK'S BOOK.

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Jack and His Comrades

Once there was a poor widow, and often there was, and she had one son. A very scarce summer came, and they didn't know how they'd live till the new potatoes would be fit for eating So Jack said to his mother one evening: "Mother, bake my cake, and kill my cock, till I go seek my fortune; and if I meet it, never fear but I'll soon be back to share it with you." So she did as he asked her, and he set off at break of day on his journey. His mother came along with him to the bawn gate, and says she,--"Jack, which would you rather have, half the cake and half the. cock with my blessing, or the whole of 'em with my curse?" "O musha, mother," says Jack, "why do you ax me that question? Sure you know I wouldn't have your curse and Damer's [a] estate along with it." " Well, then, jack," says she, "here's the whole tote (lot) of 'em, and my thousand blessings along with them." So she stood on the bawn ditch (fence) and blessed as far as her eyes could see him.

Well, be went along and along till be was tired, and ne'er a farmer's house he went into wanted a boy. [b] At last his road led by the side of a bog, and there was a poor ass up to his shoulders near a big bunch of grass he was striving to come at. "Ah, then, Jack asthore," says he, "help me out or I'll be dhrownded." "Never say't twice," says Jack, and he pitched in big stones and scraws into the slob, till the ass got good ground under him.

"Thank you, Jack," says he, when he was out on the hard road; "I'll do as much for you another time. Where are you going?" "Faith, I'm going to seek my fortune till harvest comes in, God bless it!" "If you like," says the ass, "I'll go along with you; who knows what luck we may have!" "With all my heart; it's getting late, let us be jogging."

Well, they were going through a village, and a whole army of gorsoons [c] were hunting a poor dog with a kittle tied to his tail. He ran up to Jack for protection, and the ass let such a roar out of him, that the little thieves took to their heels as if the ould boy (the devil) was after them. "More power to you, Jack!" says the dog. "I'm much obliged to you: where is the baste [d] and yourself going?" "We're going to seek our fortune till the harvest comes in." "And wouldn't I be proud to go with you!" says the dog, "and get shut (rid) of them ill-conducted boys; purshuin to 'em!" "Well, well, throw your tail over your arm and come along."

They got outside the town, and sat down under an old wall, and Jack pulled out his bread and meat, and shared with the dog; and the ass made his dinner on a bunch of thistles. While they were eating and chatting, what should come by but a poor half-starved cat, and the moll-row he gave out of him would make your heart ache. "You look as if you saw the tops of nine houses since breakfast," says Jack; "here's a bone and something on it." "May your child never know a hungry belly!" says Tom; "it's myself that's in need of your kindness. May I be so bold as to ask where yez are all going?" "We're going to seek our 'fortune till the harvest comes in, and you may join us if you like." "And that I'll do with a heart and a half," says the cat, "and thankee for asking me."

Off they set again, and just as the shadows of the trees were three times as long as themselves, they heard a great crackling in a field inside the road, and out over the ditch jumped a fox with a fine black cock in his mouth. "Oh, you anointed villian!" says the ass, roaring like thunder. "At him, good dog!" says Jack, and the word wasn't of his mouth when Coley was in full sweep after the Moddhera Rua (Red Dog). Reynard dropped his prize like a hot potato, and was off like a shot, and the poor cock came back fluttering and trembling to Jack and his comrades. "O musha, neighbours!" says he, "wasn't it the hoith (height) o' luck that threw you in my way! Maybe I won't remember your kindness if ever I find you in hardship; and where in the world are you all going?" " We're going to seek our fortune till the harvest comes in; you may join our party if you like, and sit on Neddy's crupper when your legs and wings are tired.

Well, the march began again, and just as the sun was gone down they looked around, and there was neither cabin nor farmhouse in sight. "Well, well," says Jack, "the worse luck now the better another time and it's only a summer night after all. We'll go into the wood, and make our bed on the long grass." No sooner said than done. Jack stretched himself on a bunch of dry grass, the ass lay near him, the dog and cat lay in the ass's warm lap and the cock went to roost in the next tree.

Well, the soundness of deep sleep was over them all, when the cock took a notion of crowing "Bother you, Cuileach Dhu!" (Black Cock) says the ass: you disturbed me from as nice a wisp of hay as ever I tasted. What's the matter?" "It's daybreak that's the matter: don't you see light yonder?" "I see a light indeed," says Jack, "but it's from a candle it's coming, and not from the sun. As you have roused us we may as well go over and ask for lodging." So they all shook themselves and went on through grass, and rocks, and briars, till they got down into a hollow, and there was a light coming through the shadow, and along with it came singing, and laughing, and cursing. "Easy, boys!" says Jack; "walk on your tippy toes till we see what sort of people we have to deal with."

So they crept near the window, and there they saw six robbers inside, with pistols, and blunderbushes, and cutlashes, sitting at a table, eating roast beef and pork, and drinking mulled beer, and wine, and whisky punch.

"Wasn't that a fine haul we made at the Lord of Dunlavin's!" says one ugly-looking thief with his mouth full, "and it's little we'd get only for the honest porter: here's his purty health!" "The porter's purty health!" cried out every one of them, and Jack bent his fingers at his comrades. "Close your ranks, my men," says he in a whisper, "and let every one mind the word of command." So the ass put his fore-hoofs on the sill of the window, the dog got on the asses head, the cat got on the dog's head, and the cock on the cat's head. Then Jack made a sign, and they all sung out like mad.

"Hee-haw, hee-haw!" roared the an; "bow-wow!" barked the dog; "meaw-meawl" cried the cat; "cock-a-doodle-doo!" crowed the cock. "Level your pistols!" cried jack, "and make smithereens of 'em. Don't leave a mother's son of 'em alive; present, fire!" With that they gave another halloo, and smashed every pane in the window. The robbers were frightened out of their lives. They blew out the candles, threw down the table and skelped out at the back door as if they were in earnest, and never drew rein till they were in the very heart of the wood.

Jack and his party got into the room, closed the shutters; lighted the candles, and ate and drank till hunger and thirst were gone. Then they lay down to rest;--Jack in the bed, the ass in the stable, the dog on the door mat, the cat by the fire, and the cock on the perch.

At first the robbers were very glad to find them-selves safe in the thick wood, but they soon began to get vexed. "This damp grass is very different from our warm room," says one; "I was obliged to drop a fine pig's crubeen," says another; "I didn't get a spoonful of my last tumbler," says another; "and all the Lord of Dunlavin's gold and silver that we left behind!" says the last. "I think I'll venture back," says the captain, "and see if we can recover anything." "That's a good boy!" said they all, and off he went.

The lights were all out, and so he groped his way to the fire, and there the cat flew in his face, and tore him with teeth and claws. He let a roar out of him, and made for the room door, to look for a candle inside. He trod on the dog's tail, and if he did, he got marks of his teeth in his arms, and legs, and thighs. "Millia murdher!" (thousand murders) cried he; "I wish I was out of this unlucky house." When he got to the street door, the cock dropped down upon him with his claws and bill, and what the cat and dog done to him was only a flay-bite to what he got from the cock. "Oh, tattheration to you all, you unfeeling vagabones!" says he, when he recovered his breath; and he staggered and spun round and round till he reeled into the stable, back foremost, but the ass received him with a kick on the broadest of his small clothes, and laid him comfortably on the dunghill. When he came to himself, he scratched his head, and began to think what happened him; and as soon as he found that his legs were able to carry him, he crawled away, dragging one foot after another, till he reached the wood.

"Well, well," cried them all, when he came within hearing, "any chance of our property?" "You may say chance," says he, "and it's itself is the poor chance all out. Ah, will any of you pull a bed of dry grass for me? All the sticking plaster in Inniscorthy (Enniscorthy) will be too little for the cuts and bruises I have on me. Ah, if you only knew what I have gone through for you! When I got to the kitchen fire, looking for a sod of lighted turf, what should be there but a colliach carding flax, and you may see the marks she left on my face with the cards. I made to the room door as fast as I could, and who should I stumble over but a cobbler and his seat, and if he did not work at me with his awls and his pinchers you may call me a rogue. Well, I got away from him somehow, but when I was passing through the door, it must be the divel himself that pounced down on me with his claws, and his teeth, that were equal to six-penny nails, and his wings--ill luck be in his road! Well, at last I reached the stable, and there, by way of salute, I got a pelt from a sledge-hammer that sent me half a mile off. if you don't believe me, you can go and judge for yourselves." "Oh, my poor captain," says they, "we believe you to the nines. Catch us, indeed, going within a hen's race of that unlucky cabin!"

Well, before the sun shook his doublet next morning, Jack and his comrades were up and about. They made a hearty breakfast on what was left the night before, and then they all set off to the castle of the Lord of Dunlavin, and gave back all his gold and silver. Jack put it all in the two ends of a sack, and laid it across Neddy's back, and all took the road in their hands. Away they went, through bogs, up hills, down dales, and sometimes along the yalla high road, till they came to the hall door of the Lord of Dunlavin, and who should be there, airing his powdered head, his white stocks, and his red breeches, but the thief of a porter.

He gave a cross look to the visitors, and says he to Jack, "What do you want here, my fine fellow? there isn't room for you all." "We want," says Jack, "what I'm sure you haven't to give us--and that is, common civility." "Come, be off, you lazy geochachs!" says he, "while a cat 'ud be licking her ear, or I'll let the dogs at you." "Would you tell us," says the cock that was perched on the asses head, "who was it that opened the door for robbers the other night?" Ah! maybe the porter's red face didn't turn the colour of his frill, and the Lord Dunlavin and his pretty daughter, that were standing at the parlour window unknownst to the porter, put out their heads. "I'd be glad, Barney," says the master, "to hear your answer to the gentleman with the red comb on him," "Ah, my lord don't believe the rascal; sure I didn't open the door to the six robbers." "And how did you know there were six, you poor innocent?" said the lord. "Never mind, sir," says Jack, "all your gold and silver is there in that sack, and I don't think you will begrudge us our supper and bed after our long march from the wood of Athsalach." "Begrudge, indeed! Not one of you will ever see a poor day if l can help it."

So all were welcomed to their heart's content, and the ass, and the dog, and the cock got the best posts in the farmyard, and the cat took possession of the kitchen. The lord took Jack in hand, dressed him from top to toe in broadcloth, and frills as white as snow, 'and turnpumps, and put a watch in his fob. When they sat down to dinner, the lady of the house said Jack had the air of a born gentleman about him, and the lord said he'd make him his stewart. Jack brought his mother, and settled her comfortably near the castle, and all were as happy as you please. The old woman that told me the story said Jack and the young lady were married; but if they were I hope he spent two or three years getting the education of a gentleman. I don't think that a country boy would feel comfortable, striving to find discourse for a well-bred young lady, the length of a summer's day, even if he had the Academy of Compliments and the Complete Letter Writer by heart. [e]



Our archaeologists, who are of opinion that beast worship prevailed in Erin as well as in Egypt, cannot but be well pleased with our selection of this story, seeing the domestic animals endowed with such intelligence, and acting their parts so creditably in the stirring little drama. This animal cultus must have been of a fetish character, for among the legendary remains we find no acts of beneficence ascribed to serpent, or boar, or cat, but the contrary. The number of places in the country named from animals is very great. A horse cleared the Shannon at its mouth (a leap of nine miles); one of the Fenian hounds sprung across the river Roe in the North, and the town built on the locality gets its name from the circumstance (Limavaddy--Dog's leap). We have more than one large pool deriving its name from having been infested by a worm or a serpent in the days of the heroes. Fion M'Cumhaill killed several of these. A Munster champion slew a terrible specimen in the Duifrey (Co. Wexford), and the pool in which it sweltered is yet called Loch-na-Piastha. Near that remarkable piece of water is a ridge, called Kilach dermid (Cullach Diarmuid, Diarmuid's Boar). Even the domestic hen gives a name to a mountain in Londonderry, Slabh Cearc, [e] and to a castle in Connaught, Caislean na Cearca. The dog has a valley in Roscommon (Glann na Moddha) to himself, and the pig (muc), among his possessions, owns more than one line of vale. Fion's exploits in killing terrible birds with his arrows, the boar that ravaged the great valley in Munster, and the various "piasts" in the lakes, bring him on a line with the Grecian Hercules. And as the old Pagans of that country and of Italy, along with a wholesome dread and hatred of the Stymphalides, hydras, and lions, warred on by Hercules, together with the Harpies and Cerberus, entertained for them a certain fetish reverence, so it is not to be wondered at if the secluded Celts of Ireland regarded their boars, and serpents, and cats, with similar feelings. Mr. Hackett relates a legend of a monster (genus and species not specified) who levied black mail in the form of flesh meat on a certain district in Cork to such an amount that they apprehended general starvation. In this exigency they applied to a holy man, and acting under his directions, they called the terrible tax-collector to a parley. They represented to him that they were nearly destitute of means to furnish his honour with another meal, but that if he consented to enter a certain big pot, and sleep till Monday, they would scatter themselves abroad, and collect such a supply of fish and flesh as would satisfy his appetite for a twelvemonth. Thinking the offer reasonable, he got into his crib, which was securely covered by his wily constituents, and dropped into an exceedingly deep hole in the neighbouring river. He looked on this as a strange proceeding, but kept his opinion to himself until next Monday. Then he roared out to be set at liberty, but the unprincipled party with whom he had to do, stated that the time appointed had not arrived, seeing that Doomsday was the period named in the covenant. He insisted that Monday was the word, but learned, to his great disgust, that the Celtic name, besides doing duty for that first of working days, also implied the Day of Judgment. He gave a roar, and stupidly vented his rage in a stanza of five lines, to the effect that if he was once more at liberty he would not only eat up the whole country, but half the world into the bargain; and bitterly bewailed his ignorance of the perfidies of the Gaelic tongue, that had made him a wretched prisoner.

These observations on animal worship cannot be better brought to a close than by the mention of the cat who reigned over the Celtic branch of the feline race at Knobba, in Meath. The talented and very ill-tempered chief bard, Seanchan, satirized the mice in a body, and the cats also, including their king, for allowing the contemptible vermin to thrust their whiskers into the egg intended for his dinner. He was at Cruachan in Connaught at the time, but the venom of his verse disagreeably affected King Irusan, in his royal cave at Knowth, on the Boyne. He (the cat) took the road, and never stopped for refreshment, till, in the presence of the full court at Cruachan, he seized on the pestilent poet, and throwing him on his back, swept eastwards across the Shannon in full career. His intent was to take him home and make a sumptuous meal of him, assisted by Madame Sharptooth, his spouse, their daughter of the same name, and Roughtooth and the Purrer, their sons. However, as he was cantering through Clonmacnois, St. Kiaran, who, like his Saxon brother, St. Dunstan, was a skilful worker in metals, espied him while hammering on a long red-hot bar of iron. The saint set very small value on Seanchan as a bard, but, regarding him as a baptized man, he determined to disappoint the revengeful out of his workshop, and assuming the correct attitude of a spear-thrower, he launched the flaming bar, which, piercing the cat near the flank, an inch behind the helpless body of the bard, passed through and through, stretched the feline king expiring in agony, and gave the ill-conditioned poet a space for repentance.



Not only can a general resemblance be traced in all the fictions of the great Japhetian divisions of the human race, but an enthusiastic and diligent explorer would be able to find a relationship between these and the stories current among the Semitic races, and even the tribes scattered over the great continent of- Africa, subject to the variations arising from climate, local features, and the social condition of the people. One instance must suffice. In the cold north the fox persuaded the bear to let down his tail into a pond to catch fish, just as the frost was setting in. When a time sufficient for Reynard's purpose had elapsed he cried out, "Pull up the line, you have got a bite." The first effort was to no purpose. "Give a stouter pull--there is a great fish taken;" and now the bear put such a will in his strain that he left his tail under the ice. Since that time the family of Bruin are distinguished by stumpy tails. In Bournou, in Africa, where ice is rather scarce, the weasel said to the hyena, "Fve just seen a large piece of flesh in such a pit. It is too heavy for me, but you can dip down your tail and I will fasten the meat to it, and then you have nothing to do but give a pull." "All right," said the hyena. When the tail was lowered, the weasel fastened it to a stout cross-stick, and gave the word for heaving. No success at first; then he cried out, "The meat is heavy--pull as if you were in earnest." At the second tug the tail was left behind, and ever since, hyenas have no tails worth mentioning.

The chief incidents of the following household tale would determine its invention to a period subsequent to the introduction of Christianity; but it would not have been difficult for a Christian story-teller to graft the delay of the baptism on some Pagan tale. It is slightly connected with the "Lassie and her Godmother" in the Norse collection. An instance of the rubbing-down process to which these old-world romances are subject in their descent through the generations of story-tellers, is the introduction of the post.office and its unworthy officer, long before the round ruler and the strip of parchment formed the writing apparatus of the kings of Sparta or their masters, the Ephori.

[a] A rich Dublin money-lender, contemporary with Dr. Johnathon Swift, and commemorated by im in an appropriate lament. Damer is to the Irish peasant, what Croesus was to the old Greeks.

[b] We must beg rigid grammarians to excuse some solecisms without which the peasant idion could not be truly given.

[c] Garcons, boys. In the ounties of the Pale the earliest colonized by the English, several Nrman-French words and expressions, long obsolete in England, may still be heard.

[d] We are anxious in the expressions put into the mouths of the characters to preserve the idiom, but not always to inflict the pronunciation on the reader. English youths and maidens are re­quested to recollect that the g in the final ing is seldom sounded; that ea and ei get the sound of a in rare: that dr and tr are pro­nounced dhr and thr, and der and ter, when not in the first syllable of a word, are sounded dher and ther. The Irish peasant never errs in the pronunciation of ie. So the reader may set down any sketch or story in which he finds praste, belave, thafe, as the composition of one thoroughly ignorant of Irish pronunciation or phraseology.

[d] Two chap or pedler's books, great favourites among our populace during the last century, and still finding some readers. The con­cluding observations, as well as the body of the story, are in the words of the original narrator.

[e] In Celtic words c and g have uniformly a hard sound: they are never pronounced as c in cent or,g in, gom....

[Fairlie]

THE BAD STEPMOTHER.

Once there was a king, and he had two fine children, a girl and a boy; but he married again after their mother died, and a very wicked woman she was that he put over them. One day when he was put hunting, the stepmother came in where the daughter was sitting all alone, with a cup of poison in one hand and a dagger in the other, and made her swear that she would never tell any one that ever was christened what she would see her doing. The poor young girl--she was only fifteen--took the oath, and just after the queen took the king's favourite dog and killed him before her eyes.

When the king came back, and saw his pet lying dead rn the hall, he flew into a passion, and axed who done [a] it; and says the queen, says she--"Who done it but your favourite daughter? There she is--let her deny it if she can!" The poor child burst out a crying, but wasn't able to say anything in her own defence bekase of her oath. Well, the king did not know what to do or to say. He cursed and swore a little, and hardly ate any supper. The next day he was out a hunting the queen killed the little son, and left him standing on his head on the window-seat of the lobby.

Well, whatever way the king was in before, he went mad now in earnest. "Who done this?" says he to the queen. "Who but your pet daughter?" "Take the vile creature," says he to two of his footmen, "into the forest, and cut off her two hands at the wrists, and maybe that'll teach her not to commit any more murders. Oh, Vuya, Vuya!" says he, stamping his foot on the boarded floor, "what a misfortunate king I am to lose my childher this way, and had only the two. Bring me back the two hands, or your own heads will be off before sunset."

When he stamped on the floor a splinter ran up into his foot through the sole of his boot; but he didn't mind it at first, he was in such grief and anger. But when he was taking off his boots, he found the splinter fastening one of them on his foot. He was very hardset to get it off, and was obliged to send for a surgeon to get the splinter out of the flesh; but the more he cut and probed, the further it went in. So he was obliged to lie on a sofia all day, and keep it poulticed with bowl-almanac or some other plaster.

Well, the poor princess, when her arms were cut off thought the life would, leave her: but she knew there was a holy well off in the wood, and to it she made her way. She put her poor arms into the moss that was growing over it, and the blood stopped flowing, and she was eased of the pain, and then she washed herself as well as she could. She fell asleep by the well, and the spirit of her mother appeared to her in a dream, and told her to be good, and never forget to say her prayers night and morning, and that she would escape every snare that would be laid for her.

When she awoke next morning she washed herself again, and said her prayers, and then she began to feel hungry. She heard a noise, and she was so afraid that she got into a low broad tree that hung over the well. She wasn't there long till she saw a girl with a piece of bread and butter in one hand, and a pitcher in the other, coming and stooping over the well. She looked down through the branches, and if she did, so sure the girl saw her face in the water, and thought it was her own. She looked at it again and again, and then, without waiting to eat her bread or fill her pitcher, she ran back to the kitchen of a young king's palace that was just at the edge of the wood. "Where's the water?" says the housekeeper. "Wather "says she; "it 'ud be a purty business for such, handsome girl as I grew since yesterday, to be fetchin' wather for the likes of the people that's here. It's married to the young prince I ought to be.'? "Oh! to Halifax with you," says the housekeeper, "I'll soon cure your impedence." So she locked her up in the store-room, an' kep' her on bread and water.

To make a long story short, two other girls were sent to the well, and all were in the same story when they cum back. An' there was such a thravally' [b] ruz in the kitchen about it at last, that the young king came to hear the rights of it. The last girl told him what happened to herself, and nothing would do the prince but go to the well to see about it. When he came he stooped and saw the shadow of the beautiful face; but he had sense enough to look up, and he found the princess in the tree.

Well, it would take me too long to tell yez all the fine things he said to her, and how modestly she answered him, and how he handed her down, and was almost -ready to cry when he seen her poor arms. She would not tell him who she was, nor the way she was persecuted on account of her oath; but the short and the long of it was, that he took her home, and couldn't live if she didn't marry him. Well, married they were; and in course of time they had a fine little boy; but the strangest thing of all was that the young queen begged her husband not to have the child baptized till he'd be after coming,home from the wars that the King of Ireland had just then with the Danes.

He agreed, and set off to the camp, giving a beautiful jewel to her just as his foot was in the stirrup. Well, he wrote to her every second day, and she wrote to him every second day, and dickens a letter ever came to the hands of him or her. For the wicked stepmother had her watched all along, from the very day she came to the well till the king went to the wars; and she gave such a bribe to the postman (!) that she got all the letters herself. Well, the poor king didn't know whether he was standing on his head or his feet, and the poor queen was crying all the day long.

At last there was a letter delivered to the king; and this was wrote by the wicked stepmother herself, as if it was from the young queen to one of the officers, asking him to get a furlough, and come and meet her at such a well, naming the one in the forest. He got this officer, that was as innocent as the child unborn, put in irons, and sent two of his soldiers to put the queen to death, and bring him his young child safe. But the night before, the spirit of the queen's mother appeared to her in a dream, and told her the danger that was coining. "Go," said she, "with your child to-morrow morning to the well, and dress yoursel in your maid's clothes before you leave the house; wash your arms in the well once more, and take a bottle of the water with you, and return to your father's palace. Nobody will know you. The water will cure him of a disorder he has, and I need not say any more."

Just as the young queen was told, just so she done; and when she was after washing her face and arms, lo and behold! her nice soft hands were restored; but her face that was as white as cream was now as brown as a berry. So she fell on her knees and said her prayers, and then she filled her bottle, and set out for her father's court with her child in her arms. The sentries at the palace gates let her pass when she said she was coming to cure the king; and she got to where he was lying in pain before the stepmother knew anything about it, for herself was sick at the time.

Before she opened her mouth the king loved her, she looked so like his former queen and his lost daughter, though her face was so swarthy. She hardly washed his wound with the water of the holy well when out came the splinter, and he was as strong on his limbs as a new ditch.

Well, hadn't he great cooramuch about the brown-faced woman and her child, and nothing that the wicked queen could do would alter his opinion of her. The old rogue didn't know who she was, especially as she wasn't without the hands; but it was her nature to be jealous of every one that the king cared for.

In two or three weeks the wars was over, and the young king was returning home, and the road he took brought him by his father-in-law's. The old king would not let him pass by without giving him an entertainment for all his bravery again' the Danes, and there was great huzzaing and cheering as he was riding up the avenue and through the courtyard. Just as he was alighting, his wife held up his little son to him, with the jewel in his little hand.

He got a wonderful fright. He knew his wife's features, but they were so tawny, and her pretty brown hands were to the good, and the child was his own picture, but still she couldn't be his false princess. He kissed the child, and passed on, but hardly said a word till dinner was over. Then says he to the old king, "Would you allow a brown woman and her child that I saw in the palace yard, to be sent for, till I speak to her?" "Indeed an' I will," said the other; "I owe my life to her." So she came in, and the young king made her sit down very close to him. "Young woman," says he, "I have a particular reason for asking who you are, and who is the father of that child." " I can't tell you that, sir," said she, "because of an oath I was obliged to take never to tell my story to any one that was christened. But my little boy was never christened, and to him I'll tell everything. My little son, you must know that my wicked stepmother killed my father's favourite dog, and killed my own little brother, and made me swear never to tell any one that ever received baptism, about it. She got my own father to have my hands chopped off, and I'd die only I washed them in the holy well in the forest. A king's son made me his wife, and she got him by forged letters to send orders to have me killed. The spirit of my -mother watched over me; my hands were restored; my father's wound was healed; and now I place you in your own father's arms. Now, you may be baptized, thank God! and that's the story I had to tell you."

She took a wet towel, and wiped her face, and she became as white and red as she was the day of her marriage. She had like to be hurt with her husband and her father pulling her from each other; and such laughing and crying never was heard before or since. If the wicked stepmother didn't make her escape, she was torn between wild horses; and if they all didn't live happy after--that you and I may!



We heard the following household narrative only once. The narrator, Jemmy Reddy, was a young lad whose father's garden was on the line between the rented land of Ballygibbon, and the Common of the White Mountain (the boundary between Wexford and Carlow counties), consequently on the very verge of civilization. He was gardener, ploughman, and horseboy to the Rev. Mr. M. of Coolbawn, at the time of the learning of this tale. We had once the misfortune to be at a wake, when the adventures of another fellow with a goat-skin, not at all decent, were told by a boy with a bald head, rapidly approaching his eightieth year. Jemmy Reddy's story has nothing in common with it but the name. We recognized the other in Mr. Campbell's Tales of the Highlands, very much disguised; but, even in that tolerably decent garb, not worth preserving. The following avowal is made with some reluctance. Forty or fifty years since, several very vile tales--as vile as could be found in the Fabilaux, or the Decameron, or any other dirty collection, had a limited circulation among farm-servants and labourers, even in the respectable county of Wexford. It was one of these that poor old T. L. told. Let us hope that it has vanished from the collections still extant in our counties of the Pale.



[a] The reader must calculate on finding the perfect participle doing duty for the imperfect tense, and a total neglect of the pluperfect tense, when the story is given in the words of the original teller.

[b] Corruption of reveillé. This and many other Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman words, such as bon-grace, "bonnet," brief, a corruption of ''rife;" grisset, for "cresset," &c., are still in use in the counties of the Pale. Ruz, ''arose."....

[Fairlie]

ADVENTURES OF GILLA NA CHRECK AN GOUR. [a]

Long ago, a poor widow woman lived down near the iron forge, by Enniscorthy, and she was so poor, she had no clothes to put on her son; so she used to fix him in the ash-hole, near the fire, and pile the warm ashes about him; and according as he grew up, she sunk the pit deeper. At last, by hook or by crook, she got a goat-skin, and fastened it round his waist, and he felt quite grand, and took a walk down the street. So says she to him next morning, "Tom, you thief, you never done any good yet, and you six foot high, and past nineteen;--take that rope, and bring me a bresna from the wood."

"Never say 't twice, mother," says Tom--"here goes."

When he had it gathered and tied, what should come up but a big joiant, nine foot high, and made a lick of a club at him. Well become Tom, he jumped a-one side, and picked up a ram-pike; and the first crack he gave the big fellow, he made him kiss the clod. "If you have e'er a prayer," says Tom, "now's the time to say it, before I make brishe [b] of you." "I have no prayers," says the giant; "but if you spare my life I'll give you that club; and as long as you keep from sin, you'll win every battle you ever fight with it."

Tom made no bones about letting him off; and as soon as he got the club in his hands, he sat down on the bresna, and gave it a tap with the kippeen, and says, "Bresna, I had a great trouble gathering you, and run the risk of my life for you; the least you can do is to carry me home." And sure enough, the wind o' the word was all it wanted. It went off through the wood, groaning and cracking, till it came to the widow's door.

Well, when the sticks were all burned, Tom was sent off again to pick more; and this time he had to fight with a giant that had two heads on him. Torn had a little more trouble with him--that's all; and the prayers he said, was to give Tom a fife, that nobody could help dancing when he was playing it. Begonies, he made the big fagot dance home, with himself sitting on it. Well, if you were to count all the steps from this to Dublin, dickens a bit you'd ever arrive there. The next giant was a beautiful boy with three heads on him, He had neither prayers nor catechism no more nor the others; and so he gave Tom a bottle of green ointment, that wouldn't let you be burned, nor scalded, nor wounded. "And now," says he, "there's no more of us. You may come and gather sticks here till little Lunacy Day in Harvest, without giant or fairy-man to disturb you."

