Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/firesidestoriesoOOkennrich THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. THE FIBESIDE STOEIES ieeland; / KaA PATEICK KENNEDY, Author of "Legends of Mount Leinster," "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts," "The Banks of the Boro," and "Evenings in the Duffrey." DUBLIN : M'GLASHAN AND GILL; AND PATRICK KENNEDY. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL ♦ ♦ ♦ < THE UNLUCKY MESSENGER. There jsvas once a farmer's wife that had a servant boy, and this poor boy's memory wasn't very good, nor indeed was himself bright in any way. She sent him one day to the butcher's in the next town for some hearts and livers and lights, and gave him a shilling. " But/' said she, " I'm afraid you won't remember what I'm sending for." " Oh faith I will, ma'am," says he, " I'll be saying 'em the whole way, hearts and livers and lights ; — hearts and livers and lights." "Well, do so, Jack, and maybe you'll succeed this time." Jack went on repeating his message like a May-boy, till THE UNLUCKY MESSENGER. 3 I he met a man that was returning home from a sea- voyage. His face was as yellow as a kite's claw, and just as he was passing Jack he gave him a slap in the jaw that almost knocked him down. " Wbat's that forT says poor Jack. H What was I doing to you V " You mischievous brat, I can hardly keep my heart liver and lights from flying out of my mouth I J m so sea- sick, and the very mention of them is almost after turning me inside out/' " Well, and what am I to he saying V 9 " Why, if you can't keep your tougue easy, say ' May they never come up !'" "Very well," says Jack. " Hearts — no, may they never come up, may they never come up !" He was passing by a field where men were planting pota- toes, and the first of them that heard him, jumped over the ditch and began to kick poor Jack. " Oh ! what's that for? Sure I'm doin' no harm to yez." " Do you call that bad prayer, no harm, you thief 1 instead of saying, like a good neighbour, l Two hundred this year ; three hundred next year.'" " Oh, very well," says Jack, " I'll say that to please you/' and he went on saying, " Two hundred this year ; three hundred next year." Well, a funeral was entering the churchyard just as Jack went by repeating his last lesson. " Oh, you nasty Turk !" says an old woman, " is them the prayers you're saying for the poor corpse's sowl, wishing for so many deaths ?" " I'm not wishing for any one's death, God forbid!" "Then don't be repatin' them hathenish words." " And what words will I be repatin' if you please, ma'am f " Any good prayer at all, suppose, 'Peace be with him !' " "Any- thing to please you, ma'am. — Peace be with him ; peace be with him !" He was passing by a farmer's bawn just as a fox was skelpin' away with a chicken in his mouth, and the whole family after him. While they kept on shouting, he kept on saying, "Peace be with him; peace be with him !" — "Oh, the d pace you !" says the man of the house ; " what a nice thing to wish for the red thief I" " An' what ought I say 1" " If you must say anything, let it be "Hang the brute !" ' " Oh, very well, one thing's as good as another. Hang the brute 3 hang the brute !" 32 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. A poor woman was getting along, and striving to keep her drunken husband from falling. When she heard what Jack was saying, she laid the man down easy by the side of the road, new on Jack, knocked off his hat, boxed his ears for him, and pulled his hair. "Musha, ma'am, what's that for V 1 says Jack. " It's for what you said to my poor husband," says the woman y " an' he the best man in the five townlands, only when he's overtaken." " An' I wish you hadn't overtaken me ; and what ought I to say, to please you V 7 " Oh, any good wish at all. ' May you never be separated,' will do." "Well, well! May you never be separated ; may you never be separated." The road was going by the edge of a bog, when what should he see but two men down in a deep hole, and one striving to drag the other out. When the strongest heard what he was saying, he cried out, " Stop there till I go up to you." And as sure as he did get up, he gave poor Jack a good beating. " Musha, musha !" says the poor fellow, " I'm doing what everybody is bidding me, and everybody is throuncin' me, and what's it all for V 1 " It's for your bad wishes, it is." " And what do you wish me to pray for ]" " Say, ' One out ; may the other soon be out.' " " Oh, very well." He was saying as hard as he could, " One out ; may the other be soon out !" when he met a man blind of one eye. Well, he was so mad he fell on Jack, and all he got before w T as only a Hay-bite to what he suffered from this customer. " Ah, what are you baten' me this way for'?" says the poor fellow. " For your impedence, and your bad prayers," says he. " And what am I to be saying then ?" says Jack. "I'd advise you to be saying nothing at all." " Yery well : no- thing at all ; nothing at all," went on Jack repeating till he came to the butcher's. " Well, my man, what do you want V' " Nothing at all ; nothing at all." " Well, take it, and be off with yourself." u Oh, but I want something for the mistress." " What is it V 7 " Dickens a bit of me knows. I said so many raimshogues along the road, it's got out of my head. Nothing at all ! One out ; may the other soon be out ! Hang the brute ! Two hundred this year, &c. ; &c. Oh ! bego7iies, I'll never be able to recollect THE UNLUCKY MESSENGER. $$ it.' 7 "What did your mistress give youT "A shillin'." " Give me the shilling and I'll give you what you want." He did so. " Open your fist." He opened it, and the butcher put his mouth down into it, and I needn't say what he left behind him. He shut the fingers down on it again. " Now don't open your fist for your life till you get home to your mistress. She'll find what she wants inside of your fingers and thumb. Don't let a hare catch you till you're inside the house." Jack did as he was bid, and it's meself that's glad I wasn't standing in his shoes that day, when the mistress was lambasting him. THE MAID IN THE COUNTRY UNDER GROUND. There was once a man that was left a widower with a good and handsome daughter; but bethought fit to marry a widow, a very bad woman, who had a daughter as wicked as herself. They did all they could, by telling lies on her, to persuade her father to turn her away, but he would not. So one day that she was sent to the draw-well her step- mother came behind her, and threw her head foremost into it. • She gave herself up for dead ; but wasn't she surprised, after her breath was stopped for a while, to find herself lying in a green meadow, with a bright sun and blue sky over her % Well, she walked on till she came to a hedge, that was so old it was not able to bear up a bird. "I'm old and worn, fair maid," said the hedge ; " step lightly over me." " That I will do with pleasure, poor hedge," said she. So she stepped so gently and lightly over, that not a twig w r as stirred. " I'll do you a good turn another time," said the hedge. She went on a while till she came to where an oven stood with a hot fire under it, and all at once the loaves spoke. " Take us out, take us out, fair maiden. We're baking for seven years, and now we'll be all burned if you don't release us." So she took the shovel, opened the door, and laid them nicely side by side on the grass. "Now take one of us with you," said the loaves, " and good luck be in 3 34 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. your road." She went on, and found a poor woman sitting on a stone, and crying with the hunger. She gave her the greater part of her loaf, and went on till she met a flight of sparrows sitting on a block, and they all chattered out, " Some crumbs, fair maid; some crumbs, fair maid, or we'll all be dead with the hunger. It's seven years since we got a good meal/' So she crumbled the rest of the bread, and they all cried, "Some day, fair maid, this good will be surely repaid." She next passed by an apple tree, and the branches were bent down to the ground with the fruit. " Shake me, shake me, fair maid ; it's seven years since I was shaken before." So she gently shook the tree and the boughs, and gathered all into a nice heap round the trunk. " Take some in your hand and eat them," said the tree ; I'll re- member this deed some day." The next she met was a ram, with his wool all trailing on the ground behind him. " Shear me, fair maid," said he, " for I wasn't shorn for seven long years." So she laid his head on her knee, and clipped him so nice, that he cried out when she was walking away, " Fair maid, IT1 do you a good turn for this some day." The next she met was a cow, with her poor elder (udder) so full that it was trailing on the ground. " Milk me, fair maid," said she ; " I wasn't milked frhese seven long years." So she did, and the cow licked her, and mooed after her, " Fair maid, I'll do you a good turn for this some day." Well, the day was spent, and she got lodging at a lonely house, where there was no one but a woman with hair on her chin, and very long teeth, and her daughter that had the same sort of teeth, but no beard as yet. They gave her some mouldy bread and some small beer for supper, and next day when she was going off, they said there was no one else living in that underground country, and so she might as well live with themselves. " I'll give you food and clothes," said the old woman, "and your choice of three caskets when you are leaving me, and one of them • contains more gold and silver and precious stones than the king of England has in his court." The first task she gave her was to go milk the cows, THE MAID IN THE COUNTRY UNDER GROUND. 35 but when she went into the byre where they stood, they lued, and they kicked, and they horned, so that she was afraid to come near them. But a flight of sparrows came in, and lighted on their heads, and took hold of their ears, and they stood as quiet as lambs till they were milked. Then they all chirruped, " This is what we do for reward- ing of you, fair maiden, fair maiden, for giving us crumbs, for giving us crumbs." Then they all new off, and very sour looks she got from the two women inside for getting away with her life from the cows. " It was not from your own breast you sucked your knowledge/' said the young one. The next morning said the old witch, " Take this short black hank of thread and this long white hank to the stream, and bring the black one back to me white, and the white one black, or you'll sup sorrow." The poor girl took the hanks with a heavy heart and went to the spring, and washed and cried till she was weary, and then sat down on a stone, and wrung her hands. Who should come up at the moment but the poor woman she fed the day she cleared the oven, and she did no more than swale the white hank with the stream, and the black hank against the stream, and the colours were changed in a moment. "This is the good turn I promised you, fair maiden," said she, and she vanished. As vexed as the witches were beiipre, they were twice as much vexed now, and their faces were fiery and vinegary enough to frighten a horse from his fodder. " Wait till to-morrow ! " said they to themselves. When the breakfast of mouldy bread and small beer was over, said the old hag, " Take that sieve to the stream, and bring it back full of water; there mustn't be a drop want- ing." So she went and tried to fill it, and it was no sooner full than it was empty, and she began to cry. Oh, where are my sparrows and my fairy now ]" said she. " Hero we are," said the birds. " Stuff with moss, Plaster with clay, And carry it full Of water away." 3* S6 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. She did so, and took home the sieve full to the brim. " Oh, ho ;" said the angry old witch, " you're too clever for us, I see. Go up to that loft, and take your choice of three caskets you'll find on the table.' ; She went up, and there were three caskets — one of gold, one of silver, and one of lead. She was in doubt which to select, till she heard the sparrows twittering on the roof at the skylight, " Pass by the gold, pass by the silver, but take up the lead, fair maiden." So she did, but as she was quitting the house the old witch was so vexed at her choice, that she snapped up a burning log, and flung it after her. She ran away very swiftly and as swift came the witches after her, till she came up to where the cow was standing. " Come under me," says the cow ; "Til hide you behind my elder, and I'll put a charm on their eyes. "Did you see a young girl pass this way V said they. "Yes," said the cow, "she turned into that wood on the left." Off they ran that way, and the cow licked the maiden, and off she ran. Well, when she came near the ram, she heard the clatter of their feet behind her. " Get under that heap of wool," says he, " and they won't see you." " Earn, ram, did you see a young girl run by V "Yes, I did. She ran into that wood on the right." Off with them again, and the maiden thanked the ram, and ran on. Just as she was near the apple tree, she heard the clatter of their feet again. " Get under the heapyrf apples," said the tree, and so she did. "Apple tree, apple tree, did you see a young maid run this Way.?" "Yes, I did. She is hiding in my branches." Up they both climbed, and off ran the maid. They thought to get down and pursue her, but the branches twisted round them and held them fast, and it wasn't till the maid was near the hedge that they were again on land. Just as she was at the hedge, she heard the clatter of their feet, but the fence opened a gap for her, and she was soon in the green meadow where she first opened her eyes in the underground world. When the hags attempted to cross the hedge it pricked them with thorns and brambles, and just as they were over, it tumbled on them, and it took them half a day to get clear again. A heaviness came over the maid as she sat down to rest THE MAID IN THE COUNTRY UNDER GROUND. 3 J on a green ridge, and when she woke she found herself sitting hy the well in the upper world. Her father was glad to see her again, but the wicked women of the family drove her to an out-house to take her meals and sleep. Well, she swept it out, and brushed the cobwebs off the walls, and then she sat down at a little table they gave her, and opened her box to see what was inside. All the silk, and gold, and silver, and jewels that were in it were enough to dazzle anyone's eyes, and she began to hang the walls with the silk curtains, and cover the floor with the fine carpets, that grew in size according as they were wanted, and then she was like a queen in her bower, with as much gold, and silver, and jewels in her casket as she chose. Oh, weren't the step-mother and her daughter in a bad way when they came by chance into the room ! They asked how she got all the fine things, and when she told them, the daughter popped herself head foremost into the well, and there she met all the same adventures as her sister, but she was cross and impudent with every one, and she had no one to help her milking the wicked cows, nor dyeing the hanks, nor filling the sieve, and at last she chose the gold casket, and when the hags sent her away after half starving her, the ram and the cow pucked her with their horns, and the apple tree had like to kill her with the load of fruit it let fall on her, and the hedge wounded her with its thorny boughs, and when she found herself by the well in the upper world she was more dead than alive. It was worse when she came home, and the gold casket was opened, for out there swarmed toads, and frogs, and snakes, that crept under the beds, and filled every corner of the house ; and day after day new ones were coming out, and making a purgatory on earth for herself and her mother. The father was glad enough to be let live with his daughter, and there was so much talk about it in the country that the young king came to see the maiden. To make a long story short, they were married, and if they didn't live happy ever after, it surely wasn't the fault of the young queen. >♦ ♦ +-< 38 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND, JACK THE CUNNING THIEF. There was a poor farmer who had three sons, and on the same day the three boys went to seek their fortune. The eldest two were sensible, industrious young men; the young- est never did much at home that was any use. He loved to be setting snares for rabbits, and tracing hares in the snow, and inventing all sorts of funny tricks to annoy people at first and then set them laughing. The three parted at a cross-roads, and Jack took the lonesomest. The day turned out rainy, and he was wet and weary, you may depend, at nightfall, when he came to a lonesome house a little off the road. " What do you want V says a blear-eyed old woman, that was sitting at the fire. " My supper and a bed to be sure," said he. " You can't get it," said she. "What's to hinder me V said he. "The owners of the house is," said she, " six honest men that does be out mostly till three or four o'clock in the morning, and if they find you here they'll skin you alive at the very least." " Well, I think," said Jack, " that their very most couldn't be much worse. Come, give me something out of the cupboard, for here I'll stay. Skinning is not much worse than catching your death of cold in a ditch or under a tree such a night as this." Begonies she got afraid, and gave him a good supper, and when he was going to bed he said if she let any of the six honest men disturb him when they came home she'd sup sorrow for it. When he woke in the morning, there were six ugly-looking spalpeens standing round his bed. He leaned on his elbow, and looked at them with great con- tempt. " Who are you," said the chief, " and what's your business *? " " My name," says he, " is An Ceann Ghoduidlie (pr. Cann Godhy, Master Thief), and my business just now is to find apprentices and workmen. If I find yous any good, maybe I'll give you a few lessons." Bedad they were a little cowed, and says the head man, " Well, get up, and after breakfast, we'll see who is to be the master, and who the journeyman." They were just done breakfast, when what should they see but a farmer driving a fine large goat to market. " Will JACK THE CUNNING THIEF. 