A^^,. -^*»S5«SS«^*^' UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES (TV ^ V '^ 'l^eLt-^ ldfJ%f }^. Ballads in Prose. DANCL in YOVR RIMCS ACAIT1 .THt YCUrOW WCtOf YOV V5LD TO f\!DL SO FAR . HOVNT AS Or OLD * Jft PLAY HIDL 2^ 5LLK WITH WlFIDi AMOnCTHC KCLD5 ATID FAY YOVK iCOMS ACAIH WlTrt TAIPY COLD A BALLADJ"** LONDON : JOHH LAML. PODLCY HEAD boj-ton: kodlktj* drotheks J 2 I J Copyri_g;hted in the United States. All rights reserved. -'c . ' ♦' ' ' • -.- t' I • • • • 'It I I ^ <5i TO MY DEAREST MOTHER, CAROLINE AUGUSTA HOPPER, THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED BY HER LOVING DAUGHTER. CONTENTS. The King of Ireland's Daughter I'AOB 3 The Sorrow of Manannan 7 April in Ireland 21 The Three Brigits ... 25 Silk of the Kine ... ... 35 Cuchullin's Belt 39 A Connaught Lament 51 The Lamp of Brighid Ros Geal Dhu 55 63 Crioch Agus Amen 67 The Wind Among the Reeds 79 Boholaun and I 83 The Fairy Fiddler 91 Daluan 93 Una of the West 107 Soul of Maurice Dwyer III Kasdr 121 The Gifts of Aodh and Una 125 Lament of the Lay Brother 147 The Four Kings 151 Lament of the Last Leprechaun 163 Aonan-na-Righ 167 Glossary 181 The King of Ireland's Daughter. The King of Ireland's Daughter. Gray sails sailing west over gray water^ Gold rings and gold crown for the King o' Ireland's daughter. Dark rose^ dark rose^ in the garden bloomings Break sheath and blow^ rose ! gray sails arc coming. IVhy in thy long sleep ringest thou^ O spear ? Silk we wear instead of steel now gray sails are here. Don your steel and take the spear : lay the silk aside^ Lo ! beneath the sails o' gray sits a low-born bride. Dark rose^ dark rose^ in the garden blowing^ Die^for thou hast bloomed in vain : gray sails are going. Gray sails going east over gray water^ Broken trothj broken heart, for the King o Ireland's daughter. The Sorrow of Manannan. THE SORROW OF MANANNAN, There were three great sorrows in Eire once in the days that are buried deep beneath the stones of forgetfulness : and mighty sorrows were these, and men and maidens wept for them : but my tale is of a sorrow older yet, and yet that is not wept for : and its name is the Sorrow of Manannan. * They made feast together in the highest hall of Tara : Etersc^l, the King, gray with many victories : Conall Collamair, his son : and the Ard Righ of Eire, who had that day plighted troth to Conall's only daughter, Tuag of the Yellow Hair. There was ringing of harps and tympans, and the sound of a voice singing;' of old battles, and great deeds done by the King Eterscel, and the High King Feargus, and Conall, their kinsman, and Cu, King of the Clan Colla, who sat at the left hand of Feargus the Ard- Righ, as he might by right of his name, while all other kings sat removed, the nearest a sword's length from him. Many songs the minstrel sang: of the men that feasted and the men that slept their sleep : and when Hugh Ball's fingers faltered on the harp-strings, young Colg arose in his place and sang a dream-song that darkened the light of battle in the eyes of his hearers, and paled the flush of batde in their sun-burnt faces. But in the chamber where the Princess sat watching her women comb out the fleece, one maid stopped singing of battles, and holding her silent harp against her breast chanted a whispered song, with her gray-green eyes fixed on her mistress's face. And this was the fashion of her song : " Sorrow has touched me on the heart, And will not let me be : One woman only stands apart From pain that holds the very heart of me : Yet, Princess, there is borne to-day for thee A sorrow : and the sorrow of Manannan. And dost thou go, my Queen, unwooed, to wed ? Or wilt thou rise and follow after me, Past graves of women dead. Whither the Undying Women sail the sea ? Shall gold bespread, or all of amber be The bridal-bed for thee ? Thy gift, thy father's wrath ? or days that dree The sorrow and the sorrow of Manannan ? " 8 The skein of shining wool slipped from the lady Tuag's idle fingers, and she stood up slowly, tallest among her maids, and strong and supple of limb as were few women of Eire. Then the singer also arose from her stool, and she too was beyond the common strength and stature of women, as she stood shoulder to shoulder with the princess. •' Shall we go ? " she said. And Tuag said, "We will go." She looked round the torch-lit chamber as one that takes farewell, and she looked at the waiting women combing their fleece in a dream that kept theiii deaf and blind. And the woman that had sung of Manannan took up a cloak woven of fine white wool and cast it over Tuag, hiding her long blue gown, and the hood she drew over Tuag's head, crushing the green leaves that were in her fillet ; and they went forth hand in hand past kinsfolk that stayed them not, past hounds that heard them not, though their garments brushed their feet. They went through the camp unseen and unheard : past the fences of watdes, beyond byres where the sleeping kine took no heed of them, where the neatherds ceased not from tale- telling at the sound of their soft footsteps. Then they were in the uncleared woodlands, and the Princess clung trembling to her com- rade's arm, but only for a moment. For she that upheld her lifted her voice in a wordless song, and sent it pealing into the woods from tree to tree, until it seemed to the Princess that birch and beech and plane cried shame on Conall's daughter for fearing any created thing, and that oak and pine called on her to come, and to come swiftly. " Let us go," she said : and they walked on under beeches and pines, over last year's leaves and this year's pushing grass, while the bats whirred and cried about them, and the moths woke and brushed their faces with soft ghostly wings. " I have never walked so fast or so far," said the Princess at last. " Let us tarry and rest : art thou not also footsore, girl, or are thy feet as unwearied as thine arm is strong ?" " Lady, do not rest there — not beneath the quicken. It is an evil resting-place for thy father's daughter," " How so ? " said Tuag, " if I bring a clean heart and clean hands to its shade ? " Then she stopped, and stood dumb in the quicken shade ; for the sleep spell was shed now from her eyes, and she saw her companion throw off the woman's robe that now was no disguise, and stand up, a goodly man and gallant, in his tunic of the gentle colour. 10 ; 1 " So," she said, in wrath, " it was easy to deceive the woman who took thee in and fed and sheltered thee, because thou saidst thou wast only child of my mother's foster-brother. But here it will be ill for thee to lie— in hearingr of the quicken. Give me thy name, that I may know upon whom my father must revenge me. Give me thy name." " Nay : but I did not lie in all, Tuag. For indeed I am of thy mother's kin, and shortly shall I be knit to thee in even closer kinship, for I am foster-son of the man thou p-oest to wed to-niaht." " Never will I be of closer kin to thee, O false speaker," Tuag said. " Is it Manannan Mac Lir who desires me ? Let him take me, then, but from the sea, and not from thy hand?, thou liar." " These be hard words," Manannan's foster- son said, quietly, "Yet will I bring thee safely and with honour to my lord, O Lady of Tara." " Without my honour thou wouldst bring me only to my grave, O Fer Fi," said the Princess, " Be warned also that I carry a skene in my belt, and what slew Conaire the Black may even drink the blood of a warlock and a princess in one night." "Thou may'st use thy skene at thy pleasure, daughter of Conall," Fer Fi said, as he drew II his own knife from his belt and threw it on the grass at her feet. "And here is mine own, also at thy service, so that I stand unarmed, warlock thouorh thou callest me. And now is it thy pleasure to go back ? back to wed with the Ard-Righ ? For I put the sleep-spell on thy women, and on the sentinels, and all think thee still in thy chamber. Shall we go back, Mistress ? or forward to Manannan ?" "There is no going back for me," Tuag said, with a steady voice. " Dear is Tara, and dear is my shut bower, and dear are Una, and Muirgeis and Sinead that comb the fleece, and Gormshuil that robed me for every feast in my father's father's hall. Dear are the dark eyes of my father, and the gray locks of Eterscel, and dearer are the stones of my mother's grave. And dear are the camp-fires every one, yet I turn nightwards and seawards. Go on, Fer Fi ! Manannan has called me, and I cannot help but come, although I see Tara no more." "The sea is not far hence," Fer Fi answered her, gently. " But there is rough walking to come, for we are at the edge of the wood : and if I may hold thy hand perhaps I may lighten the way for thee." But the Princess shook her head, looking at him with grave eyes, and folded her arms on her breast. 