Well, now, Tom was prouder nor ten paycocks, and used to take a walk down street in the heel of the evening; but some o' the little boys had no more manners than if they were Dublin jackeens, and put out their tongues at Tom's club and Tom's goat-skin. He didn't like that at all, and it would be mean to give one of them a clout. At last, what should come through the town but a kind of a bellman, only it's a big bugle he had, and a huntsman's cap on his head, and a kind of a painted shirt. So this--he wasn't a bellman, and I don't know what to call him--bugle-man, maybe, proclaimed that the King of Dublin's daughter was so melancholy that she didn't give a laugh for seven years, and that her father would grant her in marriage to whoever could make her laugh three times. "That's the very thing for me to try," says Tom; and so, without burning any more daylight, he kissed his mother, curled his club at the little boys, and off he set along the yalla highroad to the town of Dublin.

At last Tom came to one of the city gates, and the guards laughed and cursed at him instead of letting him in. Tom stood it all for a little time, but at last one of them--out of fun, as he said--drove his bagnet half an inch or so into his side. Tom done nothing but take the fellow by the scruff o' the neck and the waistband of his corduroys, and fling him into the canal. Some run to pull the fellow out, and others to let manners into the vulgarian with their swords and daggers; but a tap from his club sent them headlong into the moat or down on the stones, and they were soon begging him to stay his hands.

So at last one of them was glad enough to show Tom the way to the palace-yard; and there was the king, and the queen, and the princess, in a gallery, looking at all sorts of wrestling, and sword-playing, and rinka-fadhas (long dances), and mumming, [c] all to please the princess; but not a smile came over her handsome face.

Well, they all stopped when they seen the young giant, with his boy's face, and long black hair, and his short, curly beard--for his poor mother couldn't afford to buy razhurs--and his great strong arms, and bare legs, and no covering but the goatskin that reached from his waist to his knees. But an envious wizened basthard [d] of a fellow, with a red head, that wished to be married to the princess, and didn't like how she opened her eyes at Tom, came forward, and asked his business very snappishly. "My business," says Tom, says he, "is to make the beautiful princess, God bless her, laugh three times." "Do you see all them merry fellows and skilful swordsmen," says the other, "that could eat you up with a grain of salt, and not a mother's soul of 'em ever got a laugh from her these seven years?" So the fellows gathered round Tom, and the bad man aggravated him till he told them he didn't care a pinch o' snuff for the whole bilin' of 'em; let 'em come on, six at a time, and try what they could do. The king, that was too far off to hear what they were saying, asked what did the stranger want. "He wants," says the red-headed fellow, "to make hares of your best men." "Oh! "says the king, "if that's the way, let one of 'em turn out and try his mettle." So one stood forward, with soord and pot-lid, and made a cut at Tom. He struck the fellow's elbow with the club, and up over their heads flew the sword, and down went the owner of it on the gravel from a thump he got on the helmet. Another took his place, and another, and another, and then half-dozen at once, and Tom sent swords, helmets, shields, and bodies, rolling over and over, and themselves bawling out that they were kilt, and disabled, and damaged, and rubbing their poor elbows and hips, and limping away. Tom contrived not to kill any one; and the princess was so amused, that she let a great sweet laugh out of her that; was heard over all the yard. "King of Dublin," says Tom, "I've quarter your daughter.'And the king didn't -know whether he was glad or sorry, and all the blood in the princess's heart run into her cheeks.

So there was no more fighting that day, and Tom was invited to dine with the royal family. Next day, Redhead told Tom of a wolf, the size of a yearling heifer, that used to be serenading (sauntering) about the walls, and eating people and cattle; and said what a pleasure it would give the king to have it killed. "With all my heart," says Tom; "send a jackeen to show me where he lives, and we'll see how he behaves to a stranger." The princess was not well pleased, for Tom looked a different person with fine clothes and a nice green birredh over his long curly hair; and besides he'd got one laugh out of her. However, the king gave his consent; and in an hour and a half the horrible wolf was walking into the palace-yard, and Tom a step or two behind, with his club on his shoulder, just as a shepherd would. be walking after a pet lamb.

The king and queen and princess were safe up in their gallery, but the officers and people of the court that wor padrowling about the great bawn, when they saw the big baste coming in, gave themselves up, and began to make for doors and gates; and the wolf licked his chops, as if he was saying, "Wouldn't I enjoy a breakfast off a couple of yez!" The king shouted out, "O Gilla na Chreck an Gour, take away that terrible wolf, and you must have all my daughter." But Tom didn't mind him a bit. He pulled out his flute and began to play like vengeance; and dickens a man or boy in the yard but began shovelling away heel and toe, and the wolf himself was obliged to get on his hind legs and dance Tatther Jack Walsh, along with the rest. A good deal of the people got inside, and shut the doors, the way the hairy fellow wouldn't pity them; but Tom kept playing, and the outsiders kept dancing and shouting, and the wolf kept dancing and roaring with the pain his legs were giving him: and all the time he had his eyes on Redhead, who was shut out along with the rest. Wherever Redhead went, the wolf followed, and kept one eye on him and the other on Tom, to see if he would give him leave to eat him. But Torn shook his head, and never stopped the tune, and Redhead never stopped dancing and bawling, and the wolf dancing and roaring, one leg up and the other down, and he ready to drop out of his standing from fair tiresomeness.

When the princess seen that there was no fear of any one being kilt, she was so divarted by the stew that Redhead was in, that she gave another great laugh; and, well become Tom, out he cried, "King of Dublin, I have two halves of your daughter." "Oh, halves or alls," says the king, "put away that dive! of a wolf, and we'll see about it." So Gilla put his flute in his pocket, and says he to the baste that was sittin' on his currabingo ready to faint, "Walk off to your mountain, my fine fellow, and live like a respectable baste; and if I ever find you come within seven miles of any town, I'll----." He said no more, but spit in his fist, and gave a flourish of his club. It was all the poor divel wanted: he put his tail between his legs, and took to his pumps without looking at man or mortial, and neither sun, moon, or stars ever saw him in sight of Dublin again.

At dinner every one laughed but the foxy fellow; and sure enough he was laying Out how he'd settle poor Tom next day. "Well, to be sure!" says he, "King of Dublin, you are in luck, There's the Danes moidhering us to no end. D--run to Lusk wid 'em! and if any one can save us from 'em, it is this gentleman with the goatskin. There is a flail hangin' on the collar-beam in hell, and neither Dane nor devil can stand before it." "So," says Tom to the king, "will you let me have the other half of the princess if I bring you the flail?" "No, no," says the princess; "I'd rather never be your wife than see you in that danger."

But Redhead whispered and nudged Tom about how shabby it would look to reneague the adventure. So he asked which way he was to go, and Redhead directed him through a street where a great many bad women lived, and a great many sheebeen houses were open, and away he set.

Well, he travelled and travelled, till he came in sight of the walls of hell; and, bedad, before he knocked at the gates, he rubbed himself over with the greenish ointment. When he knocked, a hundred little imps popped their heads out through the bars, and axed him what he wanted. "I want to speak to the big divel of all," says Tom: "open the gate."

It wasn't long till the gate was thrune open, and the Ould Boy received Tom with bows and scrapes, and axed his business. "My business isn't much," says Tom. "I only came for the loan of that flail that I see hanging on the collar-beam, for the King of Dublin to give a thrashing to the Danes." "Well," says the other, "the Danes is much better customers to me; but since you walked so far I won't refuse. Hand that flail," says he to a young imp; and he winked the far-off eye at the same time. So, while some were barring the gates, the young devil climbed up, and took down the flail that had the handstaff and booltheen both made out of red-hot iron. The little vagabond was grinning to think how it would burn the hands off o' Tom, but the dickens a burn it made on him, no more nor if it was a good oak sapling. "Thankee," says Tom. "Now would you open the gate for a body, and I'll give you no more trouble." " Oh, tramp!" says Ould Nick; "is that the way? It is easier getting inside them gates than getting out again. Take that tool from him, and give him a dose of the oil of stirrup." So one fellow put out his claws to seize on the flail, but Tom gave him such a welt of it on the side of the head that he broke off one of his horns, and made him roar like a devil as he was. Well, they rushed at Torn but he gave them, little and big, such a thrashing as they didn't forget for a while. At last says the ould thief of all, rubbing his elbow, "Let the fool out; and woe to whoever lets him in again, great or small."

So out marched Tom, and away with him, without minding the shouting and cursing they kept up at him from the tops of the walls; and when he got home to the big bawn of the palace, there never was such running and racing as to see himself and the flail. When he had his story told, he laid down the flail on the stone steps, and bid no one for their lives to touch it. If the king, and queen, and princess, made much of him before, they made ten times more of him now; but Redhead, the mean scruffhound, stole over, and thought to catch hold of the flail to make an end of him. His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept flinging his arms about and dancing, that it was pitiful to look at him. Tom run at him as soon as he could rise, caught his hands in his own two, and rubbed them this way and that, and the burning pain left them before you could reckon one. Well, the poor fellow, between the pain that was only just gone, and the comfort he was in, had the comicalest face that ever you see, it was such a mixtherum-gatherurn of laughing and crying. Everybody burst out a laughing--the princess could not stop no more than the rest; and then says Gilla, or Tom, ' Now, ma'am, if there were fifty halves of you, I hope you'll give me them all." Well, the princess had no mock modesty about her. She looked at her father, and by my word,. she came over to Gilla, and put her two delicate hands into his two rough ones, and I wish it was myself was in his shoes that day!

Tom would not bring the flail into the palace. You may be sure no other body went near it; and when the early risers were passing next morning, they found two long clefts in the stone, where it was after burning itself an opening downwards, nobody could tell how far. But a messenger came in at noon and said that the Danes were so frightened when they heard of the flail coming into Dublin, that they got into their ships, and sailed away.

Well, I suppose, before they were married, Gilla got some man, like Pat Mara of Tomenine, to larn him the "principles of politeness," fluxions, gunnery and fortification, decimal fractions, practice, and the rule of three direct, the way he'd be able to keep up a conversation with the royal family. Whether he ever lost his time laming them sciences, I'm not sure, but it's as sure as fate that his mother never more saw any want till the end of her days.

Let not the present compiler be censured for putting this catalogue of learned branches into the mouth of an uneducated boy. We have seen Reddy, and half the congregation of Rathnure Chapel, swallowing with eyes, mouths, and ears, the enunciation of the master's assumed stock of knowledge, ornamented with flourishes, gamboge, verdigris, and vermilion, and set forth in the very order observed in the text.

In the Volksmärchen (People's Stories), Hans (the diminutive of Johannes) performs the greater part of the exploits. His namesake Jack is the hero of the household stories of the more English counties of Ireland. The following is a fair specimen of the class



[a] Correctly, "Giolla na Chroicean Gobhar." (The Fellow with the Goat-skin.)

[b] A corruption of an old word still in use--root, briser, "to break."

[c] Jemmy and the editor of these stories had witnessed the rinka-fadha, with the vizarded, goat-bearded clown, and his wife (Tom Blanche the tailor), and May-boys and May-girls at Castle Boro, and had in their time enjoyed the speeches of mummers and the clashing of cudgels in Droghedy's March. So let no one accuse us of putting words unwarranted into the mouth of our story-teller.

[d] Contemptible, not necessarily illegitimate,...

[Fairlie]

JACK THE MASTER AND JACK THE SERVANT.

There was once a poor couple, and they had three sons, and the youngest's name was Jack. One harvest day, the eldest fellow threw down his hook, and says he, "What's the use to be slaving this way? I'll go seek my fortune." And the second son said the very same; and says Jack, "I'll go seek my fortune along, with you, but let us first leave the harvest stacked for the old couple,"

Well, he over-persuaded them, and bedad, as soon as it was safe, they kissed their father and mother, and off they set, every one with three pounds in his pocket, promising to be home again in a year and a day. The first night they had no better lodging than .a fine dry dyke of a ditch, outside of a churchyard. Before they went to sleep, the youngest got inside to read the tombstones. What should he stumble over but a coffin and the sod was just taken off where the grave was to be. "Some poor body," says he, "that was without friends to put him in consecrated ground: he mustn't be left this way." So he threw off his coat, and had a couple of feet cleared out, when a terrible giant walked up. "What are you at?" says he; "The corpse owed me a guinea, and he sha'n't be buried till it is paid." " Well, here is your guinea," says Jack, "and leave the churchyard, it's nothing the better for your company." Well, he got down a couple of feet more, when another uglier giant again, with two heads on him, came and stopped Jack with the same story, and got his guinea; and when the grave was six feet down, the third giant looks on him, and he had three heads. So Jack was obliged to part with his three guineas before he could put the sod over the poor man. Then he went and lay down by his brothers, and slept till the sun began to shine on their faces next morning.

They soon came to a cross-road, and there every one took his own way. Jack told them how all his money was gone, but not a farthing did they offer him. Well, after some time, Jack found himself hungry, and so he sat down by the road side, and pulled out a piece of cake and a lump of bacon. Just as he had the first bit in his mouth, up comes a poor man, and asks something of him for God's sake. "I have neither brass, gold, nor silver about me," says Jack; "and here's all the provisions I'm master of. Sit down and have a share." Well the poor man didn't require much pressing, and when the meal was over, says he, "Sir, where are you bound for?" "Faith, I don't know," says Jack; "I'm going to seek my fortune." "I'll go with you for your servant," says the other, "Servant inagh (forsooth)! had I want a servant--I, that's looking out for a place myself." "No matter. You gave Christian burial to my poor brother yesterday evening. He appeared to me in a dream, and told me where I'd find you, and that I was to be your servant for a years So you'll be Jack the master, and I Jack the servant." "Well, let it be so."

After sunset, they came to a castle in a wood, and "Here," says the servant, "lives the giant with one head, that wouldn't let my poor brother be buried." He took hold of a club that hung by the door, and gave two or three thravallys on it. "What do yous want?" says the giant, looking out through a grating. "Oh, sir, honey!" says jack, "we want to save you. The king is sending 100,000 men to take your life for all the wickedness you ever done to poor travellers, and that. So because you let my brother be buried, I came to help you." "Oh, murdher, murdher, what'll I do at all at all?" says he. "Have you e'er a hiding-place?" says Jack. "I have a cave seven miles long, and it opens into the bawn." "That'll do. Leave a good supper for the men, and then don't stir out of your pew till I call you." So they went in, and the giant left a good supper for the army, and went down, and they shut the trap-door down on him.

Well, they ate and they drank, and then Jack gother all the horses and cows, and drove them over an hether the trap-door, and such fighting and shouting, whinnying and lowing, as they had, and such noise as they made! Then jack opened the door, and called out, "Are you there, sir?" "I am," says he, from a mile or two inside. "Wor you frightened, sir?" "You may say frightened. Are they gone away?" "Dickens a go they'll go till you give them your sword of sharpness." "Cock them up with the sword of sharpness. I won't give them a smite of it." "Well, I think you're right. Look out. They'll be down with you in the twinkling of a harrow pin. Go to the end of the cave, and they won't have your head for an hour to come." "Well, that's no great odds; you'll find it in the closet inside the parlour. D--do 'em good with it." "Very well," says Jack; "when they're all cleared off I'll drop a big stone on the trapdoor." So the two jacks slept very combustible in the giant's bed--it was big enough for them; and next morning, after breakfast, they dropped the big stone on the trap-door, and away they went.

That night they slept at the castle of the two-headed giant, and got his cloak of darkness in the same way; and the next night they slept at the castle of the three-headed giant,--and got his shoes of swiftness; and the next night they were near the king's palace. "Now," says Jack the servant, "this king has a daughter, and she was so proud that twelve princes killed themselves for her, because she would not marry any of them. At last the King of Morôco thought to persuade her, and the dickens a bit of him she'd have no more nor the others. So he fell on his sword, and died; and the old boy got leave to give him a. kind of life again, to punish the proud lady. Maybe it's an imp from hell is in his appearance. He lives in a palace one side of the river, and the king's palace is on the other, and he has got power over the princess and her father; and when they have the heads of twelve courtiers over the gate, the King of Moroco will have the princess to himself, and maybe the evil spirit will have them both. Every young man that offers himself has to do three things, and if he fails in all, up goes his head. There you see them--eleven, all black and white, with the sun and rain. You must try your hand. God is stronger than the devil."

So they came to the gate. "What do you want?" says the guard. "I want to get the princess for my wife." "Do 'you see them heads?" "Yes; what of that?" "Yours will be along with them before you're a week older." "That's my own look out." "Well, go on. God help all foolish people!" The king was on his throne in the big hall, and the princess sitting on a golden chair by his side. "Death or my daughter, I suppose," says the king to Jack the master. "Just so, my liege," says jack. "Very well," says the king. "I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry," says he. "If you don't succeed in the three things, my daughter must marry the King of Moroco. If you do succeed, I suppose we'll be savd from the dog's life we are leading. I'll leave my daughter's scissors in your bedroom to-night, and you'll find no one going in till morning. If you have the scissors still at sunrise, your head will be safe for that day. Next day you must run a race against the King of Moroco, and if you win, your head will be safe that day too. Next day you must bring me the King of Moroco's head, or your own head, and then all this bother will be over one way or the other."

Well, they gave the two a good supper, and one time the princess would look sweet at jack, and another time sour; for you know she was under enchantment. Sometimes she'd wish him killed, sometimes she'd like him to be saved.

When they went into their bedroom, the king came in along with them, and laid the scissors on the table. "Mind that," says he, "and I'm sure I don't know whether I wish to find it there to-morrow or not." Well, poor Jack was a little frightened, but his man encouraged him. "Go to bed," says he; "I'll put on the cloak of darkness, and watch, and I hope you'll find the scissors there at sunrise." Well, bedad he couldn't go to sleep. He kept his eye on the scissors till the dead hour, and the moment it struck twelve no scissors could he see: it vanished as clean as a whistle. He looked here, there, and everywhere--no scissors. "Well," says he, "there's hope still. Are you there, Jack?" but no answer came. "I can do no more," says he. "I'll go to bed." And to bed he went, and slept.

Just as the clock was striking, Jack in the cloak saw the wall opening, and the princess walking in, going over to the table, taking up the scissors, and walking out again. He followed her into the garden, and there he saw herself and her twelve maids going down to the boat that was lying by the bank. "I'm in," says the princess; "I'm in," says one maid; and "I'm in," says another; and so on till all were in; and "I'm in," says jack. "Who's that?" says the last maid. "Go look," says Jack. Well, they were all a bit frightened. When they got over, they walked up to the King of Moroco's palace, and there the King of Moroco was to receive them, and give them the best of eating and drinking, and make hs musicianers play the finest music for them.

When they were coming away, says the princess, Here's the scissors; mind it or not as you like." "Oh, won't I mind it!" says he. "Here you go," says he again, opening a chest, and dropping it into it, and locking it up with three locks. But before he shut down the lid, my brave jack picked up the scissors, and put it safe into his pocket. Well, When they came to the boat, the same things were said, and the maids were frightened again.

When Jack the master awoke in the morning, the first thing he saw as the scissors on the table, and the next thing he saw was his man lying asleep in the other bed, the next was the cloak of darkness hanging on the bed's foot. Well, he got up, and he danced, and he sung, and he hugged Jack; and when the king came in with a troubled face, there was the scissors safe and sound.

Well, Jack," says he, "you're safe for one day more." The king and princess were more meentrach (loving) to Jack to-day than they were yesterday, and the next day the race was to be run.

At last the hour of noon came, and there was the King of Moroco with tight clothes on him--themselves, and his hair, and his eyes as black as a crow, and his face as yellow as a kite's claw. Jack was there too, and on his feet were the shoes of swiftness. When the bugle blew, they were off, and jack went seven times round the course while the king went one: it was like the fish in the water, the arrow from a bow, the stone from a sling, or a star shooting in the night. When the race was won, and the people were shouting, the black king looked at Jack like the very devil himself, and says he, "Don't holloa till you're out of the wood--to-morrow your head or mine." "Heaven is stronger than hell," says Jack.

And now the princess began to wish in earnest that Jack would win, for two parts of the charm were broke. So some one from her told Jack the servant that she and her maids should pay their visit to the Black Fellow at midnight like every other night past. Jack the servant was in the garden in his cloak when the hour came, and they all said the same words, and rowed over, and went un to the palace like as they done before.

The king was in a great state of fear and anger, and scolded the princess, and she didn't seem to care much about it; but when they were leaving she said, "You know to-morrow is to have your head or jack's head off. I suppose you will stay up all night!" He was standing on the grass when they were getting into the boat, and just as the last maid had her foot on the edge of it, Jack swept off his head with the sword of sharpness just as if it was the head of a thistle, and put it under his cloak. The body fell on the grass and made no noise. Well, the same moment the princess felt any liking she had for him all gone like last year's snow, and she began to sob and cry for fear of anything happening to Jack. The maids were not very good at all, and so, from the moment they got out of the boat, Jack kept knocking the head against their faces and their legs, and made them roar and bawl till they were inside of the palace.

The first thing Jack the master saw when he woke in the morning, was the black head on the table, and didn't he jump up in a hurry. When the sun was rising, every one in the palace, great and small, were in the bawn before Jack's window, and the king was at the door. "Jack," said 'he, "if you haven't the King of Moroco's head on a gad, your own will be on a spear, my poor fellow." But just at the moment he heard a great shout from the bawn. Jack the servant was after opening the window, and holding out the King of Moroco's head by the long black hair.

So the princess, and the king, and all were in joy, and maybe they didn't keep the wedding long a-waiting. A year and a day after Jack left home, himself and his wife were in their coach at the cross-roads, and there were the two poor brothers, sleeping in the ditch with their reaping-hooks by their sides. They wouldn't believe Jack at first that he was their brother, and then they were ready to eat their nails for not sharing with him that day twelvemonth. They found their father and mother alive, and you may be sure they left them comfortable. So you see what a good thing in the end it is to be charitable to the poor, dead or alive.



In some versions of "Jack the Master," &c, Jack the servant is the spirit of the buried man. He aids and abets his master in leaving the giants interred alive in their caves, and carrying off their gold and silver, and he helps him to cheat his future father-in-law at cards, and bears a hand in other proceedings, most disgraceful to any ghost encumbered with a conscience. As originally told, the anxiety of the hero to bestow sepulchral rites on the corpse, arose from his wish to rescue the soul from its dismal wanderings by the gloomy Styx. In borrowing these fictions from their heathen predecessors, the Christian storytellers did not take much trouble to correct their laxity on the subject of moral obligations. Theft, manslaughter, and disregard of marriage vows, often pass uncensured by the free and easy narrator.

Silly as the poor hero of the next tale may appear, he is kept in countenance by the German "Hans in Luck," by the world-renowned Wise Men of Gotham, and even the sage Gooroo, of Hindoostan. In a version of the legend given by a servant girl, who came from the Roer in Kilkenny, and had only slight knowledge of English, Thigue distinguished himself by an exploit more worthy of his character than any in the text. He stood in the market, with a web of cloth under his arm for sale. "Bow wow," says a dog, looking up at him. "Five pounds," says Thigue; "Bow wow," says the dog again. "Well, here it is for you," says Thigue. His reception by his mother at eventide may be guessed....

[Fairlie]

I'll be Wiser Next Time

Jack was twenty years old before he had done any good for his family. So at last his mother said it was high time for him to begin to be of some use. So the next market day she sent him to Bunclody to buy a billhook to cut the furze. When he was coming back he kept cutting gaaches with it round his head, till at last it flew out of his hands, and killed a lamb that a neighbour was bringing home. Well, if he did, so sure was his mother obliged to pay for it, and Jack was in disgrace. "Musha, you fool," says she, "couldn't you lay the 'billhook in a car, or stick it into a bundle of hay or straw that any of' the neighbours would be bringing home?"

"Well, mother," says he, "it can't be helped now; I'll be wiser the next time."

"Now, Jack," says she, the next Sunday, "you behaved like a fool the last time; have some wit about you now and don't get us into 'a hobble. Here is a fi'penny bit, and buy me a good pair of knitting needles, and fetch them home safe."

"Never fear, mother." When Jack was outside the town, coming back, be overtook a neighbour sitting on the side-lace of his car, and there was a big bundle of' hay in the bottom of it. "Just the safe thing," says Jack, sticking the needles into it. When he came home he looked quite proud of his agement. "Well, 'Jack," says his mother, "where's the needles?" "Oh, faith'; they're safe enough. Send any one down to Jan Doyle's, and he'll find them in the bundle of hay that's in the car."

"Musha, purshuin to you, jack! Why couldn't you stick them into' the band o' your hat? What searching there will be for them in the hay!"

"Sure you said I ought to put any things I was bringing home in a car, or stick 'em in hay or straw. Anyhow, I'll be wiser next time?"

Next week Jack was sent to a neighbour's house about a mile away, for some of her nice fresh butter. The day was hot, Jack remembering his mother's words, stuck the cabbage leaf that held the butter between his hat and the band. He was luckier this turn than the other turns, for he brought his errand safe in his hair and down along his clothes. There's no pleasing some people, how-ever, and his mother was so vexed that she was, ready to beat him.

"There was so littIe respect for Jack's gumption in the whole village after this, that he wasn't let go to market for a fortnight. Then his mother trusted him with a pair of young fowl. "Now don't be too eager to snap at the first offer you'll get; wait for the second any way, and above all things keep your wits about you." Jack got to the market safe. "How do you sell them fowl, honest boy?" " My mother bid me a three shillings for 'em, but sure herself said I wouldn't get it." "She never said a truer word. Will you have eighteen pence?" "In troth an' I won't; she' ordhered me to wait for a second offer." "And very wisely she acted; here is a shilling." "Well, now, I think It would be wiser to take the eighteen pence, but it is better for me at any rate to go by her bidding, and then she can't blame me."

Jack was in disgrace for three weeks after making that bargain, and some of the neighbours went so far as to say that Jack's mother didn't show much more wit than Jack himself.

She had to send him, however, next market day to sell a young sheep, and says she to him, "Jack I'll have your life if you don't get the highest penny in the market for that baste" "Oh, won't I?" says,Jack. Well, when he was standing in the market, up comes a jobber, asks him what he'd take for the sheep "My mother won't be satisfied," says Jack, "if I don't bring her home the highest penny in the market." "Will a guinea note do you'" says the other "Is it the highest penny in the market" says Jack "No, but here's the highest penny in the 'market," says a sleeveen that was listenin', getting up on a high ladder that was restin' again' the market house "here's the highest penny, and the sheep is mine.

Well, if the poor mother wasn't heart-scalded this time it's no matter. She said she'd never lose more than a shilling a turn by him again while she lived, but she had to send him for some groceries next Saturday for all that, for at was Christmas Eve. "Now, Jack," says she, "I want some cinnamon, mace and cloves, and half a pound of raisins; will you be able to think o' 'em?" "Able, indeed, I'll be repatin' 'em every inch o' the way, and that won't let me forget them." So he never stopped as he ran along, saying "cinamon, mace and cloves, and half a pound of raisins"; and this time he'd come home in glory, only he struck his foot again' a stone, and fell down, and hurt himself.

At last he got up, and as he went limping on be strove to remember his errand, but it was changed in his mind to "pitch, and tar and turpentine, and half a yard of sacking "--"pitch, and tar, and turpentine, and half a yard of sacking." These did not help the Christmas dinner much, and his mother was so tired of minding him that she sent him along with a clever black man up to the County Carlow, to get a wife to take care of him.'

Well, the black man never let him open the mouth all the time the coorting was goin' on; and at last the whole party--his friends and her friends--were gathered into the priest's parlour. The black man stayed close to him for 'fraid he'd do a bull; and when Jack was married half-a-year, if he thought his life was bad enough before, he thought it ten times worse now; and told his mother if she'd send his wife back to her father, he'd never make a mistake again going to fair or market But the wife cock-crowed over the mother as well as over Jack; and if they didn't live happy, THAT WE MAY...

[Fairlie]

THE THREE CROWNS.

There was once a king, some place or other, and he had three daughters. The two eldest were very proud and uncharitable, but the youngest was as good as they were had. Well, three princes came to court them, and two of them were the moral of the eldest ladies, and one was just as lovable as the youngest. They were all walking down to a lake, one day, that lay at the bottom of the lawn, just like the one at Castleboro', and they met a poor beggar. The king wouldn't give him anything, and the eldest princes wouldn't give him anything, nor their sweethearts; but the youngest daughter and her true love did give him something, and kind words along with it, and that was better nor all.

When they got to the edge of the lake, what did they find but the beautifulest boat you ever saw in your life; and says the eldest, "I'll take a sail in this fine boat;" and says the second eldest, "I'll take a sail in this fine boat;" and says the youngest, "I won't take a sail in that fine boat, for I am afraid it's an enchanted one.' But the others overpersuaded her to go in, and her father was just going in after her, when up sprung on the deck a little man only seven inches high, and he ordered him to stand back. Well, all the men put their hands to their soords; and if the same soords were only thraneens they weren't able to draw them, for all sthrenth was left their arms. Seven Inches loosened the silver chain that fastened the boat, and pushed away; and after grinning at the four men, says he to them, "Bid your daughters and your brides farewell for awhile. That wouldn't have happened you three, only for your want of charity. You," says he to the youngest, "needn't fear, you'll recover your princess all in good time, and you and she will be as happy as the day is long. Bad people, if they were rolling stark naked in gold, would not be rich. Banacht lath." Away they sailed, and the ladies stretched out their bands but weren't able to say a word.

Well, they weren't crossing the lake while a cat 'ud be lickin' her ear, and the poor men couldn't stir hind or foot to follow them. They saw Seven Inches handing the three princesses out o' the boat, and letting them down by a nice basket and winglas into a draw-well that was convenient, but king nor princes ever saw an opening before in the same place. When the last lady was out of sight, the men found the strength in their arms and legs again. Round the lake they ran, and never drew rein till they came to the well and windlass; and there was the silk rope rolled on the axle, and the nice white basket hanging to it. "Let me down," says the youngest prince; "I'll die or recover them again." "No," says the second daughter's sweetheart, "I'm entitled to my turn before you." And says the other, "I must get first turn, in right of my bride." So they gave way to him, and in he got into the basket, and down they let him. First they lost sight of him, and then, after winding off a hundred perches of the silk rope, it slackened, and they stopped turning. They waited two hours, and then they went to dinner, because there was no chuck made at the rope.