39 any of you," says Jack, " undertake to steal that goat from the owner before he gets out of the wood, and that without the smallest violence'?" "I couldn't doit," says one, and t I couldn't do it," says another. " I'm your master," says Jack, " and I'll do it. ;; He slipped out, went through the trees to where there was a bend in the road, and laid down his right brogue in the very middle of it. Then he ran on to another bend, and laid down his left brogue and went and hid himself. When the farmer sees the first brogue, he says to himself, " That would be worth something if it had the fellow, but it is worth nothing by itself." He goes on till he comes to the second brogue. "What a fool I was," says he, "not to pick up the other! I'll go back for it." So he tied the goat to a sapling in the hedge, and returned for the brogue. But Jack, who was behind a tree, had it already on his foot, and when the man was beyond the bend he picked up the other and loosened the goat, and led him off through the wood. Ochone! the poor man couldn't find the first brogue, and when he came back he couldn't find the second, nor neither his goat. " Mile (pr. millia) mollacht/" says he, "what will I do after promising Shevaun (Siobhan, Johanna) to buy her a shawl. I must only go and drive another beast to the market unknownst. I'd never hear the last of it if Joan found out what a fool I made of myself." The thieves were in great admiration at Jack, and wanted him to tell them how he done the farmer, but he wouldn't tell them. By and by, they see the poor man driving a fine fat wether the same way. "Who'll steal that wether," says Jack, " before it's out of the wood, and no roughness used?" "I couldn't" says one, and " I couldn't," says another. "I'll try," says Jack. "Give me a good rope." The poor farmer was jogging along and thinking of his misfortune, when he sees a man hanging from the bough, of a tree. "Lord save us !" says he, "the corpse wasn't there an hour ago." He went on about half a quarter of a mile, and there was another corpse again hanging over the road. "God between us and harm," said he, "am I in my right senses ] " There was another turn about the same 40 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. distance, and just beyond it the third corpse was hanging. " Oh, murdher ! " said he ; 6t I'm beside myself. What would bring three hung men so near one another 1 I must be mad. I'll go back and see if the others are there still." He tied the wether to a sapling, and back he went. But when he was round the bend, down came the corpse, and loosened the wether, and drove it home through the wood to the robbers' house. You all may think how the poor farmer felt when he could hnd no one dead or alive goiug or coming, nor his wether, nor the rope that fastened him. " Oh, misfortunate day ! " cried he, " what'll Shevaun say to me now ? my morning gone, and the goat and wether lost ! I must sell something to make the price of the shawl. Well, the fat bullock is in the nearest field. She won't see me taking it." Weil, if the robbers were not surprised when Jack came into the bawn with the wether. " If you do another trick like this/' said the captain, " I'll resign the command to you. ; ' They soon saw the farmer going by again, driving a fat bullock this time. "Who'll bring that fat bullock here," says Jack, " and use no violence V " I could'nt," says one and " I couldn't/' says another. " I'll try," says Jack, and into the wood with him. The farmer was about the spot where he saw the first brogue, when he heard the bleating of a goat off at his right in the wood. He cocked his ears, and the next thing he heard was the maaing of a sheep. " Blood alive !" says he, " maybe these are my own that I lost." There was more bleating and more maaing. " There they are as sure as a gun," says he, and he tied his bullock to a sapling that grew in the hedge, and into the wood with him. When he got near the place where the cries came from, he heard them a little before him and on he followed them. At last, when he was about half a mile from the spot where he tied the beast, the cries stopped altogether. After searching and searching till he was tired, he returned for his bullock ; but there wasn't the ghost of a bullock there nor any where else that he searched. This time, when the thieves saw Jack and his prize com- JACK THE CUNNING THIEF. 4 1 ing into the bawn they couldn't help shouting out, " Jack must be our chief/' So there was nothing but feasting and drinking hand to fist the rest of the day. Before they went to bed, they showed Jack the cave where their money was hid, and all their disguises in another cave, and swore obe- dience to him. One morning when they were at breakfast, about a week after, said they to Jack, " Will you mind the house for us to-day while we are at the fair of Mochurry ? We hadn't a spree for ever so long : you must get your turn whenever you like." ."Never say' t twice," says Jack, and off they went. After they were gone says Jack to the wicked house- keeper, " Do these fellows ever make you a present V "Ah catch them at it ! indeed an' they don't, purshuin to 'em. ,; "Well, come along with me, and I'll make you a rich wo- man." He took her to the treasure cave; and while she was in raptures, gazing at the heaps of gold and silver, Jack filled his pockets as full as they could hold, put more into a little bag, and walked out, locking the door on the old hag, and leaving the key in the lock. He then put on a rich suit of clothes, took the goat, and the wether, and the bullock, and drove them before him to the farmer's house. Joan and her husband were at the door; and when they saw the animals, they clapped their hands and laughed for joy. "Do you know who owns them bastes, neighbours?" "Maybe we don't! sure they're ours." "I found them straying in the wood. Is that bag with ten guineas in it that's hung round the goat's neck yours f } " Faith it isn't." il Well, you may as well keep it for a Godsend ; I don't want it. Banacht Hath: 3 "Heavens be in your road, good gentleman ! " Jack travelled on till he came to his father's house in the dusk of the evening. He went in. " God save all here ! " " God save you kindly, sir ! " " Could I have a night's lodg- ing here ! " " Oh, sir, our place isn't fit for the likes of a gen- tleman such as you." "Oh, masha, don't yous know your own son 1 " Well they opened their eyes, and it was only a strife to see who'd have him in their arms first. " But, Jack asthore, where did you get the fine clothes 1 " Oh, you may as well ask me where I got all that money 1 " said he, 42 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. emptying his pockets on the table. Well, they got in a great fright, but when he told them his adventures, they were easier in mind, and all went to bed in great content. " Father," says Jack, next morning, " Go over to the land- lord, and tell him I wish to be married to his daughter." " Faith, I'm afraid he'd only set the dogs at me. If he asks me how you made your money, what 11 1 say 1 " " Tell him I am a master thief, and that there is no one equal to me in the three kingdoms ; that I am worth a thousand pounds, and all taken from the biggest rogues unhanged. Speak to him when the young lady is by." " It's a droll message you're sending me on : I'm afraid it won't end w r ell." The old man came back in two hours. "Well, what news 1 " " Droll news enough. The lady didn't seem a bit unwilling : I suppose it's not the first time you spoke to her, and the squire laughed, and said for you to steal the goose off o' the spit in his kitchen next Sunday, and he'd see about it." " ! that won't be hard, any way." Next Sunday, after the people came from early mass, the squire and all his people were in the kitchen and the goose turning before the fire. The kitchen door opened, and a miserable old beggarman with a big wallet on his back put in his head. " Would the mistress have anything for me when dinner is over, your honour 1 " " To be sure. We have no room here for you just now ; sit in the porch for a while." " God bless your honour's family and yourself ! " Soon some one that was sitting near the window cried out, "Oh, sir, there's a big hare scampering like the divel round the bawn. Will we run out and pin him 1 " " Pin a hare indeed ! much chance you'd have ; sit where you are." That hare made his escape into the garden, but Jack that was in the beggar's clothes soon let another out of the bag. " Oh, master, there he is still pegging round. He can't make his escape : let us have a chase. The hail door is locked on the inside and Mr. Jack can't get in." " Stay quiet, I tell you." In a few minutes he shouted out again that the hare was there still, but it was the third that Jack was just after giving its liberty. Well, by the laws, they couldn't be kept in any longer. Out pegged every mother's son of 'em, and the squire after them. " Will I turn the spit, your honour, JACK THE CUNNING THIEF. 43 while they're catching the hareyeen?" says the "beggar. " Do, and don't let anyone in for your life." " Faith an' I won't, you may depend on it." The third hare got away after the others, and when they all came hack from the hunt, there was neither heggar nor goose in the kitchen. " Purshuin' to you, Jack," says the landlord, "you've come over me this time." Well, while they were thinking of making out another dinner, a messenger came from Jack's father to heg that the squire, and the mistress, and the young lady would step across the fields, and take share of what God sent. There was no dirty mean pride ahout the family, and they walked over, and got a dinner with roast turkey, and roast beef, and their own roast goose, and the squire had like to burst his waistcoat laughing at the trick, and Jack's good clothes and good manners did not take away any liking the young lady had for him already. While they were taking their punch at the old oak table in the nice clean little parlour with the sanded floor, says the squire, " You can't be sure of my daughter, Jack, unless you steal away my six horses. from under the six men that will be watching them to-morrow night in the stable." " I'd do more than that," says Jack, " for a pleasant look from the young lady ;" and the young lady's cheeks turned as red as fire. Monday night the six horses were in their stalls, and a man on every horse, and a good glass of whiskey under every man's waistcoat, and the door was left wide open for Jack. They were merry enough for a long time, and joked and sung, and were pitying the poor fellow, but the small hours crept on, and the whiskey lost its power, and they began to shiver and wish it was morning. A miserable old colliach, with half a dozen bags round her, and a beard half an inch long on her chin, came to the door. " Ah then, tendher-heartecl christians," says she, " would you let me in, and allow me a wisp of straw in the corner ; the life will be froze out of me if you don't give me shelter." Well, they didn't see any harm in that, and she made herself as snug as she could, and they soon saw her pull out a big black bottle, and take a sup. She coughed and smacked 44 TnE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. her lips, and seemed a little more comfortable, and the men couldn't take their eyes off her. " Gorsoons,' ; says she, "I'd offer you a drop of this, only you might think it too free-making." " Oh, hang all impedent pride," says one, " we'll take it, and thankee." So she gave them the bottle, and they passed it round, and the last man had the man- ners to leave half a glass in the bottom for the old woman. They all thanked her, and said it was the best drop ever passed their tongues. " In throth, agras," said she, u it's myself that's glad to show how I value your kindness in giving me shelter ; I'm not without another buideal, and yous may pass it round while myself finishes what the da- sent man left me." Well, what they drank out of the other bottle only gave them a relish for more, and by the time the last man got to the bottom, the first man was dead asleep in the saddle, for the second bottle had a sleepy posset mixed with the whis- key. The beggar-woman lifted each man down, and laid him in the manger, or under the manger, snug and sausty, drew a stocking over every horse's hoof, and led them away without any noise to one of Jack's father's out-houses. The first thing the squire saw next morning was Jack riding up the avenue, and five horses stepping after the one he rode. " Confound you, Jack ! " says he, " and confound the num sculls that let you outwit them ? " He went out to the stable, and didn't the poor fellows look very lewd o' themselves, when they could be woke up in earnest ! " After all," says the squire, when they were sitting at breakfast, " it was no great thing to outwit such ninny- hammers. I'll be riding out on the common from one to three to-day, and if you can outwit me of the beast I'll be riding, I'll say you deserve to be my son-in-law." " I'd do more than that," says Jack, " for the honour, if there was no love at all in the matter," and the young lady held up her saucer before her face. Well, the squire kept riding about and riding about till he was tired, and no sign of Jack. He was thinking of going home at last, when what should he see but one of his servants running from the house as if he was mad. " Oh masther, masther," says he, "as far as he could be heard, " fly JACK THE CUNNING THIEF. 45 home if you wish to see the poor mistress alive ! I m run- ning for the surgeon. She fell down two nights of stairs, and her neck, or her hip, or both her arms are broke, and she's speechless, and it's a mercy if you find the breath in her. Fly as fast as the baste will carry you." "But had- n't you better take the horse 1 it's a mile and a half to the surgeon's." " Oh, anything you like, master. Oh, Vuya, Vuya ! misthress alanna, that I should ever see the day ! and your purty body disfigured as it is !" "Here, stop your noise, and be off like wildfire ! Oh, my darling, my darling, isn't this a trial !" He tore home like a fury, and wondered to see no stir outside, and when he flew into the hall, and from that to the parlour, his wife and daughter that were sewing at the table screeched out at the rush he made, and the wild look that was on his face. " Oh, my darling ! " said he, when he could speak, " how's this 1 are you hurt 1 didn't you fall down the stairs 1 What happened at all ] tell me ! " " Why, nothing at all happened, thank God, since you rode out : where did you leave the horse 1 " Well, no one could de- scribe the state he was in for about quarter of an hour, be- tween joy for his wife and anger with Jack, and sharoose for being tricked. He saw the beast soon coming up the ave- nue, and a little gorsoon in the saddle with his feet in the stirrup leathers. The servant didn't make his appearance for a week, but what did he care with, Jack's ten golden guineas in his pocket. Jack didn't show his nose till next morning, and it was a queer reception he met. "That was all foul play you gave," says the squire. "I'll never forgive you for the shock you gave me. But then I am so happy ever since, that I think I'll give you only one trial more. If you will take away the sheet from under my wife and myself to-night, the marriage may take place to-morrow." " We'll try," says Jack, " but if you keep my bride from me any longer, I'll steal her away if she was minded by fiery dragons." When the squire and his wife were in bed, and the moon shining in through the window, he saw a head rising over the sill to have a peep, and then bobbing down again. " That's Jack," says the squire : " I'll astonish him a bit," 4-6 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. says the squire, pointing a gun at the lower pane. " Oh Lord, my dear ! " says the wife, " sure you wouldn't shoot the brave fellow ! " " Indeed, an' I wouldn't for a kingdom ; there's nothing but powder in it." Up went the head, bang went the gun, down dropped the body, and a great souse was heard on the gravel walk. " Oh Lord," says the lady, " poor Jack is killed or disabled for life." " I hope not," says the squire, and down the stairs he ran. He never minded to shut the door, but opened the gate and ran into the garden. His wife heard his voice at the room door, be- fore he could be under the window and back, as she thought. " Wife, wife !" says he from the door, "the sheet, the sheet ! He is not killed, I hope, but he is bleeding like a pig. I must wipe it away as well as I can, and get some one to carry him in with me." She pulled it off the bed and threw it to him. Down he ran like lightning, and he had hardly time to be in the garden, when he was back, and this time he came in in his shirt as he went out. " High hanging to you, Jack," says he, " for an arrant rogue ! " " Arrant rogue 1 " says she, " Isn't the poor fel- low all cut and bruised? " "I didn't much care if he was. What do you think was bobbing up and down at the win- dow, and sossed down so heavy on the walk *? a man's clothes stuffed with straw and a couple of stones." " And what did you want with the sheet just now, to wipe his blood if he was only a man of straw 1 " " Sheet, woman ! I wanted' no sheet." "Well \ whether you wanted it or not, I threw it to you, and you standing outside o' the door." " Oh, Jack, Jack, you terrible tinker !" says the squire, u there's no use in striving with you. We must do with- out the sheet for one night. We'll have the marriage to- morrow to get ourselves out of trouble." So married they were, and Jack turned out a real good husband. And the squire and his lady were never tired of praising their son-in-law, "Jack the Cunning Thief." [ 47 ] THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER. There was once a king, but I didn't hear what country he was over, and he had one very beautiful daughter. Well he was getting old and sickly, and the doctors found out that the finest medicine in the world for him was the apples of a tree that grew in'the orchard just under his window. So you may be sure he had the tree well minded, and used to get the apples counted from the time they were the size of small marvels. One harvest, just as they were begin- ning to turn ripe, the king was awoke one night by the flapping of wings outside in the orchard ; and when he look- ed out, what did he see but a bird among the branches of his tree. Its feathers were so bright they made a light all round them, and the minute (moment) it saw the king in his night- cap and night-shirt it picked off an apple, and flew away. " Oh, tattheration to that thief of a gardener!' 7 says he, " this is a nice way he's watching my precious fruit." He didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night ; and as soon as anyone was stirring in the palace, he sent for the gardener, and abused him for his neglect. " Please your majesty ! " says he " not another apple you shall lose. My three sons are the best shots at the bow-arm in the kingdom, and they and myself will watch in turn every night." When the night came, the gardener's eldest son took his post in the garden, with his bow strung, and his arrow be- tween his fingers, and watched, and watched. But at the dead hour the king, that was wide awake, heard the flap- ping of wings, and ran to the window. There was the bright bird in the tree, and the boy fast asleep, sitting with his back to the wall, and his bow on his lap. " Eise, you lazy thief!" says the king, " there's the bird again, tatther- ation to her !" Up jumped the poor fellow ; but while he was fumbling with the arrow and the string, away was the bird with the nicest apple on the tree. Well, to be sure, how the king fumed and fretted, and how he abused the gar- dener and the boy, and what a twenty-four hours he spent till midnight came again ! He had his eye this time on the second son of the 48 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. gardener ; but though he was up and lively enough when the clock began to strike twelve, it wasn't done with the last bang when he saw him stretched like one dead on the long grass, and saw the bright bird again, and heard the flap of her wings, and saw her carry away the third apple. The poor fellow woke with the roar the king let at him, and even was time enough to let fly an arrow after the bird. lie did not hit her, you may depend ; and though the king was mad enough, he saw the poor fellows were under pish- rogues, and could not help it. Well, he had some hopes out of the youngest, for he was a brave, active young fellow, that had everybody's good word. There he was ready, and there was the king watch- ing him, and talking to him at the first stroke of twelve. At the last clang, the brightness coming before the bird lighted up the wall and the trees, and the rushing of the wings was heard as it flew into the branches ; but at the same instant the crack of the arrow on her side might be heard a quarter of a mile off. Down came the arrow and a large bright feather along with it, and away was the bird, with a screech that was enough to break the drum of your ear. She hadn't time to carry off an apple ; and bedad, when the feather was thrown up into the king's room it was heavier than lead, and turned out to be the finest beaten gold. Well, there was great cooramuch made about the youngest boy next day, and he watched night after night for a week, but not a smite of a bird or bird's feather was to be seen, and then the king told him to go home and sleep. Every one admired the beauty of the gold feather beyant anything, but the king was fairly bewitched. He was turning it round and' round, and rubbing it again' his forehead and his nose the live-long day ; and at last he proclaimed that he'd give his daughter and half his kingdom to whoever would bring him the bird with the gold feathers, dead or alive. The gardener's eldest son had great consate out of him- self, and away he set to try for the bird. In the afternoon he sat down under a tree to rest himself, and eat a bit of bread and cold meat that he had in his wallet, when up comes as fine a looking fox as