12 "Go first, Messer," she said, "my help is in myself henceforward." So Fer Fi bowed his head before her, and went first, and as he went he made a song on the rough path that took them seawards. " Sharp stones we tread as we descend, Sharp stones the tender feet that rend : Yet she, my foe, that was my friend, Hath sharper words to fling at me, As we go downwards to the sea All night that called us wearily." Then the sharp pebbles gave place to larger stones, and these to a little stretch of sand, yellow in the yellow moonlight. And here Fer Fi stopped short, while Tuag dropped down on the sand and dabbled her burning feet in a pool of clear sea-water. "A little patience, Lady," he said, "and we shall be in the country of the Ever-Living, But we must first find a boat, and round the bend of yon rocks there are huts of fishermen, and there I shall find a boat and oars belike. But will the Princess bide here alone ?" " Why not ?" said Tuag. " Have I not here thy knife and mine, Fer Fi ? Go hence and do thine errand, and I will wait for thee. None will come to the shore at this hour o' the night — or is it the morn ?" "It is morn. Princess, but the dawn will not come for an hour yet." 13 So Fer Fi went with long, quick strides across the sand, but he came not back as swiftly. Tuag threw the hood back from her head, and bound up her long yellow hair, and shook from her fillet the withered leaves : then, because the time hung on her hands, she rose up and began dancing, weaving a wild measure on the yellow sand as her mother had taught her long since : and as she danced she sang in a tongue that had been forgotten by all save her mother's kindred, for a hundred years. And as she danced she was aware of eyes and voices and laughter, and a wave broke round her ankles, and another, and another. Then a voice piped in her ear shrilly, "What wouldst have of us now thou'st called us up ?" Looking up, she saw a great wave that gathered itself as high as her breast, and there were shapes of sea-children in it : and as it broke against her they clung to her, and cried in their sweet, cold voices, " Thou has called us up with thy dancing, O daughter of the stranger : now what wilt thou have of us ? " '' Nothing, O sea-people," Tuag said, and she ceased from dancing, and there was fear in her eyes as the next wave broke on her breast, and she saw herself waist-deep in the sea. Then the sea-children laughed : and one pointed landwards, and cried, laughing, " See, 14 the current that runs betwixt thee and the shore, O stranijer : thou hast danced too lone and too well, and the waves have come to try who is nimbler and stronger, they or thee." Then Tuag turned her face shorewards, and saw that as she had said before, there was in- deed no .^oing back for her. Now the fear of death took her by the throat : and she shrieked to her father and to Eterscel the King. But a sea-child threw his cold arms round her neck, and said, softly, in her ear, " Is it so ill to die then ? and if the waves spared Conall's daughter would she live for ever ? VVe have never lived yet : but will not the daughter of the stranger show us how to die ? " So Tuag's strength came back as she spoke, and she drew the cold hands to her bosom and kissed the wild eyes and the shining hair. " Keep thy head on my heart, O sea-child," she said " and keep the courage there, while my lips keep their breath." The boy turned and kissed her on the lips, and Tuag folded her arms closer round him ; then a wave caught her hood from her head, and all her yellow hair fell down, and the sea-children caught at the long locks and plucked them, and buffeted her face, and beat her hands with stinging seaweeds, and smote her breast and arms with blows that left no mark behind, but 15 burnt like fire. Then the child that lay on her bosom said : " Take no heed, but abide it, thou Fair-Hair. For it is their nature to strike and stinor, and it is the nature of the land-folk to abide and die and defy them. And, look, the water is breast-high already : and soon it shall touch thine eyelids, for this is the flood tide." Now there was a little space of silence, and then the sea-folk began their petty torments again, and the water was up to Tuag's throat. And now she felt the child's arms heavy round her neck, and she saw him lift his head from her breast, and she bent down slowly to give him the kiss he asked for. As she stooped the sea-children caught her in their strangling clasp and dragged her down — and down. Now when dawn came the fishers saw the shine of yellow hair far out to sea, and they put out and brought to shore a drowned woman with amber and pearls twined in her loose hair, and a dead child clasped to her bosom. And as they cam.e ashore with their burden the sea cast up at their feet the body of a man dressed in the gentle colour with a dagger thrust through his heart ; and the hilt of the dagger was of the wonderful green stone whose like is not in the round world, and whereof (they say) Manan- nan's sword was made ; but there was no wound on the sea-child's body, and him no i6 waves could drown, wherefore the sennachies say that because having seen Tuag he loved her, his life and hers were mingled in death — and in the Tir na n'Og he and she dwell together, mother and child. But Manannan Mac Lir has had no other love and lady; and if you listen any moonlit night you will hear in the sea-music the voice of the sorrow of Man- annan. 17 i> April in Ireland April in Ireland. She hath a woven garland all of the sighing sedge^ And allher Jiowers are snowdrops grown on the winter'' s edge : The golden lootns ofTir na n'Og wove all the winter through Her gown of fuist and raindrops shot with a cloudy blue. Sunlight she holds in one hand^ and rain she scatters after^ And through the rainy tivilight we hear her fitful laughter. She shakes down on her flowers the snows less white than they., Then quickens with her kisses the folded " knots o Ml J- She seeks the summer-lover that never shall be hers., Fain for gold leaves of autumn she passes by the furze. Though buried gold it hideth : she scorns her sedgy crotun. And pressing blindly sunwards she treads her snowdrops doivn. Her gifts are all a fardel of wayward smiles and tears., Yet hope she also holdeth., this daughter of the years — A hope that blossoms faintly set upon sorrow'' s edge : She hath a woven garland all of the sighing sedge. 21 The Three Brigits. THE THREE BRIGITS. They sat in the uncertain sunshine of a wintry- day, the three Brigits : Brigit, the Farmer, old and brown and withered — her daughter, Brigit of the Judgments, a tall and comely woman ripened and sweetened by fifty autumns — and the grand-daughter Brigit, straight and slim as a rush, with all the beauty of her face folded and sleeping still. Now the eldest Brigit sat nodding in her carved chair, with the sunlight warm on her blind eyes, but the house-mistress, Brigit of the Judgments, sat spinning busily, and her daughter stood in the open air under the blessed thorn, watching her busy mother, with a smile in her dreamy eyes. And as she dreamed, there came a step on the ringing road, and a shadow fell across the girl's feet — the shadow of a tall woman with a face kind and sad and beautiful, who carried a sleeping boy in her arms. 25 E "The gods save all here !" she said, softly, " and bless the work ! " "Come in, and welcome," said Brigit of the Judgments, heartily. Then she raised her eyes to the stranger's face, and her own grew white and strange, as does that face which looks on something that is not of this world. . " Who are you ? " she cried. "My name," said the woman, softly, "is Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan : and his — " looking down with a smile in her grey eyes at the lad in her arms, '* Oh, one may call him Aongus (Love), or Eireag (Beauty), or Aighneann (Lover), or Gort (Sourness) ; he has nigh as many names as he has faces. What will you call him, Brigit of the Judgments ? " Brigit of the Judgments turned a hungry face to meet her guest's clear eyes. " He is the child I lost long ago," she muttered, " he is my little Culainn, and he has his father's eyes — there never was a comelier lad than my Eoghan : and because his dead beauty kept the door of my heart I never kissed the lips of thy father, Brigit, good mate though he made me. Let me have the child, daughter of the stranger : he is mine." Katha- leen Ny-Houlahan smiled. "Told I not that he was Moran of the many names ? Now," turning to the youngest Brigit, " tell me what 26 he seemeth to thee, O little maiden of the yellow cool ? " And the third Brigit drew back with a face that blossomed red as the leaves at a rose's heart. " I see — " she said, and put back the yellow hair that the wind blew in her face, " I see — Oh mother I see what you saw in Eoghan's face — and now shall I say all that I see ? I see short joy and long sorrow, shame and severance and suffering, patience and pride — and do I not also see that I would thole the sorrow for the sake of the short joy ? Oh mother, hold me fast lest I gather the shame, too." " I said," quoth Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, " that he was Moran of the many names. Aongus or Aighneann wouldst thou call him, O little one ? and to thy mother is he her lost child and her lost husband : and what to me ? Ah, when last I looked him in the face, I called him Conasg (War) : for I saw a light in his eyes that was like the light of swords. And now, O old mother, rise up and say what thou seest in his face." *' I am blind. Lady," muttered Brigit the Farmer. " I am blind and I cannot see." "Rise up," said Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, as if she had not heard, " and look on him, and say what thou seest in his face." 27 So the old woman rose and came to her side, without help of either staff or guiding hand, and she fixed her blind eyes on the face asleep on the