Guards were set till next morning, and then down went the second prince, and sure enough, the youngest of all got himself let down on the third day. He went down perches and perches, while it was as dark about him as if he was in a big pot with the cover on. At last he saw a glimmer far down, and in a short time he felt the ground. Out he came from the big lime-kiln, and lo and behold you, there was a wood, and green fields, and a castle in a lawn, and a bright sky over all. "It's in Tir-na-n-Oge I am," says he. "Let's see what sort of people are in the castle." On he walked, across fields and lawn, and no one was there to keep him out or let him into the castle; but the big hall door was wide open. He went from one fine room to another that was finer, and at last he reached the handsomest of all, with a table in the middle; and such a dinner as was laid upon it! The prince was hungry enough, but he was too mannerly to go eat without being invited. So he sat by the fire, and he did not wait long till he heard steps, and in came Seven Inches and the youngest sister by the hand. Well, prince and princess flew into one another's arms, and says the little man, says he, "Why aren't you eating?"

"I think, sir," says he, "it was only good manners to wait to be asked." "The other princes didn't think so," says he. "Each o' them fell to without leave or licence, and only gave me the rough side o' their tongue when I told them they were making more free than welcome. Well, I don't think they feel much hunger now. There they are good marvel instead of flesh and blood," says he, pointing to two statues, one in one corner, and the other in the other corner of the room. The prince was frightened, but he was afraid to say anything, and Seven Inches made him sit down to dinner between himself and his bride; and he'd be as happy as the day is long, only for the sight of the stone men in the corner. Well, that day went by, and when the next came, says Seven Inches to him: "Now, you'll have to set out that way," pointing to the sun; "and you'll find the second princess in a giant's castle this evening, when you'll be tired and hungry, and the eldest princess to-morrow evening; and you may as well bring them here with you. You need not ask leave of their masters; they're only housekeepers with the big fellows. I suppose, if they ever get home, thy'll look on poor people as if they were flesh and blood like themselves."

Away went the prince, and bedad, it's tired and hungry he was when he reached the first castle, at sunset. Oh, wasn't the second princess glad to see him! and if she didn't give him a good supper, it's a wonder. But she heard the giant at the gate, and she hid the prince in a closet. Well, when he came in, he snuffed, an' he snuffed, an' says he, "Be (by) the life, I smell fresh mate." "Oh," says the princess, "it's only the calf I got killed to-day." "Ay, ay," says he, "is supper ready?" "It is," says she; and before he ruz from the table he hid three-quarters of the calf, and a cag of wine. "I

think," says he, when all was done, "I smell fresh mate still." "It's sleepy you are," says she, "go to bed." "When will you marry me?" says the giant. "You're puttin' me off too long." "St. Tibb's Eve," says she. "I wish I knew how far off that is," says he; and he fell asleep, with his head in the dish.

Next day, he went out after breakfast,. and she sent the prince to the castle where the eldest sister was. The same thing happened there; but when the giant was snoring, the princess wakened up the prince, and they saddled two steeds in the stables, and magh go bragh (the field for ever) with them. But the horses' heels struck the stones outside the gate, and up got the giant, and after them he made. He roared and he shouted, and the more he shouted, the faster ran the horses; and just as the day was breaking, he was only twenty perches behind. But the prince didn't leave the castle of Seven inches without being provided with something good. He reined in his steed, and flung a short, sharp knife over his shoulder, and up sprung a thick wood between the giant and themselves. They caught the wind that blew before them, and the wind that blew behind them did not catch them. At last they were near the castle where the other sister lived; and there she was, waiting for them under a high hedge, and a fine steed under her.

But the giant was now in sight, roaring like a hundred lions, and the other giant was out in a moment, and the chase kept on. For every two springs the horses gave, the giants gave three, and at last they were only seventy perches off. Then the prince stopped again, and flung the second skian behind him. Down went all the flat field, till there was a quarry between them a quarter of a mile deep, and the bottom filled with black water; and before the giants could get round it, the prince and princesses were inside the domain of the great magician, where the high thorny hedge opened of itself to every one that he chose to let in,

Well, to be sure, there was joy enough between the three sisters, till the two eldest saw their lovers turned into stone. But while they were shedding tears for them, Seven Inches came in, and touched them with his rod.

So they were flesh, and blood, and life once more, and there was great hugging and kissing, and all sat down to a nice breakfast, and Seven Inches sat at the head of the table.

When breakfast was over, he took them into another room, where there was nothing but heaps of gold, and silver, and diamonds, and silks, and satins; and on a table there was lying three sets of crowns: a gold crown was in a silver crown, and that was lying in a copper crown. He took up one set of crowns, and gave it to the eldest princess; and another set, and gave it to the second youngest princess; and another, and gave it to the youngest of all; and says he, "Now you may all go to the bottom of the pit, and you have nothing to do but stir the basket, and the people that are watching above will draw you up. But remember, ladies, you are to keep your crowns safe, and be married in them, all the same day. If you be married separately, or if you be married without your crowns, a curse will follow--mind what I say."

So they took leave of him with great respect, and walked arm-in-arm to the bottom of the draw-well. There was a sky and a sun over them, and a great high wall, covered with ivy, rose before them, and was so high they could not see to the top of it; and there was an arch in this wall, and the bottom of the draw-well was inside the arch. The youngest pair went last; and says the princess to the prince, "I'm sure the two princes don't mean any good to you. Keep these crowns under your cloak, and if you are obliged to stay last, don't get into the basket, but put a big stone, or any heavy thing .inside, and see what will happen."

So, when they were inside the dark cave, they put in the eldest princess first, and stirred the basket, and up she went, but first she gave a little scream. Then the basket was let down again, and up went the second princess, and then up went the youngest;, but first she put her arms round her prince's neck, and kissed him, and cried a little. At last it came to the turn of the youngest prince, and well became him;--instead of going into the basket, he put in a big stone. He drew on one side and listened, and after the basket was drawn up about twenty perch, down came itself and the stone like thunder, and the stone was made brishe of on the flags.

Well my poor prince had nothing for it but to walk back to the castle; and through it and round it he walked, and the finest of eating and drinking he got, and a bed of bog-down to sleep on, and fine walks he took through gardens and lawns, but not a sight could he get, high or low, of Seven Inches. Well, I don't think any of us would be tired of this fine way of living for ever. Maybe we would. Anyhow the prince got tired of it before a week, he was so lonesome for his true love; and at the end of a month he didn't know what to do with himself.

One morning he went into the treasure room, and took notice of a beautiful snuff-box on the table that he didn't remember seeing there before. He took it in his hands, and opened it, and out Seven Inches walked on the table. "I think, prince," says he, "you're getting a little tired of my castle?" "Ah!" says the other, "if I had my princess here, and could see you now and then, I'd never see a-dismal day." "Well, you're long enough here now, and you're wanting there above. Keep your bride's crowns safe, and whenever you want my help, open this snuff-box. Now take a walk down the garden, and come back when you're tired."

Well, the prince was going down a gravel walk with a quickset hedge on each side, and his eyes on the ground, and he thinking on one thing and another. At last he lifted his eyes, and there he was outside of a smith's bawn-gate that he often passed before, about a mile away from the palace of his betrothed princess. The clothes he had on him were as ragged as you please, but he had his crowns safe under his old cloak.

So the smith came out, and says he, "It's a shame for a strong, big fellow like you to be cm the sthra, and so much work to be done. Are you any good with hammer and tongs? Come in and bear a hand, and I'll give you diet and lodging, and a few thirteens when you earn them." "Never say't twice," says the prince; "I want nothing but to be employed." So he took the sledge, 'and pounded away at the red-hot bar that the smith was turning on the anvil to make into a set of horseshoes.

Well, they weren't long powdhering away, when a sthronshuch (idler) of a tailor came in; and when the smith asked him what news, he had, he got the handle of the bellows and began to blow, to let out all he had heard for the last two days. There was so many questions and answers at first, that if I told them all, it would be bedtime afore I'd be done. So here is the substance of the discourse; and before he got far into it, the forge was half-filled with women knitting stockings, and men smoking.

"Yous all heard how the two princesses were unwilling to be married till the youngest would be ready with her crowns and her sweetheart. But after the windlass loosened accidentally when they were pulling up her bridegroom that was to be, there was no more sign of a well, or a rope, or a windlass, than there is on the palm of your hand. So the buckeens that wor coortin' the eldest ladies, wouldn't give peace or ease to their lovers nor the king, till they got consent to the marriage, and it was to take place this morning. Myself went down out o' curosity; and to be sure I was delighted with the grand dresses of the two brides, and the three crowns on their heads--gold, silver, and copper, one inside the other. The youngest was standing by mournful enough in white, and all was ready. The two bridegrooms came in as proud and grand as you please, and up they were walking to the altar rails, when, my dear, the boards opened two yards wide under their feet, and down they went among the dead men and the coffins in the vaults. Oh, such screeching as the ladies gave! and such running and racing and peeping down as there was; but the clerk soon opened the door of the vault, and up came the two heroes, and their fine clothes covered an inch thick with cobwebs and mould."

So the king said they should put off the marriage, "For," says he, "I see there is no use in thinking of it till my youngest gets her three crowns, and is married along with the others. I'll give my youngest daughter for a wife to whoever brings three crowns to me like the others; and if he doesn't care to be married, some other one will, and I'll make his fortune." "I wish," says the smith, "I could do it: but I was looking at the crowns after the princesses got home, and I don't think there's a black or a white smith on the face o' the earth could imitate them." "Faint heart never won fair lady," says the prince. " Go to the palace and ask for a quarter of a pound of gold a quarter of a pound of silver, and a quarter of a pound of copper. Get one crown for a pattern; and my head for a pledge, I'll give you out the very things that are wanted in the morning." "Ubbabow!" says the smith, "are you in earnest?" "Faith, I am so," says he. "Go! worse than lose you can't."

To make a long story short, the smith got the quarter of a pound of gold, and the quarter of a pound of silver, and the quarter of a pound of copper, and gave them and the pattern crown to the prince. He shut the forge door at nightfall, and the neighbours all gathered in the bawn, and they heard him hammering, hammering, hammering, from that to daybreak; and every now and then he'd pitch out through the window, bits of gold; silver, and copper; and the idlers scrambled for them, and cursed one another, and prayed for the good luck of the workman.

Well, just as the sun was thinking to rise, he opened the door, and' brought out the three crowns he got from his true love, and such shouting and huzzaing as there was! The smith asked him to go along with him to the palace, but he refused; so off set the smith, and the whole townland with him; and wasn't the king rejoiced when he saw the crowns! "Well," says he to the smith, "you're a married man; what's to be done?" "Faith, your majesty, I didn't make them crowns at all; it was a big shuler ('vagrant) of a fellow that took employment with me yesterday." "Well, daughter, will you marry the fellow that made these crowns?" "Let me see them first, father." So when she examined them, she knew them right well, and guessed it was her true-love that sent them. "I will marry the man that these crowns came from," says she.

"Well," says the king to the eldest of the two princes, "go up to the smith's forge, take my best coach, and bring home the bridegroom." He was very unwilling to do this, he was so proud, but he did not wish to refuse. When he came to the forge, he saw the prince standing at the door, and beckoned him over to the coach. "Are you the fellow," says he, "that made them crowns?" " Yes," says the other. "Then," says he, "maybe you'd give yourself a brushing, and get into that coach; the king wants to see you. I pity the princess." The young prince got into the carriage, and while they were on the way, he opened the snuff-box, and out walked Seven Inches, and stood on his thigh. "Well," says he, "what trouble is on you now?" "Master," says the other, "please to let me be back in my forge, and let this carriage be filled with paving stones." No sooner said than done. The prince was sitting in his forge, and the horses wondered what was after happening to the carriage.

When they came into the palace yard, the king himself opened the carriage door, to pay respect to his new son-in-law. As soon as he turned the handle, a shower of small stones fell on his powdered wig and his silk coat, and down he fell under them. There was great fright and some tittering, and the king, after he wiped the blood from his forehead, looked very cross at the eldest prince. "My liege," says he, "I'm very sorry for this accidence, but I'm not to blame. I saw the young smith get into the carriage, and we never stopped a minute since." "It's uncivil you were to him. Go," says he, to the other prince, "and bring the young smith here, and be polite." "Never fear," says he.

But there's some people that couldn't be good-natured if they were to be made heirs of Damer's estate. Not a bit civiller was the new messenger than the old, and when the king opened the carriage door a second time, it's a shower of mud that came down on him; and if he didn't fume, and splutter, and shake himself, it's no matter. "There's no use," says he, "going on this way. The fox never got a better messenger than himself."

So he changed his clothes, and washed himself, and out he set to the smith's forge. Maybe he wasn't polite to the young prince, and asked him to sit along with himself. The prince begged to be allowed to sit in the other carriage, and when they were half-way, he opened his snuff-box. "Master," says he, "I'd wish to be dressed now according to my rank." "You shall be that," says Seven Inches. "And now I'll bid you farewell. Continue as good and kind as you always were; love your wife, and that's all the advice I'll give you." So Seven Inches vanished; and when the carriage door was opened in the yard--not by the king though, for a burnt child dreads the fire--out walks the prince as fine as hands and pins could make him, and the first thing he did was to run over to his bride, and embrace her very heartily.

Every one had great joy but the two other princes. There was not much delay about the marriages that were all celebrated on the one day. Soon after, the two elder couples went to their own courts, but the youngest pair stayed with the old king, and they were as happy as the happiest married couple you ever heard of in a story.



The next tale is one which was repeated oftenest in our hearing during our country experience. It probably owed its popularity to the bit of a rhyme, and the repetition of the adventures of the three sisters, nearly in the same words. It may seem strange that this circumstance, which would have brought ennui and discomfort on our readers, should have recommended it to the fireside audiences. Let it be considered that they expected to sit up to a certain hour, and that listening to a story was the pleasantest occupation they could fancy for the time. Length, then, in a tale was a recommendation, and these repetitions contributed to that desirable end....

[Fairlie]

THE CORPSE WATCHERS.

There was once a poor woman that had three daughters, and one day the eldest said, "Mother, bake my cake and kill my cock, till I go seek my fortune." So she did, and when all was ready, says her mother to her, "Which will you have--half of these with my blessing, or the whole with my curse?" "Curse or no curse," says she, "the whole is little enough." So away she set, and if the mother didn't give her her curse, she didn't give her her blessing.

She walked and she walked till she was tired and hungry, and then she sat down to take her dinner. While she was eating it, a poor woman came up, and asked for a bit. "The dickens a bit you'll get from me," says she; "it's all too little for myself; " and the poor woman walked away very sorrowful. At nightfall she got lodging at a farmer's, and the woman of the house told her that she'd give her a spade-full of gold and a shovel-full of silver if she'd only sit up and watch her son's corpse that was waking in the next room. She said she'd do that; and so, when the family were in their bed, she sat by the fire, and cast an eye from time to time on the corpse that was lying under the table.

All at once the dead man got up in his shroud, and stood before her, and said, "All alone, fair maid!" She gave him no answer, and when he said it the third time, he struck her with a switch, and she became a grey flag.

About a week after, the second daughter went to seek her fortune, and she didn't care for her mother's blessing no more nor her sister, and the very same thing happened to her. She was left a grey flag by the side of the other.

At last the youngest went off in search of the other two, and she took care to carry her mother's blessing with her. She shared her dinner with the poor woman on the road, and she told her that she would watch over her.

Well, she got lodging in the same place as the others, and agreed to mind the corpse. She sat up by the fire with the dog and cat, and amused herself with some apples and nuts the mistress gave her. She thought it a pity that the man under the table was a corpse, he was so handsome.

But at last he got up, and says he, "All alone, fair maid!" and she wasn't long about an answer:--

"All alone I am not,
I've little dog Dog and Pussy, my cat;
I've apples to roast, and nuts to crack,
And all alone I am not."

"Ho, ho!" says he, "you're a girl of courage, though you wouldn't have enough to follow me. I am now going to cross the quaking bog, and go through the burning forest. I must then enter the cave of terror, and climb the hill of glass, and drop from the top of it into the Dead Sea." "I'll follow you," says she, "for I engaged to mind you." He thought to prevent her, but she was as stiff as he was stout.

Out he sprang through the window, and she followed him till they came to the "Green Hills," and then says he:--

Open, open, Green Hills, and let the Light of the Green Hills through;"
Aye," says the girl, "and let the fair maid, too."

They opened, and the man and woman passed through, and there they were, on the edge of a bog.

He trod lightly over the shaky bits of moss and sod; and while she was thinking of how she'd get across, the old beggar appeared to her, but much nicer dressed, touched her shoes with her stick, and the soles spread a foot on each side. So she easily got over the shaky marsh. The burning wood was at the edge of the bog, and there the good fairy flung a damp, thick cloak over her, and through the flames she went, and a hair of her head was not singed. Then they passed through the dark cavern of horrors, where she'd have heard the most horrible yells, only that the fairy stopped her ears with wax. She saw frightful things, with blue vapours round them, and felt the sharp rocks, and the slimy backs of frogs and snakes.

When they got out of the cavern, they were at the mountain of glass; and then the fairy made her slippers so sticky with a tap of her rod, that she followed the young corpse easily to the top. There was the deep sea a quarter of a mile under them, and so the corpse said to her, "Go home to my mother, and tell her how far you came to do her bidding: farewell." He sprung head foremost down into the sea, and after him she plunged, without stopping a moment to think about it.

She was stupefied at first, but when they reached the waters she recovered her thoughts. After piercing down a great depth, they saw a green light towards the bottom. At last they were below the sea, that seemed a green sky above them; and sitting in a beautiful meadow, she half asleep, and her head resting against his side. She couldn't keep her eyes open, and she couldn't tell how long she slept: but when she woke, she was in bed at his house, and he and his mother sitting by her bedside, and watching her.

It was a witch that had a spite to the young man, because he wouldn't marry her, and so she got power to keep him in a state between life' and death till a young woman would rescue him by doing what she had just done. So at her request, her sisters got their own shape again, and were sent back to their mother, with their spades of gold and shovels of silver. Maybe they were better after that, but I doubt it much. The youngest got the young gentleman for her husband. I'm sure she deserved him, and, if they didn't live happy, THAT WE MAY



The succeeding story is met with, in some shape or other, in almost every popular collection. It happened, however, that we never met with it in a complete form except from the recital of Mrs. K., of the Duffrey, a lady in heart and deed, though a farmer's wife. The reader will find the word serenade doing duty for "surround;" but the circumstance having remained fixed in our memory, we have not ventured on a supposed improvement. The scarcity of proper names is a remarkable feature in these old monuments. We have always, even at the risk of tautology and circumlocution, respected this characteristic....

[Fairlie]

THE BROWN BEAR OF NORWAY.

There was once a king in Ireland, and he had three daughters, and very nice princesses they were. And one day that their father and themselves were walking in the lawn, the king began to joke on them, and to ask them who they would like to be married to. "I'll have the King of Ulster for a husband," says one; "and I'll have the King of Munster," says another; "and," says the youngest, "I'll have no husband but the Brown Bear of Norway." For a nurse of hers used to be telling her of an enchanted prince that she called by that name, and she fell in love with him, and his name was the first name on her lips, for the very night before she was dreaming of him. Well, one laughed, and another laughed, and they joked on the princess all the rest of the evening. But that very night she woke up out of her sleep in a great hail that was lighted up with a thousand lamps; the richest carpets were on the floor, and the walls were covered with cloth of gold and silver, and the place was full of grand company, and the very beautiful prince she saw in her dreams was there, and it wasn't a moment till he was on one knee before her, and telling her how much he loved her, and asking her wouldn't she be his queen. Well, she hadn't the heart to refuse him, and married they were the same evening.

"Now, my darling," says he, when they were left by themselves, "you must know that I am under enchantment. A sorceress, that had a beautiful daughter, wished me for her son-in-law; and because I didn't keep the young girl at the distance I ought, the mother got power over me, and when I refused to marry her daughter, she made me take the form of a bear by day, and I was to continue so till a lady would marry me of her own free will, and endure five years of great trials after."

Well, when the princess woke in the morning, she missed her husband from her side, and spent the day very sorrowful. But as soon as the lamps were lighted in the grand hall, where she was sitting on a sofa covered with silk, the folding doors flew open, and he was sitting by her side the next minute. So they spent another evening so happy, and he took an opportunity of warning her that whenever she began to tire of him, or not to have any confidence in him, they would be parted for ever, and he'd be obliged to marry the witch's daughter.

So she got used to find him absent by day, and they spent a happy twelvemonth together, and at last a beautiful little boy was born; and as happy as she was before, she was twice as happy now, for she had her child to keep her company in the day when she couldn't see her husband.

At last, one evening, when herself, and himself and her child, were sitting with a window open because it was a sultry night, in flew an eagle, took the infant's sash in his beak, and flew up in the air with him. She screamed, arid was going to throw herself out through the window after him, but the prince caught her, and looked at her very seriously. She bethought of what he said soon after their marriage, and she stopped the cries and complaints that were on her lips. She spent her days very lonely for another twelvemonth, when a beautiful little girl was sent to her. Then she thought to herself she'd have a sharp eye about her this time; so she never would allow a window to be more than a few inches open.

But all her care was in vain. Another evening, when they were all so happy, and the prince dandling the baby, a beautiful greyhound bitch stood before them, took the child out of the father's hand, and was out of the door before you could wink. This time she shouted, and ran out of the room, but there was some of the servants in the next room, and all declared that neither child nor dog passed out. She felt, she could not tell how, to her husband, but still she kept command over herself, and didn't once reproach him.

When the third child was born, she would hardly allow a window or a door to be left open for a moment; but she wasn't the nearer to keep the child to herself. They were sitting one evening by the fire, when a lady appeared standing by them. She opened her eyes in a great fright, and stared at her, and while she was doing so, the appearance wrapped a shawl round the baby that was sitting in its father's lap, and either sunk through the ground with it, or went up through the wide chimney. This time the mother kept her bed for a month.

"My dear," said she to her husband, when she was beginning to recover, "I think I'd feel better if I was after seeing my father, and mother, and sisters once more. If you give me leave to go home for a few days, I'd be glad." "Very well," said he, "I will do that; and whenever you feel inclined to return, only mention your wish when you lie down at night." The next morning when she awoke, she found herself in her own old chamber in her father's palace. She rung the bell, and in a short time she had her mother, and father, and married sisters about her, and they laughed till they cried for joy at finding her safe back again.

So in time she told them all that happened to her, and they didn't know what to advise her to do. She, was as fond of her husband as ever, and said she was sure that he couldn't help letting the children go; but still she was afraid beyond the world to have another child to be torn from her. Well, the mother and sisters consulted a wise woman that used to bring eggs to the castle, for they had great confidence in her wisdom. She said the only plan was to secure the bear's skin that the prince was obliged to put on every morning, and get it burned, and then he couldn't help being a man night and day, and then the enchantment would be at an end.

So they all persuaded her to do that, and she promised she would; and after eight days she felt so great a longing to see her husband again, that she made the wish the same night, and when she woke three hours after, she was in her husband's palace, and himself was watching over her. There was great joy on both sides, and they were happy for many days.

Now she began to reflect how she never felt her husband leaving her of a morning, and how she never found him neglecting to give her a sweet drink out of a gold cup just as she was going to bed.

So one night she contrived not to drink any of it, though she pretended to do so; and she was wakeful enough in the morning, and saw her husband passing out through a panel in the wainscot, though she kept her eyelids nearly closed. The next night she got a few drops of the sleepy posset that she saved the evening before, put into her husband's night drink,- and that made him sleep sound enough. She got up after midnight, passed through the panel, and found a beautiful brown bear's hide hanging in an alcove. She stole back, and went down to the parlour fire, and put the hide into the middle of it, and never took eyes off it till it was all fine ashes. She then lay down by her husband, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and fell asleep.

If she was to live a hundred years, she'd never forget how she wakened next morning, and found her husband looking down on her with misery and anger in his face. "Unhappy woman," said he, "you have separated us for ever! Why hadn't you patience for five years? I am now obliged, whether I like or no, to go a three days journey to the witch's castle, and live with her daughter. The skin that was my guard you have burned it, and the egg-wife that gave you the counsel was the witch herself. I won't reproach you: your punishment will be severe enough without it. Farewell for ever!"

He kissed her for the last time, and was off the next minute walking as fast as he could. She shouted after him, and then seeing there was no use, she dressed herself and pursued him. He never stopped, nor stayed, nor looked back, and still she kept him in sight; and when he was on the hill she was in the hollow, and when he was in the hollow she was on the hill. Her life was almost leaving her, when just as the sun was setting, he turned up a bohyeen (lane), and went into a little house. She crawled up after him, and when she got inside there was a beautiful little boy on his knees, and he kissing and hugging him. "Here, my poor darling," says he, "is your eldest child, and there," says he, pointing to a nice middle-aged woman that was looking on with a smile on her face, "is the eagle that carried him away." She forgot all her sorrows in a moment, hugging her child, and laughing and crying over him. The Vanithee washed their feet, and rubbed them with an ointment that took all the soreness out of their bones, and made them as fresh as a daisy. Next morning, just before sunrise, he was up, and prepared to be off. "Here," said he to her, "is a thing which may be of use to you. It's a scissors, and Whatever stuff you cut with it will he turned into rich silk. The moment the sun rises, I'll. lose all memory of yourself and the children, but I'll get it at sunset again; farewell." But he wasn't far gone till she was in sight of him again, leaving her boy behind. It was the same to-day as yesterday: their shadows went before them in the morning, and followed them in the evening. He never stopped, and she never stopped, and as the sun was setting, he turned up another lane, and there they found their little daughter. It was all joy and comfort again till morning, and then the third day's journey commenced.

But before he started, he gave her a comb, and told her that whenever she used it, pearls and diamonds would fall from her hair. Still he had his full memory from sunset to sunrise; but from sunrise to sunset he travelled on under the charm, and never threw his eye behind. This night they came to where the youngest baby was, and the next morning, just before sunrise, the prince spoke to her for the last time. "Here, my poor wife," said he, "is a little hand-reel, with gold thread that has no end, and the half of our marriage ring. If you can ever get to my bed, and put your half ring to mine, I will recollect you. There is a wood yonder, and the moment I enter it, I will forget everything that ever happened between us, just as if I was born yesterday. Farewell, dear wife and child, for ever." Just then the sun rose, and away he walked towards the wood., She saw it open before him, and close after him, and when she came up, she could no more get in than she could break through a stone wall. She wrung her hands, and shed tears, but then she recollected herself, and cried out, "Wood, I charge you by my three magic gifts--the scissors, the comb, and the reel--to let me through; "and it opened, and she went along a walk till she came in sight of a palace, and a lawn, and a woodman's cottage in the edge of the wood where it came nearest the palace.

She went into this lodge, and asked the woodman and his wife to take her into their service. They were not willing at first; but she told them she would ask no wages, and would give them diamonds, and pearls, and silk stuffs, and gold thread whenever they wished for them. So they agreed to let her stay.

It wasn't long till she heard how a young prince, that was just arrived, was living in the palace as the husband of the young mistress. Herself and her mother said that they were married fifteen years before, and that he was charmed away from them ever since. He seldom stirred abroad, and every one that saw him remarked how silent and sorrowful he went about, like a person that was searching for some lost thing.

The servants and conceited folk at the big house began to take notice of the beautiful young woman at the lodge, and to annoy her with their impudent addresses. The head-footman was the most troublesome, and at last she invited him to come take tea with her. Oh, how rejoiced he was, and how he bragged of it in the servants' hail! Well, the evening came, and the footman walked into the lodge, and was shown to her sitting-room; for the lodge-keeper and his wife stood in great awe of her, and gave her two nice rooms to herself. Well, he sat down as stiff as a ramrod, and was talking in a grand style about the great doings at the castle, while she was getting the tea and toast ready. "Oh," says she to him, "would you put your hand out at the window, and cut me off a sprig or two of honeysuckle?" He got up in great glee, and put out his hand and head; and said she, "By the virtue of my magic gifts, let a pair of horns spring out of your head, and serenade the lodge." Just as she wished, so it was. They sprung from the front of each ear, and tore round the walls till they met at the back. Oh, the poor wretch! and how he' bawled, and roared! and the servants that he used to be boasting to, were soon flocking from the castle, and grinning, and huzzaing, and beating tunes on tongs, and shovels, and pans; and he cursing and swearing, and the eyes ready to start out of his head, and he so black in the face, and kicking out his legs behind like mad.

At last she pitied his case, and removed the charm, and the horns dropped down on the ground, and he would have killed her on the spot, only he was as weak as water, and his fellow-servants came in, and carried him up to the big house.

Well, some way or other, the story came to the ears of the prince, and he strolled down that way. She had only the dress of a country-woman on her as she sat sewing at the window, but that did not hide her beauty, and he was greatly puzzled and disturbed, after he had a good look at her features, just as a body is perplexed to know whether something happened to him when he was young, or if he only dreamed it. Well, the witch's daughter heard about it too, and she came to see the strange girl; and what did she find her doing, but cutting out the pattern of a gown from brown paper; and as she cut away, the paper became the richest silk she ever saw. The lady looked on with very covetous eyes, and, says she, "What would you be satisfied to take for that scissors?" "I'll take nothing," says she, "but leave to spend one night in the prince's chamber, and I'll swear that we'll be as innocent of any crime next morning as we were in the evening." Well, the proud lady fired up, and was going to say something dreadful; but the scissors kept on cutting, and the silk growing richer and richer every inch. So she agreed, and made her take a great oath to keep her promise.