you'd see in the burrow of THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER. 49 Muntin. " Musha, sir/' says he, " would you spare a bit of that meat to a poor body that's hungry } " Well," says the other, " you mast have the divel's own assurance, you common robber, to ask me such a question. Here's the answer," and he let fly at the moddhereen rua. The arrow scraped from his side up over his back, as if he was made of hammered iron, and stuck in a tree a couple of perches oif. " Foul play/' says the fox; "but I respect your young bro- ther, and will give you a bit of advice. At nightfall you'll come into a village. One side of the street you'll see a large room lighted up, and filled with young men and women, dancing and drinking. The other side you'll see a house with no light, only from the fire in the front room, and no one near it but a man, and his wife, and their child. Take a fool's advice, and get lodging there." With that he curled his tail over his crupper, and trotted off. The boy found things as the fox said, but begonies he chose the dancing and drinking, and there we'll leave him. In a week's time, when they got tired at home waiting for him, the second son said he'd try his fortune, and off he set. He was just as ill-natured and foolish as his brother, and the same thing happened to him. Well, when a week was over, away went the youngest of all, and as sure as the hearth-money, he sat under the same tree, and pulled out his bread and meat, and the same fox came up and saluted him. Well, the young fellow shared his dinner with tin 1 moddhereen, and he wasn't long beating about the bush, but told the other he knew all about his business. " I'll help you/' says he, " if I find you're biddable. So just at nightfall you'll come into a village, .... Good-bye till to-morrow." It was just as the fox said, but the boy took care not to go near dancer, drinker, fiddler, or piper. He got welcome in the quiet house to supper and bed, and was on his journey next morning before the sun was the height of the trees. He wasn't gone a quarter of a mile when he saw the fox coming out of a wood that was by the road- side. " Good morrow, fox," says one ; " Good morrow, sir," says the other. " Have you any notion how far you have to travel till you find the golden bird T " Dickens a notion have I ; — how 4 50 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. could I ?" " Well, I have. She's in the King of Spain's palace, and that's a good two hundred miles off." " Oh, dear ! we'll be a week going." "No we won't. Sit down on my tail, and we'll soon make the road short." " Tail indeed ! that 'ud be the droll saddle, my poor moddhereen" " Do as I tell you, or I'll leave you to yourself." Well, rather than vex him he sat down on the tail that was spread out level like a wing, and away they went like thought. They overtook the wind that was before them, and the wind that came after didn't overtake them. In the afternoon, they stopped in a wood near the King of Spain's palace, and there they staid till night-fall. "JSow," says the fox, " I'll go before you to make the minds of the guards easy, and you'll have nothing to do but go from one lighted hall to another lighted hall till you find the golden bird in the last. If you have a head on you, you'll bring himself and his cage outside the door, and no one then can lay hands on him or you. If you haven't a head I can't help you, nor no one else." So he went over to the gates. In a quarter of an hour the boy followed, and in the first hall he passed he saw a score of armed guards standing upright, but all dead asleep. In the next he saw a dozen, and in the next half a dozen, and in the next three, and in the room beyond that there was no guard at all, nor lamp, nor candle, but it was as bright as day ; for there was the golden bird in a common wood and wire cage, and on the table were the three apples turned into solid gold. On the same table was the most lovely golden cage eye ever beheld, and it entered the boy's head that it would be a thousand pities not to put the precious bird into it, the common cage was so unfit for her. Maybe he thought of the money it was worth ; any how he made the exchange, and he had soon good reason to be sorry for it. The in- stant the shoulder of the bird's wing touched the golden wires, he let such a squawk out of him as was enough to break all the panes of glass in the windows, and at the same minute the three men, and the half dozen, and the dozen, and the score men, woke up and clattered their swords and spears, and surrounded the poor boy, and jibed, THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER. j I and cursed, and swore at him, till lie didn't know whether it's his foot or head he was standing on. They called the king, and told him what happened, and he put on a very grim face. "It's on a gibbet you ought to be this moment," says he, " but I'll give you a chance of your life, and of the golden bird too. I lay you under prohibitions, and restric- tions, and death, and destruction, to go and bring me the King of Moroco's bay filly that outruns the wind, and leaps over the walls of castle-bawns. When you fetch her into the bawn of this palace, you must get the golden bird, and liberty to go where you please." Out passed the boy, very down-hearted, but as he went along, who should come out of a brake but the fox again ! " Ah, my friend," says he, " I was right when I suspect- ed you hadn't a head on you ; but I won't rub your hair again' the grain. Get on my tail again, and when we come to the king of Mor5co's palace we'll see what we can do." So away they went like thought. The wind, &c, &c, &c. Well, the nightfall came on them in a wood near the palace, and says the fox, " I'll go and make things easy for you at the stables, and when you are leading out the filly, don't let her touch the door, nor door-posts, nor anything but the ground, and that with her hoofs ; and if you haven't a head on you once you are in the stable, you'll be worse off than before." So the boy delayed for a quarter of an hour, and then he went into the big bawn of the palace. There were two rows of armed men reaching from the gate to the stable, and every man was in the depth of deep sleep, and through them with the boy till he got into the stable. There was the filly, as handsome a beast as ever stretched leg, and there was one stable boy with a currycomb in his hand, and another with a bridle, and another with a sieve of oats, and another with an armfull of hay, and all as if they were cut out of stone. The filly was the only live thing in the place except himself. She had a common wood and leather saddle on her back, but a golden saddle with the nicest work on it was hung from the post, and he thought it the greatest pity not to put it in place of the other. Well, I believe there was some pishrogues over it for a 4* 52 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. saddle ; any how lie took off the other, and put the gold one in its place. Out came a squeel from the filly's throat when she felt the strange article, that might be heard from Tombrick to Bunclody, and all as ready were the armed men and the stable boys to run and surround the ornadhan of a boy, and the king of Moroco was soon there along with the rest, with a face on him as black as the sole of your foot. After he stood enjoying the abuse the poor boy got from everybody for some time, he says to him, " You deserve high hanging for your impedence, but I'll give you a chance for your life and the filly too. I lay on you all sorts of prohibitions, and restrictions, and death, and destruction to go bring me Princess Golden Locks, the King of Greek's daughter. When you deliver her into my hand, you may have the ' daughter of the wind/ and welcome. Come in and take your supper and your rest, and be off at the flight of night." The poor boy was down in the mouth, you may suppose, as he was walking away next morning, and very much ashamed when the fox looked up in his face after coming out of the wood. " What a thing it is," says he, " not to have a head when a body wants it worst; and here we have a fine long journey before us to the king of Greek's palace. The worse luck now, the same alwaj^s. Here, get on my tail, and we'll be making the road shorter." So he sat on the fox's tail, and swift as thougnt they went. The wind that, &c, &c, &c, and in the evening they were eating their bread and cold meat in the wood near the castle. " Now," says the fox, when they were done, " I'll go before you to make things easy. Follow me in a quarter of an hour. Don't let Princess Golden Locks touch the jambs of the doors with her hands, or hair, or clothes, and if you're asked any favour, mind how you answer. Once she's out- side the door, no one can take her from you." Into the palace walked the boy at the proper time, and there were the score, and the dozen, and the half dozen, and the three guards all standing up or leaning on their arms, and all dead asleep, and in the farthest room of all was the Princess Golden Locks, as lovely as Venus herelf. She was asleep THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER. j3 in one chair, and her father, the King of Greek, in another. He stood before her for ever so long, with the love sinking deeper into his heart every minute, till at last he went down on one knee, and took her darling white hand in his hand, and kissed it. When she opened her eyes, she was a little frightened, but I believe not very angry, for the boy, as I call him, was a fine handsome young fellow, and all the respect and love that ever you could think of was in his face. She asked him what he wanted, and he stammered, and blushed, and began his story six times, before she understood it. " And would you give me up to that ugly black king of Moroco ? " says she. " I am obliged to do so," says he, " by prohibitions, and restrictions, and death, and destruc- tion, but ril have his life and free you, or lose my own. If I can't get you for my wife, my days on the earth will be short." " Well," says she, " let me take leave of my father at any rate." u Ah, I can't do that," says he, "or they'd all waken, and myself would be put to death, or sent to some task worse than any I got yet." But she asked leave at any rate to kiss the old man ; — that wouldn't waken him, and then she'd go. How could he refuse her, and his heart tied up in every curl of her hair ] But, bedad, the moment her lips touched her father's, he let a cry, and every one of the score, the dozen .... guards woke up, and clashed their arms, and were going to make gibbets of the foolish boy. But the king ordered them to hold their hands, till he'd be insensed of what it was all about, and when he heard the boy's story he gave him a chance for his life. "There is," says he, " a great heap of clay in front of the palace, that won't let the sun shine on the walls in the middle of summer. Every one that ever worked at it found two shovelfulls added to it for ' every one they threw away. Eemove it, and I'll let my daughter go with you. If you're the man I suspect you to be, I think she'll be in no danger of being wife to that yellow Molott." Early next morning was the boy tackled to his work, and for every shovelfull he flung away two came back on him, and at last he could hardly get out of the heap that 54 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. gathered round him. Well, the poor fellow scrambled out some way, and sat down on a sod, and he'd have cried only for the shame of it. He began at it in ever so many places, and one was still worse than the other, and in the heel of the evening, when he was sitting with his head between his hands, who should be standing before him but the fox ? " Well, my poor fellow," says he, " you're low enough. Go in: I won't say anything to add to your trouble. Take your supper and your rest : to-morrow will be a new day." " How is the work going off," says the king when they were at supper. "Faith, your Majesty," says the poor boy, " it's not going off, but coming on it is. I suppose you'll have the trouble of digging me out at sunset to-morrow, and waking me." " I hope not," says the princess with a smile on her kind face, and the boy was as happy as anything the rest of the evening. He was wakened up next morning with voices shouting, and bugles blowing, and drums beating, and such a hulli- bulloo he never heard in his life before. He ran out to see what was the matter, and there, where the heap of clay was the evening before, were soldiers, and servants, and lords, and ladies, dancing like mad for joy that it was gone. "Ah, my poor fox!" says he to himself, "this is your work." Well there was little delay about his return. The King was going to send a great retinue with the princess and himself, but he wouldn't let him take the trouble. "I have a friend," says he, "that will bring us both to the King of Moroco's palace in a day, d — fly away with him !" There was great crying when she was parting from her father. " Ah ! " says he, " what a lonesome life I'll have now ! Your poor brother in the power of that wicked witch, and kept away from us, and now you taken from me in my old age ! " Well, while they both were walking on through the wood, and he telling her how much he loved her, out walked the fox from behind a brake, and in a short time he and she were sitting on the brush, and holding one another fast for fear of slipping off, and away they went like thought. The wind, &c, &c, and in the evening he and she were in the big bawn of the King of Moroco's castle. THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER. $$ "Well/' says lie to the boy, "you done your duty well; bring out the bay filly. I'd give the full of the bawn of such fillies, if I had them, for this handsome princess. Get on your steed, and here is a good purse of guineas for the road." " Thank you," says he. " I suppose you'll let me shake hands with the princess before I start." " Yes, in- deed, and welcome." Well, he was some little time about the hand-shaking, and before it was over he had her fixed snug behind him; and while you could count three, he, and she, and the filly were through all the guards, and a hun- dred perches away. On they went, and next morning they were in the wood near the King of Spain's palace, and there was the fox before them. " Leave your princess here with me," says he, " and go get the golden bird and the three apples. If you don't bring us back the filly along with the bird, I must carry you both home myself." Well, when the King of Spain saw the boy and the filly in the bawn, he made the golden bird, and the golden cage, and the golden apples be brought out and handed to him, and was very thankful and very glad of his prize. But the boy could not part with the nice beast without petting it, and rubbing it, and while no one was expecting such a thing, he was up on its back, and through the guards, and a hundred perches away, and he wasn't long till he came where he left his princess and the fox. They hurried away till they were safe out of the King of Spain's land, and then they went on easier; and if I was to tell you all the loving things they said to one another, the story wouldn't be over till morning. When they were pass- ing the village of the dance house, they found his two brothers begging, and they brought them along. When they came to where the fox appeared first, he begged the young man to cut off his head and his tail. He would not do it for him; he shivered at the very thought, but the eldest brother was ready enough. The head and tail va- nished with the blows, and the body changed into the finest young man you could see, and who was he but the princess's brother that was bewitched. Whatever joy they had be- fore, they had twice as much now, and when they arrived at the palace bonfires were set blazing, oxes roasting, and 5 6 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. puncheons of wine put out in the lawn. The young Prince of Greek was married to the King's daughter, and the prince's sister to the gardener's son. He and she went a shorter way back to her father's house, with many attend- ants, and the King was so glad of the golden bird and the golden apples, that he sent a wagon full of gold and a wagon full of silver along with them. THE GIANT AND HIS ROYTAL SERVANTS. There was once a very good king and queen that would be as happy as the day was long only they had no children. So as they were one day sitting in a garden chair by the edge of the pond at the bottom of the lawn, and talking how lonesome the palace was for young people, a giant stepped out of the grove that was behind them, and says he, " King and queen, if you'll give me your eldest son when he's twenty-one years of age, I'll give you a necklace, ma'am, and so that you never put it off night or day, you will have four sons and three daughters in the next ten years. I'll be here to-morrow at the same hour to know your win." They talked and they talked all the rest of that day, and till they went to sleep, but the end was — they'd take the giant's offer: — twenty -two years was a long time off, and many a thing falls out between the milking of the cow and the print of butter coming to the table. They agreed to the giant's offer, and he went away well pleased. In less than a year's time a prince was born, and the queen was not tired till she had her four sons and her three daughters sitting at the table with herself and her husband. They were all as handsome as the sun, moon, and stars, and there was no sorrow till the eldest prince was near his twenty-first birthday. The very day to the hour, they were sitting in the very same seat when the giant stepped out of the grove, and de- manded their eldest born. " I'll wait for him here," said he : " don't keep me long/' They went up to the castle THE GIANT AND HIS ROYAL SERVANTS. $j and a young man grandly dressed soon came, and appeared before the giant. They talked a little, and the giant then handed him a beautiful little whip. " If I make you a present of that nice whip, what will you do with it. ' " Ah, won't I whip away the cats and dogs when they go near the roast and boiled in the kitchen !' u Go back and tell your master and mistress that it is the heir and not the kitchen-boy I want;* Another young man came down. " Are you the eldest prince in this palace V " Yes." " Isn't that a nice whip I * " Ah, isn't it? " " If I give it to you for a present, what will you do with it 1 " "Won't I whip away the hounds when they want to eat up the fox, brush and all ! " " Go and tell your master and mistress that if they don't send me their eldest son and heir, I'll burn down their castle and theirselves and all their children along with it." The prince came at last, and when he looked in his face he knew it was the man he wanted. They got into a boat, and though the pond was not twenty perches broad, and the boat went as swift as an arrow, they were an hour be- fore they got to the other side, and there the prince found a strange country round him, and the mountain that was fifty miles before them in the morning was now fifty miles behind them. They mounted two horses that were wait- ing for them, and these went like the wind, and when they were after passing seven mountains, seven glens, and seven moors, they came to the giant's castle on a hill. They went in, and they got their supper, but the giant took his supper first, and made the prince and a very beau- tiful young girl wait on him, before they were allowed to get their own. "Now," said he, "the girl will show you to the room where you are to take your rest. She is a king's daughter as well as you are a king's son. A witch foretold that I should be waited on by princes and prin- cesses, and now it's come to pass. I'll tell you in the morn- ing, your work for to-morrow." When breakfast was over, he took the prince into the bawn. "There," said he, "is a stable that wasn't cleaned for seven years. I am going to look after my flocks and herds ; have it so clean when I return at sunset that I may 58 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OP IRELAND. roll a golden apple in at one door, and out at another." Away he went, and to work fell the prince ; but for every sprong-f nil he threw out, two came in, and when the prin- cess brought him his dinner, there he was standing outside the door, and the stable as full of litter and dung as it could hold. A smile came on her face as she saw his sorrowful looks, but she spoke cheerfully. " Come, prince, take the dinner I have cooked for you, and if you don't object I'll join you: we are equal in birth and we are equal in misfortune." He had little appetite, but he was glad of anything that brought himself and the beautiful princess together. So while they were eating, she told him that she was secured in the same manner as himself; that he was the second, and that in some years he'd have scores of servants, all sons and daugh- ters of kings, but that whoever could perform three tasks he'd get would have a chance of escape. " I had a god- mother," said she, " who was an enchantress, and I have power that the giant knows nothing about. Look here." She took the sprong, flung out three fulls of it, and all that was in the stable followed it into the great lough at the bottom of the bawn. Glad enough was the prince, and if he did'nt thank the princess, and make all the loving speeches in the world to her, it's no matter. They didn't feel the time passing till the giant came home, and very bitter he looked when he found the stable cleared. He said not a word all the time they were waiting on him at supper, but when they were ready for bed, he told the prince he had another small job for him in the morning. Sure enough, the task he put on him the second day was to catch a filly in the paddock. " There is a golden bridle for you," said he, " and if you succeed, that bridle is your own." Away went the giant to look after his flocks and herds, and a sore forenoon the poor prince had, chasing the filly round the paddock, and striving to tempt her with a boorawn of oats. But dinner-time came, and there was his dear princess coming over the stile with his dinner. She knew he'd have no appetite in the state he was in, and so the first thing she done after laying down the cloth THE GIANT AND HIS ROYAL SERVANTS. 