breast of Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan. Then to the watching mother and daughter it seemed that the blind eyes gathered colour and depth as they gazed : and last, the light that had left them. And then with a cry the grand- mother fell back into Brigit of the Judgments' arms, and women came from the house and bore her in, and laid her softly on her bed, seeing that she was stricken with death. And Brigit of the Judgments wept over the happy face of her gray mother, and never heeded that she hindered her soul from passing : and, outside in the winter sunshine, Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan waited with her back against the holy white- thorn. And beside her the youngest Brigit stood, dreaming, looking past bawn and barn away to the silvery ribbon of the Boyne running swiftly away to wooded Brugh where Aongus Oge was still thought to have his golden house. And Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan turned her eyes on the girl's face, and, holding them there, again she turned back the mantle from the face of him she bore on her bosom. And softly she said, "Look!" and Brigit obeyed her. And as she looked, there came a smile over the sleeping face, and the smile smote to the girl's 28 heart with sorrow as sharp as a spear : but Kathaleen's look kept back the tears from her eyes and the cry from her Hps : and for a Httle while the twain kept silence. And then Katha- leen covered the sleeping face, and with that Brigit's tongue was loosed, and she cried out, sobbino-, " Oh ! fair he is and dear he is, Dark Woman, and a while since would I have died to walk the world with him : and now it seems to be better to live and die without him — and that your frowns were dearer than his praising, Beauty of the World ! " " I am not she ! " said Kathaleen Ny- Houlahan. " She passes away, and I can never die — for even when my own children stone me, I must rise again, and go on my road. And — oh ! Flesh of my flesh, but you have stoned me often!" she cried. "And oh! but how good it were to feel the shamrocks growing over me ! " " But then the world would end, Pulse of our hearts," said Brigit. "And must you go on your way again, you and Moran of the many names ? Will you not stay a little — and we would serve you well ? " " It is for me to serve my people," said Kathaleen. " But I must not stay : for I was born when the wandering wind met the wan- dering fire, and the twain are in my blood." 29 "Then take me with you," Brigit cried, "for I shall never be wife or mother, and what use is there for me in my mother's house ? Take me with you, Heart of hearts, and let me wander, too, till I die." " Brigfit the Farmer served me well in her eighty years, and never she served me better than when she milked her kine in the byres of Conor the King. And well has Brigit your mother served me, and all the better for the loss of her fair Eoghan : and when your father Senchan sang before Conor MacNessa, he was serving me, though he knew it not. And now," said Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan, "do you also serve me, Brigit. My daughters dwell in their father's houses, and see the green lands pass to the thriftless man and the hard man : and are they better than hostages even in their husbands' houses } Go out and cry shame till this thing cease, my Brigit : till the women that have no brothers take the wasted lands and deal gently by them. Cry out — and cry loudly, though every Brehon in the land say you nay : Conor MacNessa has ears to hear." Then she turned and went, and young Brigit stood alone under the thorn-tree, making ready for the task laid upon her : and from the house came the voice of women keening for the dead, but very softly, lest they should wake 30 the dreadful hounds that He in wait to catch the naked soul. But they might have shrieked their shrillest, for the soul of Brigit the Farmer walked safely in the shadow of Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan. 31 silk of the Kine. Silk of the Kine. Silk of the kine^ do not those great waves grow Weary of lashing granite shores of thine ^ Shores that decay and death will never know^ Silk of the kineP Are not thy soft eyes tired of shade and shine ^ And thy kind lips a-weary^ drinking so^ For many years a black and bitter wine ? Take comfort^ Gra Machree : the years are slow^ Tet bring the day (tho' not for eyes of mine) IVhen thou shalt rise up crowned above thy foe ^ Silk of the kine ! 35 Cuchullin's Belt. 5110 \ CUCHULLIN'S BELT. Now Cuchullin — the Hound of Murthemney — the beloved of the D^ Danann o"ods — had a fair wife and a noble, named Eimer, and he loved her well : and a fairy mistress he had also, and when his dreams took him he loved the Shee lady, Fand, more heartily than, waking, he had ever loved Eimer, his wife. But waking or dreaminor, he was the oroodliest man that ever lived, and the fairest to see : and so thought many another besides Eimer. Now this Eimer was a great lady and a noted housewife, and she kept her maidens busy all day, spinning and weavingr and combiner so that there was little rest in her greenan, from the women working at the top wool and the noil or short wool, to Eimer herself gathering up the skeins of finished yarn, and the skeins of fine yellow silk. 39 " Ye must work more steadily, my women," said Eimer, weighing first the silk in her hands, and then the yarn, "for here is less weight than yesterday, Ineen of Orgiall, look how thy web is spoiled." " Ineen is weaving the web of her own life," laughed the other women : but Eimer frowned as she watched the Golden Hostage send her shuttle through the crooked weft. Now the Golden Hostage was a tall maiden, and deep-bosomed, and the naked arms and throat clasped with the gold chains of Orgiall hostages, were shapely, although the sun had changed their white to brown : and the hair of her hung down to her knee like a black cloud, and the lips of her were as red as quicken- berries, and the eyes of her were gray, like the sea. And, seeing that she was young and comely to see, the lady Eimer frowned and darkened, for her heart was as full of jealousy as ever the heart of Oisin was full of sono- : yet she herself was a fair woman and a stately, and not one amono^ her women could match her feet in the dance or her fingers on the tympan. "Be diligent," she said, frowning, "there is yet an hour of light, and then may ye sit idle in the greenan," "She goeth to meet her husband," whis- 40 pered the women, as she crossed the threshold, "and he is new from dreams of Tir na n'Og and of the Woman of the Shee, behke. Ho ! brown girl, how speeds thy weaving now?" " 1 pray you let me be :" said the Orgiallan^ weaving away, "since half my work is to do." But the women would not be still : and their chatter broke out again, like the sound of a little running stream. " Ho ! brown girl, dost think thou weavest Elmer's shroud, that thou weavest so faithfully.-^" " Or Cuchullin's bridal shirt ? " laughed another. "There goes her shuttle all at random." " We heard that thou hadst a lover in Orgiall, brown girl : and that he was wise in Druid arts. How came it that he let thee go to Elmer's house to walk thy feet lame on alien roads, and to have thy wrists weighed down with golden fetters.-* How came it so? " Weave thy best, and our lady will give thee in marriage to Conall the bard : his second wife is dead : and he likes well to wed among the women of Elmer's household." So they mocked her : Una> Gormshuil, Orfla, Niam, and Onoir : and they laughed and chanted mocking rhymes around her, and still the Orgiallan wove on, and made as if she heard them not. But presently she left her web, and went across the greenan to cool her 41 G hot hands with fresh water, and her comrades gathered round her work, silent at first. For in the purple web she had woven figures of men and women and dogs : and at first the meaning of the figures took them not, and when it reached beyond their eyes their know- ledge kept them silent. For on the web the Orgiallan had worked a wolf-hound sleeping in the arms of a woman whose robe was of the elfin green, and behind the twain there rose a wild figure that was like the lady Elmer's when anger shook her beauty from her. Then said Onoir, " Thou hast courage, Orgiallan, and if she kills thee for this, I will lay gesa on my brother to revenge thee." And Una, "Take up that courage in thine hands, Hostage, and win out from this house : for if thou abidest Elmer's coming, surely thy next need will be for the baked clay urn and the stone kistvaen." And " Go ! " said all the rest, with one voice. " Cover thy saffron gown with yonder cloak, and thine head with a kerchief, and thou mayest pass without any knowing that thou art not Caitlin the herd-woman or More the hen- wife, for both be of thy height." " I go not," said the Orgiallan, quietly. " Fall back, companions, and let our mistress pass." And she sat down again to her web, and 1 2 waited while the women scattered right and left before Eimer, as she crossed the greenan, stately in her garments of blue and saffron, and looked "on the woven picture of her husband's beguiling. " Thou hast a pretty wit, O golden maid," she said, when she had looked her fill, "and a pretty skill with the shuttle when thou pleasest. And so thou wert once plighted to a warlock— ay ? of