When night came on she was let into her husband's chamber, and the door was locked. But, when she came -in a tremble, and sat by--the bed-side, the prince was in such a dead sleep, that all she did couldn't awake him. She sung this verse to him, sighing and sobbing, and kept singing it the night long, and it was all in vain

" Four long years I was married to thee
Three sweet babes I bore to thee;
Brown Bear of Norway, won't you turn to me?"

At the first dawn, the proud lady was in the chamber, and led her away, and the footman of the horns put out his tongue at her as she was quitting the palace.

So there was no luck so far; but the next day the prince passed by again, and looked at her, and saluted her kindly, as a prince might a farmer's daughter, and passed on; and soon the witch's daughter came by, and found her combing her hair, and pearls and diamonds dropping from it.

Well, another bargain was made, and the princess spent another night of sorrow, and she left the castle at daybreak, and the footman was at his post, and enjoyed his revenge.

The third day the prince went by, and stopped to talk with the strange woman. He asked her could he do anything to serve her, and she said he might. She asked him did he ever wake at night. He said that he was rather wakeful than otherwise; but that during the last two nights, he was listening to a sweet song in his dreams, and could not wake, and that the voice was one that he must have known and loved in some other world long ago. Says she, "Did you drink any sleepy posset either of these evenings before you went to bed?" "I did," said he. "The two evenings my wife gave me something to drink, but I don't know whether it was a sleepy posset or not." "Well, prince," said she, "as you say you would wish to oblige me, you can do it by not tasting any drink this afternoon." "I will not," says he, and then he went on his walk.

Well, the great lady was soon after the prince, and found the stranger using her hand-reel and winding threads of gold off it, and the third bargain was made.

That evening the prince was lying on his bed at twilight, and his mind much disturbed; and the door opened, and in his princess walked, and down she sat by his bed-side, and sung:--

"Four long years I was married to thee;
Three sweet babes I bore to thee;
Brown Bear of Norway, won't you turn to me?"

"Brown Bear of Norway!" said he: "I don't understand you." "Don't you remember, prince, that I was your wedded wife for four years?" "I do not," said he, "but I'm sure I wish it was so." "Don't you remember our three babes, that are still alive?" "Show me them. My mind is all a heap of confusion." "Look for the half of our marriage ring, that hangs at your neck, and fit it to this." He did so, and the same moment the charm was broken. His full memory came back on him, and he flung his arms round his wife's neck, and both burst into tears.

Well, there was a great cry outside, and the castle walls were heard splitting and cracking. Every one in the castle was alarmed, and made their way out. The prince and princess went with the rest, and by the time all were safe on the lawn, down came the building, and made the ground tremble for miles round. No one ever saw the witch and her daughter afterwards. It was not long till the prince and princess had their children with them, and then they set out for their own palace. The kings of Ireland, and of Munster and Ulster, and their wives, soon came to visit them, and may every one that deserves it be as happy as the Brown Bear of Norway and his family.



The Goban Saor, pronounced Gubawn Seer (free smith, free mason, or free carpenter, in fact), is a relative of Wayland Smith, or Voelund, in the Voelundar Quida; but with equal skill he is endowed with more mother wit than the Northern craftsman. Unconnected adventures of this character are met with in every country of Europe. It is probable that a more complete legend concerning this celebrated gow (Smith) would be met with in Mayo or Kerry. Vulcan or Prometheus was the original craftsman; perhaps Daedalus might dispute the honour with them. These old-world legends have reached our time and our province in an . unsatisfactory and degraded state. All that remains to us is to make the most we can of our materials.

Our smith is a more moral, as well as a more fortunate man, than the Voelund of the Northern saga. Voelund returns evil for evil, and the master smith of MM. Asbjornsen and Moë is altogether unprincipled. He cuts off horses' legs to shoe them with the greater ease to himself, and sets an old woman in his furnace, in the vague hope that he may han-amer her into a fresh young lass.when she is hot enough....

[Fairlie]

THE GOBAN SAOR.

It is a long time since the Goban Saor was alive. Maybe it was him that built the Castle of Ferns; part of the walls are thick enough to be built by any goban, or gow, that ever splintered wood, or hammered red-hot iron, or cut a stone. If he didn't build Ferns, he built other castles for some of the five kings or the great chiefs. He could fashion a spear-shaft while you'd count five, and the spear-head at three strokes of a hammer. When he wanted to drive big nails into beams that were ever so high from the ground, he would pitch them into their place, and, taking a fling of the hammer at their heads, they would be drove in as firm as the knocker of Newgate, and he would catch the hammer when it was falling down.

At last it came to the King of Munster's turn to get his castle built, and to Goban he sent. Goban knew that, in other times far back, the King of Ireland killed the celebrated architects, Rog, Robog, Rodin, and Rooney, the way they would never build another palace equal to his, and so he mentioned something to his wife privately before he set out. He took his son along with him, and the first night they got lodging at a farmer's house. The farmer told theni they might leave their beasts to graze all night in any of his fields they pleased. So they entered one field, and says Goban, "'lie the bastes up for the night." "Why?" says the son; "I can't find anything strong enough." "Well, then, let us try the next field. Now," says he, "tie up the horses if you can." "Oh! by my word, here's a thistle strong enough this time." "That will do."

The next night they slept at another farmer's house, where there were two young daughters--one with black hair, very industrious; the other with fair complexion, and rather liking to sit with her hands across, and listen to the talk round the fire, than to be doing any work. While they were chatting about one thing and another, says the Goban, "Young girls, if I'd wish to be young again, it would be for the sake of getting one of you for a wife; but I think very few old people that do be thinking at all of the other world, ever wish to live their lives over again. Still I wish that you may have good luck in your choice of a husband, and so I give you three bits of advice. Always have the head of an old woman by the hob; warm yourselves with your work in the morning; and, some time before I come back, take the skin of a newly-killed sheep to the market, and bring itself and the price of it home again." When they were leaving next morning, the Goban said to his son, "Maybe one of these girls may be your wife some day."

As they were going along, they met a poor man striving to put a flat roof over a mud-walled round cabin, but he had only three joists, and each of them was only three-quarters of the breadth across. Well, the Goban put two nicks near one end of every joist on opposite sides; and when these were fitted into one another, there was a three-cornered figure formed in the middle, and the other ends rested on the mud wall, and the floor they made was as strong as anything. The poor man blessed the two men, and they went on. That night they stopped at a house where the master sat by the fire, and hardly opened his mouth all the evening. If he didn't talk, a meddlesome neighbour did, and interfered about everything. There was another chance lodger besides the Goban and his son, and when the evening was half over, the Goban said he thought he would go farther on his journey as it was afine night. "You may come along with us, if you like," says he to the other man; but he said he was too tired. The two men slept in a farmer's house half a mile farther on; and the next morning the first news they heard, when they were setting out, was, that the man of the house they left the evening before was found murdered in his bed, and the lodger taken up on suspicion. Says he to his son, "Never sleep a night where the woman is everything, and the man nothing." He stopped a day or two, however, and by cross-examining and calling witnesses, he got the murder tracked to the woman and the busy neighbour.



The next day they came to a ford, where a dozen of carpenters were puzzling their heads about setting up a wooden bridge that would neither have a peg nor a nail in any part of it. The king would give a great reward to them if they succeeded, and if they didn't, he'd never give one of them a job again. "Give us a hatchet and a few sticks," says the Goban, "and we'll see if we have any little genius that way." So he squared a few posts and cross-bars, and made a little bridge on the sod; and it was so made, that the greater weight was on it, and the stronger the stream of water, the solider it would be. [a]

Maybe the carpenters warn't thankful, except one envious, little, ould basthard of a fellow, that said any child might have thought of the plan (it happened he didn't think of it though), and would make the Goban and his son drink a cag of whisky, only they couldn't delay their journey.

At last they came to where the King of Munster kep' his coort, either at Cashel or Limerick, or some place in Clare, and the Goban burned very little daylight till he had a palace springing up like a flagger. People came from all parts, and were in admiration of the fine work; but as they were getting near the eaves, one of the carpenters that were engaged at the wooden bridge came late one night into the Goban's room, and told him what himself was suspecting, that just as he would be setting the coping stone, the scaffolding would, somehow or other, get loose, himself fall down a few stories and be kilt, the king wring his hands, and shed a few crocodile tears, and the like palace never be seen within the four seas of Ireland.

"Sha gu dheine," [b] says the Goban to himself; but next day he spoke out plain enough to the king. "Please your Majesty," says he, "lam now pretty near the end of my work, but there is still something to be done before we come to the wall-plate that is to make all sure and strong. There is a bit of a charm about it, but I haven't the tool here--it is at home, and my son got so sick last night, and is lying so bad, he is not able to go for it. If you can't spare the young prince, I must go myself, for my wife wouldn't intrust it to any one but of royal blood." The king, rather than let the Goban out of his sight, sent the young prince for the tool. The Goban told him some outlandish name in Irish, which his wife would find at his bed's head, and bid him make all the haste he could back.

In a week's time, back came two of the poor attendants that were with the prince, and told the king that his son was well off, with the best of eating and drinking, and chess-playing and sword exercise, that any prince could wish for, but that out of her sight the Goban's wife nor her people would let him, till she had her husband safe and sound inside of his own threshold.

Well, to be sure, how the king fumed and raged! but what's the use of striving to tear down a stone wall with your teeth? He could do without his palace being finished, but he couldn't do without his son and heir.

The Goban didn't keep spite; he put the finishing touch to the palace in three days, and, in two days more, himself and his son were sitting at the farmer's fireside where the two purty young girls wor.

"Well, my colleen bawn," says he to the one with the fair hair, "did you mind the advice I gev you when I was here last?" "Indeed I did, and little good it did me. I got an old woman's skull from the churchyard, and fixed it in the wall near the hob, and it so frightened every one, that I was obliged to have it taken back in an hour." "And how did you warm yourself with your work in the cold mornings?","The first morning's work I had was to card flax, and thrune some of it on the fire, and my mother gave me such a raking for it, that I didn't offer to warm myself that way again." "Now for the sheep-skin." "That was the worst of all. When I told the buyers in the market that I was to bring back the skin and the price of it, they only jeered at me. One young buckeen said, if I'd go into the tavern and take share of a quart of mulled beer with him, he'd make that bargain with me, and that so vexed me that I turned home at once." "Well, that was the right thing to do, anyhow. Now my little Ceann Dhu (black head), let us see how you fared. The skull?" "Och!" says an old woman, sitting close to the fire in the far corher, "I'm a distant relation that was left desolate, and this," says she tapping the side of her poor head, "is the old woman's skull she provided." "Well, now for the warming of yourself in the cold mornings." "Oh, I kept my hands and feet going so lively at my work that it was warming enough." "Well, and the sheep-skin?" "That was easy enough. When I got to the market, I went to the crane, plucked the wool off, sold it, and brought home the skin."

"Man and woman of the house," says the Goban, "I ask you before this company, to give me this girl for my daughter-in-law; and if ever her husband looks crooked at her, I'll beat him within an inch of his life." There was very few words, and no need of a black man to make up the match; and when the prince was returning home, he stopped a day to be at the wedding. If I hear of any more of the Goban's great doings, I'll tell 'em some other time.



Intennixed with tales of the wild and wonderful, we sometimes meet in the old Gaelic collections with a few of a more commonplace character, illustrative of the advantage of observing certain moral maxims or time-honoured proverbs. The MS. from which we have obtained the following story does not explain what the colour of the soles of the dying king had to do in the narrative.

[a] If a curious reader wishes to know the secret of the roofing of the round cabin, let him get three twigs, cut a notch within half an inch of one end of each, and another about an inch and a half from that, but on the opposite side. Let him get a hat, or a large mug, or anything else he pleases, and by adapting the notched ends to each other, he will find the plan of making a roof-support to his model cabin after some essays, more or less, and some healthy trials of his patience. The editor of these sketches will not attempt to decide whether the Goban or Julius Caesar was the inventor of the peg-less and nail-less bridge, but the mode of construction may be learned from the Commentaries on the Gallic War.

[b] ''That's it," or '' Is that it?"....

[Fairlie]

THE THREE ADVICES WHICH THE KING WITH THE RED SOLES GAVE TO HIS SON.

When the chief of the Bonna Dearriga was on his death-bed he gave his son three counsels, and said misfortune would attend him if he did not follow them. The first was never to bring home a beast from a fair after having been offered a fair price for it; the second, never to call in ragged clothes on a friend when he wanted a favour from him; the third not to marry a wife with whose family he was not well acquainted.

The name of the young chief was Illan, called Don, from his brown hair, and the first thing he set about doing after the funeral, was to test the wisdom of his father's counsels. So he went to the fair of Tailtean [b] with a fine mare of his, and rode up and down. He asked twenty gold rings for his beast, but the highest bid he got was only nineteen. To work out his design he would not abate a screpal, but rode home on her back in the evening. He could have readily crossed a ford that lay in his way near home; for sheer devilment he leaped the river higher up, where the banks on both sides were steep. The poor beast stumbled as she came near the edge, and was flung head foremost into the rocky bed, and killed. He was pitched forward, but his fall was broken by some shrubs that were growing in the face of the opposite bank. He was as sorry for the poor mare as any young fellow, fond of horses and dogs, could be. When he got home he sent a giolla to take off the animal's two four-legs at the knee, and these he hung up in the great hail of his dun, having first had them properly dried and prepared.

Next day he repaired again to the fair, and got into conversation with a rich chief of Oriel, whose handsome daughter had come to the meeting to purchase some cows. luau offered his services, as he knew most of the bodachs and the bodachs' wives who were there for the object of selling. A word to them from the handsome and popular young chief,--and good bargains were given to the lady. So pleased was her father, ay and she too, with this civility that he forthwith received an invitation to hunt and fish at the northern rath, and very willingly he accepted it. So he returned home in a very pleasant state of mind, and was anxious that this second experiment should succeed better than the first.

The visit was paid, and in the mornings there were pleasant walks in the woods with the young lady, while her little brother and sister were chasing one another through the trees, and the hunting and fishing went on afterwards, and there were feasts of venison, and wild boar, and drinking of wine and mead in the evenings, and stories in verse recited by bards, and sometimes moonlight walks on the ramparts of the fort, and at last marriage was proposed and accepted.

One morning as Illan was musing on the happiness that was before him, an attendant on his promised bride walked into his room. "Great must be your surprise, O Illan Don," said she, "at this my visit, but my respect for you will not allow me to see you fall into the pit that is gaping for you. Your affianced bride is an unchaste woman. You have remarked the deformed Fergus Rua, who plays on the small clarsech, and is the possessor of thrice fifty stories. He often attends in her room late in the evening to play soft music to her, and to put her to sleep with this soft music and his stories of the Danaan druids. Who would suspect the weak deformed creature, or the young lady of noble birth? By your hand, O Illan of the brown hair, if you marry her, you will bring disgrace on yourself and your clan. You do not trust my words! Then trust to your own senses. She would most willingly break off all connexion with the lame wretch since she first laid eyes on you, but he has sworn to expose her before you and her father. When the household is at rest this night, wait at the entrance of the passage that leads to the women's apartments. I will meet you there. To-morrow morning you will require no one's advice for your direction."

Before the sun tinged the purple clouds, next morning, Than was crossing the outer moat of the lios, and lying behind him on the back of his trusty steed was some long object carefully folded in skins. "Tell your honoured chief," said he to the attendant who was conducting him, "that I am obliged on a sudden to depart, and that I request him by his regard for me to return my visit a fortnight hence, and to bring his fair daughter with him." On he rode, and muttered from time to time, "Oh,. had I slain the guilty pair, it would he a well-merited death! the deformed wretch! the weak lost woman! Now for the third trial!"

Illan had a married sister, whose rath was about twelve of our miles distant from his. To her home he repaired next day, changing clothes with a beggar whom he met on the road. When he arrived, he found that they were at dinner, and several neighbouring families with them in the great hail. "Tell my sister," said he to a giolla who was lounging at the door, "that I wish to speak with her." "Who is your sister?" said the other in an insolent tone, for he did not recognise the young chief in his beggar's dress. "Who should she be but the Bhan a Teagh, you rascal!" The fellow began to laugh, but the open palm of the irritated young man coming like a sledge stroke on his cheek, dashed him on the ground, and set him a-roaring. "Oh, what has caused this confusion?" said the lady of the house, coming out from the hall. "I," said her brother, "punishing your giolla's disrespect." "Oh, brother, what has reducedyou to such a condition?" "An attack on my house, and a creagh made on my hands in my absence. I have neither gold nor silver vessels in my dun, nor rich cloaks, nor ornaments, nor arms for my followers. My cattle have been driven from my lands, and all as I was on a visit at the house of my intended bride. You must come to my relief; you will have to send cattle to my ravaged fields, gold and silver vessels, and ornaments and furs, and rich clothes to my house, to enable inc to receive my bride a-nd her father in a few days." "Poor dear Illan!" she answered, "my heart bleeds for you. I fear I cannot aid you, nor can I ask you to join our company within in these rags. But you must be hungry; stay here till I send you some refreshment."

She quitted him, and did not return again, but an attendant came out with a griddle-cake in one hand, and a porringer with some Danish beer in it in the other. Illan carried them away to the spot where he had quitted the beggar, and gave him the bread, and made him drink the beer. Then changing clothes with him he rewarded him, and returned home, bearing the porringer as a trophy.

On the day appointed with the father of his affianced, there were assembled in Illan's hall, his sister, his sister's husband, his affianced, her father, and some others. When an opportunity offered after meat and bread, and wine had gone the way of all food, Illan addressed his guests: "Friends and relations, I am about confessing some of my faults before you, and hope you will be bettered by the hearing. My dying father charged me never to refuse a fair offer for horse, cow, or sheep, at a fair. For refusing a trifle less than I asked for my noble mare, there was nothing left to me but those bits of her fore-legs you see hanging by the wall. He advised me never to put on an air of want when soliciting a favour. I begged help of my sister for a pretended need, and because I had nothing better than a beggar's cloak on me, I got nothing for my suit but the porringer that you see dangling by the poor remains of my mare. I wooed a strange lady to be my wife, contrary to my dying father's injunction, and after seeming to listen favourably to my suit, she at last said I should be satisfied with the crutches of her lame and deformed harper: there they are!" The sister blushed, and was ready to sink through the floor for shame. The bride was in a much more wretched state, and would have fainted, but it was not the fashion of the day. Her father stormed, and said this was but a subterfuge on the part of Illan. He deferred to her pleasure, but though torn with anguish for the loss of the young chiefs love and respect, she took the blame on herself.

The next morning saw the rath without a visitor; but within a quarter of a year the kind-faced, though not beautiful daughter of a neighbouring Duine Uasal (gentleman) made the fort cheerful by her presence. Illan had known her since they were children. He was long aware of her excellent qualities, but had never thought of her as a wife till the morning after his speech. He was fonder of her a month after his marriage than he was on the marriage morning, and much fonder when a year had gone by, and presented his house with an heir.

[a] This in the corrupt wording of our MS. is "Sceal Re Bonna Dearriga na tri chourla do hug she dha mac."

[b] Now Telitown in Meath. Centuries before the Christian era meetings were held there for the purpose of negotiating marriages, and hiring servants, and transacting other matters of business....

[Fairlie]

Legends of the 'Good People'

ALL our superstitions, and a great part of our legendary lore, have descended to us from our, pagan ancestors. Aphrodite and Artemis selected lovers from among mortals;--Melusina, Viviana, Morgana, and other beautiful and celebrated fairies, followed their example in enthralling Christian knights. The Lianhan Sighe (Fairy love) still attaches herself to some favoured mortal, who is thenceforward lost to human affection, and becomes what in pagan times would have been called a Nympholept. Juno and the three Fates assisted at the births of mortals--so do the fairies. The inflexible destinies were called the Parcae (merciful);--the timorous cottager propitiates the fairies by addressing them as the Duine Matha, "The Good People." Hephaestion, and his swart Cyclops, forged impregnable armour for favoured heroes;--the dwarf workers in the Northern mines did the same for the terrible sea-kings. In the penetralia, at each side of the fire, were the Lares and Penates to keep blessings about the abode of the master. The Kobolds frequented favoured houses to bless the servants' efforts, or even do their work. Apollo and Hercules got much trouble destroying great hydras;--Fion MacCumhail murdered piasts in nearly every lake in Ireland. Achilles was rendered invulnerable in every part of his body except his heel;--Siegfried, the dragon slayer, could not be wounded except at a portion of his back, the size of a small leaf. The Golden Fleece brought misery to its possessors;--so did the Nibelungen hoard. The three goddesses so reverenced among the Gauls and Germans, and the Druidic priestesses afterwards substituted for them, became at last the fairies or Breton Korigans; and the herbs of Druidic rites still retain their power at All-Hallow Tide, in furnishing truthful visions of their future husbands to superstitious damsels.

The name Fairy has given rise to long disquisitions. The nearest root, in sound at least, is the Persian Peri. Then we have for the correct name, Fay, the Fata, or Destinies, which became Fada in the Provençal, and Hada in the Spanish tongues. The Greek language furnishes Μοίραι (the Fates), and the propitiating title Parcae (merciful), applied to the Destinies, has its representative in the "Good People," applied to the Fays in Ireland. The Gaelic name is Sighe, which is not found out of Ireland and the Highlands, except at La font de Scée, in Poitou. The Breton Korigan may derive from κούρη, young maid, or, perhaps, the Celtic corrig, a hill. The word Fairy, or Faërie, is properly the state or condition of the Fays.

Even as the Parcae or other female divinities assisted at the births of Achilles, Meleager, &c., so, in the romances of the Middle Ages, fairies were present at the births of Holger the Dane, Oberon, Tristrem, &c., and endowed them with valuable gifts, or predicted their future fortunes. Till our own days the Bretons would have a feast laid out in an adjoining room on these occasions for their visitors. Aurora carried away the favoured Tithonus into her glowing palace of the morning. Calypso retained Ulysses in the happy isle of Ogygia. King Arthur was borne to the isle of Avalon by Morgana. Lanval was conducted into the same isle by his fairy love; Ossian was kept in the "Land of Youth" under the Atlantic for a hundred and fifty years, by Nea of the Golden Hair; and the fairies contemporary with our fathers and mothers stole away to their Sighe-mounts as many mortals as they could get into their power. The druidical bowl of inspiration, and the symbolic lance, sought by Peredur in pagan Brittany, became, in the hands of the Christian romancers, the sangraal or bowl used at the last supper, and the spear which pierced our Saviour's side; and Sir Percival went forth in quest of them. Error varies its form, but its essence is indestructible. There is scarcely a legend or article of belief of the Greek or Roman mythology which, in some modification, may not be traced in the fairy systems of all the countries of Europe.

In connecting fairy superstition with paganism once prevailing over Europe, one circumstance remains to be noticed. The progeny of a god or goddess when residing among mortals, was distinguished by superexcellent qualities; any of the fairy race that have abode among men are noticeable for peculiarities the very reverse. They are gluttonous, peevish, ungrateful. and spiteful, and are never found to develop into anything better than rickety children. At the introduction of Christianity, Crom, Odin, Frea, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Bacchus the Intemperate, were obliged to forego adoration and even respect. They lost a good deal of their beauty, and the best part of their amiability, and even frolicsome Pan degenerated into the hoofed and horned devil. Their proceedings towards man became of a capricious, if not baleful character, and their interference in human affairs was deprecated by all right-minded and timorous people. The next legend will illustrate these remarks, Mrs. K., of the Duffrey, being our informant: -...

[Fairlie]

The Fairy Child

There was a sailor that lived up in Grange when he was at home; and one time, when he was away seven or eight months, his wife was brought to bed of a fine boy. She expected her husband home soon, and she wished to put off the christening of the child till he'd be on the spot. She and her husband were not natives of the country, and they were not as much afraid of leaving the child unchristened as our people would be.

Well, the child grew and throve, and the neighbours all bothered the woman to take him to Father M.'s to be baptized, and all they said was no use. "Her husband would be soon home, and then they'd have a joyful christening."

There happened to be no one sick up in that neighbourhood for some time, so the priest did not come to the place, nor hear of the birth, and none of the people about her could make up their minds to tell upon her, it is such an ugly thing to be informing; and then the child was so healthy, and the father might be on the spot any moment.

So the time crept on, and the lad was a year and a half old, and his mother up to that time never lost five nights' rest by him; when one evening that she came in from binding after the reapers, she heard wonderful whingeing and lamenting from the little bed where he used to sleep. She ran over to him and asked him what ailed him. "Oh, mammy, I'm sick, and I'm hungry, and I'm cold; don't pull down the blanket." Well, the poor woman ran and got some boiled bread and, milk as soon as she could, and she asked her other son, that was about seven years old, when he took sick. "Oh, mother," says he, "he was as happy as a king, playing near the fire about two hours ago, and I was below in the room, when I heard a great rush like as a whole number of fowls were flying down the chimley. I heard my brother giving a great cry, and then another sound like as if the fowls were flying out again; and when I got into the kitchen there he was, so miserable-looking that I hardly knew him, and he pulling his hair, and his clothes, and his poor face so dirty. Take a look at him, and try do you know him at all."

So when she went to feed him she got such a fright, for his poor face was like an old man's, and his body, and legs, and arms, all thin and hairy. But still he resembled the child she left in the morning, and "mammy, mammy," was never out of his mouth. She heard of people being fairy-struck, so she supposed it was that that happened to him, but she never suspected her own child to be gone, and a fairy child left in its place.

Well, it's he that kept the poor woman awake many a night after, and never let her have a quiet day, crying for bread and milk, and mashed pitaytees, and stirabout; and it was still "mammy, mammy, mammy," and the glows and the moans were never out of his mouth. Well, he had like to eat the poor woman out of house and home, and the very flesh off her bones with watching and sorrow. Still nothing could persuade her that it wasn't her own child that was in it.

One neighbour and another neighbour told her their minds plain enough. "Now, ma'am, you see what it is to leave a child without being christened. If you done your duty, fairy, nor spirit, nor divel, would have no power over your child. That ounkran (cross creature) in the bed is no more your child nor I am, but a little imp that the Duiné Sighe (fairy people)--God between us and harm!--left you. By this and by that, if you don't whip him up and come along with us to Father M.'s, we'll go, hot foot, ourselves, and tell him all about it. Christened he must be before the world is a day older."

So she went over and soothered him, and said, "Come, alanna, let me dress you, and we'll go and be christened." And such roaring and screeching as came out of his throat would frighten the Danes. "I haven't the heart," says she at last; "and sure if we attempted to take him in that state we'd have the people of the three townlands

follying us to the priest's, and I'm afeard he'd take it very badly."

The next day when she came in, in the evening, she found him quite clean and fresh-looking, and his hair nicely combed. "Ah, Pat," says she to her other son, "was it you that done this?" Well, he said nothing till he and his mother were up at the fire, and the angashore (wretch) of a child in his bed in the room. "Mother," says he then, in a whisper, "the neighbours are right, and you are wrong. I was out a little bit, and when I was coming round by the wall at the back of the room, I heard some sweet voices as if they were singing inside; and so I went to the crack in the corner, and what was round the bed but a whole parcel of nicely-dressed little women, with green gowns; and they singing, and dressing the little fellow, and combing his hair, and he laughing and crowing with them. I watched for a long time, and then I stole round to the door, but the moment I pulled the string of the latch I hears the music changed to his whimpering and crying, and when I got into the room there was no sign of anything only himself. He was a little better looking, but as cantankerous as ever." "Ah," says the mother, "you are only joining the ill-natured neighbours; you're not telling a word of truth."

Next day Pat had a new story. "Mother," says he, "I was sitting here while you were out, and I began to wonder why 'he was so quiet, so I went into the room to see if he was asleep. There he was, sitting up with his old face on him, and he frightened the life out of me, he spoke so plain. 'Paudh,' says he, 'go and light your mother's pipe, and let me have a shough; I'm tired o' my life lying here.' 'Ah, you thief,' 'says I, 'wait till you hear what she'll say to you when I tell her this.' 'Tell away, you pick-thanks,' says he; 'she won't believe a word you say.'" "And neither do I believe one word from you," said the mother.

At last a letter came from the father, that was serving on board the Futhryom (Le Foudroyant?), saying he'd be home after the letter as soon as coaches and ships could carry him. "Now," says the poor woman, "we'll have the christening any way." So the next day she went to New Ross to buy sugar and tay, and beef and pork, to give a grand let-out to welcome her husband; but bedad the long-headed neighbours took that opportunity to gain their ends of the fairy imp. They gathered round the house, and one stout woman came up to the bed, promiskis-like, and wrapped him up in the quilt before he had time to defend himself, and away down the lane to the Boro she went, and the whole townland at her heels. He thought to get away, but she held him pinned as if he was in a vice: and he kept roaring, and the crowd kept laughing, and they never crack-cried till they were at the stepping-stones going to Ballybawn from Grange.

Well, when he felt himself near the water he roared like a score of bulls, and kicked like the divel, but my brave woman wasn't to be daunted. She got on the first stepping-stone, and the water, as black as night from the turf-mull (mould), running under her. He felt as heavy as lead, but she held on to the second. Well, she thought she'd go down there with the roaring, and the weight, and the dismal colour of the river, but she got to the middlestone, and there down through the quilt he fell as a heavy stone would through a muslin handkerchief. Off he went, whirling round and round, and letting the frightfulest laughs out of him, and showing his teeth and cracking his fingers at the people on the banks. "Oh, yous think yous are very clever, now," says he. "You may tell that fool of a woman from me that all I'm sorry for is that I didn't choke her, or do worse for her, before her husband comes home; bad luck to yous all!"