59 on the grass, was to take an old jaggedy bridle with a rusty bit out of her pocket, and shake it over her head. As soon as the filly seen it, she run to them capering, and shaking her ears, and stood like a lamb till it was fitted on her. Well, such a dinner, and such loving talk as they had with each other till near sunset, and then she went in, the way the giant wouldn't see them together. As cross as he looked before, he looked ten times crosser now, but he kej t in his anger. Next morning after breakfast, said he to the prince, " There is a tree at the corner of the paddock, and a raven's nest in the branches of it. There are &ve eggs in the nest, and I want them for my supper to-night. If you break or lose e'er a one of them you needn't expect much good treat- ment from me. If you bring them safe and sound, I'll marry you to the princess there after supper, and you will live as happy as the day is long." Well, I think that women aren't so selfish somehow as men. The prince looked glad enough, but there wasn't a morsel of gladness on the princess's face, and so everything went on as usual next morning. The giant went to look after his goats, and sheep, and cattle, the princess readied up the house, and the prince went down to the tree. A wearisome tree it was on him. The body of it was as smooth as that table, and there wasn't a twig sticking out of it for more than a score of feet from the top of the ditch where it grew. He'd grip it with arms and legs till he'd be up about six feet, and then he'd come down with a flop, and after a little rest he'd spit in his palms, and try it again, and down he'd come with a flop once more. He was worse off to-day when the darling princess came with his dinner than he was the other days, and as much as she pitied him, she couldn't help laughing at the state the legs and arms of his clothes were in. He didn't much enjoy her merriment, but she soon gave him relief. She took from her pocket two magic rods and gave them to him, and told him how to use them, and he was soon climbing the tree like a may-boy. The rods went into the wood like a nail into a cabbage stalk, and then when his left foot was on one he pulled the other out, and stuck it 60 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. in for his right foot, and so on till he got among the branches. When he came to the nest, he put one egg in his mouth, one in each pocket, and two in the breasts of his coat, and was soon down and eating the happiest dinner he ever tasted. And says he when the cloth was removed, " What matter, my darling, if the giant keeps us here with him itself when he marries us 1 Love will make our lives as happy as they can be. Why, I don't wish for anything in the world only to be in your company, and be looking at you, and hearing you speak." " Don't once think, prince," said she, " that Til be satisfied with such marriage as the giant can put on us, nor to see you and myself and whatever children God would send all his slaves. Don't say a single word when he goes about marrying us. You may be sure I won't open my lips, and when he sends us into the same room, you'll know my intentions better." It was all as she said, and when the prince and princess were sent by the giant into the room, she pointed out three little images of women, one on the chimney-piece, one on the table, and one on the window-seat. She pricked her finger, and let a drop of blood fall on the mouth of every little image, and then said, " By virtue of my magic power, I charge you to answer the giant's three questions." She then went out through a door that couldn't be noticed from the rest of the wall where it was set. He followed her, and they went down to the stable where the filly was eating its hay. He bridled and saddled the beast, got into his seat, set her behind him, cleared the bawn gate, and to the road with them in the direction of his father's palace. The giant went to bed, and about nine o'clock, he cried out, " Prince, are you asleep 1 " " Not yet," was the answer that came from the mantle-piece. At midnight he cried out, " Prince, are you asleep? " " Going asleep," says the image on the table. At one o'clock he cried again, " Prince, are you asleep 1 " " Dead asleep," says the image on the window-stool. " That's well," says the giant, and himself went off asleep at once. Next morning he knocked at the door, and knocked, and knocked again, and then he burst it in. There was no THE GIANT AND HIS ROYAL SERVANTS. 6 1 one there but the three images, and these he broke in a thousand pieces. He saw the hidden door open, and guessed what happened, and to the road with him. The wind before him he overtook, and the wind after him didn't overtake him. About noon the princess cried out, " I feel the hot breath of the giant at my back ; put your hand in the filly's right ear, take out what you'll find, and fling it behind you." He found a twig of wild ash, turned round, and flung it at the giant, who was sweeping down on them like a tempest. Up sprung a tangled wood be- tween them, and the roar the giant let out of him might be heard ten miles off. There they left him, tearing himself through brambles and spikes, and on they flew. About three hours after, the princess cried out again, " I feel the giant's breath scorching my back : put your hand into the filly's left ear, and fling what you'll find in it at him." He did so, and found a bubble of water. Look- ing back, there was the giant like a devouring fire racing in on them, but when he threw the bubble at him, a great broad lake appeared where the grass and bushes and stones were a few minutes before, and as fast as the filly went, the water widened after her. In he dashed, and the heat of his body sent the water hissing and sputtering up into the clouds. But he went through it like an eel or a salmon, and just as the sun was setting, the princess cried out once more, "The giant's breath is scorching my back. Alight, and throw this apple as straight as you can at his forehead. Be steady. If you miss we are lost." Down he got, took the apple, and just as the giant was within ten perches of him, he flung it with force and courage. The noise it made on his forehead was like a cannon ball striking a rock. The giant fell like a huge tree and never drew breath again. They were now at the edge of the wood where the prince's father's palace was built ; but when they got to the gate- house, the princess would not go further. Said she to him, " There is another trial before us. Go you up to the castle, and tell them what you like, and come back for me. But if you kiss anyone, or let anyone kiss you, it is likely we shall never be man and wife." So she staid walking about, and he went up the walk to the hall-door. 62 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. I needn't tell you what joy there was before him, and how all his family gathered round him, and hugged him, but thought it mighty queer that he kept his hand on his mouth, and wouldn't let even his mother kiss him. Well, things were getting a little quiet, and he was just beginning to tell about his princess and where she was, when a for- ward young damsel, that was striving to make him fond of her before the giant took him away, burst through the crowd, and cried, " Oh, is this my betrothed prince that's come back to us V and bedad, before he could defend him- self, she gave him a smack that sounded like the slap of a wet shoe on a flag. The same instant he lost all memory of what happened since the giant took him away, and stood like a fool in the middle of the crowd. Well, a great feast was made, and the forward lady sat by his side, and there was nothing but joy, and in a day or two he was to be married. After the princess walked about for an hour, she grew very melancholy and said to herself, " Ah, I guessed what would happen, but I'll recover him yet." She asked the gate-keeper's wife would she give her house room for a week or two, and instead of promising to pay her well, she laid down five guineas on the table. They made her welcome, and there she staid, knitting and sewing at the window, and the young gentlemen of the court used often pass by to have a look at her, and the ladies undervalued her beauty, and still they were speaking of her continually at the palace. The prince found himself very much disturbed every time he had a sight of her. At last the wedding-day came, and they were all after dinner, and about to walk into the chapel to have the mar- riage celebrated, when the princess came into the hall very nicely dressed, and asked the king if she might make some entertainment for the company. He gave her leave, and she took a nice little cock and hen out of a bag and set them on the table, and threw some oats before them, and the hen began to pick. The cock drove her away, and she cried out, " Ah, prince, is that my reward for cleaning out the stable for you ? " The bridegroom did not understand the meaning, and she threw some more oats. The cock drove THE GIANT AND HIS ROYAL SERVANTS. 6$ away the lien again, and again she reminded him of catch- ing the filly and enabling him to climb the tree. At last, when he drove her away the third time, she cried, " Oh you ungrateful prince, is this the way you reward me for shedding my blood for you, and saving your life ? " The princess at that moment stretched her hand towards the prince, and when he saw the mark of the cut, he gave a great shout, caught her in his arms, and cried, ' fc You are my lost bride indeed, I'll have no other." His memory was come back to him, and he explained to the company all that happened to him in the giant's house and after, and all the princess did for him. Such hugging and kiss- ing as she got from the king and queen and their children you never heard of, and all the company soon went into the chapel, and the wedding was celebrated. And indeed the forward bride was so clever with a fool- ish young lord that she forsook when the prince returned, that he asked leave of the king and queen and the bishop to have a second wedding the same day. il The more the merrier," said they, and the king was glad, as she couldn't go about making a blowing- horn of her disappointment. The princess never again reminded her husband what she ventured for him, and the forward lady never let a day pass without insensiug her husband how lucky he was to catch herself. THE LAZY BEAUTY AND HER AUNTS. There was once a poor widow woman, who had a daughter that was as handsome as the day, and as lazy as a pig, saving your presence. The poor mother was the most in- dustrious person in the townland, and was a particularly good hand at the spinning-wheel. It was the wish of her heart that her daughter should be as handy as herself; but she'd get up late, eat her breakfast before she'd finish her prayers, and then go about dawdling, and anything she handled seemed to be burning her fingers. She drawled her words as if it was a great trouble to her to speak, or 64 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF lit ELAND. as if her tongue was as lazy as her body. Many a heart- scald her poor mother got with her, and still she was only improving like dead fowl in August. Well, one morning that things were as bad as they could be, and the poor woman was giving tongue at the rate of a mill-clapper, who should be riding by but the king's son. "Oh dear, oh dear, good woman !" said he, " you must have a very bad child to make you scold so terribly. Sure it can't be this handsome girl that vexed you !" " Oh, please your Majesty, not at all," says the old dissembler. " I was only checking her for working herself too much. Would your Majesty believe it ? She spins three pounds of flax in a day, weaves it into linen the next, and makes it all into shirts the day after.' ; " My gracious," says the prince, "she's the very lady that will just fill my mother's eye, and herself 's the greatest spinner in the kingdom. Will you put on your daughter's bonnet and cloak if you please, ma'am, and set her behind me*? Why, my mother will be so delighted with her, that perhaps she'll make her her daughter-in-law in a week, that is, if the young woman her- self is agreeable." Well, between the confusion, and the joy, and the fear of being found out, the women didn't know what to do ; and before they could make up their minds, young Anty (Anas- tasia) was set behind the prince, and away he and his at- tendants went, and a good heavy purse was left behind with the mother. She pullillued a long time after all was gone, in dread of something bad happening to the poor girl. The prince couldn't judge of the girl's breeding or wit from the few answers he pulled out of her. The queen was struck in a heap when she saw a young country girl sitting behind her son, but when she saw her handsome face, and heard all she could do, she didn't think she could make too much of her. The prince took an opportunity of whisper- ing her that if she didn't object to be his wife she must strive to please his mother. Well, the evening went by, and the prince and Anty were getting fonder and fonder of one another, but the thought of the spinning used to send the cold to her heart every moment. When bed-time came, the old queen went along with her to a beautiful bed-room, THE LAZY BEAUTY AND HER AUNTS. 6$ and when she was bidding her good night, she pointed to a heap of fine flax, and said, " You may begin as soon as you like to-morrow morning, and I'll expect to see these three pounds in nice thread the morning after." Little did the poor girl sleep that night. She kept crying and lament- ing that she didn't mind her mother's advice better. When she was left alone next morning, she began with a heavy heart ; and though she had a nice mahogany wheel and the finest flax you ever saw, the thread was breaking every moment. One while it was as fine as a cobweb, and the next as coarse as a little boy's whipcord. At last she pushed her chair back, let her hands fall in her lap, and burst out a crying. A small old woman with surprising big feet appeared before her at the same moment, and said, " What ails you, you handsome colleen V* u An' haven't I all that flax to spin before to-morrow morning, and I'll never be able to have even five yards of fine thread of it put together." " An' would you think bad to ask poor Colliagh Cushmor (Old- woman Big-foot) to your wedding with the young prince ] If you promise me that, all your three pounds will be made into the finest of thread while you're taking your sleep to- night." " Indeed you must be there and welcome, and I'll honour you all the days of your life." " Very well -, stay in your room till tea-time, and tell the queen she may come in for her thread as early as she likes to-morrow morning." It was all as she said; and the thread was finer and evener than the gut you see with fly-fishers. u My brave girl you were !" says the queen. I'll get my own mahogany loom brought into you, but you needn't do anything more to-day. Work and rest, work and rest, is my motto. To-morrow you'll weave all this thread, and who knows what may happen V The poor girl was more frightened this time than the last, and she was so afraid to lose the prince. She didn't even know how to put the warp in the gears, nor how to use the shuttle, and she was sitting in the greatest grief, when a little woman who w r as mighty well-shouldered about the hips all at once appeared to her, told her her name was Colliach Cromanmor, and made the same bargain with her 66 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. as Colliach Cushmor. Great was the queen's pleasure when she found early in the morning a web as fine and white as the finest paper you ever saw. " The darling you were !" says she. " Take your ease with the ladies and gentlemen to-day, and if you have all this made into nice shirts to- morrow you may present one of them to my son, and be married to him out of hand." Oh, wouldn't you pity poor Anty the next day, she was now so near the prince, and, maybe, would be soon so far from him. But she waited as patiently as she could with scis- sors, needle, and thread in hand, till a minute after noon. Then she was rejoiced to see the third old woman appear. She had a big red nose, and informed Anty that people called her Shron Mor Rua on that account. She was up to her as good as the others, for a dozen fine shirts were lying on the table when the queen paid her an early visit. Now there was nothing talked of but the wedding, and I needn't tell you it was grand. The poor mother was there along with the rest, and at the dinner the old queen could talk of nothing but the lovely shirts, and how happy herself and the bride would be after the honeymoon, spin- ning, and weaving, and sewing shirts and shifts without end. The bridegroom didn't like the discourse, and the bride liked it less, and he was going to say something, when the footman came up to the head of the table, and said to the bride, "Your ladyship's aunt, Colliach Cushmor, bade me ask might she come in." The bride blushed and wished she was seven miles under the floor, but well became the prince, — " Tell Mrs. Cushmor," said he, " that any relation of my bride's will be always heartily welcome wherever she and I are." In came the woman with the big foot, and got a seat near the prince. The old queen didn't like it much, and after a few words she asked rather spitefully, "Dear ma'am, what's the reason your foot is so big?" " Musha, faith, your majesty, I was standing almost all my life at the spinning-wheel, and that's the reason." " I de- clare to you, my darling," said the prince, " I'll never allow you to spend one hour at the same spinning-wheel." The same footman said again, " Your ladyship's aunt, Colliach Cromanmor, wishes to come in, if the genteels and yourself THE LAZY BEAUTY AND HER AUNTS. 