our own island ? " "Of Dane-land," Ineen the Hostage an- swered, gravely. " It is well," Elmer said, slowly and softly. " Didst thou love him, brown girl ? as well as I love Cuchullin ? " "As well." " Weave me a magic belt, then : and weave it cunningly and well, thou Golden Hostage, and it may be I shall send thee home to thy lover. Or it may be I shall give thee to the stones in Carrownamaddoo, the quarter of the dogs." " How shall I weave the belt ? " "Thou knowest, Beauty of the World," Eimer said, bitterly. " 'Tis a small thing to ask of a warlock's mistress." Ineen smiled, as she drew out a knife from her girdle and cut off a great lock of her heavy hair, " I must have gold hair, too," she said. " Mistress, wilt thou bid Onoir or Orfla give 43 me of their locks ? Nay, but Onoir is too dark. Ortla's is of the true honey-colour." And then she went to the weaving again, and it was midnight before she laid her shuttle down, and flung over Elmer's arm the finished work of woven hair, soft and fine and wonderful to look upon. "Thy will is done, my mistress," she said, "and henceforward the magic girdle will keep far from Cuchullin the dreams that Fand sends," The knife lay at her feet now, and Eimer snatched it and struck for the girl's heart : but her aim was ill, and yet Ineen had stood still to take the blow. "Thy lover's Dhouls have saved thee for to-night," Eimer said, furiously, " but to-morrow is mine. Go thou and sleep and gather thy force up for to-morrow : and hope not to escape, daughter of a witch, for bower and bawn are guarded by my husband's men." And Ineen laughed as she went to her sleeping-place : but Elmer's eyes were dark with fear as she held the knife to the torch- light, for the stain upon it was the stain, not of blood, but of sea-water. And the next day, folk sought high and low for Ineen, but found her not : and they whispered among themselves that she came and went as she would by means of black magic, and that belike the tale was 44 true which told that her father Malachi of the Clan Colla had taken a sea-woman to wife. But, nevertheless, the next day Cuchullin wore the masfic grirdle : and Fand visited him in his dreams no more. And when seven days had gone by, Eimer heard him moan beside her in the night, and when she asked what ailed him, he said, heavily, " I am dream-stolen, and now my sleep is gone from me, my wife, and I shall go mad and die. This thing has been done me by an enemy. Wife, knowest thou any herb to give me ease } " " To-morrow I will go out into the fields," she said, "and we will snare a nightingale and lay its heart under thy head as thou liest, and thus will sleep surely come to thee, if the kind gods grant that no wind blows." But the root of Cuchullin's ill lay deeper yet, and for two more nights he lay and wrestled hard to hold sleep with him, but with no success : and on the third morning he rose up, with a darkness in his eyes and a noise in his ears that held him from knowing Eimer when she clunof to him and strove to hold him back. But she did not loose the girdle, for her fear lest he should dream of Fand was greater than her fear for Cuchullin. And for a day and a night Cuchullin went seawards, smiting boughs and tree-stems as he went, in his madness, and 45 presently he stood upon the sands and fought with the sea, striking the subsiding waters now with his sword, and now with his bare hands. And as the tide turned, there leapt to his side a woman with black hair lifting in the wind, and strand by strand she tore from him the girdle of woman's hair, and as the last lock tore apart, the madness departed from Cuchullin and he slept. And Ineen sat beside him on the sand, holding his head on her knees : and presently he awoke in midmost of a dream of the Fairy woman, hearing a voice sobbing in his ears. " I wove the belt to thine undoing, and I broke the belt to thine undoing. And mine own people come against thee for the blows thy madness struck. Rise, lord, and fight for thy life, and let thy dreams be. Bite, Hound : for thy chain is snapped." And Cuchullin started up, and saw wave after wave coming a-land, full of threatening faces and shaken spears, and he took his sword from Ineen's hands, and made ready to fight the sea. And, fighting blindly with the sea-folk, he felt presently the grip of many hands upon him, and he was dragged to his knees, and he heard voices mocking him. "Where is thy strength, O great champion.'* Gone with the belt that kept thy dreams aloof.'* Yield thee, then, Cu , and let the Hound be 46 taken In leash to his kennel. Thanks, Ineen Dhu, for the broken girdle." " But the girdle is here," Ineen cried : and Cuchullin felt her arms clasped about his body. " Give back, O sea-people : what girdle is so strong as a girdle of flesh and blood ? " "The other girdle," shrilled the sea-people back. "The girdle of dead hands, O Ineen: and that he cannot win. Give back and let us drown him." Cuchullin's dreams swept round him now : but in spite of them he knew that the waves were breaking against his breast, and that Ineen's arms were tig^hteninor about him : and twixt sleep and waking he looked down at her as she clung to him, and listened, wondering, to the stream of song that poured from her open lips. And with the last word of her song there rose a lono- shriek of sorrow from the sea-people, and a wave lifted Cuchullin and Ineen, and brought them gently to shore. And when next Cuchullin woke from his dreams he found that Ineen still held him fast, though she was dead and cold : and with some difficulty he loosed her hands from him, and dug with his sword a grave for her in the sand, and there he laid her sorrowfully, praying Angus, the Master of Love, to keep her soul in his Golden House, and Manannan Mac Lir to hold hisv/aves 47 aloof from her sleeping-place. And when he visited the place with Eimer after a year and a day, they found that the sea had fallen back for half a league, and that the place where the sea-girl slept was a broad space of grass, and in the midst of the grass rose white spikes of meadowsweet, the flower which for the sake of a forgotten love and a forgotten sacrifice is called of us to-day Crios Chu-chulainn (Cuchullin's Belt). 48 A Connaught Lament. H I A Connaught Lament. / will arise and go hence to the west^ And dig me a grave where the hill-winds call ; But O were I dead, were I dust, the fall Of my own love's footstep would break my rest ! My heart in my bosom is black as a sloe ! I heed not cuckoo, nor wren, nor swallow : Like a flying leaf in the skfs blue hollow The heart in my breast is, that beats so low. Because of the words your lips have spoken, (O dear black head that I must not follow) My heart is a grave that is stripped and hollow. As ice on the water my heart is broken. lips forgetful and kindness fickle. The swallow goes south with you : I go west Where fields are empty and scythes at rest. 1 am the poppy and you the sickle ; My heart is broken within my breast. SI The Lamp of Brighid. THE LAMP OF BRIGHID. Fever and famine were in the country of Tirconnell, and betwixt these two fires the people forgot the gods : women turning their faces to the wall, and dying with never a prayer, while men held up accusing hands to the blank blue skies, and cursed Kasar among the gods of the Fomoroh, and Luo- and Dasfde of the De Dananns. Even the Shee were neglected, and everywhere the Vanitha (mistress of the house) forgot to scatter crumbs and spill drops of milk upon her threshold for Dark Joan and Oonah and Cleena and Donn of the Sandhills : and the little People went hungry past the closed doors at twilight, while within the famished human things made short work of the thin milk and the poor bread. At last even the lights in the great House of Brighid went out one by one as, one by one, the holy women died of hunger or plague, till at last there was 55 left alight only one of all the gold and silver lamps, and just as this one lamp had been refilled and lio-hted before the oreat carved image of Brighid, sitting with a huge golden book open on her knees — just as the scented oil gave out its odour of pine — the last recluse dropped her oil-cruse and fell dead at the feet of the holy statue. Some good women, coming to do hopeless worship to holy Brighid, found her lying there, and having done the last kind offices for her, and laid her with hurried prayers in the common grave of her sisters, went back to their hungry homes, leaving the door of the shrine wide open. Presently there came two small figures timidly across the threshold, and so into the deserted holy place — a boy and girl dressed in mere raq-s for all the cold March wind that whistled outside, twin children whose dead mother had mocked at holy Brighid a-dying, and whose living father would have torn down her very shrine if his hands had been as strong as his hatred. " Breed," said the boy, lifting his gentle blind eyes from the ground, " where's the wind that I feel blowing ? " "It comes from the open door," Breed answered hurriedly, *' and never a stir will it stir for all my pushing — bad cess to it for a stubborn door ! And the blessed lamp will be 56 blown out altogether, Maurice, unless we can do something to save it." " There's the lamp at home," Maurice said slowly, " and it's full of oil, Breed. You might run and fetch it here, machree, and light it from the blessed lamp yonder. I'll wait till you come." " Will you ? It's lonely here," little Breed said, warningly. " 'Tis a mile home and a mile back, and the hunger makes me run slower than I used." " Set me close to the holy lady Brighid," Maurice McCaura said, smiling, " where I can touch her with my hands : and then ye can go, Breed ; I'll be safe enough in Brighid's own house." Breed led him forward a step or two, and guided his hands till they touched the feet of Brighid's image ; then she turned and her bare feet pattered softly down the dusty aisle, across the threshold and out into the sparse pale sunshine outside. Her blind brother stood still where she had placed him, clinging to Brighid's golden feet : and presently, when they began to quiver and move under his clinging fingers, he stood, if possible, even stiller than before. " Who holds my feet? " said a deep sweet voice. " Who, of all my children .