Well, they all came back joyful enough, though they were a little frightened. But weren't they rejoiced to meet the poor woman running to them with her fine healthy child in her arms, that she found in a delightful sleep when she got back from the town. You may be sure the next day didn't pass over him till he was baptized, and the next day his father got safe home. Well, I needn't say how happy they were; but bedad the woman was a little ashamed of herself next Sunday at Rathnure Chapel while Father James was preaching about the wickedness of neglecting to get young babies baptized as soon as possible after they're born.



Life among the Icelandic elves only partially resembles that among the Celtic fairies. The process of jetting rid of one of them when introduced into a human family is, however, much the same among Celts and Scandinavians. The Breton or Irish housewife being incommoded by a squalling, rickety brat, collects a number of eggs; and after throwing away the contents, places the shells carefully in a pot set over the fire. He looks with wonder on the operation; and when, in reply to his question, she explains that she is going to extract beer from them, he cries out, "I remember when they were building Babel, and never heard before of a brewery of egg-shells." Being now sure of his quality she summons her relations, and they get rid of him by taking him on a shovel, and landing him comfortably in the middle of the dung-lough at the bottom of the bawn, and letting him cry his fill. His fairy relations come to his rescue with little loss of time, and he vents his rage at not having done more mischief while he had been in such comfortable quarters.

Ión Arnason tells us, in his "Icelandic Legends" lately published by Mr. Bentley, that a Northern woman, under the same circumstances, sets a pot, furnished with some eatable, on the fire; and having fastened many twigs in continuation of a spoon handle till the end of the shank appears above the chimney, she inserts the bowl in the mess. This excites the curiosity of the imp, and he is dislodged in the same way as his far-off brother in Galway. It would be, perhaps, trying the patience of the reader unduly to enlarge on all the ingenious devices practised for the ejectment of different intruders, so we will, using a story-teller's privilege, surround one case with the circumstances which waited on three or four....

[Fairlie]

The Changeling and his Bagpipes

A certain youth whom we shall here distinguish by the name of Rickard the Rake, amply earned his title by the time he lost in fair-tents, in dance-houses, in following hunts, and other unprofitable occupations, leaving his brothers and his aged father to attend to the concerns of the farm, or neglect them as they pleased. It is indispensable to the solemnities of a night dance in the country, to take the barn door off its hinges, and lay it on the floor to test the skill of the best dancers in the room in a single performance. In this was Rickard eminent, and many an evening did he hold the eyes of the assembly intent on his flourishes, lofty springs and kicks, and the other fashionable variations taught by the departed race of dancing-masters.

One evening while earning the applause of the admiring crowd, he uttered a cry of pain, and fell on his side on the hard door. A wonderful scene of confusion ensued,--the groans of the dancer, the pitying exclamations of the crowd, and their endeavours to stifle the sufferer in their eagerness to comfort him. We must suppose him carried home and confined to his bed for weeks, the complaint being a stiffness in one of his hip joints, occasioned by a fairy-dart. Fairy-doctors, male and female, tried their herbs and charms on him in vain; and more than one on leaving the house said to one of his family, "God send it's not one of the sheeoges yous are nursing, instead of poor wild Rickard!"

And indeed there seemed to be some reason in the observation. The jovial, reckless, good-humoured buck was now a meagre, disagreeable, exacting creature, with pinched features, and harsh voice, and craving appetite; and for several weeks he continued to plague and distress his unfortunate family. By the advice of a fairyman a pair of bagpipes was accidentally left near his bed, and ears were soon on the stretch to catch the dulcet notes of the instrument from the room. It was well known that he was not at all skilled in the musical art; so if a well-played tune were heard from under his fingers, the course to be adopted by this family was clear.

But the invalid was as crafty as they were cunning; groans of pain and complaints of neglect formed the only body of sound that issued from the sick chamber. At last, during a hot harvest afternoon when every one should be in the field, and a dead silence reigned through the house, and yard, and out-offices, some one that was watching from an unsuspected press saw an anxious, foxy face peep out from the gently opened door of the room, and draw itself back after a careful survey of the great parlour into which it opened, and which had the large kitchen on the other side. Soon after, the introductory squeal of the instrument was heard, but of a sweeter quality than the same pipes ever uttered before or after that day. Then followed a strain of such wild and sweet melody as held in silent rapture about a dozen of the people of the house and some neighbours who had been apprised of the experiment, and who, till the first enchanting sound breathed through the house, had kept themselves quiet in the room above the kitchen, consequently the farthest from the changeling's station.

While they stood or sat entranced as air succeeded to air, and the last still the sweetest, they began to distinguish whispers, and the nearly inaudible rustle of soft and gauzy dresses seemingly brushing against each other, and such subdued sounds as a cat's feet might cause, swiftly pacing along a floor. They were unable to stir, or even move their lips, so powerful was the charm of the fairy's music on their wills and their senses, till at last the fairy-man spoke--the only person who had the will or the capacity to hold conference with him being the fairy-woman from the next townland.

He.--Come, come! this must be put a stop to.

The words were not all uttered when a low whistling noise was heard from the next room, and the moment after there was profound stillness.

She.--Yes, indeed; and what would you advise us to do first with the anointed sheeoge?

He.--We'll begin easy. We'll take him neck and crop and hold his head under the water in the turnhole till we'll dhrive the divel out of him.

She.--That 'ud be a great deal too easy a punishment for the thief. We'll hate the shovel red-hot, put it under his currabingo, and land him out in the dung-lough.

He.--Ah, now; can't you thry easier punishments on him? I'll put the tongs in the fire till the claws are as hot as the dive!, and won't I hould his nasty crass nose between them till he'll know the difference between a fiery faces and a latchycock. [a]

She.--No, no! Say nothing, and I'll go and bring my liquor, drawn from the leaves of the lussmore; [b] and if he was a sheeoge forty times, it will put the inside of him, into such a state that he'd give the world he could die. Some parts of him will be as if he had red-hot saws rasping him asunder, and others as if needles of ice were crossing and crossing each other in his bowels; and when he's dead, we'll give him no better grave nor the bog-hole, or the outside of the churchyard.

He.--Very well; let's begin. I'll bring my red-hot tongs from the kitchen fire, and you your little bottle of lussmore water. Don't any of yez go in, neighbours, till we have them ingradients ready.

There was a pause in the outer room while the fairyman passed into the kitchen and back. Then there was a rush at the door, and a bursting into the room; but there was no sign of the changeling on the bed, nor under the bed, nor in any part of the room. At last one of the women shouted out in terror, for the face of the fiend was seen at the window, looking in, with such scorn and hate on the fearful features as struck terror into the boldest. However, the fairy-man dashed at him with his burning tongs in hand; but just as it was on the point of gripping his nose, a something between a laugh and a scream, that made the blood in their veins run cold, came from him. Face and all vanished, and that was the last that was seen of him. Next morning, Rickard, now a reformed rake, was found in his own bed. Great was the joy at his recovery, and great it continued, for he laid aside his tobacco-pipe, and pint and quart measures. He forsook the tent and the sheebeen house, and took kindly to his reaping-hook, his spade, his plough, and his prayer-book, and blessed the night he was fairy-struck on the dance floor.

The mutual proceedings of the intruding fairies and the intruded-on mortals, are not always of the hostile character hitherto described. It is with some pleasure that we record an instance where the desirable re-exchange was effected without those disagreeable agencies resorted to in the case of "Rickard the Rake."

[a] Attempts at two law terms. The author has been acquainted with peasants to whom law terms and processes were as familiar as ever they were to poor Peter Peebles.

[b] Great Herb. The Purpureus Digitalis, Fairy-finger, or Foxglove....

[Fairlie]

The Tobinstown Sheeoge.

In the pleasant valley of the Duffrey, sheltered from the north-west winds by the huge pile of Mount Leinster, lie two villages separated by a turf bog. The western cluster is called Kennystown, and the eastern, Tobinstown. [a] The extensive Rath of Cromogue commands the bog on the north, and the over-abounding moisture in the holes and drains finds its way to the noisy Glasha on the south. The elder inhabitants of these villages spoke the Irish tongue at the close of the last century and the beginning of this. About the year 1809, the inhabitants of the whole valley spent a Sunday afternoon on the dry tussocks of the bog, sounding the dark pools with long poles and fishing spears, to stir up a descendant of the serpent that had laid the country waste in the days of Brian Boroimhe. Some intelligent person had seen it lying on the surface of Lough na Piastha about half a mile off, a day or two before, and a still more intelligent person had seen it tearing across the intermediate fields on Saturday night, with sparks of fire flashing from its tail. If the young piast was at the bottom of a bog-hole he remained there quietly enough. The enthusiastic crowd was obliged to separate at nightfall, no incident having rewarded their expectations beyond the fall of a little boy into a turf-pool, his rescue and consequent punishment by a loving but irritable parent. This, however, is no better than a digression.

Katty Clarke of Tobinstown was once happy in the possession of a fine boy, the delight of her eyes and heart, till one unlucky day, when she happened to sleep

too long in the morning, and, consequently, had not time to say her prayers. Mr. Clarke, coming in from the fields, was annoyed at not finding the stirabout ready, and opened his mind on the subject. Katty was vexed with him and herself, and cursed a little, as was customary sixty years since among men and women in remote districts of our country. All these annoyances prevented her from remembering the holy water, and from sprinkling some drops on her little son, and making the sign of the cross on his innocent forehead. When the men and boys left the house for their out-door work after breakfast, Katty took a pailful of soiled linen to the spot where the stream formed a little pool, and where the villagers had fixed a broad and flat "beetling" stone. While she was employed in cleaning the clothes, she let her child sit or roll about on the grassy slope behind her.

All at once she heard a scream from the boy, and when she turned, and ran to him, she found him in convulsions. She ran home with him, administered salt and water, and the other specifics popular in the country. The fit passed away, but she was grieved to perceive that the weazened, pained expression still remained on his face, and that his whimpering and whining did not abate--in fact, to use a well-worn Irish expression, "the cry was never out of his mouth." He ate as much as would suffice a full-grown man, and was always ready for food both at regular meal-times and between them.

After a week of this state of things, the neighbours came to the conclusion that it was a sheeoge that Katty was slaving her life out for. Katty's family came next into the same persuasion, and lastly, but with some doubts, Katty herself.

At a family and neighbourly council, held round the fire, after the children had been sent to bed, they proceeded to get rid of the little wretch, and this was the order of the ceremonial:--

A neighbour took the shovel, rubbed it clean, laid it on the floor, and his wife, seizing on the supposed fairy, placed it sitting on the broad iron blade. She held it there stoutly, notwithstanding its howls, while her husband, raising it gently, proceeded to the bawn, accompanied by the assembly, and, despite all opposition on its part, placed it on a wisp of straw which crowned the manure heap. The luxury of the seat did not succeed in arresting his outcries, but his audience not taking much notice, joined hands, and in their own parlance serenaded the crowned heap three times, while the fairy-man, who had been summoned from Bawnard (high court), recited an incantation in Irish, of which we give a literal version

"Come at our call, O Sighe mother
Come and remove your offspring.
Food and drink he has received,
And kindness from the Ben-a-teagh. [b]
Here he no longer shall stay,
But depart to the Duine Matha.
Restore the lost child, O Bean-Sighe! [c]
And food shall be left for thy people
When the cloth is spread on the harvest-field,
On the short grass newly mown.
Food shall be left on the dresser-shelf,
And the hearthstone shall be clean,
When the Clann Sighe come in crowds,
And sweep in rings round the floor,
And hold their feast at the fire.
Restore the mortal child, O Bean-Sighe!
And receive thine own at our hands.

The charm and the third round ending at the same time, all re-entered the house, and closed the door.

They soon felt the air around them sweep this way and that, as if it was stirred by the motion of wings, but they remained quiet and silent for about ten minutes. Opening the door, they then looked out, and saw the bundle of straw on the heap, but neither child nor fairy. "Go into your bedroom, Katty," said the fairy-man, "and see if there's anything left on the bed." She did so, and they soon heard a cry of joy, and Katty was among them in a moment, kissing and hugging her own healthy-looking child, who was waking and rubbing his eyes, and wondering at the lights and all the eager faces.

Whatever hurry Katty might be in of a morning after that, she never left her bedside till she had finished, as devoutly as she could, her five Paters and five Ayes, and her Apostles' Creed and her Confiteor. And she never cursed or swore except when she was surprised by a sudden fit of passion.



In one point of elvish mythology, Teuton and Celt are agreed,--viz., that whether the supernatural beings of the old superstition be called fairies, elves, nixes, trolls, korigans, or duergars, they all live in fear of utter condemnation at the Day of Judgment. Their dislike of the human race arises from envy of their destiny, which they regard as the filling of the heavenly seats lost by themselves. Sometimes they experience a slight hope that their place may not be with Satan and his angels, and then they become urgent with holy and wise mortals, to give judgment on their case. This phase of fairy life will be illustrated by the local legend of--



[a] Let no incautious reader suppose that these villages were respectively inhabited by Tobins and Kennys. There was one family of Tobins extant, we forget in which village, but no Kenny in either. Thus Forrestalstown was filled by O'Learys, the Forrestals occupying a village in Gurawn entirely to themselves.

[b] Woman of the house.

[c] Lady fairy....

[Fairlie]

The Belated Priest

A very lonesome road connects the village of Ballin­daggin, in the Duffrey, with the townland of Mangan, on the Bantry side of the brawling Urrin, and outside these intermediate stations it leads to Kaim and Castle­boro, on one side, and the high road from Bunclody to Ross on the other. From the river to Ballindaggin, you hardly meet a house, and fallow fields extend on each side.

Father Stafford was asked, rather late in the day, to make a sick call at a cabin that stood among these fields, at a considerable distance from this road,--a cabin from which no lane led either to by-road or public road. He was delayed longer than he expected, and when he was leaving the cabin it was nearly dark. This did not disturb him much. There was a path that led to the road, and he knew he had only to keep a north-easterly direction to come out on it, not far from the village already named. So he went on fearlessly for some time, but complete obscurity soon surrounded him, and he would have been sorely perplexed, had it not been that the path lay for the most part beside the fences.

At last, instead of passing in a line near the fence, it struck across the field; and, open his eyes wide as he might, he could hardly distinguish it from the dry, russet-coloured grass at each side. Well, he kept his eyes steadily fixed in the due direction, and advanced till he was about the middle of the field, which happened to be a large one. There some case of conscience, or other anxious subject, crossed his mind, and he stopped and fidgeted about, walking restlessly this way and that for a few steps, totally forgetting his present circumstances. Coming at last to some solution of his difficulty, full recol­lection returned, and he was sensible of being thoroughly ignorant of the direction in which his proper route lay. If he could but get a glimpse of Mount Leinster, it would be all well; but, beyond a few perches, all was in the deepest darkness on every side. He then set off in a straight line, which he knew would bring him to some fence, and perhaps he might find stile or gap for his guidance. He went twice round the field, but, in the confusion of his faculties, he could find no trace of path or pass. He at last half resolved to cross the fence, and go straight on, but the dykes were, for the most part, encumbered with briers, and furze-bushes crowned the tops of the steep clay mounds.

While he stood perplexed, he heard the rustle of wings or bodies passing swiftly through the air, and a musical voice was heard:--" You will suffer much if you do not find your way. Give us a favourable answer to a question, and you shall be on the road in a few minutes." The good priest was somewhat awed at the rustle and the voice, hut he answered without delay, "Who are you, and what's your question?" The same voice replied, "We are the Chlann Sighe, and wish you to declare that at the last day our lot may not be with Satan. Say that the Saviour died for us as well as for you." "I will give you a favourable answer, if you can make me a hopeful one. Do you adore and love the SON OF GOD?"

He received no answer but weak and shrill cries, and the rushing of wings, and at once it seemed as if he had shaken off some oppression. The dark clouds had separated, a weak light was shed round where he stood, and he distinguished the path, and an opening in the bushes on the fence. He crossed into the next field, and, follow-log the path, he was soon on the road. In fifteen minutes he was seated at his comfortable fire, and his little round table, covered with books, was at his side.



The good people, as already mentioned, are not uniformly selfish. They are grateful for food left in their way, and other kindnesses shown them by the human race. The following tale will furnish an illustration. In a modified form, it is well known in Brittany, and is a favourite in Munster. It was the earliest fairy legend known to our boyhood, and is the most popular of those that have been preserved by the people of the south-east of Ireland. Every locality lays the scene in some rath in the neighbourhood. The phraseology in which the legend was so often heard is preserved...

[Fairlie]

The Palace in the Rath

Every one from Bunclody to Enniscorthy knows the rath [a] between Tombrick and Munfin. Well, there was a poor, honest, quiet little creature, that lived just at the pass of Glanamoin, between the hill of Coolgarrow and Kilachdiarmid. His back was broken when he was a child, and he earned his bread by making cradles, and bosses, and chairs, and beehives, out of straw and briers. No one in the barony of Bantry or Scarawalsh could equal him at these. Well, he was a sober little fellow enough, but the best of us may be overtaken. He was coming from tile fair of Enniscorthy one fine summer evening, up along the beautiful shady road of Munfin; and when he came near the stream that bounds Tombrick, he turned into the fields to make his road short. He was singing merrily enough, but by degrees he got a little stupefied; and when he was passing the dry, grassy ditch that surrounds the rath, he felt an inclination to sit and rest himself.

It is hard to sit awhile, and have your eyes a little glassy, and the things seeming to turn round you, without falling off asleep; and asleep my poor little man of straw was in a few minutes. Things like droves of cattle, or soldiers marching, or big flakes of foam on a flooded river, were pushing on through his brain, and he thought the drums were playing a march, when up he woke, and there in the face of the steep bank that was overgrown with bushes and blackthorn, a passage was open between nice pillars, and inside was a great vaulted room, with arches crossing each other, a hundred lamps hanging from the vault, and thousands of nice little gentlemen and ladies, with green coats and gowns, and red sugar-loaf caps, curled at the tops like old Irish birredhs, dancing and singing, and nice little pipers and fiddlers, perched up in a little gallery by themselves, and playing music to help out the singing.

He was a little cowed at first, but as he found no one taking notice of him, he stole in, and sat in a corner, and thought he'd never be tired looking at the fine little people figuring, and cutting capers, and singing. But at last he began to find the singing and music a little tedious.

It was nothing but two short bars and four words, and this was the style:--

"Yae Luan, yae Morth--
Yae Luan, yae Morth."

The longer he looked on, the bolder he grew, and at last he shouted at the end of the verse--

"Agus Dha Haed-yeen."

Oh, such cries of delight as rose up among the merry little gentry! They began the improved song, and shouted it till the vault rang:--

"Yae Luan, Yae Morth--
Yae Luan, yae Morth--
Yae Luan, yae Morth,
Agus Dha Haed-yeen." [b]

After a few minutes, they all left off the dance, and gathered round the boss maker, and thanked him for improving their tune. "Now," said the chief, "if you wish for anything, only say the word, and, if it is in our power, it must be done." "I thank you, ladies and gentlemen," says he; "and if you would only remove this hump from my back, I'd be the happiest man in the Duffrey." "Oh, easy done, easy done!" said they. "Go on again with the dance, and you come along with us." So on they went with--

"Monday, Tuesday--
Monday, Tuesday--
Monday, Tuesday,
And Wednesday too."

One fairy taking their new friend by the heel, shot him in a curve to the very roof, and down he came the other side of the hall. Another gave him a shove, and up he flew back again, He felt as if he had wings; and one time when his back touched the roof, he found a sudden delightful change in himself; and just as he touched the ground, he lost all memory of everything around him.

Next morning he was awakened by the sun shining on his face from over Slieve Buie, and he had a delightful feel down along his body instead of the disagreeable cruith he was accustomed to. He felt as if he could go from that to the other side of the stream at one step; and he burned little daylight till he reached Glanarnoin. He had some trouble to persuade the neighbours of the truth of what had happened; but the wonder held only nine days; and he had like to lose his health along with his hump, for if he only made his appearance in Bally­carney, Castle-Dockrell, Ballindaggin, Kilmeashil, or Bunclody, ten people would be inviting him to a share of a tumbler of punch, or a quart of mulled beer.

The news of the wonderful cure was talked of high and low, and even went as far as Ballynocrish, in Bantry, where another poor angashore of a humpback lived. But he was very unlike the Duffrey man in his dispo­sition: he was as cross as a brier, and almost begrudged his right hand to help his left. His poor old aunt and a neighbour of hers set out one day, along with him, along the Bunclody road, passing by Killanne and the old place of the Colcloughs at Duffrey Hall, till they reached Temple-shambo. Then they kept along the hilly by-road till they reached the little man's house near the pass.

So they up and told their business, and he gave them a kind welcome, and explained all the ins and outs of his adventure; and the end was, the four went together in the heel of the evening to the rath, and left the little lord in his glory in the dry, brown grass of the round dyke, where the other met his good fortune. The little ounkran never once thanked them for all the trouble they were taking for him. He only whimpered about being left in that lonesome place, and bade them to be sure to be with him at the flight of night, because he did not know what way to take from it.

At last, the poor cross creature fell asleep; and after dreaming about falling down from rocks, and being held over the sea by his hump, and then that a lion had him by the same hump, and was running away with him, and then that it was put up for a target for soldiers to shoot at, the first volley they gave awoke him, and what was it but the music of the fairies in full career. The melody was the same as it was left them by the hive­maker, and the tune and dancing was twice as good as it was at first. This is the way it went:--

"Yae Luan, yae Morth--
Yae Luan, yae Morth--
Yae Luan, yae Morth,
Agus Dha Haed-yeen."

But the new visitor had neither taste nor discretion; so when they came about the third time to the last line, he croaked out:--

"Agus Dha Yaerd-yeen,
Agus Dha Haen-ya." [c]

It was the same as a cross fiddler that finds nobody going to give him anything, and makes a harsh back-­screak of his bow along one of the strings. A thousand voices cried out, "Who stops our dance?--who stops our dance?" and all gathered round the poor fellow. He could do nothing but stare at them with his poor, cross, frightened face; and they screamed and laughed till he thought it was all over with him.

But it was not over with him.

"Bring down that hump," says the king; and before you could kiss your hand it was clapped on, as fast as the knocker of Newgate, over the other hump. The music was over now, the lights went out, and the poor creature lay till morning in a nightmare; and there the two women found him, at daybreak, more dead than alive. It was a dismal return they had to Ballynocrish; and the moral of my story is, that you should never drive till you first try the virtue of leading.

This fairy legend is certainly one of the most ancient of its kind. Dancing to the tiresome melody was a punishment inflicted on the fairies for their pristine crimes. No wonder that they should have felt grateful for the improvement effected.



[a] A small circular meadow surrounded by a mound overgrown with furze-bushes, the remains of the earthen fort of one of the small chiefs of old days. They are erroneously called "Danes' forts."

[b] Correctly Dia Luain, Dia Mairt, Dia Ceadoin;--Moon's Day, Mar's Day, Woden's Day (First Fast).

[c] Correctly Diar Daoin, Dia Aaine, Dies Jovis, Dies Veneris,--Thursday, Friday....

[Fairlie]

The Breton version of the Palace in the Rath

In the Breton mythology the Irish fairies are replaced by the korils (night dancers), who assemble on the heaths and execute rondes till daybreak. Any inattentive mortal crossing their territory is seized on, and obliged to caper all night, and at sunrise is at the point of death with fatigue. Benead Guilcher, the hero of a story similar to the Lusmore of the Legends of the South of Ireland, returning with his wife from his labours at the plough, was on the point of being seized on, when they observed his paddle (fork in the original) in his hand, and so were obliged to relinquish their prey, singing at the same time,--

"Lez-hi, lez-hon,
Bác'h an arér zo gant hon;
Lez-hon, lez-hi,
Bác'h arér zo gant hi."

"Let him go, let her go,
Fork of plough has he;
Let her go, let him go,
Fork of plough have they."

But the bold Benead, through curiosity and a wish to get rid of his hump, voluntarily joined the dance on another night, having first made them solemnly promise on the cross not to work him beyond his strength. They at once recommenced dance and song,--the whole chant limited to three words--

"Di-Lun, Di-Meurs, Di-Mercher."
"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday."

"With submission to you, gentlemen," said Guilcher, "your song is of the shortest. You stop too soon in the week. I think I could improve it."

"Do so, do so," cried they all, and he chanted--

"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday."

They were so pleased, that when he requested beauty of face and form, they took him up, and pitched him from one to the other; and when he had gone the round, his hump was away, and a handsome face given him.

He did not reveal his adventure in full till he was obliged by another humpback, who exercised the office of usurer, and to whom poor Benead owed eight crowns. He tried his fortune among the little korils, and promised to further improve the melody. But he was a stutterer, and could only get out--

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
And Su-Su-Sunday too--
And Su-Sunday too--
Su-Sunday---.
Su-Sunday too."

They stopped him in vehement anger, and bade him name his wish.

Gi-gi-give me," said he, "what Guilcher left."

"We will," said they, and down came the additional hump.

Being now most furious with Guilcher, he reduced him to the point of selling off all the little he possessed. So in this strait he once more repaired to the dwarfs.

They went on with the song, enlarged by the Sunday, but Guilcher tiring of the bald melody, added a line, and completed their bliss.

"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
With Sunday, as 'tis meet,
And so the week's complete."

Guilcher revealing his misery, they all flung their purses to him, and home he went in joy. Alas! when the contents were turned out on the table, they were found to consist of dry leaves, sand, and horse-hair. The frightened wife ran to the bénitier, and luckily finding some holy water there, sprinkled it on themselves and the table; and lo, a pile of gold and jewels sparkled before them! In Ireland the reverse would have taken place.



The Breton version is more complete than the Irish one. The korils explained to Guilcher that they had been doomed to perpetual night-dancing, with an imperfect melody, till some mortal should have the courage to join them, and complete the strain. After Guilcher had lengthened it, they were in hopes of the usurer finishing it, and hence their anger with him....

[Fairlie]

The Fairy Nurse

There was once a little farmer and his wife living near Coolgarrow. They had three children, and my story happened while the youngest was on the breast. The wife was a good wife enough, but her mind was all on her family and her farm, and she hardly ever went to her knees without falling asleep, and she thought the time spent in the chapel was twice as long as it need be. So, begonies, she let her man and her two children go before her one day to Mass, while she called to consult a fairy-man about a disorder one of her cows had. She was late at the chapel, and was sorry all the day after, for her husband was in grief about it, and she was very fond of him.

Late that night he was wakened up by the cries of his children calling out, "Mother, mother!" When he sat up and rubbed his eyes, there was no wife by his side, and when he asked the little ones what was become of their mother, they said they saw the room full of nice little men and women, dressed in white, and red, and green, and their mother in the middle of them, going out by the door as if she was walking in her sleep. Out he ran, and searched everywhere round the house, but neither tale nor tidings did he get of her for many a day.

Well, the poor man was miserable enough, for he was as fond of his woman as she was of him. It used to bring the salt tears down his cheeks to see his poor children neglected and dirty, as they often were, and they'd be bad enough only for a kind neighbour that used to look in whenever she could spare time. The infant was out with a wet nurse.

About six weeks after--just as he was going out to his work one morning--a neighbour, that used to mind women at their lying-in, came up to him, and kept step by step with him to the field, and this is what she told him.

"Just as I was falling asleep last night, I hears a horse's tramp in the bawn, and a knock at the door, and there, when I came out, was a fine-looking dark man, mounted on a black horse, and he told me to get ready in all haste, for a lady was in great want of me. As soon as I put on my cloak and things, he took me by the hand, and I was sitting behind him before I felt myself stirring. 'Where are we going, sir?' says I. 'You'll soon know,' says he; and he drew his fingers across my eyes, and not a stim remained in them. I kept a tight grip of him, and the dickens a knew I knew whether he was going backwards or forwards, or how long we were about it, till my hand was taken again, and I felt the ground under me. The fingers went the other way across my eyes, and there we were before a castle door, and in we went through a big hall and great rooms all painted in fine green colours, with red and gold bands and ornaments, and the finest carpets and chairs and tables and window-curtains, and fine ladies and gentlemen walking about. At last we came to a bedroom, with a beautiful lady in bed, and there he left me with her; and, bedad, it was not long till a fine bouncing boy came into the world. The lady clapped her hands, and in came Fir [a] Dhorocha (Dark man), and kissed her and his son, and praised me, and gave me a bottle of green ointment to rub the child all over.

"Well, the child I rubbed, sure enough; but my right eye began to smart me, and I put up my finger and gave it a rub, and purshuin to me if ever I was so frightened. The beautiful room was a big rough cave, with water oozing over the edges of the stones, and through the clay; and the lady, and the lord, and the child, weazened, poverty-bitten crathurs--nothing but skin and bone, and the rich dresses were old rags. I didn't let on that I found any difference, and after a bit says Fir Dhorocha, 'Go before me -to the hall-door, and I will be with you in a few moments, and see you safe home.' Well, just as I turned into the outside cave, who should I see watching near the door hut poor Molly. She looked round all frightened, and says she to me in a whisper--'I'm brought here to give suck to the child of the king and queen of the fairies; but there is one chance of saving me. All the court will pass the cross near Templeshambo, next Friday night, on a visit to the fairies of Old Ross. If John can catch me by hand or cloak when I ride by and has courage not to let go his grip, I'll be safe. Here's the king. Don't open your mouth to answer. I saw what happened with the ointment.'