67 have no objection." Very sharoose (displeased) was Prin- cess Anty, but the prince sent her welcome, and she took her seat, and drank healths apiece to the company. " May I ask, ma'am f ' says the old queen, " why you're so wide half way between the head and the feet V 9 " That, your majesty, is owing to sitting all my life at the loom." "By my sceptre," says the prince, " my wife shall never sit there an hour." The footman again came up. " Your ladyship's aunt, Colliach Shron Mor Eua, is asking leave to come into the banquet." More blushing on the bride's face, but the bridegroom spoke out cordially, "Tell Mrs. Shron Mor Eua she's doing us an honour." In came the old woman, and great respect she got near the top of the table, but the peo- ple down low put up their tumblers and glasses to their noses to hide the grins. " Ma'am," says the old queen, " will you tell us, if you please, why your nose is so big and red V " Throth, your majesty, my head was bent down over the stitching all my life, and all the blood in my body ran into my nose." " My darling," said the prince to Anty, " if ever I see a needle in your hand, I'll run a hundred miles from you." " And in troth, girls and boys, though it's a diverting story, I don't think the moral is good ; and if any of you thuckeens go about imitating Anty in her laziness, you'll find it won't thrive with you as it did with her. She was beautiful beyond compare, which none of you are, and she had three powerful fairies to help her besides. There's no fairies now, and no prince or lord to ride by, and catch you idling or working ; and maybe, after all, the prince and herself were not so very happy when the cares of the world or old age came on them." Thus was the tale ended by poor old Shebale (Sybilla) Father Murphy's housekeeper, in Coolbawn, Barony of Bantry, about half a century since. THE GILLA NA GRUAGA DONNA. There was once a boy, and his name was Gilla na Gruaga Donna (the fellow with the brown hair), and he had no 68 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. work to do at home, and little to eat; so he said he'd go look for service. His mother gave him his cake and a good piece of cold bacon in his little bag, and he went on with a light heart, singing like a lark. He sat down in the after- noon by the side of a ditch, to eat a bit of his bread and his meat, and if he did so sure came up an old beggarwoman and asked for some charity. " Faith/' said he, " I haven't a halfpenny — brass, gold, or silver about me, but if you don't object to a bit of bread and cold meat, here's a share of what's going." She took what he offered, and prayed all sorts of good prayers for him. At nightfall my poor fellow didn't see a house in sight, and he put up with a bunch of withered grass in a dry ditch. While he was asleep, he thought a beautiful woman came and stood over him, and said, " Gilla na Gruaga Donna, because you shared the little you had with me, here's a purse with one guinea in it, and every time you take one out, another will come in its place." When he awoke in the morning, and looked about him, he found the same sort of purse he saw in his dream lying by his side, and, better than that, a guinea in it. " This is luck," said he, but he didn't believe that it would be renewed for all that. However, he came to a town and gave his guinea at the eating house to be changed, and when he was putting his change back, bedad he found another guinea there to keep it company. " This is just what the vision said," says Gilla to himself, and he turned back, and made his family comfortable, and got such a taste for travelling that he set out again. He came to Dublin, and bought fine clothes, and a watch to put in his fob, and a coach-and-six, and drove along to see foreign countries. As he was rattling along by a king's palace, he happened to look up, and there, at a window, was the finest young princess he ever beheld. So he bade his coachman drive to the gate-house, and sent up his footman to ask leave of the king to see his lawn and his demesne. The king asked the man about his master, but he could only tell he be- lieved he was a great lord going about for his pleasure. He had no end of money, and didn't seem to know what to do THE GTLLA NA GRUAGA DONNA. 69 with it. So the king sent down word to the gentleman to go about in his lawn and his demense as much as he liked ; and while he was driving, who should meet him but the king himself and his daughter, and she in her side- saddle on the back of a dawney little pony. " Well, they weren't long getting acquainted. Gilla got out of his coach and walked by the princess's pony ; and nothing would do the king but to invite the stranger to come and spend a week or so at the palace. It wasn't long till Gilla and the princess were as fond of one another as if they were acquainted a hundred years. The king often asked Gilla what rank of life he was born in, but he didn't like to say he was only a poor cot- tierman's son. One evening when the cunning king found Gilla very comfortable — and no wonder he was comfortable ! the princess told him that very day that she'd marry him if her father agreed — made him tipsy, and got out of him that he was only a poor man's son, and that it was a magic * purse, that was never without a guinea in it, that put it in his power to travel in state. " Ah, show me this wonder- ful purse !" said the king; and Gilla was fool enough to do so. The king held it in his hand for a long time, and the next evening they were very merry again. " I am never tired looking at your nice purse,' ; said he ; and, indeed, so it appeared, for he kept turning it and re-turning it in his hands for ever so long ; and once, when Gilla' s eyes were another way, he changed it for one he got made that very day, so like it that scarcely anyone could see the smallest differ. Next day they were all driving out, and Gilla gave the guinea and change that was left by the cunning king in his purse, away to some poor people. But when he put in his hand again to pay turnpike, or something or other, dickens a guinea or a half-penny was there. Well, he turned all manner of colours, looked at the purse, and was sure it was the same one, and didn't know what in the world to think. When he had an opportunity he told the princesss what happened, and said he'd be obliged to leave the palace. " Oh, what matter ! " saK she. " Sure, if you are of good blood my father won't mind whether you are poor or rich." 70 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. So she went to her father, and told him what happened, hut she was sorry enough for what she done. The king said it wasn't a nice thing to he on such free terms with a stranger, and hade her go to her own rooms till she heard from him. When Gilla inquired for the princess next morning, they told him she was on a visit to an aunt that was dying fifty miles away; and when he asked for the king, they told him he was husy at his accounts. " Oh, ho !" said Gilla to himself, " my welcome here is worn out." So he left his best respects to the king and the princess, and he was obliged to borrow money from his coachman to give some- thing to the servants. He drove to Dublin, sold his coach and horses, and paid his servants, and then hadn't one shil- ling to rub again another in his pocket. He then exchanged his clothes for common things and some little money to boot, and set out on foot towards home. He was eating his piece of bread and his bit of cold bacon next day, when who should come up to him but the very same beggarwoman. Well, they bade one another the time of day, and he shared his meal with her. The same night he had the same vision, but the lady checked him for showing his magic purse to any one, and told him she'd try him once more with another gift. She laid a cloak on the bed, and said that while he kept it on he could be any where he wished. When his eyes opened next morning he saw the cloak, sure enough, and then he began to recollect what a long time the king was fiddling with his purse. " As sure as fate," said he, " he has it : what a deceitful old rogue ! I'll soon see whe- ther he's guilty or not." He put on the cloak, and wished himself in the king's bed-room. And there he was while you'd wink your eye, and there was the king with a miserly face on him, reckoning piles of guineas, an old night- cap on his head, and a week's growth of beard about his mouth. The purse was on the table, and his trembling fingers pull- ing out guinea after guinea. " Ah, you wicked old man," says Gilla, " is this the way you treated me 1 " He darted on the purse, but the king's fingers were like a vice, and he roared out, "Thieves, thieves! murder, robbery!" In run three or four servants, and on Gilla they pounced. He had nothing for it but to run to the window, throw it up, and THE GILLA NA GRUAGA DONNA. 7 I dart out. Ovoch I his cloak caught in the sash, and he was glad to light on the ground with sound hones. To the heels with him, and as it was early, and few stirring, he got away. So he was on the shuchraan [helpless condition] again, and set out for home with a few shillings he had still left. To make a long story short, he met the beggarwoman again, had a vision again, and this time he got a bugle-horn that would make all the soldiers that ever heard it, follow him and fight for him. So he turned back, and never stopped till he came to where the king was standing at his window reviewing his troops. As soon as Gilla came up, he blew his bugle, and all the soldiers shouted out, and gathered round him, and asked him what they'd do for him. " I'll soon show you that," said he. So he stepped over to where the king was standing very much surprised, and said ; " No one could treat another worse than you did me ; but if you give me the princess in marriage, and allow me back my purse and my cloak, 111 make peace and alli- ance with you." "I must first consult my ministers," said the king, " but you'll have my answer before nine o'clock to-morrow." So Gilla camped his men in the lawn, and he had a nice tent to himself that night. At dawn he was awoke by some one fumbling about in the tent, and what did he see but the treacherous king with his own magic cloak upon him, taking down the bugle-horn where he negligently left it the evening before, instead of keeping it about his own neck. "Oh, } r ou old robber ! " said he, springing out at him, but the horn was in his hands, the cloak on his back, and himself away like a sighe gaoithe [fairy blast]. Gilla knew he had no time to lose. He popped on his breeches and coat, and was soon making his ground good. It was time, for he was hardly clear of the sleeping soldiers when the bugle was heard sounding at the king's window, and the soldiers all dressing themselves in the greatest hurry to run and hear his commands. He was worse off now than ever. He sat down in a dry ditch to eat his bread and bacon in the afternoon, but his beggar woman never came near him, and at night he had no shelter but a couple of trees. He made his bed on dry / 2 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. grass under one of them, and he had a vision of the same beautiful lady ; but this time she had displeasure on her face. He thought she was going to speak once or twice, but she stopped herself just as her lips were opening. When he woke, it was a fine sunny morning, and he found himself hungry. Over his head were the loveliest coloured apples, and in the other tree some dull- coloured pears. Up he stretched his hand, and plucked an apple, and ate it. It was very sweet, but before he could get another into his mouth he felt something queer about his nose. It was tickling him, and beginning to feel very heavy, and before you could count three, the end of it was down on the ground, and ploughing away through the grass. " Oh, Gracious ! 7; says he, "what's this for ] " But while he spoke, he felt it pulling his head down, so that he was obliged to squat as low as he could to ease his face of the weight. The end of his nose was now at the very end of the field. I cant't tell, nor could you feel, the state he was in, for, please God, nothing of the kind will ever happen to one of ourselves • but when he was looking at it running over the ditch of the field, a pear dropped at his feet out of the next tree. "Who knows," said he, u but this is a God-send 1 " So he got a bit of it into his mouth as well as his nose would let him, and the first swallow he made, off went the new nose, and the near end kept creeping and curling away, ding-dong, after the far end. " Oh, thanks be to Goodness," said he, " and thank you heartily, my good fairy ! I think my wicked old father-in- law (that is to be) won't escape me this time." He had some trifle of money left, and with this he bought an old woman's cloak and bonnet, and a little basket, and plucked off some apples and pears, and away with him to the town outside the palace. That day after dinner, the butler handed the king three lovely apples, that he said the fruit-seller in the town brought up an hour before. The king could hardly per- suade himself to taste any of them, they looked so nice. At last he put a piece of one in his mouth, but it was hardly in his stomach when his nose was down on the carpet, over to the wall, up on the window stool, out over the frame, THE GILLA NA GRUAGA DONNA. 73 down the wall, and into the garden. Oh, such a fright ! such cries, and such screeches as came out of the mouths of every one in the room ; and still the nose went on through the garden and out on the lawn. The king could not stir out of his seat on the carpet, "but, as well as he could, he bade a dozen of doctors be sent for. They came, but they could do nothing, and messengers were coming and going every minute to see and bring back word how far the end was getting. It wasn't growing so fast since it got beyond the lawn, but still it was getting on, and the doctors order- ed sentries to be stationed all along for fear of a horse tread- ing on it, or a cart wheel running over it. No one went asleep in the palace that night but the scullery maid and nine of the doctors. The king thought morning would never come, and when he inquired at last where the end of his nose was, he was told it was near the river that lay between his dominions and the next king's, but only going an inch in a minute. About sunrise, some one came in to tell that a poor-look- ing man was asking leave to come in to try to cure the king. So he was let in, but told that his head would go off if he done any harm. " Oh, if his Majesty is in a good state of mind, I'll cure him in spite of the divel himself." He gave him a small bit of a pear which he took out of a basket, and it was no sooner down than the nose grew an inch less in the round, the king was able to raise his head a little, and the far off sentries shouted that the nose was gone back half a mile. " Now, my liege," says the man, " if your conscience is good, I will bring it within its own bounds the next offer. Have you any restitution to make to anybody ¥' "K-n-n- no ! " says he. Then he gave him a bit of fruit, and the king let a roar. His nose was now thicker than it ever was, and the sentries cried to those next them, and these to the others, and those to the sentries in the garden, that the enlarged end was now just at the very bank of the river. "No use in blindfolding the divel in the dark," says the man. " You'll be lost horse and foot if you don't confess and restore the goods." " Well, I own that I took the 74 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. bugle of the Gilla na Gruaga Donna from him. Bring that horn from my bed's head, some of you, and give it to the doctor/' It was done, another bit of fruit given, and a great shout was heard, " A mile off o' the nose." " Your Majesty has not confessed all. Your nose might as well be seven miles longer for any comfort or rest it will give you." "Well, I have the magic cloak of the same man." The cloak was brought and the man buttoned it round his neck ; another bit, and the end of the nose was in the middle of the lawn. " Which will your Majesty make full restitution or stay as you are V " I don't care : I'll keep the purse if the end of my nose was at Halifax." But away began the nose to plough again, and more and more the tickling feeling went on. " Here," says he at last, " is the only thing left," and he pulled the purse out|of his pocket. " Sarra do him good with it ! " He threw it to the man, and the remainder of the pear was given him. Down dropped the additional handle from the right nose, and went curling and crackling out of the room, out of the garden, and out of the lawn. " Seize on that rascal! " said the king; but Gilla, for it was he, blew a blast on bis bugle, and every one in the room was rushing to tear the daylights out of the king, their master. He held out against the match as long as he could, but the people were all going to dethrone him. So he con- sented, and if the youth of the brown hair and his princess were not a good and happy couple, I wonder where are such to be found. ■»♦» < - SHAN AN OMADHAN AND HIS MASTER. A poor woman had three sons. The eldest and second eldest were cunning clever fellows, but they called the youngest Shan an Omadhan, because they thought he was no better than a simpleton. The eldest got tired of staying at home, and said he'd go look for service. He staid away a whole year, and then came back one day, dragging one foot after the other, and a poor wizened face on him, and he as cross as two sticks. When he was rested and got SHAN AN OMADHAN AND HIS MASTER. 75 something to eat, he told them how he got service with the Bodach Liath of Tuaim an Drochaigh [Gray Churl of the Townlarid of Mischance], and that the agreement was, who- ever would first say he was sorry for his bargain, should get an inch wide of the skin of his back, from shoulder to hips, taken off. If it was the master, he should also pay double wages ; if it was the servant, he should get no wages at all. " But the thief," says he, " gave me so little to eat, and kept me so hard at work, that flesh and blood couldn't stand it; and when he asked me once, when I was in a passion, if I was sorry for my bargain, I was mad enough to say I was, and here I am disabled for life." Vexed enough were the poor mother and brothers ; and the second eldest said on the spot he'd go and take service with the Gray Churl, and punish him by all the annoyance he'd give him till he'd make him say he was sorry for his agreement. " Oh, won't I be glad to see the skin coming off the old villain's back ! " said he. All they could say had no effect : he started off for the Townland of Mischance, and in a twelvemonth he was back just as miserable and helpless as his brother. All the poor mother could say didn't prevent Shan an Omadhan from starting to see if he was able to regulate the Bodach Liath. He agreed with him for a year for twenty pounds, and the terms were the same. " Now, Shan," said the Bodach Liath, " if you refuse to do anything you are able to do, you must lose a month's wages." " I'm satisfied," said Shan ; " and if you stop me from doing a thing after telling me to do it, you are to give me an additional month's wages." " I am satisfied." says the master. " Or if you blame me for obeying your orders, you must give the same." " I am satisfied," said the mas- ter again. The first day that Shan served he was fed very poorly, and was worked to the saddleskirts. Next day he came in just before the dinner was sent up to the parlour. They were taking the goose off the spit, but well becomes Shan, he whips a knife off the dresser, and cuts off one side of the breast, one leg and thigh, and one wing, and fell to. In came the master, and began to abuse him for his assurance. 