-* " " It's Maurice McCaura," the boy said, 57 i faintly. "Lady Brighid, will you give us bread ? Breed and Michael and my father are hungry, and baby Caitlin's dead : and there's the black Death in nearly every home in Munster." " And yourself, child ? " " I'm not so hungry now," the boy whis- pered. " It's Breed — and — and little Michael — and there's no bread in the house, and no potatoes in the kish — " "How many mouths to feed?" said the deep voice. "Three, Lady Brighid. Will you feed them ? " pleaded the blind lad. "And yours is the fourth. Hark. — Now would you like to give bread to the children's hungry mouths, and to your father's ? Will you give yourself to me to be my servant, child ?" "Yes," said Maurice quietly. Two strong gentle arms closed round his slight body now and lifted him from the Qrround — lifted and held him breast-high, till he felt the goddess's breath warm upon his blind eyes. " Breed and Michael and your father shall have food this very day — and Breed shall not grieve long for you : I promise that," Brighid said gently. " Now, child, let me seal you to my service." She held him to her bosom and kissed his blind eyes with soft cold kisses, until the dull hunger pain and the fluttering heart 58 stopped together ; and Breed, come back and lighting her lamp from the sacred light, found only a dead boy awaiting her, at the feet of holy Brighid. There was but little moan made over Maurice McCaura ; even Breed, who loved him better than herself, watched him buried in his mother's grave with very few tears, and those not tears of bitterness. Smiles and tears were not plentiful with Breed henceforward : the moonlight quiet of her small white face was not disturbed for her drunken father, or Michael, rosy and romping when the fever and famine ceased as suddenly as they had come ; her whole care was for the lamp she had lighted from the one which had long ago burned out in Brighid's temple, and whose flame she nursed and tended, as other girls and women tended the fire of another Brighid, in a house under mighty oak-trees at Cill-dara. Days and weeks went by, and months merged into years : and old Michael McCaura dug a grave for young Michael in another year of famine : and Breed came to her seventeenth year. And it fell to her lot to find a shadow at her side wherever she went, and to have a voice in her ears, that whispered of love and gladness : and Breed learned to blush and tremble like other girls, but still she was faithfiil to her chosen work of tending the holy fire of 59 goddess Brighid. There came a day, however, when the lover turned from Breed's moonHght to the Hlies and roses of a better-dowered maiden : and another day yet there came, when a fall of earth from the mountain-side buried bride and groom and half a score of wedding guests in one common grave, to which came Breed with her lamp at dead of night, toiling with bleedingr and bruised hands till she had cleared the earth from the two faces in the world that she most loved and most hated. Other hands drew them out and gave them holy burial, not Breed's ; she and her lamp vanished from the eyes of men when she had looked upon those two dead faces : and only now and then a dreamy colleen sees a slender figure gliding among the trees on a misty night with a lighted lamp of quaint shape held high in her hand. And the girl who sees this figure of Breed, however glad her love may be, and however true her lover, will never be wife or mother, but like Breed's her life will be broken and sorrowful here, though it may be made beautiful and complete in Tir na n'Og, in the service of Brighids three, whose names are Law and Wisdom and Love. 60 Ros Geal Dhii. Ros Geal Dhu. A greeting, Daik Rose^ luhcre thou sittest a-spinning^ A thread zvithout endings and without beginning : A thread of all colours^ g^^d^ purple^ and blue : Dark Rose^^neath thy thorn-tree^howzvears the day through ? '^ My day it wears onward ^twixt spinning and weaving^ The noise of ?nens laughter^ the cry of their grieving Drifts slozu by my thorn-tree like drifting of snow^ And on the old branches the nczu blossoms blow. " / heed not the sorrow^ nor mock at the laughter^ I weave the white sark and the yellow veil after : I have trodden the grapes^ I have pressed out the zuine. And all men shall drink of this vintage of mine. " One snatches the laurel I twined for his brother, One kisses my feet : I heed one nor another : Am I Death, O my children^ or Life! Can ye tell — ? Or the ghost of ?naid Truth that was drozuned in her wellf'' 63 Crioch Agus Amen. CRIOCH AGUS AMEN. The End : and Amen. Someone has carved these words on a weather-beaten wooden cross in Sid Cruachan : and when I was last in Connautrht I learned the story to which they form the tag. Here it is : told as it was told to me by an old, old man who might perhaps have been Ocaill, once a king of the gentle folk in Connaught. Once upon a time the Hungry Death lay heavy upon Connaught, and everywhere in the glens and hollows there grew up the Fair- gurtha : the Hungry Grass which marks where graceless men have eaten and drank their fill, and never thought of scattering drop or crumb for the "gentle" folk: and the Hungry Death lay long heavily upon Connaught, so that corn and kine and people died, and men and kine lay in one deep ditch for all grave. That is to say, the poor folk : but the rich had full barns and brimming coffers, and the Hungry Death held off from them so long that they thought 67 He dared not touch them. But one of their number thought differently : and he went down among the dying and dead with food and com- fort and prayers : and when milk and meat were of no use, he brought holy water and blessed candles, and the last offices of prayer and spade he did them, and then turned sadly home- wards. Priest, soldier, and student were his three brothers, and there was no help in any of them at this time, for Donat was busy courting a lady of the Pale, and Anthony was buried in his rare missals, and Gildea was away in Rome in the train of my lord Cardinal d'Este. His father had no will to help him, and his mother, who would have sold her last jewel for charity's sake, had long been a saint in heaven : there- fore it fell to Gilchrist to labour alone, and the long days dragged on to autumn : and each took a thread of hope with them. One day Anthony the student came down from among his books and sought out Gilchrist, with a new look of purpose in his grave face. " I have read the stars for seven niofhts now, brother," he said, "and seven times I have looked in my crystal ball at daybreak, and crystal and stars say the same thing, Gil- christ ; the Devil is in the mask of the Hungry Death. Go down and bid them set the chapel- bells a-ringing." 68 " What use ? " Gilchrist said. " Does your crystal show you how one might meet the Hungry Death face to face, Anthony?" "Yes," Anthony said, slowly. "It is a meeting I have long desired, Gilchrist : and I have tried many spells to bring the Dark Man to me. What charms did the people use, think you, that the Hungry Death has come to them, and taken no heed of me } " " What will you ask of him, Anthony, when you see him face to face } " " Ask — what I have desired all the thirty years of my life, Gilchrist : the philosopher's stone." "No other richer gift?" Gilchrist asked, laughing into Anthony's eager face. " Not all the kingdoms of the world, my brother ? Not the ghost of Helen that Dr. Faustus desired ? Not the ring of Gyges ? " " No," Anthony said, " Helen could not give me the philosopher's stone : and what is one man's soul wei'^hed with that ? " "Is the stone so heavy, then?" Gilchrist asked, with eyes that sparkled suddenly. " Anthony, if your mind is set on seeing the Prince o' the Air, let me bide with you." " I am not afraid," Anthony said coldly. " But you can stand by, Gilchrist, an you choose. He will be like any Court gentleman belike, 69 with a dainty ruff and a rose in his ear, and a ofood Toledo blade." And so it fell out. The charms were spoken, and a pinch of shining powder scattered into the brazier, and, with no scent of sulphur or burst of blue flame, the door of Anthony's chamber swung open, and a dapper gentleman in a velvet cloak entered and saluted the brothers with all the Qrace of France. " Are you the Hungry Death " Gilchrist asked, since Anthony did not speak, but sat huddled up in his chair shivering as if he were cold. The visitor bowed. " My eke-name for the present, Messer," he said. " May I confer one on you since your given name offends me ? A thousand thanks. Then, Dov, what would you have of me ? and you, Dav ? " looking at Anthony with smiling eyes, " Let the learned man speak while the ox listens," Gilchrist said, keeping his grave eyes on those that smiled. " Anthony — " but Anthony did not speak. "He is taking counsel of fear," said the visitor gaily. " Well, Dov, do thou take counsel also. " I have done so," Gilchrist said. " I desire to know when the Hungry Death goes back to his own place," The visitor's smiling face sharpened and grew fierce. " When I have souls enough," he snarled. " There are 70 more stones than souls in Connaught, and, Dov you hinder me from taking my own. Take heed lest I find a goad for you, good ox." " I will hinder you more before that goad is pointed," Gilchrist said. *' When will your shadow lift from us, Dark Man ? What will you take to go .'