"Fir Dhorocha didn't once cast his eye towards Molly, and he seemed to have no suspicion of me. When we came out I looked about me, and where do you think we were but in the dyke of the Rath of Cromogue. I was on the horse again, which was nothing but a big boolian bui (rag-weed), and I was in dread every minute I'd fall off; but nothing happened till I found myself in my own bawn. The king slipped five guineas into my hand as soon as I was on the ground, and thanked me, and bade me good night. I hope I'll never see his face again. I got into bed, and couldn't sleep for a long time; and when I examined my five guineas this morning, that I left in the table-drawer the last thing, I found five withered leaves of oak--bad scran to the giver!"

Well, you may all think the fright, and the joy, and the grief the poor man was in when the woman finished her story. They talked, and they talked, but we needn't mind what they said till Friday night came, when both were standing where the mountain road crosses the one going to Ross.

There they stood looking towards the bridge of Thuar, and I won't keep you waiting, as they were in the dead of the night, with a little moonlight shining from over Kilachdiarmid. At last she gave a start and "By this and by that," says she, "here they come, bridles jingling, and feathers tossing," He looked, but could see nothing; and she stood trembling, and her eyes wide open, looking down the way to the ford of Ballinacoola. "I see your wife," says she, "riding on the outside just so as to rub against us. We'll walk on promiskis-like, as if we suspected nothing, and when we are passing I'll give you a shove. If you don't do your duty then, dickens cure You!"

Well, they walked on easy, and the poor hearts beating in both their breasts; and though he could see nothing, he heard a faint jingle, and tramping, and rustling, and at last he got the push that she promised. He spread out his arms, and there was his wife's waist within them, and he could see her plain, but such a hullabulloo rose as if there was an earthquake; and he found himself surrounded by horrible-looking things, roaring at him, and striving to pull his wife away. But he made the sign of the cross, and bid them begone in God's name, and held his wife as if it was iron his arms were made of. Bedad, in one moment everything was as silent as the grave, and the poor woman lying in a faint in the arms of her husband and her good neighbour. Well, all in good time she was minding her family and her business again, and I'll go bail, after the fright she got, she spent more time on her knees, and avoided fairy-men all the days of the week, and particularly Sunday.

It is hard to have anything to do with the good people without getting a mark from them. My brave midwife didn't escape no more nor another. She was one Thursday at the market of Enniscorthy, when what did she see walking among the tubs of butter but Fir Dhorocha, very hungry-looking, and taking a scoop out of one tub and out of another. "Oh, sir," says she, very foolish, "I hope your lady is well, and the young heir." "Pretty well, thank you," says he, rather frightened like. "How do I look in this new suit?" says he, getting to one side of her. "I can't see you plain at all, sir," says she. "Well, now," says he, getting round her back to the other side. "Musha, indeed, sir, your-coat looks no better nor a withered dock-leaf." "Maybe, then," says he, "it will be different now," and he struck the eye next him with a switch.

Begonies, she never saw a stim after with that one till the day of her death.

This fairy legend is very popular among the branches of the Celtic race. We do not at this moment recollect any variety of it in the Norse or German collections. The leading feature is, however, as old-as the heroic ages of Greece. It will remind the classic scholar of the recovery of Alcestis, and the almost recovery of Eurydice. The cavalier treatment of the infernal powers by Hercules and Theseus, finds its counterpart in Giolla na chreck an Gour thrashing the devils. Labhradh Loingseach takes after King Midas in the matter of long hairy ears, and Fionn, son of Cumhail rivals Apollo and Hercules in the destruction of serpents, wild boars, and birds. The irresistible beauty of Adonis, and his murder by the boar, survive in the legend of Diarmuidh with the beauty-spot, and his death by the "green cropped pig." These legends will be given when their turns arrive.

It is only natural in the social condition of the fairies that they should steal human children, and also nurses to give suck to their own puny offspring; but why they should carry off young men and women is not so clear. Such, however, is the fact.

[a] Correctly, Fear Doirche.

[Fairlie]

The Recovered Bride

There was a marriage in the towniand of Curragraigue. After the usual festivities, and when the guests were left to themselves, and were drinking to the prosperity of the bride and bridegroom, they were startled by the appearance of the man himself rushing into the room with anguish in his looks. "Oh," cried he, "Margaret is carried away by the fairies, I'm sure. The girls were not left the room for half a minute when I went in, and there is no more sign of her there than if she never was born." Great consternation prevailed, great search was made, but no Margaret was to be found. After a night and day spent in misery, the poor brideroom laid down to take some rest. In a while he seemed to himself to wake from a troubled dream, and look out into the room. The moon was shining in through the window, and in the middle of the slanting rays stood Margaret in her white bridal clothes. He thought to speak and leap out of the bed, but his tongue was without utterance, and his limbs unable to move. "Do not be disturbed, dear husband," said the appearance; "I am now in the power of the fairies, but if you only have courage and prudence we may be soon happy with each other again. Next Friday will be May-eve, and the whole court will ride out of the old fort after midnight. I must be there along with the rest. Sprinkle a circle with holy water, and have a black-hafted knife with you. If you have courage to pull me off the horse, and draw me into the ring, all they can do will be useless. You must have some food for me every night on the dresser, for if I taste one mouthful with them, I will be lost to you for ever. The fairies got power over me because I was only thinking of you, and did not prepare myself as I ought for the sacrament. I made a bad confession, and now I am suffering for it. Don't forget what I have said." "Oh, no, my darling," cried he, recovering his speech, but by the time he had slipped out of bed, there was no living soul in the room but himself.

Till Friday night the poor young husband spent a desolate time. The food was left on the dresser over night, and it rejoiced all hearts to find it vanished by morning. A little before midnight he was at the entrance of the old rath. He formed the circle, took his station within it, and kept the black-hafted knife ready for service. At times he was nervously afraid of losing his dear wife, and at others burning with impatience for the struggle. At last the old fort with its dark high bushy fences cutting against the sky, was in a moment replaced by a palace and its court. A thousand lights flashed from the windows and lofty hail entrance, numerous torches were brandished by attendants stationed round the courtyard, and a numerous cavalcade of richly attired ladies and gentlemen was moving in the direction of the gate where he found himself standing. As they rode by him laughing and jesting, he could not tell whether they were aware of his presence or not. He looked intent at each countenance as it approached, but it was some time before he caught sight of the dear 'face and figure borne along on a milk-white steed. She recognised him well enough, and her features now broke into a smile--now expressed deep anxiety. She was unable for the throng to guide the animal close to the ring of power; so he suddenly rushed out of his bounds, seized her in his arms, and lifted her off. Cries of rage and fury arose on every side; they were hemmed in, and weapons were directed at his head and breast to terrify him. He seemed to be inspired with superhuman courage and force, and wielding the powerful knife he soon cleared a space round him, all seeming dismayed by the sight of the weapon. He lost no time, but drew his wife within the ring, within which none of the myriads round dared to enter. Shouts of derision and defiance continued to fill the air for some time, but the expedition could not be delayed. As the end of the procession filed past the gate and the circle within which the mortal pair held each other determinedly clasped, darkness and silence fell on the old rath and the fields round it, and the rescued bride and her lover breathed freely. We will not detain the sensitive reader on the happy walk home, on the joy that hailed their arrival, and on all the eager gossip that occupied the townland and the five that surround it for a month after the happy rescue.




A wonderful treasure in the detection of fairy delusions is the four-leaved shamrock! Once at the fair of Enniscorthy, a master of sleight-of-hand, willing to astonish the simple Wexfordians, and extract some money out of their pockets, threw his gamecock up on the roof of a house, and there every one could see him stalk along with a great log of Norway timber in his bill. Every one wondered, and those near the cock as he paced along, got from under the beam as soon as they could.

"Musha," says a young girl who was taking home an armful of fresh grass to her cow, "what are yous gapin' at?" "Gaping at! Do you see the balk the cock is carrying?" "Balk, inagh! Purshuin' to the balk within a street of him! All I can see is a good wheaten straw that he has in his bake." The showman overheard the discourse, and called out to the girl--" What will you take for that bunch of grass! I'd like, to give a mouthful of fresh provender to my horse." The bargain was made, and as soon as the article was handed over to the conjurer, the girl gave a great start and cried, "Oh, the Lord save us! See what the cock is carrying! Some one will be kilt." There was a four-leaved shamrock in the bundle of grass.

We could name the receipt for rendering the "Good People" visible, when a small whirlwind is at work with dust and dry leaves; but much as we wish to diffuse a knowledge of the social economy of Fairy Land, we are not anxious that any of our readers should make personal acquaintance with individuals of that country, or practise any magic rites whatever. You set dangerous machinery in motion, without knowing how to put it at rest again, or whether it may not tear your own person to pieces.

A clannish spirit prevails among the Fairy folk, as well as in that division of the human family amongst whom they delight to dwell. Hurling matches, and even pitched battles, occur between the "Good People" of different provinces. Passing one day along the road that runs near Lough-na-Piastha, in company with an intelligent but visionary neighbour, and talking on the present subject, he pointed out to us a little glen on the side of Mount Leinster

[Fairlie]

Faction-Fight Among the Fairies

"I was sitting on the brow of that hill, the other day, and it was so calm you could hear the buzzing of--a fly's wing. I was half asleep with the heat and with having nothing to do, when I was aroused by a noise coming down from the mountain along the stream. The road crosses it just above the glen; and at the bridge the sound divided itself, and I heard the beat of wings on one side of the stream and on the other, but I could see nothing. I then seemed to hear the blowing of weak-voiced bugles, and faint shouts, and the sound of blows, as if two winged armies were fighting in the air; and even the firing of shots; but it was as if I was hearing all through a skreen or in a dream. It seemed to me even as if light bodies fell in the water. At last there was greater shout­ing and work on one side, and hurraing, and then all the noise and rout rose in the air, and everything fell into quiet again. Fairies don't cross streams, you say! How then could the Leinster fairies cross over the Suir and Barrow to have a hurling match with the Munster fairies, or the fairies of Ireland have a battle with the Scotch fairies? "

Mrs. K. was as certain that the following adventure had befallen her father as that she ruled her husband without appeal, and was in turn despotically ruled by his children.

[Fairlie]

Jemmy Doyle in the Fairy Palace

My father was once coming down Scollagh Gap on a dark night, and all at once he saw, right before him, the lights coming from ever so many windows of a castle, and heard the shouts and laughing of people within. The door was wide open, and in he walked; and there on the spot where he had often drunk a tumbler of bad beer, he found himself in a big hall, and saw the king and queen of the fairies sitting at the head of a long table, and hundreds of people, all grandly dressed, eating and drinking. The clothes they had on them were of an old fashion, and there were harpers and pipers by themselves up in a gallery, and playing the most delightful old Irish airs. There was nothing to be seen but rich silk dresses, and pearls, and diamonds on the gentlemen and ladies and rich hangings on the walls, and lamps blazing.

The queen, as soon as she saw my father, cried out, "Welcome, Mr. Doyle; make room there for Mr. Doyle, and let him have the best at the table. Hand Mr. Doyle a tumbler of punch, that will be strong and sweet. Sit down, Mr. Doyle, and make yourself welcome." So he sat down, and took the tumbler, and just as he was going to taste it, his eye fell on the man next him, and he was an old neighbour that was dead twenty years. Says the old neighbour, "For your life, don't touch bit nor sup." The smell was very nice, but he was frightened by what the dead neighbour said, and he began to notice how ghastly some of the fine people looked when they thought he was not minding them.

So his health was drunk, and he was pressed by the queen to fall to, but he had the sense to take the neigh­bour's advice, and only spilled the drink down between his coat and waistcoat.

At last the queen called for a song, and one of the guests sang a very indecent one in Irish. He often re­peated a verse of it for us, but we didn't know the sense. At last he got sleepy, and recollected nothing more only the rubbing of his legs against the bushes in the knoc (field of gorse) above our place in Cromogue; and we found him asleep next morning in the haggard, with a scent of punch from his mouth. He told us that we would get his knee-buckles on the path at the upper end of the knoc, and there, sure enough, they were found. Heaven be his bed!

[Fairlie]

The Fairy Cure

We have related the adventures of a woman in the Duffrey, who had been called on at a late hour to assist the lady of a fairy chief in a trying situation. The person about whom we are going to speak was also a sage-femme and in that capacity was summoned by a dark rider to aid his lady, who was on the point of adding to the Sighe population of the country.

For nearly a year before that time, Nora's daughter, Judy, had been confined to her bed by a sore leg, which neither she, nor the neighbouring doctor, nor the fairy-man, [a] could "make any hand of."

The calling up of the old woman, the ride behind the Fir Dhorocha, and the dismounting at the door of an illuminated palace, all took place as mentioned in the tale above alluded to. In, the hall she was surprised to see an old neighbour, who had long been spirited away from the, haunts of his youth and manhood, to the joyless, though showy life of the Sighe caverns. He at once took an Opportunity, when the "Dark man" was not observing him, to impress on Nora the necessity of taking no refreshment of any kind while under the roof of the fairy castle, and of refusing money or any other consideration in any form. The only exception he made was in favour of cures for diseases inflicted by evil spirits or by fairies.

She found the lady of the castle in a bed with pillows and quilts of silk, and in a short time (for Nora was a handy woman) there was a beautiful little girl lying on the breast of the delighted mother. All the fine ladies that were scattered through the large room, now gathered round, and congratulated their queen, and paid many compliments to the lucky-handed Nora. "I am so pleased with you," said the lady, "that I shall be glad to see you take as much gold, and silver, and jewels, out of the next room, as you can carry." Nora stepped in out of curiosity and saw piles of gold and silver coins, and baskets of diamonds and pearls, lying about on, every side, but she remembered the caution, and came out empty-handed. "I'm much obleeged to you, my lady," said she, "but if I took them guineas, and crowns, and jewels home, no one would ever call on me again to help his wife, and I'd be sittin' wud me hands acrass and doin' nothin' but dhrinkin' tay and makin' curtchies (courtesies), an' I'd be dead before a year 'ud be gone by." "Oh dear! "said the lady, "what an odd person you are! At any rate, sit down at that table, and help yourself to food and drink." "Oh, ma'am, is it them jellies, an' custhards, an' pasthry you'd like to see me at? Lord love you! I would'nt know the way to me mouth wud the likes; an' I swore again dhrinkin' after a time I was overtaken wud the liccor when I ought to be mindin' a poor neighbour's wife." "Well, this is too bad. Will you even condescend to wear this shawl for my sake?" "Ach, me lady, would you have the dirty little gorsoons roaring after me, an' may be pelting me with stones, when I'd be going through the village?" "Well, but what should hinder you from living in this castle all your life with me, eating and drinking, and wearing the best of everything?" "Musha, ma'am, I'd only be the laughin' stock o' the fine ladies and gentlemen. I'd have no ould neighbour to have a shanachus (gossip) wud, and what 'ud the craythurs of women do for me in me own place, when their time 'ud be come?" "Alas! alas! is there any way in which I can show you how grateful I am for your help and your skill?" "Musha, indeed is there, ma'am. My girshach, Jude, is lying under a sore leg for a twelvemonth, an' I'm sure that the lord or yourself can make her as sound as a bell if you only say the word." "Ask me anything but that, and you shall have it." "Oh, lady, dear, that's giving me everything but the thing I want." "You don't know the offence your daughter gave to us, I am sure, or you would not ask me to cure her." "Judy offend you, ma'am! Oh, it's impossible!" "Not at all; and this is the way it happened.

"You know that all the fairy court enjoy their lives in the night only, and we frequently go through the country, and hold our feasts where the kitchen, and especially the hearth, is swept up clean. About a twelvemonth ago, myself and my ladies were passing your cabin, and one of the company liked the appearance of the neat thatch, and the whitewashed walls, and the clean pavement outside the door, so much, that she persuaded us all to go in. We found the cheerful turf fire shining oh the well-swept hearth and floor, and the clean pewter and delft plates on the dresser, and the white table. We were so well pleased, that we sat down on the hearth, and laid our tea-tray, and began to drink our tea as comfortably as could be. You know we can be any size we please, and there was a score of us settled before the fire.

"We were vexed enough when we saw your daughter come up out of your bedroom, and make towards the fire. Her feet, I acknowledge, were white and clean, but one of them would cover two or three of us, the size we were that night. On she came stalking, and just as I was raising my cup of tea to my lips, down came the soft flat sole on it, and spilled the tea all over me. I was very much annoyed, and I caught the thing that came next to my hand, and hurled it at her. It was the tea-pot, and the point of the spout is in the small of her leg from that night till now." "Oh, lady, darlint! how can you hold spite to the poor slob of a girl, that knew no more of you being there, nor of offending you, that she did of the night she was born? " " Well, well; now that is all past and gone I believe you are right. At all events, you have done so much for me, that I cannot refuse you anything. Take this ointment, and rub it where you will see the purple mark, and I hope that your thoughts of me may be pleasant."

Just then, a messenger came to say that the lord was at the hail door waiting for Nora, for the cocks would be soon a-crowing. So she took leave of the lady, and mounted behind the dark man. The horse's back seemed as hard and as thin as a hazel stick, but it bore her safely to her home. She was in a sleepy state all the time she was returning, but at last she woke up, and found herself standing by her own door. She got into bed as fast as she could, and when she woke next morning, she fancied it was all a dream. She put her hand in her pocket, and there, for a certainty, was the box of ointment. She stripped the clothes off her daughter's leg, rubbed some of the stuff on it, and in a few seconds she saw the skin bursting, and a tiny spout of a tea-pot working itself out. Poor Judy was awake by this, and wondering what ease she felt in her leg. I warrant she was rejoiced at the story her mother told her. She soon received health and strength, and never neglected to leave her kitchen so nice when she was going to hed, that Rich Darner himself might eat his dinner off the floor. She took good care never to let her feet stray over it again after bed-time, for fear of giving offence to her unseen visitors.

[a] The worthy who possessed skill in curing all maladies inflicted "by the Good People," sympathetic ointments and charmed draughts being the chief articles in his pharmacopoeia.

[Fairlie]

The Sea Fairies

Moruadh, or Moruach, is the name given to the mer­maids that haunt the shallow waters near our coasts. The word is composed of Mur, sea, and Oich, maid. The mermen do not seem on the whole to be an attrac­tive or interesting class. Their hair and, teeth are green, their noses invariably red, and their eyes resemble those of a pig. Moreover, they have a penchant for brandy, and keep a look-out for cases of that article that go astray in shipwrecks. Some naturalists attribute the hue of their noses to extra indulgence in that liquor. It is little to be wondered at that their young women occa­sionally prefer marriage with a coast farmer. The wear­ing of a nice little magic cap (the Cohuleen Druith) is essential to their well-being in their country below the waves, and the mortal husband must keep this cap well concealed from his sea-wife, instances are rife of deso­lation made in families by the inadvertent finding of it by one of the children, who, of course, shows it to his mother to learn what it is. However strong her affection for husband and children, she is instinctively obliged to seize on it, and clap it on her head. She tenderly em­braces her children, but immediately flies to the sea-brink, plunges in, and is seen no more. The distracted husband, when he hears the news from the forsaken children, accuses destiny, and calls for aid to the powers of sea and land, but all in vain. Why did he perpetrate an unsuitable marriage?

One man, who lived near Bantry, was blessed with an excellent wife of this class. (As a rule, a Moruach is most desirable as wife, mother, and mistress of a family.) They would have lived comfortably, but many sea-cows, aware of her original condition, would persist in coming up to graze on her husband's meadows, and thus be near their relative. The husband, an unsentimental fellow, would chase and worry the poor sea-cattle, even to wounds and bruises, till the wife, after many useless appeals to his good feelings, poked out her Cohuleen Druith and quitted him. He was sorry when it was too late. His children, and theirs again, were distinguished by a rough scaly skin and a delicate membrane between fingers and toes.

[Fairlie]

The Black Cattle of Durzy Island

Several centuries since, a family residing on Durzy Island, off Bantry Bay, found a beautiful little coal-black bull and cow on a verdant spot near the beach. The cow furnished sufficient butter and milk for all domestic wants, and next year a calf was added to the number. When this youngster was come to the age of affording additional support to the family, a wicked servant girl, one day milking the parent cow, so far forgot herself as to strike the gentle beast with the spancel, and curse her bitterly. The outraged animal turned round to the other two, who were grazing at some distance, and lowed to them in a sorrowful tone, and immediately the three moved rapidly off to the sea. They plunged in, and forthwith the three rocks, since known as the Bull, Cow, and Calf, arose, and continue to this day to protest against the wickedness and ingratitude of cross-grained servant girls.

We are indebted to Captain F. W. L. Thomas, R.N., for the following legend of the sea-dwellers:--

[Fairlie]

The Silkie Wife

Those in Shetland and Orkney Islands who know no better, are persuaded that the seals, or silkies, as they call them, can doff their coverings at times, and disport themselves as men and women. A fisher once turning a ridge of rock, discovered a beautiful bit of green turf adjoining the shingle, sheltered by rocks on the landward side, and over this turf and shingle two beautiful women chasing each other. Just at the man's feet lay two seal-skins, one of which he took up to examine it. The women, catching sight of him, screamed out, and ran to get possession of the skins. One seized the article on the ground, donned it in a thrice, and plunged into the sea; the other wrung her hands, cried, and begged the fisher to restore her property; but he wanted a wife, and would not throw away the chance. He wooed her so earnestly and lovingly, that she put on some woman's clothing which he brought her from his cottage, followed him home, and became his wife. Some years later, when their home was enlivened by the presence of two children, the husband awaking one night, heard voices in conversation from the kitchen. Stealing softly to the room door, he heard his wife talking in a low tone with some one outside the window. The interview was just at an end, and he had only time to ensconce himself in bed, when his wife was stealing across the room. He was greatly disturbed, but determined to do or say nothing till he should acquire further knowledge. Next evening, as he was returning home by the strand, he spied a male and female phoca sprawling on a rock a few yards out at sea. The rougher animal, raising himself on his tail and fins, thus addressed the astonished man in the dialect spoken in these islands:--"You deprived me of her whom I was to make my companion; and it was only yesternight that I discovered her outer garment, the loss of which obliged her to be your wife. I bear no malice, as you were kind to her in your own, fashion; besides, my heart is too full of joy to hold any malice. Look on your wife for the last time." The other seal glanced at him with all the shyness and sorrow she could force into her now uncouth features; but when the bereaved' husband rushed toward the rock to secure his lost treasure, she and her companion were in the water on the other side of it in a moment, and the poor fisherman was obliged to return sadly to his motherless children and desolate home.



The reader will find the character and habits of the Pooka illustrated in different collections of Irish Legends. The adventure that follows was related by the sufferer to a gentleman, from whose mouth we have it. Our authority felt certain that the man was fully persuaded of the reality of the facts, which he was unable to detail without a feeling of terror.

[Fairlie]

The Pooka of Murroe

The unfortunate hero of this narrative was returning home one night along an avenue which lay between a hedge and a wood, the trees of which stood so close that the boughs interlaced. He was not naturally subject to superstitious fears, but he could not be otherwise than frightened after advancing some distance, on hearing a rustling in the boughs overhead, keeping pace with his own progress. Looking up, he was terrified by the appearance of a dark object visible through the foliage and boughs where they were not too close, and the outline dimly defined by the obscure light of the sky. The form was that of a goat, and it kept nearly over his head, springing from bough to bough as his shaking limbs carried him forward. The only encouraging idea that occurred to him was, that he would soon be at the border of the wood, and that in all probability the evil thing would trouble him no further. After what seemed a very long time, though it probably occupied but a few minutes, he was under the last tree; but while hoping for the cessation of his torment, the dreadful thing in the full caparison of a he-goat dropped on his shoulders, and bent him down on all fours!

He retained his senses, and merely strength enough to creep on painfully, labouring the while under such a sensation of horror as perhaps none can comprehend except those who have endured the visitation of the nightmare. He could not afterwards form any idea of the time occupied by his staggering home under the fearful burden. His family heard the noise as of a body falling against the door. It was at once opened, and the poor head of the family was found lying across the entrance insensible. They brought him in, laid him before the fire, had his hands chafed, water thrown on his face, &c., till he recovered consciousness. He was confined to his bed for two or three weeks with pains and stiffness in his bones and joints, as if he was suffering under a severe attack of rheumatism As there was no intentional deception on the victim's side, perhaps the delusion and illness may be accounted for by his lying insensible for some time in a damp place, and being called on while in that state by that dreadful visitant the nightmare.

The Pooka's head-quarters in Ireland are Carrig-a-Phooka, west of Macroom, Castle Pooka, near Doneraile, and, the island of Melaan, at the mouth of the Kenmare river, a locality dreaded by sailors and fishers at night, or in bad weather, the most frightful noises being heard there at these times.

The Lubber fiend, Lubberkin, or Lurdane, of the old English poets, seems to be related to our Celtic Lurigadan, by name at least; but our variety is not noted for household duty, unless making a beast of himself in the cellar pass for such. The Fear Dearg (Red Man) is indeed fond of a comfortable hearth in winter, and using the tobacco-pipe left on the hob for his need. He occasionally shows himself to members of the family, but does not like to be looked at too curiously. He likewise takes food, which is thoughtfully left aside for him, and his continued presence in a house brings good fortune with it. Croker says that this little red-capped and red-coated power heads the native forces against the fairies of foreign parts; and if any mortals come in their direct course, they will for the nonce bridle and saddle them, and convert them into special war-horses, rewarding them by "hands" of tobacco or other delicacies when the fight is done.



The supernatural agent of the next legend will not fit comfortably in any of the divisions of the spiritual world made by Grimm, Croker, Keightley, and others. He would be the Lubber-Fiend of Milton, or the Brownie of Scotland, or the Kobold of the North, but for once having been a "christened man." Every one up to the mere alphabet of fairy lore, knows that the pooka does not condescend to household drudgery, but his townsfolk would give the sprite in question no other name; and in consequence, the present editor of the tale does not feel entitled to take any liberties with it. A girl of Kilcock thus related the story to us.

[Fairlie]

The Kildare Pooka

Mr. H-----R-----, when he was alive, used to live a good deal in Dublin, and he was once a great while out of the country on account of the "Ninety-eight" business. But the servants kept on in the big house at Rath-----, all the same as if the family was at home. Well, they used to be frightened out of their lives after going to their beds, with the banging of the kitchen door and the clattering of the fire-irons, and the pots, and plates, and dishes. One evening they sat up ever so long, keeping one another in heart with telling stories about ghosts and fetches and that when--what would you have of it?--the little scullery boy that used to be sleeping over the horses, and couldn't get room at the fire, crept into the hot hearth, and when he got tired listening to the stories, sorra fear him but he fell dead asleep.

Well and good, after they were all gone, and the fire raked up, he was woke with the noise of the kitchen door opening, and the trampling of an ass on the kitchen floor. He peeped out, and what should he see but a big grey ass, sure enough, sitting on his currabingo, and yawning before the fire. After a little, he looked about him, and began scratching his ears as if he was quite tired, and says he, "I may as well begin first as last." The poor boy's teeth began to chatter in his head, for says he, "Now he's goin' to ate me;" but the fellow with the long ears and tail on him, had something else to do. He stirred up the fire, and then he brought in a pail of water from the pump, and filled a big pot, that he put on the fire before he went out. He then put in his hand--foot, I mean--into the hot hearth, and pulled out the little boy. He let a roar out of him with the fright, but the pooka only looked at him, and thrust out his lower lip to show how little he valued him, and then he pitched him into his pew again.

Well, he then lay down before the fire till he heard the boil coming on the water, and maybe there wasn't a plate, or a dish, or a spoon on the dresser, that he didn't fetch and put into the pot, and wash and dry the whole hum' of 'em as well as e'er a kitchenmaid from that to Dublin town. He then put all of them up in their places on the shelves, and, if he didn't give a good sweepin' to the kitchen after all, leave it till again. Then he comes and sits foment the boy, let down one of his ears and cocked up the other, and gave a grin. The poor fellow strove to roar out, but not a dheeg 'ud come out of his throat. The last thing the pooka done was to rake up the fire, and walk out, giving such a slap o' the door that the boy thought the house couldn't help tumbling down.

Well, to be sure, if there wasn't a hullabulloo next morning, when the poor fellow told his story! They could talk of nothing else the whole day. One said one thing, another said another, but a fat, lazy scullery girl said the wittiest thing of all. " Musha!" says she, "if the pooka does be cleaning up everything that way when we're asleep, what should we be slaving ourselves for, doing his work?" "Sha gu dheine," says another: "them's the wisest words you ever said, Kauth: it's meself won't contradict you."

So said so done. Not a bit of a plate or dish saw a drop of water that evening, and not a besom was laid on the floor, and every one went to bed soon after sundown. Next morning everything was as fine as fire in the kitchen, and the lord mayor might eat his dinner off the flags. It was great ease to the lazy servants, you may depend, and everything went on well till a foolhardy gag of a boy said he would stay up one night and have a chat with the pooka.

He was a little daunted when the door was thrown open, and the ass marched up to the fire. He didn't open his mouth till the pot was filled, and the pooka lying snug and sausty before the fire.

"Ah then, sir! " says he, at last, picking up courage, "if it isn't taking a liberty, might I ax who you are, and why are you so kind as to do half of the day's work for the girls every night?" "No liberty at all," says the pooka, says he "I'll tell you, and welcome. I was a servant here in the time of Squire R.'s father, and was the laziest rogue that ever was clothed and fed, and done nothing for it. When my time came for the other world, this is the punishment was laid on me--to come here, and do all this labour every night, and then go out in the cold. It isn't so bad in the fine weather, but if you only knew what it is to stand with your head between your legs, facing the storm, from midnight to sunrise on a bleak winter night!" "And could we do anything for your comfort, my poor fellow?" says the boy. "Musha, I don't know," says the pooka; "but I think a good quilted frieze coat would help to keep the life in me, them long nights." "Why then, in throth, we'd be the ungratefulest of people if we didn't feel for you."