7 6 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. " Oh, you know, master, you're to feed me, and wherever the goose goes won't have to be filled again till supper. ■ Are you sorry for our agreement 1 " The master was going to cry out he was, but he bethought himself in time. " Oh no, not at all/' said he. "That's well," said Shan. Next day Jack was to go clamp turf on the bog. They wern't sorry to have him away from the kitchen at dinner time. He didn't find his breakfast very heavy on his sto- mach ; so he said to the mistress, " I think, ma'am, it will be better for me to get my dinner now, and not lose time coming home from the bog." " That's true, Shan," said she. So she brought out a good cake, and a print of but- ter, and a bottle of milk, thinking he'd take them away to the bog. But Shan kept his seat, and never drew rein till bread, butter, and milk went down the red lane. " Now, mistress," said he, " I'll be earlier at my work to-morrow if I sleep comfortably on the sheltery side of a clamp [pile of dry peat] on dry grass, and not be coming here and going back. So you may as well give me my supper, and be done with the day's trouble." She gave him that, thinking he'd take it to the bog ; but he fell to on the spot, and did not leave a scrap to tell tales on him; and the mistress was a little astonished. He called to speak to the master in the haggard, and said he, " What are servants asked to do in this country after aten their supper 1 " " Nothing at all, but to go to bed." " Oh, very well, sir." He went up on the stable-loft, stripped, and lay down, and some one that saw him told the master. He came up. " Shan, you anointed sthron- sliuch, what do you mean?" " To go to sleep, master. The mistress, God bless her, is after giving me my breakfast, dinner, and supper, and yourself told me that bed was the next thing. Do you blame me, sir V "Yes, you rascal, I do." " Hand me out one pound thirteen and fourpence, if you please, sir." " One divel and thirteen imps, you tinker ! what for V " Oh, I see, you've forgot your bar- gain. Are you sorry for if?" " Oh, ya — no, I mean. I'll give you the money after your nap." Next morning early, Jack asked how he'd be employed that day. "You are to be holding the plough in that SHAN AN OMADHAN AND HIS MASTER. 77 fallow, outside the paddock/' The master went over about nine o'clock to see what kind of a ploughman was Shan, and what did he see but the little boy driving the bastes, and the sock and coulter of the plough skimming along the sod, and Shan pulling ding-dong again' the horses. " What are you doing, you conthrary thief ? said the master. " An' aint I strivin' to hold this divel of a plough, as you told me ; but that ounkrawn of a boy keeps whipping on the bastes in spite of all I say; will you speak to him V 9 " No, but I'll speak to you. Didn't you know, you bosthoon, that when I said ' holding the plough,' I meant reddening the ground." " Faith an' if you did, I wish you had said so. Do you blame me for what I have done V The master caught himself in time, but he was so stomached, he said nothing. " Go on and redden the ground now, you knave, as other ploughmen do." "An' are you sorry for our agreement V 9 " Oh, not at all, mauya [forsooth] ! " Shan ploughed away like a good workman all the rest of the day. In a day or two the master bade him go and mind the cows in afield that had half of it under young corn. " Be sure, particularly," said he, " to keep Browney from the wheat ; while she's out of mischief there's no fear of the rest." About noon, he went to see how Shan was doing his duty, and what did he find but Jack asleep with his face to the sod, Browney grazing near a thorn-tree, one end of a long rope round her horns, and the other end round the tree, and the rest of the beasts all trampling and eating the green wheat. Down came the switch on Shan. " Shan, you vagabone, do you see what the cows are at ] " " And do you blame me, master 1 " " To be sure, you lazy, slug- gard, I do 1 " " Hand me out one pound thirteen and fourpence, master. You said if I only kept Browney out of mischief, the rest would do no harm. There she is as harmless as a lamb. Are you sorry for hiring me, master f ' " To be — that is, not at all. I'll give you your money when you go to dinner. JSTow, understand me ; don't let a cow go out of the field nor into the wheat the rest of the day." " Never fear, master ! " and neither did he. But the bodach would rather than a great deal he had not hired him. 78 THE FTRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. The next day three heifers were missing, and the mas- ter bade Jack go in search of them. " Where will I look for them 1 " said Shan. " Oh, every place likely and un- likely for them all to be in." The bodach was getting very exact in his words. When he was coming into the bawn at dinner-time, what work did he find Jack at but pulling armfulls of the thatch off the roof, and peeping into the holes he was making 1 " What are you doing there, you rascal T " Sure, I'm looking for the heifers, poor things !" " What would bring them there V " I don't think anything could bring them in it ; but I looked first into the likely places, that is, the cow-houses, and the pas- tures, and the fields next 'em, and now I'm looking in the unlikeliest place I can think of. Maybe it's not pleasing to you it is." " And to be sure it isn't pleasing to me, you aggravating googein [goosecap] !" " Please sir, hand me one pound thirteen and four pence before you sit down to your dinner. I'm afraid it's sorrow that's on you for hiring me at all." "May the div — oh no; I'm not sorry. Will you begin if you please, and put in the thatch again, just as if you were doing it for your mother's cabin V "Oh, faith I will, sir, with a heart and a half ;" and by the time the farmer came out from his dinner, Shan had the roof better than it was before, for he made the boy give him new straw. Says the master when he came out, " Go, Shan, and look for the heifers, and bring them home." " And where will I look for 'em ¥' " Go and search for them as if they were your own." The heifers were all in. the paddock before sunset. Next morning, says the bodach, " Jack, the path across the bog to the pasture is very bad ; the sheep does be sinking in it every step ; go and make it a good path with the sheep's feet." About an hour after he came to the edge of the bog, and what did he find Shan at but sharpen- ing a carving knife, and the sheep standing or grazing round. " Is this the way you are mending the path, Shan I" said he. " Everything must have a beginning, master," said Shan, " and a thing well begun is half done. I am sharpen- ing the knife, and 111 have the feet off every sheep in the SHAN AN OMADHAN AND HIS MASTEE. /9 flock while you'd be blessing yourself." "Feet off my sheep, you anointed rogue ! and what would you be taking their feet off for '? " " An sure to mend the path as you told me. Says you, ' Shan, dean staidhear, &c., make a path with the feet of the sheep/ " " Oh, you fool, I meant make good the path for the sheep's feet." " It's a pity you did'nt say so, master. Hand me out one pound thirteen and fourpence if you don't like me to finish my job." "Divel do you good with your one pound thirteen and fourpence !" " It's better pray than curse, master. Maybe you're sorry for your bargain ]" " And to be sure I am not yet, any way." The next night the bodach was going to a wedding ; and says he to Jack, before he set out : a I'll leave at midnight, and I wish you to come and be with me home, for fear I might be overtaken with the drink. If you're there before, you may throw a sheep's eye at me, and I'll be sure to see that they'll give you something for yourself." About eleven o'clock, while the bodach was in great spirits, he felt something clammy hit him on the cheek. It fell beside his tumbler, and what was it but the eye of a sheep, and a very ugly looking article it was. Well, he couldnt imagine who threw it at him, or why it was thrown at him. After a little he got a blow on the other cheek, and still it was by another sheep's eye. Well, he was very vexed, but he thought better to say nothing. In two mi- nutes more, when he was opening his mouth to take a sup, another sheep's eye was slapped into it. He sputtered it out, and cried, " Man o' the house, isn't it a great shame for you to have any one in the room that would do such a nasty thing V 9 " Master," says Shan, " don't blame the honest man. Sure it's only myself that was thro win them sheep's eyes at you, to remind you I was here, and that I wanted to drink the bride and bridegroom's health. You know yourself bade me." " I know that you are a great rascal; and where did you get the eyes'?" "An' where would I get 'em but in the heads of your own sheep 1 Would you have me meddle with the bastes of any neighbour, who might put me in the Stone Jug [gaol] for it?" " Mo chuma [my sorrow] that ever I had the bad luck to meet with you." 8o THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. " You're all witness," said Jack, "that my master says he is sorry for having met with me. My time is up. Mas- ter, hand me over double wages, and come into the next room, and lay yourself out like a man that has some decency in him, till I take a strip of skin an inch broad from your shoulder to your hip." Every one shouted out against that ; but, says Shan, " You didn't hinder him when he took the same strips from the backs of my two brothers, and sent them home in that state, and penniless, to their poor mother.'' When the company heard the rights of the business, they w r ere only too eager to see the job done. The bodach bawled and roared, but there was no help at hand. He was stripped to his hips, and laid on the floor in the next room, and Jack had the carving knife in his hand ready to begin. " Now, you cruel old villian," said he, giving the knife a couple of scrapes along the floor, " I'll make you an offer. Give me, along with my double wages, two hundred pounds to support my poor brothers, and I'll do without the strap." " No ! " said he, " I'd let you skin me from head to foot first." " Here goes then," said Shan with a grin, but the first little scar he gave, bodach roared out, " Stop your hand \ I'll give the money." "Now, neighbours," said Shan, "you mustn't think worse of me than I deserve. I wouldn't have the heart to take an eye out of a rat itself ; I got half a dozen of them from the butcher, and only used three of them." So all came again into the other room, and Shan was made sit down, and everybody drank his health, and he drank everybody's health at one offer. And six stout fel- lows saw himself and the bodach home, and waited in the parlour while he went up and brought dowm the two hundred guineas, and double wages for Shan himself. "When he got home, he brought the summer along with him to the poor mother and the disabled brothers ; and he was no more Shan an Omadhan in the people's mouths, but Shan a'Ruisgeach, " Jack the Skinner." [ Si ] THE PEINCESS IN THE CAT-SKINS. There was once a queen that was left a widow with one daughter, who was as good and handsome as any girl could be. But her mother wasn't satisfied to remain without a husband ; so she married again, and a very bad choice she made. Her second husband treated her very badly ; and she died soon after. Well, would you ever think of the widower taking it into his head to marry the young prin- cess at the end of a year ] She was as shocked as she could be when he made her the offer, and burst out a crying. "I took you too sudden," said he. " Sleep on it, and you can give me an answer to-morrow. ' ; She was in great trouble all the rest of the day, and when the evening came she went out into the paddock, where a beautiful filly she used to ride was grazing. " Oh my poor beast ! " said she, " I'm sure if you knew my trouble you'd pity me." " I do know your trouble, and I pity you, and I'll help you too," says the filly. " I'm the fairy that watch- ed over you from the time you were born, and I am here near you since your mother married the second time. Your stepfather is an enchanter, but he'll find me too strong for him. Don't seem shocked when he'll ask your consent to- morrow, but say you must have first a dress of silk and silver thread that will fit into a walnut shell. He'll pro- mise, and will be able to get it made too, but I'll bother his spinner and his weaver long enough before he'll get it wove, and his seamstress after that, before it's sewed." The princess done as she was bid, and the enchanter was in great joy ; but he was kept in great trouble and anger for a full half year before the dress was ready to go on the princess. At last it was fitted, and he asked her was she ready to be his wife. " I'll tell you to-morrow," said she. So she went to consult her filly in the paddock. Well, the next day he put the question to her again, and she said that she couldn't think of marrying any one till she had another dress of silk and gold thread that would fit in a walnut shell. " I wish you had mentioned itself and the silver dress together. Both could have been done at the same time. No matter : I'll get it done." What- 6 82 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. ever trouble the spinner and the weaver and the seam- stress had with the other dress, they had twice it with this ; but at last it was tried on, and fitted like a glove. "Well now," says Fear Dhorrach, "I hope your'e satisfied, and won't put off the wedding again." "Oh, you must forgive me," said she, " for my vanity." She was talking to the fiily the evening before. "I can't do without a dress of silk thread as thick as it can be with diamonds and pearls no larger than the head of a minnikin pin. Three is a lucky number, you know." " Well, I wish you had men- tioned this at first, and the three could be making together. ISTow this is the very last thing you'll ask, I expect." " Oh, I'll never ask another, you may depend, till I'm married." She didn't say till we're married. The dress came home at last. Well, the same evening she found on her bed another made from bottom to top of cat- skins, and this she put on. She put her three walnut-shells in her pocket, and then stole out to the stable, where she found her filly with a bridle in her mouth, and the nicest side-saddle ever you saw on her back. Away they went, and when the light first appeared in the sky they were a hundred miles away. They stopped at the edge of a wood, and the princess was very glad to rest herself on a bunch of dry grass at the foot of a tree. She wasn't a minute there when she fell asleep ; and soundly she did sleep, till she was woke up by the blowing of bugles and the yelping of beagles. She jumped up in a fright. There was no filly near her, but half a hundred spotted hounds were within forty perches of her, yelling out of them like vengeance. I needn't tell you she was frightened. She had hardly power to put one foot past the other, and she'd be soon tore into giblets by the dogs on account of her dress, but a fine young hunter leaped over their heads, and they all fell back when he shook his whip and shouted at them. So he came to the princess, and there she was as wild-looking as you please, with her cat-skins hanging round her, and her face and hands and arms as brown as a berry, from a wash she put on herself before she left home. W r ell that didn't hinder her features from being handsome, and the prince was astonished at her beauty and her colour and her dress, when he found she THE PRINCESS IN THE CAT-SKINS. 83 was a stranger, and alone in the world. He got off his horse, and walked side by side with her to his palace, for he was the young king of that country. He sent for his housekeeper when he came to the hall- door, and bid her employ the young girl about whatever she was fit for, and then set off to follow the hounds again. Well, there was great tittering in the servants' hall among the maids at her colour and her dress, and the ganders of footmen would like to be joking with her, but she made no freedom with one or the other, and when the butler thought to give her a kiss, she gave him a light slap on the jaw that wouldn't kill a fly, but he felt as if a toothache was at him for eight and forty-hours. By my word, the other buckeens did not give her an excuse to raise her hand to them. Well, she was so silent and kept herself to herself so much, that she was no favourite, and they gave her nothing better to do than help the scullery maid, and at night she had to put up with a little box of a place under the stairs for a bed-room. The next day, when the prince returned from hunting, he sent word to the housekeeper by the whipper-in to let the new servant bring him up a basin and towel till he'd wash before dinner. "Oh, ho !" says the cook, " there's an honour for Cat-skin. I'm here for forty years and never was asked to do such a thing ; how grand we are ! purshuin to all impedent people !" The princess didn't mind their jibes and their jeers. She took up the things, and the prince delayed her ever so long with remarks and questions, striv- ing to get out of her what rank of life she was born in. As little as she said he guessed her to be a lady. I suppose it is as hard for a lady or gentleman to pass for a vulgarian, as for one of us to act like one of the quality. Well to be sure ! all the cold and scornful noses that were in the big kitchen before her ; and it was, " Cat-skin, will you hand me this 1 Cat-skin, will you grease my shoes 1 Cat-skin, will you draw a jug of beer for me V And she done every- thing she was asked without a word or a sour look. Next night the prince was at a ball about three miles away, and the princess got leave from the housekeeper to go early to bed. Well, she couldn't get herself to lie down : 84 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. slie was in a fever like; she threw off her outside dress, and she stepped out into the lawn to get a little fresh air. There what did she behold but her dear filly under a tree. She ran over, and threw her arms round her neck, and kissed her face, and began to cry. " No time for crying ! " says the filly. " Take out the first walnut shell you got." She did so, and opened it. " Hold what's inside over your head," said the other, and in a moment the silk and silver dress wrapped her round as if a dozen manty -makers were after spending an hour about it. " Get on that stump/' says the filly, " and jump into the side-saddle." She did so, and in a few minutes they were at the hall door of the castle where the ball was. There she sprung from her saddle, and walked into the hall. Lights were in the hall and everywhere, and nothing could equal the glitter of the princess's robes and the accoutrements of her steed. It was like the curling of a stream in the sun. You may believe that the quality were taken by surprise, when the princess w r alked in among them as if they w T ere the lords and ladies in her father's court. The young king came forward as he saw the rest were a little cowed, and bade her good evening and welcome ; and they talked what- ever way kings and queens and princesses do, and he made her sit on Ins ow T n seat of honour, and took a stool or a chair near her, and if he wasn't delighted and surprised, her features were so like the scullery maid's, leave it till again. They had a fine supper and a dance, and the prince and she danced, and every minute his love for her was increas- ing, but at last she said she should go. Every one was sorry, and the prince more than anyone, and he came with her to the hall, and asked might he see her safe home. But she showed him her filly and excused herself. Said he, " IT1 have my brown horse brought, and myself and my servants will attend you." " Hand me up on my filly," says she, " first of all," and, be the laws, I don't know how princes put princesses on horseback. Maybe one of the servants stoops his back, and the prince goes on one knee, and she steps first on his knee and then on the servant's back, and then sits in the saddle. Anyhow she was safe up, and she took the prince's hand, and bid him good night, and THE PRINCESS TN THE CAT-SKINS. 