* " The souls of old Anthony Sheehy, and his sons Anthony and Donat and Gil the priest." Then the guest threw back his head and laughed shrilly. " And where shall I find them, Dov ? Old Anthony's heart is a wine-cup, and Gil the priest's is a warren of feeble coney-sins, and young Anthony's is a book with painted edges, and nothing writ on the pages — and Donat's heart is a ruby trinket for mistress Adeliza's breast. Whither shall I q-q look for the souls they used to have ? Even my wisdom fails to see them in any place within my ken." "Does it so.'*" Gilchrist said. "Can perhaps my folly help out your worship's wis- dom, at a pinch ? " " Sell me your soul, and we will see." "And what then.?" " Why then — Come, I will deal gene- rously with you, merchant though I be — and I am tired of hunting weasel-souls over Con- o naught. Give me your soul, and they shall not see the Hungry Death again, they, nor their 71 children's children. My word is my bond, outcast though you call me : the Hungry Death shall go, when your soul is mine." " What will you do with it } " Gilchrist asked. The other laughed a thin laugh. "Cut souls out of it for your father and your brothers — and one, mayhap, for the lady Adeliza. Then — when they die, I shall have all the kin : all." "Except my mother," Gilchrist said quietly. " Take my soul then, and do with it as you will." The visitor held out his hand, and clasped Gilchrist's for a long minute : then their hands fell apart, and Gilchrist heard Anthony's voice speak sharply in his ears. "Was it a dream or no.'* Gilchrist, tell me ! " It was a dream," Gilchrist said, gently. " It is not well to sleep by the open window at twilight, Anthony, for the air from the marshes is heavy with mist." " I dreamed that I was dead," Anthony said, shivering. " I think the Hungry Death must ha' touched me, passing by." " Perhaps," Gilchrist said. " I think he will not pass by again. Shall we go down, Anthony.-* I hear Donat calling us." So they went down to a changed life for both. For the Hungry Death had killed its 72 last victim, and henceforward the people found that old Anthony Sheehy's coffers were readier to open than of old, and that young Anthony would read the fortunes of their absent dear ones in his crystal ball, or fill a vial with some unknown liquid that cured cramps more swiftly than the expressed juice of mullein and marjoram : and so they grew used to turning in their lesser troubles to others than the man who only had helped them in their bitterest need. And Gilchrist was well pleased to know that his sacrifice had quickened the charity of his kin- dred : and the memory of the sacrifice itself was not able to alter his life materially outwardly or inwardly. Only as years went on he grew a little graver and less quick to smile, but always his hands were ready to salve and serve though now he was slower to pray beside the sick-beds, not altogether because of the pain that pierced him at each holy word he uttered. But when the need was sorest he was ready with the help or the prayer : though for himself he never prayed. And when Donat's eldest son was ten years old, and student Anthony was seated in soldier Anthony's place, and Gildea had put off his black cassock for a scarlet gown, then Gilchrist fell sick of some nameless disease, and lay for months with all his body dead save the kindly heart and the busy brain : having lain 73 ^ long thus It fell to him to see Donat gathered to his fathers of a sudden fever, and Donat's eldest son brought in dead and drowned from a rowing-match with other lads of his degree. So it came to pass that Donat's second son, young Gilchrist, became heir to the Tir-na- Sheoghaidh (the Sheehys' country) : and on the day that Cathal was buried Gilchrist sent for Gildea to come to his chamber when he had made an end of striving to comfort Cathal's mother for her newest loss. So Gildea came, and listened to Gilchrist's confession, and when it was at an end he sat for a long time with his face hidden in his hands. And presently lifting up his head he spoke as the Cardinal : " I cannot shrive you, Gilchrist Sheehy, and I dare not bless you, who have sold your soul. But you sold it for God's love, Gilchrist, and one of the kindred whose souls are yours loves you the better for it. Our souls are yours — and since you sold it for a selfless cause, Gilchrist, it seems to me the pact is null and void : that the Dark Man therefore has power upon none of us." " Upon none of you," Gilchrist said quietly. " If I have given my soul among my kindred I have none to save or lose, Gildea : and so what end is there to this journey that I go upon ? 7A- "I do not know," Gildea said. "What comfort can I give you ? " " I can ofo comfortless," Gilchrist said smiling. " I have looked this end in the face a many years, Gildea. So when they bury me write nothing of my kindred nor even my name, but put upon the stone the words scribes write at the end of their tales and verses." That night he died : and that the Cardinal obeyed his last wish the cross shows. But I cannot help believing that the priest's logic and Gilchrist's belief were alike wrong : and that nothingness is not the end of that bargain made in the Joyces' country some three hundred and odd years ago. Even if it were, such an end might possibly be worth more than the immor- tality of Claudio. 75 The Wind Among the Reeds. The Wind Among the Reeds. Mavrone^ Mavrone ! the wind among the reeds. It calls and cries^ and will not let me be ; And all its cry is of forgotten deeds When men were loved of all the Daoine-sidhe. O Shee that have forgotten how to love^ And Shee that have forgotten how to hate. Asleep ''neath quicken boughs that no winds move^ Come back to us ere yet it be too late. Pipe to us once again, lest we forget TVhat piping means, till all the Silver Spears Be wild with gusty music, such as met Carolan once, amid the dusty years. Dance in your rings again : the yellow weeds Tou used to ride so far, mount as of old — Play hide and seek with winds among the reeds. And pay your scores again with fairy gold. 79 Boholaun and I. M BOHOLAUN AND I. BoiiOLAUN Stands up stiff and uncomely now In the pitiless morning sunshine — a mere stalk of ragweed, and nothing more — but let twilight once come up from the land of the Shee, and work her wild will with these familiar fields of Lismahoga, and Boholaun will alter beyond recognition, putting off rough leaf and ragged flower for a shining silken coat of elfin grey, and a t]owinor mane and tail of hair fine as woven glass, and moonshine coloured. Then unseen hands will lead him softly out from the fairy-ring where he stands all day, and unseen feet will press his silken sides till his stride outpaces the wind itself, and his silver hoofs leave shining tracks west on the cliffs of Galway, and east in the Wexford sands. Is it Boholaun that has changed, or only I, or have I un- wittingly crossed the fairy-ring .'^ Still he stands up erect and unbeautiful, but deep down under the earth I hear the ringing of elfin bridles, and the stamping of fairy hoofs : and now the green-coated figures are swarming about me, 83 and the air is drowsy with the whirr of their wings — or is it a fairy song? It is strange and sleepy and sweet, and now that it has fallen silent I am hungering to hear it again, and yet Oh ! I am awake now, and lonely for lack of the flittering figures, and the elfin song, and the gallant steed that istood up in Boholaun's place, scraping the ground with an impatient hoof. I am awake, but I remember that wild ride with Boholaun, and I hasten to set it down on paper ere the memory of it leaves me quite. If I mounted him voluntarily, or if unseen hands helped me to the saddle, I do not know : but that I was on his back is as true as that I now stand dismounted. Lough and valley flashed by us, a medley of green and grey, and next, sharp spears of mountains orlorious with sunset : after that a blinding mist, and then a flash of pearl and rose that may have been a gate, and then — Ah ! then ! Asleep or awake, I slid from the saddle, and sank at the feet of a great and gracious figure, robed with mist. And as I lay at her feet, other figures came and closed about me, grave and splendid and stately, looking at me with eyes that probed my soul ; till I felt naked and ashamed as Adam did in Eden. I put my hands before