To make a long story short, the next night but two the boy was there again; and if he didn't delight the poor Pooka, holding up a fine warm coat before him, it's no matter! Betune the pooka and the man, his legs were got into the four arms of it, and it was buttoned down his breast and his belly, and he was so pleased, he walked up to the glass to see how he looked. "Well," says he, "it's a long lane that has no turning. I am much obliged to yourself and your fellow-servants. Yous have made me happy at last: good-night to you."

So he was walking out, but the other cried, "Och! sure you're going too soon: what about the washing and sweeping?" "Ah, you may tell the girls that they must now get their turn. My punishment was to last till I was thought worthy of a reward for the way I done my duty. You'll see me no more." And no more they did, and right sorry they were for being in such a hurry to reward the ungrateful pooka.



Our notice of the Cluricawn, Leprechaun, or Lurikeen, shall be brief, as he is one of the best known of all the fairy tribe. Keightley and Croker have given us a surfeit of the deceitful old rogue. With some trouble, a relationship might be established between himself and the industrious little mine-workers of the North, but the return would not be equal to the outlay.

[Fairlie]

The Kildare Lurikeen

A young girl that lived in sight of Castle Carberry, near Edenderry, was going for a pitcher of water to the neighbouring well one summer morning, when who should she see sitting in a sheltery nook under an old thorn, but the Lurikeen, working like vengeance at a little old brogue only fit for the foot of a fairy like himself. There he was, boring his holes, and jerking his waxed ends, with his little three-cornered hat with gold lace, his knee-breeches, his jug of beer by his side, and his pipe in his mouth. He was so busy at his work, and so taken up with an old ballad he was singing in Irish, that he did not mind Breedheen till she had him by the scruff o' the neck, as if he was in a vice. "Ah, what are you doin'?" says he, turning his head round as well as he could. "Dear, dear! to think of such a purty colleen ketchin' a body, as if he was afther robbin' a hen roost! What did I do to be thrated in such an undecent manner? The very vulgarest young ruffin in the townland could do no worse. Come, come, Miss Bridget, take your hands off, sit down, and us have a chat, like two respectable people." "Ah, Mr. Lurikeen, I don't care a wisp of borrach [a] for your politeness. It's your money I want, and I won't take hand or eye from you till you put me in possession of a fine lob of it." "Money, indeed! Ah! where would a poor cobbler like me get it? Anyhow there's no money hereabouts, and if you'll only let go my arms, I'll turn my pockets inside out, and open the drawer of my seat, and give you leave to keep every halfpenny you'll find." "That won't do; my eyes'll keep going through you like darning needles till I have the gold. Begonies, if you don't make haste, I'll carry you, head and pluck, into the village, and there you'll have thirty pair of eyes on you instead of one." "Well, well! was ever a poor cobbler so circumvented! and if it was an ignorant, ugly bosthoon that done it, I would not wonder; but a decent, comely girl, that can read her Poor Man's Manual at the chapel, and--" "You may throw your compliments on the stream there; they won't do for me, I tell you. The gold, the gold, the gold! Don't take up my time with your blarney." "Well, if there's any to be got, it's undher the ould castle it is; we must have a walk for it. Just put me down and we'll get on." "Put you down indeed! I know a trick worth two of that; I'll carry you." "Well, how suspicious we are Do you see the castle from this?" Bridget was about turning her eyes from the little man to where she knew the castle stood, but she bethought herself in time.

They went up a little hill-side, and the Lurikeen was quite reconciled, and laughed and joked; but just as they got to the brow, he looked up over the ditch, gave a great screetch, and shouted just as if a bugle horn was blew at her ears--" Oh, murdher! Castle Carberry is afire." Poor Biddy gave a great start, and looked up towards the castle. The same moment she missed the weight of the Lurikeen, and when her eyes fell where he was a moment before, there was no more sign of him than if everything that passed was a dream.

This passage in the natural history of the Lurikeen is furnished by the chronicler of the "Rath C.-Pooka." The only instance of a Wexford Lurikeen that we can recall, differs only slightly from this. Wexford Molly was as vigilant as Kildare Biddy, and never took eye or hand off him till he pointed out the very stalk of booliaun bui under which the treasure lay. There was no other weed of the kind within half the field of it at the moment, but when Molly returned in half an hour, attended by father and brothers with spades and picks, all round the spot, to a considerable distance, was as thick with booliauns as a plantation with young trees.

The next tale cannot boast of a very remote origin in its present form, having been written in the beginning of the last century, but it is an adaptation of one as old as the times of paganism. These ancient fictions, when thoroughly abandoned to a traditional existence, passing from the mouths of one generation of story-tellers to the ears of their successors, or even left to the mercy of careless and ignorant scribes, suffered considerable damage. We find in those that have been preserved by the peasantry passages in the worst taste, grotesque, extravagant, and unintentionally ludicrous, which never were uttered by the educated and really gifted bards, who found a welcome in the hall of chief or king, or at the public assembly.

We do not make this remark in a fault-finding spirit with our peasantry. They have saved a great number of legends peculiar to themselves, as well as the fairy and household stories, which are the common property of most of the countries of Europe.

We conclude the present section with:



[a] Coarse tow. The mere English reader will in vain attempt the horrible sound of this word. Let him apply to a native to pronounce it for him.

[Fairlie]

The Adventures of the "Son of Bad Counsel."

The tale, of which the following is an abridgment,. was composed in mixed prose and verse by Brian Dhu O'Reilly, [a] who was living in Cavan about the year 1725. The original title is Eachtra mhic na Miochomhairle. Our plan allows admission but to a few of the adventures. The hero tells the tale in his own person, and it must be owned that his is a very rambling mode of fixing his hearer's interest. You would suppose at first that his meeting with a lovely fairy and their subsequent courtship would be the central group of his fortunes; but after singing her glorious form and features, and the splendour of the surrounding landscape, in the most florid Irish poesy, night comes on, and he is obliged to seek for shelter in the castle of a Gruagach (giant, enchanter; Breton, groac'h). Here is a taste of the original, literally translated:--

"Or, the sun going to his bed I knew not what place, what land,
What district I was in, on the earth or above.
My eyes to the four quarters of the sky I cast round,
And by the roadside I there saw the beautiful Sighe.

"I approached her, though arduous and bold was the deed:
Seated on the bank, like an angel she seemed.
Her silky sweet shape not bony nor angular,
Like the blossoms of the berry her fair-coloured breasts."

The "Son of Bad Counsel" was evidently very whimsical and fickle-minded; he turned from the lovely fairy beauty at once to sing the glory of the landscape.

"The like of that land I've not seen nor heard of,
For amenity, for goodness, for its clear flowing streams
Dew-drops of honey on all the tree branches,
And the bee's humming music was heard without pause."

Dark stormy night came on the landscape. No more is heard of the fairy belle, and the Son of Bad Counsel somehow found himself before a castle, the beauties of which he described in poetic language. Entering, he found the Gruagach master, "strong, truly powerful, ruddy in countenance, and clad in 'silken robes." And on the right hand of the Gruagach, on a chair of burnished gold, was his lady daughter, beauteous, gentle, honest, unexceptionable in her attire, musical in voice and compassionate, young, glorious, sweet-spoken, lightsome, like a shining diamond, a harvest moon, a morning sun, a heavenly angel. Her eyes were gray and thoughtful, like the gleaming sparkling stars of a hard frosty night. Her golden, curling hair was divided, and hung on each side like bunches of clustering grapes. Her robe was of silk, gracefully covering her beautiful figure, and an ornamented brooch glittered on her bosom, and on her knee was a hand-harp (Cruith), from which she was drawing sweet sounds. [b]

The hero of the story was an arrant coward, as well as a poet; but he plucked up courage to address the host, who, after all, was not very formidable in appearance:----

King of the globe, fair is this place which I have come to--
A royal fort, white-boarded, erected as the abode of Maev;
Like onto the Dun Aileach, it is similar to Paradise,
And I am not certain that it is not in a court I am truly.

"More delightful is this sight than Tara and Naas together,
And than the three branches in Emania, [c] once held by the hero
Dairg,
My journey I arrest till I know who dwells here."

The richly dressed Gruagach made a suitable reply "Long it is since we saw a person or people before you, who could afford us joy or pleasure" (they were apparently not aware of his cowardice and general worthlessness), "and long were we expecting you, for we have neither children nor heirs, but that daughter you see before you; and we have nursed and nobly reared her from her infancy for you to be your wife and companion." "By your hand," was the ready answer, "if I had known so much--but how could I? It is I that would have searched the four quarters of the globe for her sweet self, even to the loss of my life."

Then the Gruagach arose, and bade the guest take his golden chair; and then he began his own particular grievances, and the service he required at the hands of his future son-in-law before the silken-attired lady could become his wife.

It seemed that Trom Ceo Draochta (Heavy Enchanted Fog), the fairy chief residing at Din Aoilig, had stolen the two sons of the King of the Isle of the Living, as he had no heirs to enjoy his power. Ruan Luimneach, a powerful Sighe chief, a neighbour of him of the Isle of the Living, on hearing of this wrong, summoned all his subjects of the Western World to assemble, and attack the Fog-chief in his stronghold, and rescue the sons of his friend. Heavy Magic Fog, on hearing of the projected attack on Din Aoilig, summoned his confederates to his aid. Among these were Donn Ceiv Fionn from Magh Hi in Conacht, Donn Feiriné O'Conail from Knocfierna, and Donn Binné Eachla labhra (The Lord of the Hill of the Speaking Horse [d]), Gilla Brighid O'Faolan, a Sighe gaoithe (Fairy Blast) from the Decies, and Gilla Fiamach O'Doran, Chief of Ceibhfion. [e]

"I was also summoned among these chiefs," continued the master, "and my footmen and my horsemen departed yesterday to Din Aoilig, and I myself will follow to-morrow. I did not go with my people, for I expected you; and if your feats of valour deserve the hand of my daughter, my daughter shall be your wife on our return. If you fall, a mighty mound shall cover your remains, your caoine shall be said by eloquent and very famous fileas, and your name, and your ancestors, and your deeds engraved on the Oghuim stone."

Fair was the daughter of the Gruagach, but she was to be won with risk of life; and a shivering seized on the limbs of the young man, and his teeth chattered. The master seemed to know that trouble had come on his spirit, and be asked his wife to bring in the golden, gem-incrusted goblet of comfort and forgetfulness.

It was brought, and this was the quality of that goblet, that every one drinking from it should forget their cares and troubles as if they had never been; and if a thousand persons drank their fill from it, never was the wine a hair's breadth lower.

Mac drank, and great courage came into his heart. "Deep is my gratitude to you, O powerful chief," said he; "and I would be glad to know your name, and the name of the Bhan Tiernach (Woman-chief), your wife, and how your castle is called." "Gruagath Tirégan Taithige (Giant [f] of the Unfrequented Land) is my name," said he, "and my wife is daughter of the King of the Lonesome Land, and Dun Tochluaiste (Uncertain Castle) is the name of this castle; and it is as easy for me to be at the end of Erinn at any hour as to be here."

Then the master of the house and his guest sat down at Taibleish Mhor (backgammon, large table), and the fashion of the tables was this. Fine elephant (ivory) were the dice, and fine carved wood, and emerald, and gold, and white silver, and carbuncle were the tables; and a blind man could see to play with them, and people with their sight could play with them on the darkest night. But if the body of the Mac na, &c. was at the table with the Gruagach, his "intellect, his desire, his sight, and his reason, were at the other side of the hall, where sat the Gruagach's daughter, with her golden curling hair and her silken robe."

So the unfortunate youth lost the game, but the Gruagach made him a present of the tables that he might learn to play. Very grateful was he, but he feared he 'should pay for all to-morrow before Din Aoilig. Then came supper time, and the youth sat opposite the magician, with the fair beauty on his right hand, and better food or better liquor was not consumed that night at Tara of the Kings.

But when the time of rest was come, and the Gruagach bade the Mac, &c. sleep soundly, as the flight of night was to see them on their way to Aoilig, "great fear, and discomfort, arid hate, and loathing, "fell on the heart of the Son of Bad Counsel, and said he to himself, "I wish I had -the dressed skin of a white sheep; that I might leave my last thoughts to my friends."

"Long it is to tell how I first saw the maid.
When she came in my sight I lit up full of her love.
My heart is sad that I see no more her fair face,
Her neck like the snow, and her bosom like two fair hills
Aud by the king's hand I'm sorry she is not mine."

Then they prepared his state bed, and the Gruagach and his wife went to their own apartment, after first giving him a token of life and health (wishing him goodnight). He was thinking more of the morning than the night; but the maid of the flowing hair, and the mild gray eyes, and the sweet smile, told him not to fear for his life, for that it was not in the power of all the fairy hosts within the four seas of Erinn to bring the end of life on him that had received baptism. They might pierce him with sighe-darts that would disable arm or leg, or cause him to pine, but perhaps they would not. And she also "gave him a token of life and health," and went to her couch in the next chamber.

Bad it was to lose life and the maid of the silk robe together, and but little better was it to be stretched on rushes with sighe-darts in the leg. So the Son of Bad Counsel, while lying on the wolf-skin, felt a shivering all over him, and then all the blood in his body rushed up to his head, arid his skin seemed on fire, and at last despair put it into his mind to persuade the lady that had won his heart to fly with him where neither Gruagach, nor Heavy Magic Fog, nor Ruan Luimneach, King of all the Fairies of the West, could find them out. So he arose, with his heart in his mouth, and his legs trembling under him he opened her door, and he found himself in a wild lonesome place, and then he knew that it was Aimsighthe and Aimgeoireachd (qu. ambushes and temptations) were on him; and he heard the bonanaich and the boconaigh (qu. wild boars or wild bulls, and he-goats), and the other forest dwellers, hideous, terrible, loud-voiced, sharp, inflamed. And he became like a madman, and he flew like a wild cat from its nest in the tree, or a stag from his lair. And when he cleared the wood he found himself in a plain, wide-spread and grassy, and in the middle a high green hill, where neither boars nor goats could easily catch him.

When he was on the hill he found a great rim round its summit, and within, a boiling, boisterous, noisy, foamy, very tempestuous sea, with no path round it. By the harbour was an old boat, which the unfortunate, ill-advised youth strove to repair; but hearing the wild piercing cries of the beasts of devils of the woods at his back, he put to sea. This was all that the fierce, incessant, spiteful, threatening, very destructive winds waited for. They blew as if to scoop out the sea from its hollow, and the earth belched out from its caverns the restless waters. The boatman flying up to the clouds at this side of the wave, and descending into the dark caverns of the earth op the other, bellowed to heaven for help; arid the Gruagach, hearing the outcry, bade his daughter light a candle!

In the cellar they found the son of ill-luck as well as of ill-counsel, seated on a cullender that was covering a vat of strongly-working new beer. These were the high-rimmed mound and the sea. The roaring of the he-goats, the boars, and the bulls, and the wolves, was the cry of two cats which the sleep-walker had disturbed, and the howling of the storm, a breeze blowing through the cellar window.

The Gruagach and his daughter, seeing the youth crouched in the cullender over the great beer vat, burst out a laughing, and, said the master of the house, "Very fond of sailoring you must be to get into so small a vessel; and if it was in search of my daughter you were, better it would be to seek her on dry land." The misguided boy, descending from his damaged boat, hastened to his state bed to hide his confusion and great shame. Lying on his back, he composed a strain of lamentation over his hard fate; and when he fell asleep, all the ugly dreams that float between the moon and the earth passed through his mind. At last he awoke, and the fear of death came upon him when he remembered the gathering of Din Aoilig next day.

He arose, and opened the door of the maiden's chamber, intending to persuade her to fly with him; and great was his terror when he found himself in a wide field without track of man or beast. He recollected the roaring of the wild devils, and his heart turned into water when he saw a beast, black, devilish, hideous coloured, heavy-headed, dull-buzzing, approaching him. A great plum or a small apple would fit on every one of his coarse hairs. Two dead eyes were locked in his head, an empty long-falling snout he had, and rough white teeth.

When the doomed boy saw this hellish beast rushing right on him to devour him, he felt it full time to seek an escape. So with swift, mighty springs he made to the edge of that large field, and at its bounds he found himself stopped by a stormy, dangerous, coarse-waved, light. leaping, strongly-diffused, streamy, troublesome river; and thought within himself whether it would be better to try to swim across it, not knowing anything of the art, or face the cursed-of-form, diabolical, odious-coloured, hideous-countenanced, amazingly-hateful, and malicious beast. He had heard of persons ignorant of swimming,. who crossed wide streams under terror, and was sure that he would do the deed if ever fear, surprise, terror, timidity, fright, or loss of reason helped any one.

But, while he was considering what he should do, he looked back, and the big animal, with his gluttonous -mouth open, was just behind. It was not a courageous look of defiance he gave him, but he took a high, powerful, very light spring into the slowly-flowing river, and struck out vigorously with his arms for life. But deep and thick with mud was that pool, and choked with reeds, and no boat with sail or oar could work its way out. It was then he considered indeed that it was to the suffocating sea he had come, and that he should not leave it till he had been permanently drowned, and unworlded, and till the ravenous birds, open-beaked, should have. taken away his skin, his flesh, and his blood. In that state he gave out a wondrous, hard, slender, complaining, frightened cry. The waters were oozing into his open mouth, and cold death was creeping up his limbs, when he heard the voices of the Gruagach and his daughter over him. He was lying in a large trough filled with water and grains, his face downwards, his mouth full of the contents of the trough, and his arms striking out. "If you wished for a bath," said the master, "better would a vessel of clean water be than where the pigs take their food."

He cleared his mouth and his eyes, and sorrow was upon him to be seen by the maiden; and, when he turned away his eyes in shame, he discovered the fierce, ravenous, life-seeking wild beast of the big, lonesome field, grunting and rummaging in the litter, and it was as small and as tame as the rest of the enchanter's pigs.

With bitter grief he again betook himself to his rest, his soul divided between love for the maid of the sweet eyes and lips, and dread of the battle. [g] The Gruagach told him to sleep soundly till he should be called, as he himself was then going to gird the horses in their battle harness for the morrow. The blood rushed again to his head, while a shivering fit seized on his limbs. In the middle of his despair a raw gray light fell on his eyes; and his bed was the dry grass of a moat; and little wonder it was that he should be shivering, for his clothes were the pillow that supported his head.

But the love of the sighe-maid was still strong in his soul, and he vowed he would never lie two nights in the same bed till he had discovered her. For a year and a day he searched through the length and breadth of Erinn, and his resting-place at night was a sheltered grassy nook near a Sighe-Brugheen or a Danish fort. At the end of a year and a day, he was again at the spot where he had discovered the Castle of Uncertainty; and in his sleep that- night he had a vision of his fairy love, who told him to give over his pursuit of her, as she had been obliged by her father to take a husband. Next morning he found the charm gone, and his soul freed from the sighe-spell. He reformed his ways, and became the "Son of Good Counsel," and these are the verses he made about it:--

"Farewell, sweet and false dreams of my fancy!
The happiness you give is like the gold of the Clurichaun.
By the light of the moon the weight and the colour are there;
Withered leaves only remain in our hands at the dawn.
My course I'll change as the feathers fall from the birds;
I'll keep my hands busy, and take the sogarth's [h] advice;
And surely in Erinn of chaste and beautiful women,
I'll find some fair angel to come and sit on my hearth,
With smiles on her face when wearied I come from the fields;
She'll make evening happy, and lie all night at my side."

Among the old fireside romances were more than one or two of this deceptional character. Thor's visit to Jotunheim was the reverse in the order of things. What to him and his companions seemed of a mean and trifling character, were in reality of awful dimensions. The vessel from which he drank, but could scarcely see any way diminished of its contents, was the bed of ocean. The cat which he found it impossible to raise from the ground, was in reality the wolf Fenris, and so on.

The knights in quest of the San Graal also suffered in body and mind from being led aside by one of the three chief enemies of the human soul.

The general belief of the peasantry is that the existing fairies are those angels who, without openly joining Satan in his rebellion, gave it no opposition. Their future destiny will be determined at the Day of Judgment.

Some archaeologists fancy that the tales of mortals abiding with the fays in their Sighe palaces are founded on the tender preferences shown by the Druidic priestesses of old to favourite worshippers of the Celtic Divinities.

[a] Some give the credit of it to that loose fish, Carroll O'Daly.

[b] A profusion of epithets nearly synonymous often occurs in Irish poetry and romance. It arises from the richness of the language in words of the same or nearly the same meaning, and the temptation thrown in the way of the poet by alliteration.

[c] Maev, the Semiramis of the Royal Court of Conacht. Aileach, the Great Stone Fortress in the north-east of Donegal. Naas, once the residence of the kings of Leinster. Ernania, the Court of Ulster, whose ruins are yet to be seen near Armagh. Red Branch, an order of knighthood there established.

[d] Scholars who insist on beast-worship among the pagan Irish, adduce this tradition in support of their views. At every midsummer festival of the sun, this Each Labhra would issue from his mound, and give full and true answers to all who consulted him on the occurrences that would take place up to the next summer festival.

[e] As in our country parts, Casar, Pincher, Juno, and other favourite dogs enjoy the surnames of the families whom they serve, so we find here the fairy chiefs called by the names of the old families whose districts they frequented, and whose deceases they marked by their lamentations. The O'Dorans were Brehons to the kings of South Leinster. Gilla Brighid O'Faolan, St. Bridgid's servant (now Kilbride), would otherwise have been a strange name for a fairy chief.

[f] Gruagach has for root, Gruach, hair,--giants and magicians being usually furnished with a large provision of that appendage. A favourite song (even in its English dress) with the dying out generation, was the Bouchal 'na Gruaga Dhouna, "The Boy with the Brown Hair."

[g] There is a third adventure, of course, but it does not possess much novelty or interest.

[h] The Irish construction of sacerdos, one of the many words introduced with Christianity

[Fairlie]

THE LONG SPOON.

The devil and the hearth-money collector for Bantry set out one summer morning to decide a bet they made the night before over a jug of punch. They wanted to see which would have the best load at sunset, and neither was to pick up anything that wasn't offered with the goodwill of the giver. They passed by a house, and they heard the poor vanithee cry out to her lazy daughter, "O musha,--take you for a lazy sthronshuch of a girl! do you intend to getup to-day?" "Oh, oh!" says the tax-man, "there is a lob for you, Nick." "Ovoch! "says the other. "it wasn't from her heart she said it: we must pass on." The next cabin they were passing, the woman was on the bawn-ditch crying out to her husband, that was mending one of his brogues inside: "Oh, tattheration to you, Mick! you never rung them pigs, and there they are in the potato drills rootin' away; the----run to Lusk with them!" "Another windfall for you," says the man of the inkhorn, but the old thief only shook his horns and wagged his tail. So they went on, and ever so many prizes offered to the black fellow without him taking one. Here it was a gorsoon playing marvels when he should be using his clappers in the corn-field; and there it was a lazy drone of a servant asleep with his face to the sod, when he ought to be weeding. No one thought of offering the hearth-money man even a drink of buttermilk, and at last the sun was within half a foot of the edge of Cooliagh. They were just then passing thro' Monamolin, and a poor woman that was straining her supper in a skeeoge outside her cabin door, seeing the two standing at the bawn gate, bawled out, "Oh, here's the hearth-money man,--run away wid 'im!" "Got a bite at last," says Nick. "Oh, no, no! it wasn't from her heart she said it," says the collector. "Indeed an' it was from the very foundation stone of her heart it came. No help for misfortunes; in with you," says he, opening the mouth of his big black bag; and whether the devil was ever after seen taking the same walk or not, no one ever laid eyes on his fellow-traveller again.

The Cooliagh, or White Mountain, forms part of the north-west boundary of Wexford. The mere English reader is informed that the skeeoge or flattish wicker basket, having received the potatoes and boiling water on the pavement, lets the liquid off to the pool at the bottom of the yard. The shields of the ancient Irish, consisting of strong leather, or plates over a wicker framework, were called skiaghs.

At some period of the troubles in Munster a small tribe emigrated to the north-east portion of the county Wexford. The following legend connected with the family was current among the descendants who lived, and loved, and sinned, and fought the battle of life half a century since.

[Fairlie]

THE PROPHET BEFORE HIS TIME.

About a hundred years ago lived Mr. Diarmuidh K., a strong gentleman-farmer of this family. His place was not far from Slieve Buie (Yellow Hill). He was much

addicted to the study of astrology, and the occult works of Cornelius Agrippa. When his only son was about a month old, one of his servant boys ran into the parlour one day to tell him a circumstance that had greatly astonished himself: "Oh, master," said he, "the black cow was just while ago under the old thom-tree in the meadow, and all of a sudden a fog came round herself and the tree, while all the rest of the field was in the sunshine. I was going over to try what was the matter, when what should I see but a big sea-gull flying into the fog, and making ever so much noise with his wings. For fear he'd pick out the poor beast's eyes I ran over, but just as I got to the edge of the fog it all cleared as if there was some magic in it, and Blacky was walking away on the other side." "Oh, ho!" said the master; "what I have been long wishing for has happened at last. Now, Pat, attend to what I say. Watch that cow close; and when she calves, be sure to bring me some of the first beestings, and I'll give you more money than you have ever seen at once in your own possession."

The boy did his duty, such as it was. He brought the first beestings to his master, and received 10l for his pains; and Mr. K. ordering the child to be brought to him, made it take a spoonful or two of this first milk of the black cow. When the child began to speak intelligibly, the master of the house called all the family together one day, and charged them as they valued his favour, or dreaded his resentment, never to ask his son a question till he was full fourteen years of age. "The questions, I mean," said he, "are such as he could not answer without being a prophet. He is gifted with a spirit of prophecy, and when he reaches his fifteenth birthday, you will be at liberty to get all the information you please from him, concerning anything that is passing anywhere in any part of the world at the moment, or to ask about things lost or stolen, or your own future destiny. But attend to what I say. If you ask a question of him before he is full fourteen years of age, something terrible shall happen to him and you; take timely warning."

The boy had a wonderful capacity for science and language, but seldom spoke to those about him. He was very amiable, however, and every one anxious for some favour from his father always got him to be their spokesman. Strange to say, he reached to within a few days of the fatal time without being asked an improper question by any one.

He would occasionally when in company start. and begin to talk of what was passing at the moment in the town of Wexford, or the cities of Dublin or London, as if the people about him were aware of these matters as well as himself. Finding, however, by their looks and expressions of surprise, that they had not the same faculty, he began to grow very silent and reserved.

About this time a grand-daughter of the famous Blacky was about to calve; and Mr. K., who set a great value on the breed, recommended her particularly to the care of a young servant boy, a favourite of his. While he was looking after her and some others in a pasture near the house, a young girl to whom he was under promise of marriage was passing by chance along the path that bordered the fence. He asked her to stop, but "she was in a hurry to the big house." Stop she did, however, and full twenty minutes passed unmarked while they stood and conversed on very interesting nullities.

At the end of the twenty minutes he gave a sudden start, and examined the different groups of cattle with his eyes, but no Blacky was to be seen. He searched, and his betrothed assisted, but in vain; and the poor girl burst out a crying for the blame he would be sure to get through her folly. She went forward at last on her message to the big house, and passing by the kitchen garden, whom should she see, looking at the operations of the bees, but the young master. Let her not be blamed too much: she forgot everything but her lover's mishap; and so, after making her curtsey, she cried out across the hedge--"Ah! Master Anthony, alanna, do you know where the black cow has hid herself?" "Black cow!" said he, "she is lying dead in the byre." At the moment his eyes opened wide as if about to start from his head, an expression of terror took possession of his features, he gave one wild cry, fell powerless on his face, and when his wretched father came running to the spot, on hearing of the circumstance, he found an idiot in the place of his fine intelligent son.

The following event, said to have occurred near Scarawalsh, was told by a certain Owen Jourdan, on a winter night, in a farm-house of Cromogue, some seven miles away from the scene of action, the locality of such stories being never in the neighbourhood of their exposition.

[Fairlie]

THE BEWITCHED CHURN.

Near the townland mentioned there lived an old woman in bad repute with her neighbours. She was seen, one May eve, skimming a well that lay in a neighbouring farm; and when that was done, she went into the adjoining meadow, and skimmed the dew off the grass. One person said he heard her muttering, "Come all to me, and none to he." In a day or two, the owner of the farm, coming in from the fields about noon, found the family still at the churn, and no sign of butter. He was a little frightened, and looked here and there, and, at last, spied a bit of stale butter fastened to the mantel beam of the open fire-place.

"Oh, you may as well stop," said he; "look what's there!" "Oh, the witch's butter," said one of the girls; "cut it off the mantel-piece." "No use," said another; "it must be a charmed knife, or nothing. Go and consult the fairy man, in the old ruined house at--; if he doesn't advise you, nobody can." The master of the house took the advice; and, when they had milk enough for another churning, this is what they did--

They twisted twigs of the mountain ash round their cows' necks; they made a big fire, and thrust into it the sock and coulter of the plough; they fastened the ash twigs round the churn, and connected them to the chain of the plough-irons; shut door and windows, so that they could not be opened from without; and merrily began the churning.