8$ the filly and herself were away like a flash of lightning in the dark night. Well, everything appeared dismal enough when he went back to where a hundred tongues were going hard and fast about the lady in the dazzling dress. Next morning he bid his footman ask the girl in the cat-skin to bring him hot water and a towel for him to shave. She came in as modest and backward as you please ; but whenever the prince got a peep at her face, there were the beautiful eyes and nose and mouth of the lady in the glit- tering dress, but all as brown as a bit of bogwood. He thought to get a little talk out of her, but dickens a word would come out of her mouth but yes or no. And when he asked her was she of high birth, she turned off the dis- course and would' nt say one thing or the other ; and when he asked would she like to put on nice clothes and be about his mother, she refused just as if he asked her to drown herself. So he found he could make nothing of her, and let her go down stairs. There was another great ball in a week's time, and the very same thing took place again. There was the princess, and the dress she had on was of silk and gold thread, and the darlintest little gold crown in the world over her purty curling hair. If the prince was in love before, he was up to his eyes in it this time ; but while they were going on with the nicest sweet talk, says she, " I'm afraid, prince, that you are in the habit of talking lovingly to every girl you meet." Well, he was very eager to prove he was not. " Then," said she, " a little bird belied you as I was coming through the wood. He said that you weren't above talking soft even to a young servant girl with her skin as brown as a berry, and her dress no better than cat-skin. ; ' " I de- clare to you, princess," said he, " there is such a girl at home, and if her skin was as white as yours, and her dress the same, no eye could see a bit of differ between you." " Oh, thankee, prince !" says she, lt for the compliment ; it's time for me to be going." Well, he thought to mollify her, but she curled her upper lip and cocked her nose, and wasn't long till she left, the way she did before. While she was getting on her filly,, he almost went down on his 86 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. knees to her to make it up. So at last she smiled, and said, " If I can make up my mind to forgive you, I'll come to the next ball without invitation." So she was away, and when they came under the tree in the lawn she took the upper hem of her dress in her fingers and it came off like a glove, and she made her way in at the back door, and into her crib at the stair-foot. The prince slept little that night, and in the morning he sent his footman to ask the girl in the cat-skins to bring up a needle and thread to sew a button on his shirt-sleeve. lie watched her ringers, and saw they were small and of a lovely shape ; and when one of them touched his w 7 rist, it felt as soft and delicate as silk. All he could say got no- thing out of her only, " It wasn't a nice thing for a prince to speak in that way to a girl of low degree, and he boast- ing of it after to princesses and great ladies." Well, how he did begin to deny anything so ungenteel, but the button was sewed, and she skipped away down stairs. The third night came, and she shook the dress of silk and pearls and diamonds over her, and the nicest crown of the same on her head. As grand and beautiful as she was before, she was twice as grand now ; and the lords and ladies hardly dared to speak above their breaths, and the prince thought he was in heaven. He asked her at last would she be his queen, and not keep him in misery any longer, and she said she would, if she was sure he wouldn't ask Miss Cat-skin the same question next day. Oh, how he spoke, and how he promised ! He asked leave to see her safe home, but she wouldn't agree. " But don't be downcast," said she, " you will see me again sooner than you think ; and if you know me when you meet me next, we'll part no more." Just as she was sitting in her saddle, and the prince was holding her hand, he slipped a dawny limber ring of gold on one finger. It was so small and so nice to the touch he thought she wouldn't feel it. " And now, my princess," says he to himself, " I think I'll know you when I meet you." Next morning he sent again for the scullery girl, and she came and made a curtchy. il What does your majesty want me to do 1 " said she. " Only to advise me which of these THE PRINCESS IN THE CAT-SKINS. 87 two suits of clothes would look best on me; I'm going to be married. " " Ah, how could the likes of me be able to ad- vise you 1 Is the rich dressed lady, that I heard the foot- men talking about, to be your queen 1 " " Yourself is as likely to be my wife as that young lady." " Then who is it ? " " Yourself, I tell you." " Myself ! How can your majesty joke that way on a poor girl 1 They say you're promised to the lady of the three rich dresses." " I'm pro- mised to no one but yourself. I asked you twice already to be my queen ; I ask you now the third time." " Yes, and maybe after all, you'll marry the lady of the dresses." " You promised you'd have me if I knew you the next time we'd meet. This is the next time. If I don't know you, I know my ring on your fourth ringer." She looked, and there it was sure enough. Maybe she didn't blush. " Will your majesty step into the next room for a minute," said she, " and leave me by myself ? " He did so, and when she opened the door for him again, there she was with the brown stain off her face and hands, and her dazzling dress of silk and jewels on her. Wasn't he the happy prince, and she the happy princess 1 And weren't the noisy servants lewd of themselves when they saw poor Cat-skin in her royal dress saying the words before the priest 1 They didn't put off their marriage, and there was the fairy now in the ap- pearance of a beautiful woman ; and if I was to tell you about the happy life they led, I'd only be tiring you. THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END. Once there was a king that had three sons, and he was so sick that no one thought he'd ever recover. They went to consult a wise old hermit that lived in a wood near, and he said that nothing would cure the king but a draught from the World's-£nd water. So the eldest son thought to himself, — " I'll set out to bring this drink, and then I'll be sure to get all the kingdom from my father when he's about to die." So he got leave from his father and set out. He went first to the hermit, and asked him whereabouts was the " End 00 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND, of the world," and the hermit gave him directions how he'd go to it. He was to cross seven seas, and seven lakes, and seven rivers, and seven mountains, and seven hills, and seven commons, and then he'd see before him a castle of brass, and all he knew farther was that the Well of the World' s-End water was in the garden of that castle. So the prince set out, and one day he sat down by the way side to eat some bread and cold meat. Up came a poor, ragged, withered old woman, and asked him to give her a bit to keep the life in her. " Go away, you old hag, out of that ! " said he, "I have nothing for you." "Well, well," said she ; " God help the poor ! But would your majesty tell a poor body where you're going 1 " " What's that to you, you old witch 1 " said he again ; " go about your business, and don't be bothering me ! " " Well, prince," said she, " your birth is better than your manners anyhow. Still, for sake of the king and queen that owns you, I'll give you an advice. Never blow your bugle till you first draw your sword, and when you're on duty resist temptation." " Thank you for nothing," said he. " I've got enough of you." So she went away, muttering. Well, when he passed the remaining hills and com- mons and lakes and rivers, he saw far off the castle of brass, and in good time he arrived at it. There was a bugle horn hanging by the door, and, without minding the old woman's advice, he put it to his mouth and blew it with- out thinking of his sword. Open flew the door, and out on him rushed two lions roaring like thunder. He thought to pull out his sword, but they kept on biting and scratch- ing and tearing him till he thought he was done for. " Go then," says one of them. "You are a bad prince, but you are on a good business, and we'll give you your life." Well, he stumbled in, and there he was in a long hall, and at each side were standing fifty knights in armour, holding up their spears, and all dead asleep. His heart beat, but he passed on, and in the next hall there was a beautiful prin- cess with a crown on her head, and she sitting on a throne. He approached her, and made all sorts of nice speeches to her, but she reminded him of the business he was on, and told him there was no time to be lost. "After passing THE WELL AT THE WORLD'S END. 89 through the next hall/' said she, " you will be in the garden where the well of the World's-End water springs. If you are not out of the castle with your bottle full before the clock strikes twelve, there's a heavy doom hanging over you." In the next hall there was a table laid out with the finest food and drink the prince ever saw, and he was so tired with walking, and so spent in his struggle with the lions, that he fell to. The clock still wanted a quarter ; he'd have time enough. "When it was two minutes before the hour he went into the garden, and he was so hot, and it was so delightful in the shade, for the well was under a tree, that he sat down on a garden seat, and felt that it w r ould be as much as his life was worth to be obliged to leave it. While he was half dozing, the clock began to strike. Oh, murder ! he began to fill the bottle as fast as he could, but it was on the seventh stroke before he had it filled. Seven, eight, nine, ten, — he was in the dining room, and in the lady's room. It was eleven when he was running into the knight's hall, but he was only in the mid- dle of it when bang went twelve, and the knights struck the ends of their spears on the ground, and came round him in a ring. What could his single sword do against so many. He hadn't even power to draw it. A rough fellow w T ith a bush of red hair on his head came in, and tied him hand and foot, and threw him into a dungeon. Well, his place was empty at home for half a year, and then his next brother set out ; and to make a long story short, he behaved the same way and got the same treatment. Last of all the youngest set off, and very differently he behaved to the poor old woman, and she gave him when they were parting two cakes, and told him what to do with them. When he reached the castle he drew the sword, and then blew the bugle horn. Open flew the doors, and out rushed the lions. But he held out a cake to each beast, and down they sat like two lambs to eat them. He went through the first hall, and went on one knee before the lady in the second. There was pleasure on her face at the sight of him, but she told him there was no delay to be made. So he ♦ ♦ » < THE MUSIC OF HEAVEN. There was a monastery once, and it had a nice garden, and between the garden and a big forest there was only a rail- ing that had a door in the middle of it A very pious monk was sitting in the summer house of the garden one evening, after saying all his prayers and his offices, and he was pondering over different things in the psalms he was after reading, and among the rest one saying that a thousand years was in the sight of God only as a day. He pondered, and he pondered, and he could not understand the words at all, and while he was this way, a bird began to sing in one of the trees just outside the garden. He never heard anything like it in his life before, and it was just what he supposed the melody made by angels to be. At last the bird fluttered away to a tree further off, and the monk went outside of the garden, not to lose any of the notes, and still the bird moved further off, and still the monk followed it, 9 IjO THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. his whole soul and mind and memory all wrapt up in the sweet music. He went into the wood about a quarter of a mile, and he was as he thought about half an hour moving that far, and he couldn't fancy heaven itself to have any- thing more heavenly than the notes of the bird. At last it stopped singing, and the poor man felt like one just falling down on the earth out of Paradise. He went back dismally, and when he came to where the paling and the little door in it ought to be, there was a high wall, and towers, and a big door, and a little one beside it. " Oh dear ! " said the poor man, " am I dreaming, or what has come over me 1 " He rang the bell and the little door was opened. " What is your business f said the porter, a man with a face and dress on him quite strange to the monk. " My business, brother, is to go in, and say my prayers, and go to bed/' " Go to bed ! You speak as if you belonged to the place, and you a perfect stranger. Who are you 1 * " Rather you tell me who are you 1 There was a garden here half an hour ago, when I left it to follow a bird that was singing heavenly music into the wood, and here I find walls and gates where there was a paling between the garden and the wood, and a strange porter, for I don't re- member ever seeing your. face before/' Well, some of the brothers that were going by, gathered round, and could make no more of the business than the porter. They asked him who was the abbot when he left the garden, and what king reigned in the country, and shook their heads when he mentioned their names. They thought they were speak- ing with a man out of his mind, till at last one of them said, " Let us bring him to Brother So-and-so. He's a hun- dred and ten years old, and maybe he'll help us in our puzzle.'' They brought him to the old brother through passages and rooms he never saw before, they wondering at his strange dress and he at theirs. When the old, old man heard the story, he began to speak. " Brothers, when I entered this monastery very young, I often heard from an old brother, who was then as old as I am now, that when himself was a novice the oldest of the monks used to be telling of a brother So-and- so that left the house one evening, and never was heard of THE MUSIC OF HEAVEN. 1 3 I again." " I am that poor lost brother," said the monk, " and God has thus made me feel how a thousand years in His sight are only as a day, a thing I was striving to understand that evening. A thousand years listening to that bird of heaven would not seem an hour to me. I have now lived centuries beyond my time. Let me make my confession and receive the last sacraments, for I think no further time will be allotted me on earth." And it was so ; he died the death of the saints that night. The fairies are considered by archaeologists as the heirs and descendants of the inferior pagan divinities, good and evil. The demi-gods and demons were reduced to this condition when heathenism was outwardly brought to an end. However, the popular belief is that the fairies were those angels who, at Lucifer's revolt, did not openly join him, but felt a kind of sympathy with his wicked aspira- tions. When the rebel angels were precipitated into hell, these cowardly spirits fell no farther than the earth, on which they are to remain till the day of judgment, uncer- tain during the whole time whether they are to be par- doned or condemned. Our own Irish fairies are the spirits of the Danaan Druid chiefs, who, after their death, took possession of the chief subterranean caverns throughout the kingdom, and continued, according to their good or evil dis- positions, to succour or injure the descendants of the Mile- sians by whom they had been dispossessed. For further information on the subject of the fairy kingdom the reader is referred to the Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts ; Macmillan, 1866. / oaat l£>3 ) > ♦ ♦ ♦ < HOW DONN FIRINNE GOT HIS HORSE SHOD. The oldest Sighe-Chiefof the Milesian line is Bonn Firinne, the truth- telling king. He was the son of Mil£, or Milesius, and when the Danaans raised a fog round the island, to prevent the landing of him and his brothers Heber, Here- mon, and Amhergin, he was shipwrecked on the Du chains, 9* 132 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. in West Munster, and there perished as to his mortal part. The people to this day call these rocks Teach Duin (Donn's House). He bestows his attention on the invisible concerns of the whole kingdom, but resides in Knocfierna, near Limerick, and when not presiding over the sumptuous entertainments there furnished, he looks after the fairy tribes of Thomond (North Munster) and Ormond, and oc- casionally makes a raid at their head against the fairies of Connaught, or Leinster, or South Munster. He is rather patriotic, and friendly besides to native talent. In Croker's Legends is given an address made to him by a poor poet, whose verses seemed to be in no request by king or chief of mortal mould. It begins thus : — u Donn of the ocean vats, I give due reverence to thee." Donn would not be a genuine Milesian spirit if ungifted with combative propensities. A blacksmith near the leale was one night w T akened up to put a shoe on the steed of a noble-looking rider. He fashioned it without much delay, but the great feat was to adjust and fasten it on. So skittish and mettlesome were the mare's capers, that he could not bring the iron convenience within a yard of its appointed place. The master, after looking on for some time, with grim amusement playing over his features, quietly wrung off the lower portion of the leg, and pre- sented it to the operator. Awe of the rider now unnerved him as much as the tricks of the steed had done before, but the stranger thus attempted to encourage him. " Don't be frightened, but fasten in your nails. I am Donn Fir- inne, and am conducting ten thousand of my forces to wage battle and conflict against the fairies of Cork. My people are awaiting me outside your door at this moment." All this was far from putting the village Yulcan at his ease; but, better or worse, he got through the job some way. The version of the story accessible to us mentions the con- clusion of the shoeing, the adjusting of the shod portion to the rest of the leg by Donn, the shouting of the tribe when they saw their chief emerging from the forge, and the speed with which they escaped from the blacksmith's sight. Donn seems to have been in such a hurry, that he omitted HOW DONN FIRINNE GOT HIS HORSE SHOD. 1 33 to make any compensation to the black artist for his trouble. > ♦ ♦ ♦ < CLIONA OF MUNSTER. Cliona, the most powerful, and at the same time the most wayward of the Munster fairies was daughter of the terrible Ked-haired Druid who once threw a thick darkness over a Northern force set in battle array against the South- ern men, and thereby effected their defeat. Cliona and Aoibhil (pron. EvilJ, were his daughters ; and Caoimh the Pleasant (O'Keeffe), a neighbouring chief, was suitor for the hand of the younger (Evil). Cliona happening to have her affections set on Caoimh, brought a wasting sickness on her sister, and at last the appearance of death, by the ad- ministration of a narcotic. She was interred, but the spite- ful Cliona had her conveyed to a cave at Castlecor, where, under the appearance of a cat, she is still occasionally seen. Her other quarters are at Carriglea, near Killaloe. Cliona's Court is five miles south of Mallow, in a lonely district : it consists of a rock in the centre of a circular space, surrounded by other smaller ones, the whole enclo- sure (about two acres) carpeted by the finest turf, and no rocks interrupting the view for a considerable distance. Belated travellers have seen Cliona and her troops holding consultation here, or leading the dance round the delightful enclosure. On winter nights frightful noises have been heard from Carrig Cliona, and no peasant or peasantess would enter or cross the eirie place after nightfall for any consideration. As Cliona was once disporting in the neighbourhood by moonlight, under the appearance of a white rabbit, she was espied and made captive by an unlucky farmer, who bore her home, and kept her well secured. From the moment of her unwilling entrance into the house misfortunes de- scended in a storm upon the owner. Floods carried away his stacks, his cattle were missing, and at last two of his children lay on the bed of death. Within the space of a week all were at their wit's end, till some one remarked on the presence of the rabbit, and the beginning of their woes as occurring on the same day. The hint was sufficient. 