my face to shield it, but their 84 looks went deeper down than my eyes, and my soul I could not shield as I could my face. And in the scathing white light of their looks, sins great and small, sins remembered and sins forgotten, sins repented and sins cherished, raised their ugly heads, and made me shrink and quiver and recoil from their foulness, while a light kiss slid from a dusky corner of my heart, and showed itself a full-grown snake, and an idle lie collapsed to a thing lamentable in its vanity and hideousness. And still they looked at me with eyes terrible in their mute reproach, and no word came from their folded lips, till once more the misty woman's figure bent over me, and scalding tears fell from her eyes on my upturned face. And after that a voice broke the dreadful tension of the silence. "Diarmuid!" It let in a light upon my soul more scathing than that in which I had lain before : and I leapt to my feet, stung with intolerable pain, and answered to the name which had been mine and now was not. And the voice called a^ain in a broken and tearful fashion, " Diarmuid ! Diarmuid ! " And I flung out my hands in an anguish of appeal, and other hands caught them, and drew me softly into a long embrace. I could not see the eyes that wept over me, or the lips whose breath stirred my hair, but seeing is not knowledge : and I had never quite for- 85 gotten Grainne, though ages had been blown down the wind since our arms held each other last. Yet I was not glad to know her arms about me arain. I cried out, and strusfeled to escape from them, because I was burning with intolerable shame. " No, no, no ! " I cried, not knowing what I denied. And the arms held me fast : and the soft voice crooned " Diarmuid ! " and at last I Q-athered streng-th to know what I souo-ht to deny, and in set words I said : "It was not I who loved you, Grainne, in days when you were Fionn's wife and Diarmuid's betrothed. Some other man : not I." And those that stood round laughed, all save the woman who had greeted me first, Kasar the Fomorian Oueen ; and she sobbed. Then from denial I passed to questioning. *' Was it you for whom I have hungered all my life — you, Grainne, and no other ? " "I, Grainne : and no other." " But look at me," I cried, " a man grown, and yet as weak as a child, Grainne, and marred after a fashion that makes children point after me in the streets. Take your eyes away, and let me die here ! " " Look ! " she said, and I looked where her finger pointed, and saw a man standing before me, dressed in some barbaric, antique 86 fashion, with gold on the shield he held, and a glimmer of gold in his dusky hair. And I was ashamed before my old self, and my eyes smarted with tears I could not shed. But Grainne's voice was sweet in my ears again as she said — " I hold you in my arms, one and the same with him you look upon — not two as you fancy now : but the body of Maurice Cahill holds the soul of Diarmuid, and Grainne is weary till the twain come to her." Then there were no more faces before my eyes, but only flashing water, and sweeps of turf, and crags where the eagles nest, and know naught of the Shee and their "old ever-busy moneyed land," as Boholaun swept me back to my old life and my old burden, and the old cold, clear daylight of this world where the Shee are not seen of us awake. I think I do my worldly part no worse for my one glimpse of Tir na n' Og, and the hope that keeps my heart warm night and day — the hope that some day I may fling off this body whereof 1 am so weary, and re-assume my old shape and my old name. And if this come to pass, I do not doubt — for all he stands a mere dry weed again in the midst of the fairy-ring — I do not doubt that Boholaun, rather than any other guide, will come to carry me back to the Land of Youth — to my old self — and to Grainne. 87 The Fairy Fiddler. li The Fairy Fiddler. ' Tis I go fiddling^ fiddling^ 'By weedy ways forlorn : I make the blackbird' s music Ere in his breast ^tis born : The sleeping larks I waken Twixt the midnight and the morn. No man alive has seen mc^ But women hear me play Sometimes at door or window, Fiddling the souls away^— The child's soul and the colleen s Out of the covering clay. None of my fairy kinsmen Alake music with me now : iAlone the raths I wander Or ride the whitethorn bough But the wild swans they know me.^ tAnd the horse that draws the plough. 91 Dalnan, DALUAN. It was in Gal way that I met him first : a sHm lad in a rough frieze suit, crossing the quaking bog-edge with perfect serenity and carelessness, and never once looking" to see where he set his bare brown feet. " Save you kindly," he called back in answer to my " God save you," leapt nimbly to the solid ground where I stood, and fell to arranging a bit of bog-cotton in the curious scarlet cap he wore. I had no intention of glancing inquisitively at his bare feet, but I suppose I must have done so, for, without looking up, he said in a perfectly level voice, " Oh, I have odds and ends of civilisation about me after all, see." He produced from the satchel on his shoulders a neat pair of brogues, composedly sitting down on a tuft of grass to put them on, and, rising, looked at me for the first time with a pair of roguish eyes, so darkly blue that they looked black. 95 "Shall we join company? You are going to Galway." I answered it as a question, though it was more an assertion. " Yes : I am going there." " Right : so am I. Do you speak Irish ? " "No, worse luck! though I am Irish-born." " You are a Browne of Carlow, I think," said my companion, stepping out with a light swing- ing step. " Well," scarcely listening to my surprised assent, " I can speak Saxon to you. Have the bees of Carlow their stings still ? I suppose not." " You are proverb-wise, I see," I said, somewhat piqued. " Since you know my name I might as well know yours — I'm afraid I cannot guess it." He faced round on me, guessing perhaps that I was annoyed, and held out a hand delicate and slender as a lady's. " I am too light for you to quarrel with," he answered. " Nobody runs amuck at the thistle- down even when it flies into folks' faces. Well. . . . I am lighter than the thistledown, and idler : and my name's Daluan. " I took the proffered hand and found it icy cold to my touch, though as soft as the thistledown he had likened himself to. Then he drew it away from me with a laugh, and we proceeded on our way to Galway town, I not a little specula- tive as to the character of my odd companion, 96 and he, quite cool and composed, singing a wild Irish song as he went. *' All away to Tir na n'Og are many roads that run, But the darkest road is trodden of the King of Ireland's son." "Do you see that.'*" he said presently, pointing to a cairn on the roadside. "There lies one of those that liked well to see the green above the red : a good Irishman, and a kind soul, for all his empty pockets and waste lands. And one day men that he had fed and sheltered came and shot him on hisown doorstep, and left him to the tender mercies of the kites." " Who buried him here, then ?" I enquired sharply. Daluan stood looking thoughtfully down at the cairn, his dark head bare. " I did," he said simply. " I would have given him a king's burying, but I was my lone." " Mad," I thought to myself, my pulses quickening, "or he would never pretend to have buried a man of 98 — a lad like him." *' The world wears on to sundown, and love is lost and won, But he recks not of loss or gain — the King of Ireland's son — He follows on for ever when all your chase is done — He follows after shadows — the King of Ireland's son. "Then he looked at me, smiling, and answered my thoughts as he had done before. 97 o "You don't understand — quite. But the sun sets and rises outside Carlow, Sidier Rhu." " I never said it didn't," I said, rather sharply. "What place is that over there? Do.you know it ? " " I think I know every house in Ireland," he said simply, "from Derry of the oakwoods to Donegal of the strangers. That place is the 'Rood House' Inn: it was a nunnery of Bridget's long ago." " I shall put up there for a while," I said. " And you ?" He looked at me, smiling. " I shall stay with you for a while," he said. You will be sorry, perhaps, but you may be glad afterwards, Brian aroon." I was sorry, but I was not anxious to show it, so I hastily denied his assertion. " I am very glad to have so amusing a comrade, Daluan," I said. " But why do you call me Brian ? That is my second name, but I am always called by my first — Archibald." " Brian is best," Daluan observed quietly. " Let us go in and eat : it is a long way from Kilclary." I was getting used now to his apparent knowledge of my movements, and so made no sign of surprise, but entered the long rambling coffee-room of the Rood House, and ordered dinner for two. However, I might have spared my pains, for when the meal 98 was served Daluan would have none of the baked meats I had chosen, but broke his fast with a couple of potatoes and a draught of milk, brought in a queer horn goblet, lettered with some stranore leg^end in Irish characters which I could not decipher. The waiter, a red-headed lad with a pair of merry blue eyes, watched us both pretty sharply, I saw, and I fancied that he drew a long breath of relief when I rose and proposed to continue our journey, not desirous of spending the night in the ' Rood House' as would be our probable fate if we waited for the heavy clouds that were rolling up from the east. " Let us go, then," Daluan said as I paid the red-haired youth : "the best of the day is gone. See the dust dancing." I drew back from the open doorway to avoid the whirling dust, but he stepped out into the midst of it, with a curious gesture — I could not tell if it were addressed to me, nor yet if it were of reproach, derision, or farewell. It may have been the latter, for when the dust-cloud left the way clear, there was no sign of Daluan in the road, or in the stony fields stretching away to the horizon-line. " Odd," I said, surprised, " but he is odd. My change ? ah, thanks ! Can't you keep your mouth shut, man ? " I suppose Daluan's disap- pearance had irritated me more than I knew, 99 for the waiter's gaping astonishment put me almost past all self-control. " Here, there's a silver key for you," and I tossed him another shilling. "Well, what's the matter now.