Just as the plough-irons were becoming red-hot, some one tried the latch of the door and immediately they saw the face of the witch outside the window. "What do you want, good woman?" "The seed of the fire, and I want to help you at the churning. I heard what happened to you, and I'm rather lucky." Here she roared out; for the burning plough-irons were scorching her inside. "What ails you, poor woman?" "Oh, I have a terrible colic! let me into the fire for mercy's sake, and give me a warm drink." "Oh, musha, but it's ourselves are sorry for you; but we could not open door or window now for St. Mogue himself; for 'fraid the witch 'ud come in and cut our quicken gads, or pull out the plough-irons, or even touch the churn-staff. She got a bit of butter out of the fresh churning the other day, and took a sod out of our fire; and till she brings. back the butter and the sod we must labour away. Have patience, poor woman; when we see a sign of the butter we'll open the door for you, and give you such a warm tumbler of punch, with caraways in it, as would bring you back from death's door. Put more turf on, and keep the irons at a red heat." Another roar ensued, and then she ejaculated, "Oh, purshuin' to all hard-hearted naygurs, that 'ud see a fellow-creature dying in misery outside of their door! Sure, I was coming to yous with relief, and this is the sort of relief you'd give me. Throw up the window a bit, and take those things I made out for yous. Throw the bit of butter you'll find in this sheet of white paper into the churn, and this sod of turf into the fire, and cut away the bit of butter on the mantel beam with this knife, and give it back to me, till I return it to the knowledgeable woman I begged it from for yous."

The direction being followed, the butter began to appear in heaps in the churn. There was great joy and huzzaing, and they even opened the door to show hospitality to the old rogue. But she departed in rage, giving them her blessing in these words--" I won't take bit nor sup from yez. Yez have thrated me like a Hussian or a Cromwellian, and not like an honest neighbour, and so I lave my curse, and the curse of Cromwell on yez all "



There is a counterpart to the next legend in Campbell's West Highland Tales; we have met nothing similar in other collections. It would seem to have first been told long after the time of St. Patrick. In the stories found among the native Irish and Highlanders there is always evident more pf the Christian element than among the Norse or German collections, yet even in this respect there is a peculiarity worth noticing. The Blessed Virgin is personally introduced two or three times in Dasent's Norse collection, and we cannot recollect a single instance of such a liberty being taken in our Leinster recitals

[Fairlie]

THE GHOSTS AND THE GAME OF FOOTBALL.

There was once a poor widow woman's son that was going to look for service, and one winter's evening he came to a strong farmer's house, and this house was very near an old castle. "God save all here," says he, when he got inside the door. "God save you kindly," says the farmer. "Come to the fire." "Could you give me a night's lodging?" says the boy. "That we will, and welcome, if you will only sleep in a comfortable room in the old castle above there; and you must have a fire and candlelight, and whatever you like to drink; and if you're alive in the morning I'll give you ten guineas." "Sure. I'll be 'live enough if you send no one to kill me." "I'll send no one to kill you, you may depend. The place is haunted ever since my father died, and three or four people that slept in the same room were found dead next morning. If you can banish the spirits I'll give you a good farm and my daughter, so that you like one another well enough to be married." "Never say't twice. I've a middling safe conscience, and don't fear any evil spirit that ever smelled of brimstone."

Well and good, the boy got his supper, and then they went up with him to the old castle, and showed him into a large kitchen, with a roaring fire in the grate, and a table, with a bottle and glass, and tumbler on it, and the kettle ready on the hob. They bade him good-night and God speed, and went off as if they didn't think their heels were half swift enough.

"Well," says he to himself, "if there's any danger, this prayer-book will be usefuller than either the glass or tumbler." So he kneeled down and read a good many prayers, and then sat by the fire, and waited to see what would happen. In about a quarter of an hour, he heard something bumping along the floor overhead till it came to a hole in the ceiling. There it stopped, and cried out, "I'll fall, I'll fall." "Fall away," says Jack, and down came a pair of legs on the kitchen floor. They walked to one end of the room, and there they stood, and Jack's hair had like to stand upright on his head along with them. Then another crackling and whacking came to the hole, . and the same words passed between the thing above and Jack, and down came a man's body and went and stood upon the legs. Then comes the head and shoulders, till the whole man, with buckles in his shoes and knee-breeches, and a big flapped waistcoat and a three-cocked hat, was standing in one corner of the room. Not to take up your time for nothing, two more men, more old-fashioned dressed than the first, were soon standing in two other corners. Jack was a little cowed at first; but fbund his courage growing stronger every moment, and what would you have of it, the three old gentlemen began to kick a puckeen (football) as fast as they could, the man in the three-cocked hat playing again' the other two.

"Fair play is bonny play," says Jack, as bold as he could; but the terror was on him, and the words came out as if he was frightened in his sleep; "so I'll help you, sir." Well and good, he joined the sport, and kicked away till his shirt was wringing wet, savin' your presence, and the ball flying from one end of the room to the other like thunder, and still not a word was exchanged. At last the day began to break, and poor Jack was dead beat, and he thought, by the way the three ghosts began to look at himself and themselves, that they wished him to speak.

So, says he, "Gentlemen, as the sport is nearly over, and I done my best to please you, would you tell a body what is the reason of yous coming here night after night, and how could I give you rest, if it is rest you want?" "Them is the wisest words," says the ghost with the three-cocked hat, "you ever said in your life. Some of those that came before you found . courage enough to take a part in our game, but no one had misnach (energy) enough to speak to us. I am the father of the, good man of next house, that man in the left corner is my father, and the man on my right is my grandfather. From father to son we were too fond of money. We lent it at ten times the honest interest it was worth; we never paid a debt we could get over, and almost starved our tenants and labourers.

"Here," says he, lugging a large drawer out of the wall; "here is the gold and notes that we put together, and we were not honestly entitled to the one-half of it; and here," says he, opening another drawer, "are bills and memorandums that'll show who were wronged, and who are entitled to get a great deal paid back to them. Tell my son to saddle two of his best horses for himself and yourself, and keep riding day and night, till every man and woman we ever wronged be rightified. When that is done, come here again some night; and if you don't hear or see anything, we'll be at rest, and you may marry my grand-daughter as soon as you please."

Just as he said these words, Jack could see the wall through his body, and when he winked to clear his sight, the kitchen was as empty as a noggin turned upside down. At the very moment the farmer and his daughter lifted the latch, and both fell on their knees when they saw Jack alive. He soon told them everything that happened, and for three days and nights did the farmer and himself ride about, till there wasn't a single wronged person left without being paid to the last farthing.

'The next night Jack spent in the kitchen he fell asleep before he was after sitting a quarter of an hour at the fire, and in his sleep he thought he saw three white birds flying up to heaven from the steeple of the next church.

Jack got the daughter for his wife, and they lived comfortably in the old castle; and if ever he was tempted to hoard up gold, or keep for a minute a guinea or a shilling from the man that earned it through the nose, he bethought him of the ghosts and the game of football.



The peculiar style of conversation adopted by cats in their nightly reunions, and other odd fashions of theirs, have invested them in the eyes of our people with an eerie character.

In the Norse tales, a young hillman was banished from his tribe by the influence of an old chief, whose lady was suspected to be rather partial to him. He took refuge with a farmer, and did service in the form of a house cat. After some time, the farmer's servant coming by the enchanted mound, heard a shrill voice repeating--

"Go bid Tom Platt,
To tell his cat
That Knurre Murre's dead,"

When the servant entered the kitchen, he repeated the verse; and the moment the exile heard it from his seat by the fire, he gave a wild mew of delight, spouted out in feline language, "Knurre Murre's dead," cleared the yard-fence at a leap, and was off to his hill to bring comfort to the widow. Now hear the impotent conclusion to which this tale has come in Leinster

[Fairlie]

THE CAT OF THE CARMAN'S STAGE.

A carman was leaving Bunclody one morning for Dublin, when what should he see but a neighbour's cat galloping along the side of the road, and crying out every moment, "Tell Moll Browne, Tom Dunne is dead; tell Moll Browne, Tom Dunne is dead." 'At last he got tired of this ditty, and took up a stone and flung it at the cat, bidding himself, and Tom Browne, and Moll Dunne, to go to Halifax, and not to be botherin' him. When he got to Luke Byrne's in Francis Street, where all the Wicklow and Wexford carmen used to stop, he was taking a pot of beer in the tap-room, and began to tell the quare thing that happened on the road. There was a comfortable looking gray cat sitting by the fire, and the moment he mentioned what the Bunclody cat was saying, she cried out, "That's my husband! that's my husband!" She made only one leap out through the door, and no one ever saw her at Luke Byrne's again



The narrator of the following travelling sketch was a half-witted woman, who, although she had heard it from some one else, was under the impression that she had undergone part of the adventures in some form or other. She was a very honest, inoffensive creature, and would do any work assigned to her carefully enough; but she had a certain district of the country under her supervision, and it was essential to her well-being that she should perambulate (serenade was her term) this portion about once in the year. She went by the name of Cauth (Catherine) Morrisy, and this is the style in which she related her juvenile experience:--

[Fairlie]

CAUTH MORRISY LOOKING FOR SERVICE.

Well, neighbours, when I was a thuckeen (young girl) about fifteen years of age, and it was time to be doing something for myself, I set off one fine day in spring along the yalla high-road; and if anybody axed me where I was goin' I'd make a joke about it, and say I was goin' out of Ireland to live in the Roer. [a] Well, I travelled all day, and dickens a bit o' me was the nearer to get a sarvice; and when the dark hour come I got a lodging in a little house by the side of the road, where they were drying flax over a roaring turf fire. I'll never belie the vanithee her goodness. She give me a good quarter of well-baked barley bread, with butter on it, and made me sit on the big griddle over the ash-pit in the corner; but what would you have of it? I held the bread to the fire to melt the butter, and bedad the butter fell on the lighted turf; and there it blazed up like vengeance, and set the flax afire, and the flax set the tatch afire, and maybe they didn't get a fright. "Oh, musha, vanithee," says they, "wasn't it the divel bewitched you to let that omadhãn of a girl burn us out of house and home this way? Be off, you torment, and purshuin' to you!" Well, if they didn't hunt me out, and throw potsticks, and tongses, and sods o' fire after me, lave it till again; and I run, and I run, till I run head foremost into a cabin by the side of the road.

The woman o' the house was sitting at the fire, and she got frightened to see me run in that way. "Oh, musha, ma'am," says I, "will you give me shelter? " and so I up and told her my misfortunes. "Poor colleen," says she, "my husband is out, and if he catches a stranger here he'll go mad and break things. But I'll let you get up on the hurdle over the room, and for your life don't budge." "I won't," says I, "and thank you, ma'arn." Well, I was hardly in bed when her crooked disciple of a man kern in with a sheep on his back he was afther stealing. " Is everything ready? " says he. "It is," says she. So with that he skinned the sheep, and popped a piece down into the biling pot, and went out and hid the skin, and buried the rest o' the mate in a hole in the flure, and covered it with the griddle, and covered the griddle again with some o' the clay he removed from the flure. Well, when he made his supper on the mutton he says to his wife, "I hope no one got lodging while I was away." "Arrah, who'd get it?" says she. "That's not the answer I want," says he. "Who did you give shelter to?" "Och, it was only to a little slip of a girl that's as fast as the knocker of Newgate since eleven o'clock, on the hurdle." "Molly," says he, "I'll hang for you some day, so I will. But first and foremost I'll put the stranger out o' pain." When I hear him talk I slip down, and was out o' the door in a jiffy; but he was as stiff as I was stout, and he fling the hatchet after me, and cut off a piece of my heel. "Them is the tricks of a clown," says I to myself, and I making away at the ling of my life; but as luck would have it, I got shelter in another cabin, where a nice old man was sitting over the fire, reading a book. "What's the matter, poor girl?" says he, and I up and told him what happened me. "Never fear," says he; "the man o' the mutton won't follow you here. I suppose you'd like your supper." Well, sure enough, the fright, and the run, and the cut heel, and that, made me hungry, and I didn't refuse a good plate o' stirabout.

"Colleen," says the man, "I can't go to sleep early in the night; maybe you'd tell a body a story." "Musha, an the dickens a story meself has," says I. "That's bad," says he; "the fire is getting low: take that booran [b] out to the clamp, and bring in the, full of it of turf." "I will, sir," says I. But when I took a turf out of the end of the clamp 500 sods tumbled down on me, head and pluck; and I thought the breath was squeezed out of me. "If that's the way," says I, "let the old gentleman himself come out, and bring in his firing."

So I went in, and had like to faint when I came to the fire. "What ails you, little girl?" says he. "The clamp that fell on me," says I. "Oh, but it's meself that's sorry," says he. "Did you think of e'er another story while you were at the clamp?" "Indeed an I didn't." "Well, it can't be helped. I suppose you're tired. Take that rushlight into the barn, but don't set it on fire. You'll find plenty of dry straw for a bed, and come into your breakfast early." Well, I bade him good-night, and when I came into the barn, sure enough, there was no scarcity of straw. I said my prayers, but the first bundle I took out of the heap I thought all the straw in the barn was down on my poor bones. "O vuya, vuya, Cauth," says I to myself, "if your poor father and mother knew the state you're in, wouldn't they have the heart-scald." But I crept out and sat down on a bundle, and began to cry.

I wasn't after cryin' a second dhrass when I heard steps outside the door, and I hid myself again under the straw, leaving a little peep-hole. In came three as ugly-looking fellows as you'd find in a kish o' brogues, with a coffin on their shoulders. They wondered at the candle, but they said nothing till they put the coffin down, and began to play cards on it with the dirtiest deck (pack) I ever see before or since. Well, they cheated, and scolded, and whacked one another, and in two minutes they were as great as pickpockets [c] again.

At last says one, "It's time to be goin'; lift the corpse." "It's easy say lift," says another. "You two have the front, and I must bear up all the hind part--I won't put a hand to it." "Won't you?" says the others; "sure there's little Cauth Morrisy under the straw to help you." "Oh, Lord, gentlemen, I'm not in it at all," says myself; but it was all no use. I had to get under one corner, and there we trudged on in the dark, through knocs, and ploughed fields, and bogs, till I thought the life would leave me.

At last at the flight of night, one of them says, "Stop here, and Cauth Morrisy will mind the corpse till we come back. Cauth, if you let anything happen to the honest man inside you'll sup sorrow--mind what I say." So they left me, and lonesome and frightened I was, you may depend.

But wasn't I frightened in earnest when I heard the corpse's knuckles tapping inside o' the led. "O sir, honey," says I, "what's troubling you? " " It's air I want," says he; "lift up the led a little." I lifted up a corner. "That won't do," says he; "I'm stifling. Throw off the led, body and bones." I did so, and there was a wicked-looking old fellow inside, with a beard on him a week old. " Thankee, ma'am," says he; "I think I'll

be the easier for that. This is a lonesome place them thieves left me in. Would you please to join me in a game of spoil-five?" " Oh, musha, sir," says I, "isn't it thinking of making your sowl you ought to be?" "I don't want your advice," says he; "maybe I haven't a soul at all. There's the cards. I deal--you cut."

Well, I was so afeard that I took a hand with him; but the dirty divel, he done nothing the whole time but cursin', and swearin', and cheatin'. At last says I to myself; "I can't be safe in such company." So I threw down the cards, though I was within three of the game, and walked off. "Come back and finish the game; Cauth Morrisy," says he, shouting out, "or I'll make it the bad game for you." But I didn't let on to hear him, and walked away. "Won't you come back, Cauth?" says he; "then here goes." Well, the life had like to leave me, for I heard him tearing after me in his coffin, every bounce it gave striking terror into my heart. I run, and I bawled, and he bawling after 'me, and the coffin smashing against the stones. At last, where did I find myself but at the old gentleman's door, and if I didn't spring in and fasten the bolt, leave it till again.

"Ah, is that you, my little colleen? I thought you were asleep. Maybe you have a story for me now." "Indeed an' I have, sir," says I, an' I told him all that happen me since I saw him last. "You suffered a good deal," says he. "If you told me that story before, all your trouble I'd be spared to you" "But how could I tell it, sir," says I, "before it happened?" "That's true," says he, and he began to scratch his wig. I was getting drowsy, and I didn't remember anything more till I woke next morning in the dry gripe of the ditch with a bochyeen (dried cow-dung), under my head. So--

"There was a tree at the end of the house, and it was bending, bending,
And my story is ending, ending."



A dream romance of the same kind will be found in Crofton Croker's collection. Our authorities are Owen Jourdan of the Duffrey, as well as the woman called here Cauth Morrisy. O. J.'s version differed a little from that given, as he had to adapt the adventures to a male character. All are slightly related to the Story Teller at Fault of Gerald Griffin.

The following piece of diablerie is probably unknown out of Ireland. At least, we do not recollect having found it in the collections of Grimm or Dasent. It bears the usual marks of pagan origin. In the system of natural magic of a celebrated living writer, the adept, availing himself of the chemical and magnetic virtues inherent in some substances, and even those belonging to mere figures, such as the pentacle, can not only subject intelligent and sensitive beings to his will, but even insensible chairs and stools. When his critics twit him with the unsoundness of his theory, and its unsuitable-ness to the present state of physical and social science, he may appeal to its antiquity.--The pagan magicians handed it to their quasi-Christian successors, and when these worthies departed to some world more worthy of them, their system exploded in fragments, and fell under the wise control of our story-tellers.



[a] A district in Kilkenny, not far from the bridge of Ferry Mount-garret. Consequential Wexford folk regarded it in matters of learning and politeness, as the Athenians did Baeotia in ancient times.

[b] A domestic article, shaped like an overgrown tambourine.

[c] On the most friendly terms.

[Fairlie]

BLACK STAIRS ON FIRE.

On the top of the hill of Cooc-na-Cro' (Gallows Hill) in Bantry, just in full view of the White Mountain, Cahir Rua's Den, and Black Stairs, there lived a poor widow, with a grandchild, about fifteen years old. It was All Holland Eve, and the two were about going to bed when they heard four taps at the door, and a screaming voice crying out. "Where are you, feet-water?" and the feet-water answered, "Here in the tub." "Where are you, band of the spinning wheel?" and it answered, "Here, fast round the rim, as if it was spinning." "Besom, where are you?" "Here, with my handle in the ash-pit." "Turf-coal, where are you?" "Here, blazing over the -ashes." Then the voice screamed louder, "Feet-water, wheel-band, besom, and turf-coal, let us in, let' us 'in:" and they all made to the door.

Open it flew, and in rushed frightful old hags, wicked, shameless young ones, and the old boy himself, with red horns and a green tail. They began to tear and tatter round the house, and to curse and swear, and roar and bawl, and say such things as almost made the poor women sink through the hearthstone. They had strength enough however, to make the sign of the cross, and call on the Holy Trinity, and then all the witches and their master yowled with pain. After a little the girl strove to creep over to the holy water croft that was hanging at the bed's head, but the whole bilin' of the wicked creatures kep' in a crowd between her and it. The poor grandmother fell in a faint, but the little girl kep' her senses.

The old fellow made frightful music for the rest, stretching out his nose and playing the horriblest 'noise on it you ever heard, just as if it was a German flute. "Oh!" says the poor child, "if Granny should die or lose her senses what'll I--do? and if they can stay till cockcrow, she'll never see another day." So after about half an hour, when the hullabullo was worse than ever, she stole out without being noticed or stopped, and then she gave a great scream, and ran in, and' shouted, "Granny, granny! come out, come out, Black Stairs is a-fire!" Out pelted both the devil and the witches, some--by, the windows, some by the door; and the moment the list of them was out, she clapped the handle of the besorn where the door-bolt ought to be, turned the button in the window, spilled the feet-water into the channel under the door, loosed the band of the spinning-wheel, and raked up the blazing coal under the ashes.

Well, the poor woman was now come to herself; and both heard the most frightful roar out in the bawn, where all the company were standing very lewd [a] of themselves for being so easily taken in. The noise fell immediately, and the same voice was heard. "Feet-water, let me in." "I can't," says feet-water; "I am here under your feet." " Wheel-band, let me in." "I can't--I am lying loose on the wheel-seat." "Besom let me in." "I can't--I am put here to bolt the door." "Turf-coal, let me in." I can't--my head is under the greeshach." "Then let yourselves and them that owns you have our curse for ever and a day." The poor women were now on their knees, and cared little for their curses. But every Holy Eve during their lives they threw the water out as soon as their feet were washed, unbanded the wheel, swept up the house, and covered the big coal to have the seed of the fire next morning.



We have not in Ireland many traditional or legendary records of our wise women meeting the devil at such abominable sabats as he delighted to hold in German and Flemish forests, being conveyed thither on any article that came to hand. The utmost atrocity of which Irish witches were, in times past, proved guilty in their excursions, was the taking of an airy ride on a booliaun bid to the cellar of some English castle, and making themselves glorious with the wine and strong waters found there. The following adventure has been differently treated by fairy historians; so we confine ourselves to the principal facts, adhering to the Leinster version:--

[a] "Regretful, ashamed," the root being leiden, to suffer. Many words and expressions among our folk of the Pale are looked on as abuses or perversions, when they are in truth but old forms still carefully preserved.

[Fairlie]

THE WITCHES' EXCURSION

Shemus Rua (Red James) was awakened from his sleep one night by-noises in his kitchen. Stealing to the door, he saw half-a-dozen old women, sitting round the fire, jesting, and laughing, his own old housekeeper, Madge, quite frisky and gay, helping her sister crones to cheering glasses of punch. He began to admire the impudence and imprudence of Madge, displayed in the invitation and the riot, but recollected on the instant her officiousness in urging him to take a comfortable posset, which she had brought to his bedside just before he fell asleep. Had he drank it he would have been just now deaf to the witches' glee. He heard and saw them drink his health in such a mocking style as nearly to tempt him to charge them, besom in hand, but he restrained himself. The jug being emptied, one of them cried out, "It is time to be gone," and at the same moment, putting on a red cap, she added--

"By yarrow and rue,
And my red cap too,
Hie over to England."

Making use of a twig which she held in her hand as a steed, she gracefully soared up the chimney, and was rapidly followed by the rest. But when it came to the housekeeper's turn, Shemus interposed. "By your leave, ma'am!" said he, snatching twig and cap. "Ah, you desateful ould crocodile! If I find you here on my return, there'll be wigs on the green.

"By yarrow and rue,
And my red cap too,
Hie over to England." [a]

The words were not out of his mouth when he was soaring above the ridge-pole, and swiftly ploughing the air. He was careful to speak no word (being somewhat conversant in witch lore), as the result would be a tumble, and the immediate return of the expedition. In a very short time they had crossed the Wicklow hills, the Irish Sea, and the Welsh mountains, and were' charging at whirlwind speed the hall-door of a castle. Shemus, only for the company in which he found himself, would have cried out for pardon, expecting to be mummy against the hard oak door in a moment; but-all bewildered he found himself passing through the key-hole, along a passage, down a flight of steps, and through a cellar-door key-hole, before he could form any clear idea of his situation.

Waking to the full consciousness of his position, he found himself sitting on a stillion, plenty of lights glimmering round, and he and his companions, with full tumblers of frothing wine in hand, hob-nobbing and drinking healths as jovially and recklessly as if the liquor was honestly come by, and they were sitting in Shemus's own kitchen. The red birredh had assimilated Shernus's nature for the time being to that of his unholy companions. The heady liquors soon got in their brains, and a period of unconsciousness succeeded the ecstasy, the head-ache, the turning round of the barrels, and the "scattered sight" of poor Shemus. He woke up under the impression of being roughly seized, and shaken, and dragged upstairs, and subjected to a disagreeable examination by the lord of the castle, in his state parlour. There was much derision and laughter among the whole company, gentle and simple, on hearing Shemus's explanation; and as the thing occurred in the dark ages, the unlucky Leinster-man was sentenced to be hung as soon as the gallows could be prepared for the occasion.

The poor Hibernian was in the cart proceeding on his last journey, with a label upon his back, and another on his breast, announcing him as the remorseless villain who for the last month had been draining the casks in my lord's vault every night. He was striving to say a prayer, when he was surprised -to hear himself addressed by his name, and in his native tongue, by an old woman in the crowd. "Ach, Shemus, alanna! is it going to die you are in a strange place, without your cappeen dearg!" These words infused hope and courage into the victim's heart. He turned to the lord, and humbly asked leave to die in his red cap, which he supposed had dropped from his head in the vault. A servant was sent for the head-piece, and Shemus felt lively hope warming his heart while placing it on his head. On the platform he was graciously allowed to address the spectators, which he proceeded to do in the usual formula composed for the benefit of flying stationers:--"Good people all, a warning take by me;" but when he had finished the line, "My parients rared me tenderly," he unexpectedly added--"By yarrow and rue," &c. and the disappointed spectators saw him shoot up obliquely through the air in the style of a sky-rocket that had missed its aim. It is said that the lord took the circumstance much to heart, and never afterwards hung a man for twenty-four hours after his offence.

[a] For the above formulary the 'words Borraun, Borraun, Borraun! are sometimes substituted. Borran is anger, booraun a domestic article mentioned already; the reader is at liberty to fashion a theory on these data.

[Fairlie]

THE CROCK FOUND IN THE RATH.

If any of our English readers are unfortunately ignorant of the social position of tailors in the remote districts of this country, let them hereby learn that Brian Neill, the unlucky hero of this narrative, when he arose on Monday morning, betook himself to the farmer's house where his services were required, took the measures of his clients; sat on the large kitchen table, kept his goose in the turf fire, mended and made clothes, chatted with the women,,and there remained till his business was finished. He then repaired to some other farmstead where his presence was desirable, and thus his life glided on.

Brian was employed as mentioned one afternoon on Mrs. Rooney's great table. He had been remarked all the day for an unwonted silence, and now began to acquaint Mrs. Rooney with the subject on which his -thoughts were employed. "Be this and be that, ma'am, it's very strange that I should have the same, dream for the last three nights. There it was, in the rath of Knocmor, I saw, as plain as I see you now, a big grey stone, and an old thorn tree, and the hole between them, and the crock at the bottom of it. I declare to you I can't stand it any longer. I'll take a spade and shovel, and try my fortune, and have it off my mind. You needn't tell anybody where I'm gone."

About three hours afterwards he returned in a very dismantled condition, his hair in moist flakes, his eyes glassy, and his whole appearance betokening one who would drop in pieces if some strong power were not keeping him together. "Oh, ma'am, honey 1" he faltered out, "let me lie down somewhere; I think I'll die." Mrs. Rooney had put him into the bed belonging to the servant boy, and good-naturedly brought him a warm drink of whey in a quarter of an hour or so. She then sat down by the bed; and when he had refreshed himself, and seemed somewhat restored, she requested to know how he fared after he had left the house. This is the account he rather reluctantly gave after some pressing:--

"When I got to the rath, ma'am, I wondered to find the stone and the old thorn just as I dreamed they were. Bedad I took off my coat, and fell to, and dug and shovelled, and shovelled and dug till my poor arms were tired. I rested myself for a little while, and then fell to again. Well, I think I was down between three and four feet, when I felt. something hard against the spade. I cleared away the clay carefully from about it, and what was it but a heavy crock, just like the very one I saw in the dreams. I lifted it out on the heap of clay I threw up, and was going to get the cover off when I felt myself getting as weak as water. I was trembling indeed, and my heart fluttering from the first touch I gave it with the spade. Well, what would you have of it! I fell down in a stugue, and don't know how long I was in it; and when I came to myself the very sight of the crock brought my heart to my mouth. I done nothing after that but crawled back as well as I could. I suppose all happened to me because I did not say e'er a prayer, or take any holy-water with me to sprinkle a ring round the place. I think I'll go asleep now; I can't keep my eyes open."

So he slept soundly, and never woke till next morning, and the first thing he was conscious of was a strong inclination to go to the rath again, and recover the crock, if it still remained there. He went in all haste, found the spade and shovel, the heap of clay, and the pit, but no sign of the crock or its cover. He came back overpowered with vexation at the silly way in which he had behaved the day before, and begged Mrs. Rooney to give him his crock, and promised to give her a good handful of its contents. "Crock!" said she; " what are you talking about?" "Sure I am talking about the crock I dug up in the rath of Knocmor yesterday, and that I told you about after you gave me the drink of whey in the bed." "Oh, my poor man, you are raving! I gave you a drink, sure enough, but this is the first time you opened your mouth about a crock." "But sure,,if you come you can see the hole and the clay, and here is the spade and shovel that I used." "And if they are, is that a reason I should have your crock, that I never heard of till this blessed hour?"

There was great commotion in the neighbourhood. Several people, including Mr. and Mrs. Rooney, went to the rath, and saw the hole and the clay, but that did not prove that Mrs. Rooney got the money. All that the sharpest neighbour could make out was the absence of the farmer and his wife from their house for about an hour on the evening in question. It all resulted in poor Brian losing his reason, and coming to vituperate Mrs. Rooney about once a week at her own door. We will say of her that she always gave him something to eat on these occasions, and a coat or breeches when his need was sore for good clothing. By degrees the farm was improved, and more land taken. Her children were well provided for, and so are such of her grandchildren as are now living. Ill-got money does not in general produce such comfortable results.



In the Leadbeater Papers will be found another version of the next legend. What we heard from Mrs. K. in 1816, or thereabouts, is here given to the reader most conscientiously. It is a curious instance of old circumstances being attached to the fortunes of a new man, such as Earl Garrett must be considered -when thought of in comparison with Holger the Dane or King Arthur.

Such legends belong to a race which has been obliged to give way to a less imaginative people. James IV. of Scotland, survived Flodden, and will appear when his country wants hint. Don Sebastian of Portugal did not perish in Africa. Holger the Dane remained watching in his cavern long after the period--

When Roland brave, and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,
On Roncesvalles died."

King Arthur is still waiting in the Isle of Avalon; and some old Welsh king can scarcely disengage his beard from the stone table into which it has grown, as he has slept till his coming forth can be of no manner of use.