-*" "Will yir honour take it back .-^ " the fellow almost whimpered. " 'Tis fairy money, sure, and I'd have the comether put on me for touchin' ut : Och, put it away, sorr, an' get away wid ye : we never did ye anny harm, sure : Lord be betune us an avil ! " I delivered myself of some Ossianic denun- ciation, threw the money in his frightened face, and departed, vowing by Neptune and Nebu- chadnezzar to be very careful in my choice of travelling companions next time. The years swept along at a rate that soon obliterated chance impressions. One day in October — the 31st, I believe — I, a Major now, and a one-armed Major at that, went to Galway to spend a few days with an old friend and some time brother-in-arms, one Felix O'Flaherty, developed by easy circum- stances and a bachelor life into a dilettante antiquary. We had gone together to visit a certain rath supposed to be haunted by the ghosts of a De Danann King and Queen, and in the dusk I turned down the wrong path, missing O'Flaherty, who had been walking a few yards in front. I was half-way down the 100 lane before I found out my mistake, and, hearing a sound of voices in advance, I perse- vered in my way. Presently, the lane widened out, and, without any warning, I came upon a mourning group of men and women assembled in a great circle round a mound that looked like a newly-turfed grave. It was the women, by the way, who formed the circle : and there was just twilight enough for me to see their faces set white in the blackness of their hooded cloaks. The men stood back in the shadows of the stone fence, but I could hear their cry well enough, and I wondered at it not a little, knowing that the keen is generally raised by w^omen. And this was the burden of the keen, or, at least, all of it that I could understand : " Daluan is dead — dead ! Daluan is dead." Then, with a burst of laughter from the women, infinitely sadder than their moaning, hitherto inarticulate, came the cry " Da Mort is King." I turned back, and made the best of my way homewards as soon as might be : and after dinner I told the story to O' Flaherty when his flow of antiquarian anecdote flagged a little, and asked him what it meant, and who was dead in the neighbourhood. " Nobody / know," he said, laying his pipe "down " and I thought I heard all the news. Fergus," to his man who was adroitly reviving a dying fire, "who has lOI died lately?" "Nobody, sir." "But you hear what Major Browne says." Fergus stood up and saluted, but did not take his eyes from the fire. " I heard, sir. The Major went down the Black Boreen." " And you think that explains matters.'*" "I do, sir. Did the Major know any of the faces.'* " " No : I saw no men, only heard them," I explained. " But I should know one woman in the group if I met her again : an oldish woman with red hair, and a peculiarly white face. Not ill-looking by any means and blind too, I think." " Biddy Va'an, who died last year," master and man said with one voice. I laughed uneasily. " Do you mean to say I've been seeing ghosts, Felix?" "To-night's the 31st of October," Fergus said meaningly. " What was the name you heard. Major ? " " Daluan." "You've heard it before?" O'Flaherty said quickly. " Well, it isn't an Irish name, Archie — at least nobody owns it now." " I met a fellow once with that name," I said, thinking aloud. " Only —what are you driving at, Felix ? " " Oh-h, nothing: Only Da Luan is Irish for Monday. I thought it might have struck you before, old fellow." " It didn't. And now, Felix ?" " Well, you said the keen ended with, ' Monday is dead : Tuesday is King.' My 102 dear fellow, rub up your memory a little. Did you never read of Greek dryads and fauns shrieking * Pan is dead : great Pan is dead.' Yes : of course you have. Well, Keltic fairies were said to vary their lament thus : ' Monday is dead.' " "And you mean to say — my dear Felix, it's preposterous — '' I broke off angrily. "In these material days no one would believe. — You were joking } " " Was I ? We'll go to the Black Boreen to-morrow, Archie, and if we get light or sight of Da Luan's grave I'll eat my words, and my hat too. Man alive, there are pishogues and sheogues in Ireland yet, for all the mills in Belfast and Armagh." We did go to the Black Boreen next day, but we found level turf instead of a mound, and over the place where I thought I had seen the newly-turned sods there was growing a patch of bogcotton and ragweed. 103 Una of the West. i Una of the West. It's " Una, Una, Una ! " The birds cry after me. When I go back at sunset Into my own country — With « Una, Una, Una,'' They will not let w be. With T)ruid leaves they crowned me The mistress of the Shee, East wind and west they gave me. For hounds to follow me : Mine are the yellow ragweeds And mine the quicken tree. I teach the dreaming colleen How she her love may win : I wake old harps from silence To wail for days of Fionn : I make the long grass greener That folds Saint Ide in. It's ''Una, Una, Una," Birds sing and will not stay : And not a plover whistles Or lark dare greet the day Until I come from westward And bid the night away. 107 « The Soul of Maurice Dwver. THE SOUL OF MAURICE DWYER. " There is a power o' ugly things in the wood of Foynes," said the good people of St. Donart's, a little village in an out-of-the-way corner of Munster, and so Maurice Dwyer said to himsell as he paused under a blackened birch-tree in this same wood, looking and listening- with such a cold fear tugging at his heart-strings as he had never felt before in all his sixteen years. "Is there anny one there?" he cried, as the under-growth shook and stirred. "If there is, let him spake, for the love of Mary." " For the love of Mary I'll do naught," said a tall man, clad from head to foot in dull gray, as he bent the reeds and grasses to right and left, and stepped out into the clearer foot- path. "What would you have of me, boy.^ Speak out : and don't stand trembling like a rabbit." " I've no cause to tremble," Maurice Dwyer 1 1 1 said, quietly, " I want to know are ye the Great Dhoul himself, or only a shlip o' the same stock ? " "Civilly now, my boy," the man in gray said, placidly. " No, I am not the Great Dhoul — say I am only one of his servants. Why do you come here, Maurice Dwyer? It's your mother I and my master have to do with." "Sure it is," Maurice said, "and she's in mortal terror for her soul, lest ye'd have power upon it, since she's taken up with Phaudrig Gorey, and him with a vanithee of his own in County Antrim." " Mortal terror she may well be in, if she holds her soul dear, for 'tis nearly ours, and a poor slip of a soul it is, after all our trouble : and the sins of it scarcely worth a thraneen." " Then let it go," Maurice pleaded. " Sure, she loves Phaudrig well : and the woman in Antrim's an idle stravag as ever was. Let my mother's soul go free." "Softly, now : the Great Dhoul does nothing for nothing, Maurice, What have you got to offer for Mauryeen Dwyer's soul } " " There's my own." " Your own soul, is it ? Well, it may be worth more to my Master than your mother's." "Take it, then," Maurice said, drawing a deep breath. " Sure, she has been a kind 112 mother to me : and I'll burn for her, with a heart and a half," " Will you ? " said the man in gray» smilingi Take a minute to choose — the Dhoul is a fair dealer." As he spoke, Maurice Dwyer reeled back against the scorched tree-trunk, panting, caught in the grip of an agony crueller than death. "Well?" said the man in gray. "You may cry to Mary and all the saints, but it will never cease. And if you call in priest and doctor, neither can help you. Be at peace now." He lifted his hand, and the fiery pain was gone, leaving the boy still panting and trembling with the memory of it. " Now choose. Her pain or yours ?" " My pain ! " the boy said, faintly but steadily : and the man in gray laughed mali- ciously, as he signed him on breast and brow. "Now burn," he said, "as you have chosen, fool. And here^ that you may not blab of this night's doing, for our Master loves silent sub- jects " He stooped and kissed Maurice full on the lips. " Love and hate, court and marry, help and destroy henceforward as you will, but be dumb, in the name of the Dhoul. If your tongue desires freedom, it shall be free to speak the great Dhoul's name. And now, farewell — or fare ill, I care not." 1^3 <