134 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. The unlucky animal was liberated, and the children reco- vered. The strayed animals were found, ill-luck left the place, and white rabbits were carefully avoided for the fu- ture by every member of the family. There was a " hurling" in the glen by the side of the river Feale, and among the spectators were James Eoche and his son John, a child of seven years old. Cliona came out of the rock, unseen by any one in the crowd, and throwing a cloak over the boy, she led him into her cavern, and for fourteen years he was never seen by mortal. At the end of that period he presented hiruself to the eyes of his father, a full-grown young man, and while fear and joy were struggling in the heart of the old man, he thus spoke : " Dear father, I have been kept by Cliona in her rock for fourteen years, and now she is obliged to let me be seen by my family. If you cannot free me from her power in three months, she will oblige me to marry a young woman whom she stole when a child, and neither she nor I will ever again enjoy the society of our kind. If you travel to the lower part of Ireland, and persuade Kathleen Dhu, who lives by the church of Clogher, to come with you, she can free me from the enchantment in which I am held." It was not long till the sorrowful father was on his jour- ney, and after long travelling and much fatigue he was in the presence of the dark witch. She was ill of a fever at the time, but told him her daughter was equally powerful with herself, and would return w 7 ith him if he would libe- rally reward her. " There's nothing in my possession she may ask," said he, " that I can refuse, if she free my son from the Sighe." So they set out, and in due time they arrived at his house. "Get me now," said she, "the skin of a newly-killed sheep." It was got, and dried, and the wool plucked off, and she put it on as a cloak with the flesh side out ; and so she and Koche presented themselves at the entrance of Carrig Cliona. " Hail Cliona of the Carrig ! " said she. " A long distance I came to see you, all along from the church of Clogher, where the birds speak to the border of the foxes. If John, son CLIONA OF MUNSTEE. 1 35 of James, has wedded the young woman of the Sighe, or kissed her lips, woe and wrath shall light on him, and her, and on their mistress, Cliona, daughter of the Red Druid." At these threatening words Cliona came forth, and was dismayed by the long coarse hair of the young witch that fell to her hips, and by the cloak of raw hide, with horns, legs, and all hanging about her. She had put a druidic charm on her eyes, that even made the Sighe tremble. " Who are you $" said she. " Are you Aoine, or Aoibhil of the Gray Rocks, or Ana Cleir, come hither from Bemus, or a witch westward from Beara V " No, I am not of your race at all. 1 am of the Bollar Beamish, and my brother is Slawbocht no Treamhie and the Ruiddhera Rua, (Red Knight), from the harbour of Ben Hedir (Howth). My other brother is Dorrin Deidh gal, who can make the old young, and the young old, and raise the dead out of the earth, and the Ard Righ of the Sliochd Sighe of Erinn has given me the run of all the country, and if I meet with refusal or evil treatment, he will come and take sharp revenge for it." Cliona was overawed by the wild appearance and the threatening language of the daughter of Black Catherine, and she gave up John, son of James, praying that the witch might be nothing the better for her acquisition. But she was the better, for when she flung off her raw cloak, and her long head-covering of coarse horsehair, and stood be- fore John, son of James, as a dark- eyed, beautiful young woman, he said if she would not become his wife he would return again to the Sighe of Cliona. The father gave his consent, a little unwillingly ; but our authority has afforded us no information on the subject of the subsequent house- keeping of the young couple. A loud noise as from the surging of a wave is occasionally heard in the harbour of Glandore, county of Cork, both in calm and stormy weather. It is the forerunner of the shift- ing of the wind to the north-east. It is called the " Tonn Cliona," or Cliona's wave, and was supposed in days gone by to portend the death of a king or great chief. J36 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. The much-lamented scholar and estimable man, Mr. John Windele of Cork, furnished the editor of this work with the following bizarre tradition : — A BULLOCK CHANGELING. In the famed kingdom of Kerry, and not far from Tralee, stood the estate of Mr. Bateman, who, among other valuable cattle, owned one fine bullock, not to be matched in the seven neighbouring townlands for size and condition. But all at once he unaccountably began to fall away, and at last might be exhibited as a bovine living skeleton. All at- tempts to put fat on his unfortunate ribs by oil or other cake were fruitless, and at last Mr. Bateman gave him to one of his tenants to convert him to any use he pleased. He, knowing the folly of attempting to turn him to profit while living, imagined his death instead, and sold him to a Tralee butcher for little more than the value of his hide. The honest flesher, wishing to realise at once, put his prize in a suitable knocking-down position in his slaughter-house, and, swinging his pole-axe, came down with a mighty blow where he expected to find his head. But the selfish ani- mal, at the moment the axe cut deep into the floor, was cleaving the half door in good style, preparatory to a head- long charge down the street. The battle-axe man, not willing to be a loser, swept after him fully armed ; and the neighbours, excited by his cries, and the pace of the ill- favoured ox, joined in the pursuit. He kept his odds well ; and when he came to the open gate of the demesne, he dashed through, and galloped direct for the old lios. On- ward came in hot haste men, and boys, and dogs, but the more haste they made to come up, the less he seemed dis- posed to allow them. He scampered furiously round the fort, and by the time his pursuers arrived, hot and tired, no bullock was to be seen. "While they were searching and wondering, the genuine and original ox was seen to walk out from behind a large bush, showing not the least incli- nation for a game at " fox and hounds." This was one of the few instances of an animal's being bona fide restored, and without injury. [ 137 ] HOW JOHN HACKETT WON THE FKENCH PRINCESS. John Hackett was a Minister outlaw, one of the many who were put to their shifts after some of the old wars. He was travelling towards Holy Cross when darkness came on, and so he was benighted on the hill of Killoch, and de- bating with himself how he should pass the night. Mean- while he held on walking about to keep up some heat in his body, when on a sudden he heard the sounds as of a company of horse galloping towards him from the north, but the noise they made only resembled the muffled sound of a whisper. When they arrived within a few yards of him, their chief cried out, "A steed and lance for John Hackett. John, you have to come with us." " Where to, sir P " I am the chief of the Sighes of Ely," said he, "and am going straight to Paris to bring the daughter of the King of France home with me. I cannot do it, however, without human help, and you are my man. There is your steed ; here is your lance ; mount !" " With all my heart," said John, " but I must visit Dublin on our way, and the palace of the king of England when we are coming back." " That will be a great delay, but if it is necessary, be it so." . John bestrode the steed, took the lance in his hand, and in a few minutes they were at the door of his brother in Dublin. He entered but would not stop to eat or drink. He asked for a piece of parchment, ink, and a pen, and he wrote out these words, " I grant my Royal pardon to John Hackett of Munster." He then joined his friends on the outside with his parch- ment, his pen, and his inkhorn, carefully secured in his clothes. They mounted their steeds, and as the next night was beginning to close in, they were standing outside the French King's palace. They had made John invisible even as themselves, and all went in, and passed through the guests, and took their stations on mantel-pieces, and the backs of chairs, and looked on at the dancing. The princess was sitting by her father, and playing with a little spaniel, and enjoying the sight of the dancing. " There is my bride elect," said the 138 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. fairy chief, u but I have no power while that spaniel is about her. Secure him, John ; it is for that I brought you here." John went behind the royal chair, stooped, reached over his hand, and put the spaniel in his pocket. The same moment three arrows were shot at the princess by the fairy chief. She sneezed three times, fainted, and was immedi- ately placed on a steed and borne away. What appeared to be her dead body was left on the spot where she had fainted, while she and Hackett and the rest were flying over the sea to England. When they came to the palace of the king, all the troop but John remained in the cellar to refresh themselves, but the princess continued still, without knowing what was going on about her. John passed into the King's bed- chamber, and walked up to his bed-side. "Hillo ! ho ! King of Saxonland ! " said he, "awake ! " " Who dares disturb me out of my sleep]" said the king. "It is I, John Hackett of Munster, who asks your royal pardon and pro- tection. ? ' " My protection to you will be the axe of the executioner." " Then," said John, drawing his sword, " I must be under the necessity of cutting off your Majesty's head." " Oh, oh ! that is another thing ; open the door and tell my attendants to bring me pen, ink, and parch- ment." " And maybe, your majesty, the cord or the hatchet besides. Here are the materials, only waiting for your majesty's fingers." His majesty signed his name \ John took the paper and vanished, and after some slight refreshment in the cellar, all took horse for Ireland, and in due time landed on the same hill from which they had taken him. " What am I to get now for my trouble % " said he. M We'll fill your hat and pockets with gold." " I must have the princess also." " Say you so ! You know what our arrows can do." " And you know what this spaniel can do," said he, taking it out of his pocket with one hand, and laying hold on the sleeping lady with the other. All uttered cries of fright, and in two seconds there was not one of them to be seen. The princess awoke, and it was long before she recovered from her sorrow to find her- self in a strange land, and in company with a stranger. He HOW JOHN HACKETT WON THE FRENCH PRINCESS. 1 39 soon conducted her to a comfortable shelter with his friends, till he got possession of his own lands, and when her first surprise and grief was over, she made him tell her all about the carrying off. This he did, and at the end she liked him better than at the beginning, and this day better than the day before ; and it was not long until they were man and wife in his own house and on his own lands. When their second child was born, John said he'd go to Paris and acquaint her parents ; and after some talking over the matter she consented. She gave him a letter and her scarf which she wore the night she was carried away. They put him in confinement till trusty messengers were sent to Ireland, and when these returned with the princess and children there was great joy. John was made a great lord, and if they didn't live happy that we may ! > ♦ ♦ ♦ < When the housewife's daily cares are over, she may make doors and windows as fast as she pleases ; but if she ne- glects to stick the reaping hook in the thatch, or if she does not loose the wheel-band, or tie the hand -reel with a rush, or neglects to pour out the water that washed the feet by the channel under the door, those treacherous allies of the fairies will let them in. THE FAIRY-STRICKEN SERVANT. A travelling woman once got lodging in a farmer's house, and was provided with a bed in the kitchen. The sluttish servant-maid went to sleep in the settle, and was soon snoring soundly. About midnight the strange woman heard a tapping at the door, and a ghostly voice crying through the key-hole, " Where are you, Feet- water ? " I am in the tub, where I oughtn't to be." " Hand-reel, where are you I" " Lying I am on the dresser." " Keaping-hook, where are you V' " Lying loose on the floor." " Wheel- band, where are you ¥' " Drawn tight round the rim I am." "Feet-water, reaping-hook, hand-reel, and wheel- band, let us in ?" 1 40 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. In came three wild-looking women to spend part of the night in comfort \ but the turf had been allowed to burn out, and the hearth was unswept and comfortless. Two of them sat down, while the third searched dresser and drawers for some food. But nothing was to be found ex- cept a crust which the lodger had left for the good people on a stool near her bed. She took it, and returned to the hearth, and the three made a meal on it. " Ah, the neg- ligent quean !" said one, who seemed the worst disposed of the party : " I'll leave her something to remind her of her negligence, and the only thing that can cure her is a poul- tice of this bread, left out by that decent woman in the corner. Let us not leave a crumb behind us." After saying this, she lifted a bit of thread off the ground, and threw it at the sleeper in the settle, and soon after all the company went away. When they, were going out, the traveller, keeping her eyes nearly closed, saw the most good-natured of the three look at herself, and drop a few crumbs on the floor. While the women stayed, there was a dull light through the room, but the moment they left, all was as dark as pitch. In the morning, the moment the woman awoke, she got up, and gathered the crumbs, and put them up carefully in a bit of rag in her pocket. About three months after- wards, she stopped another night in the same house. She had scarcely sat down when the servant girl began to tell her of a great swelling in her leg, that hindered her from walking any distance, or standing up at all beyond a few minutes : " and it's on me," said she, " since the very night you were here last/' "Well," said the other, "let that lam you to keep a sod of turf alive ail night, and sweep up the hearth, and leave something to eat for the good people when you don't throw out the feet-water, and stick the reaping-hook in the thatch, and tie up the hand-reel, and slack the spinning-wheel. If you'll promise to be •more careful, maybe ourselves can do something for you." " Oh, musha, do, and God bless you, and it's me that'll be careful about what you say from JSTew Year's Day to New Year's Eve." So the woman made a poultice with some hot water and the dry crumbs, and put it to the girl's leg. THE FAIRY- STRICKEN SERVANT. 141 It was not a minute on when the skin cracked, and a whole skein of woollen thread worked itself out. You may be sure that she gave herself tidier habits afterwards, and that the wise woman was welcome to a comfortable bed and a good supper and breakfast whenever she passed that way. > ♦ + ♦ < THE FAIKY EATH OF CLONNAGOWAN. In the townland of Clonnagowan, Queen's County, stands a rath which, about forty years since, was studded with old thorn trees. A Mr. Kinsella, to whom this, with the surrounding lands, was leased, took it into his head that he would grub up these ugly trees, make firewood of them, and get a good crop of wheat out of the hitherto useless circle. He was warned by the neighbours that if he at- tempted to do so, the good people would make him suffer ; for, time out of mind, one person or another had seen them dancing, and holding their night festivals among these old stunted thorns. Nothing could daunt him. He fell to work, and began to grub up one of the trees, and had re- moved the sods and earth round it when he was called off on some pressing business. He was not able to resume his labour in the rath that day ; and so at night he retired to rest, with intent to be early at his task next morning. About midnight he was wakened by some unusual noises ; and on opening his eyes he found the room all illuminated, though the moon was not yet shining, nor was there an appearance of candle or lamp anywhere. By this light he could see a score of little fellows in green frocks and red caps, the latter shaped like the fox-glove bell or the old Irish birredh. They began to move round the bed, and point their ringers, and make frightful faces at him, half the company moving one way, just close by the bed, and the other half moving in the other direction, outside them. He almost lost his senses in consequence of the confusion of their movements, and the spiteful gestures they were making. He attempted to roar out once or twice, but could not utter a sound, and he could only look and become more and more stupified and frightened. I42 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. At last there was a pause, and the mischievous creatures scattered themselves over the room, and seizing on every- thing that came in their way, they piled them upon the poor man, till he thought that the weight of the whole house was crushing him 5 and so disturbed was his mind, that he fancied the bed was pressing him down as well as bearing him up ; and the eyes of the little fellows were watching him through the legs of tables and chairs, and shooting icicles of lire and ice into his brain. Then, lest the weight should be too light, they would spring up on the heap of furniture, and jump and prance till he could feel the hard wood and iron piercing in between his ribs, and squeezing his stomach flat on his backbone, and almost crushing his bones to the marrow. He was not able after- wards to tell how relief came to him. When he awoke in the morning he found the different articles of furniture each occupying its own place ; but his bones and muscles felt so sore and bruised that he could hardly stir them ; and his skin was blue, and purple, and black. The first use he made of his tongue was to direct his sons to repair to the rath, and put the removed clay and sods into their places of yesterday morning. Perhaps it was owing to the subsidence of the anger of the Duine Sighe, on witnessing the reparation, that he speedily recovered from the effects of his bruises, and his skin resumed its natural hue. We are unable to say what appearance the rath now presents. Near this village of Clonnagowan is the farm-house of Clonnaquinn, the bawn of which lies directly in — THE FAIRIES' PASS. It is known that the hill-folk, in their nightly excursions, and in the visits of one tribe to another, go in a straight line, gliding as it were within a short distance of the ground ; and if they meet any strange obstacles in their track, they bend their course above them or at one side, but always with much displeasure. A farmer named Finglas, a stranger to the old ways of the country, took this farm, and was not at all satisfied with the accommodation offered by the old farm-house and yard. the fairies' pass. 143 There was neither cow-house nor stable, except an excuse for such conveniences at the end of the yard. He would have new buildings made at the side, and dug out the foun- dation at once ; but was warned that the Fairies' Pass lay directly across the bawn, and that it would excite their sovereign displeasure to find stable, or barn, or cow-house in their way. Unhappily Finglas, though married to a Eoman Catholic wife, was himself a benighted Presbyterian, and as such, a contemner of all reverence due to the Good People. But see the result of pretending to be wiser than your neighbours. Scarcely were the buildings thatched, and the cows and horses installed in their niches, when the wisdom of the old people became evident. One animal after another, without apparent cause, began to refuse its food, languished, and died. In vain was recourse made to the most skilful cattle-doctors. Their medicines proved naught, and fairy men or women would have nothing to do with the de- voted beasts ; they were on the Fairies' Path. Not until three-fourths of his cattle were slain by the elf-bolts was Finglas overruled, and at last persuaded to construct new buildings at the end of the bawn. Accounts of Banshees being easily met with in the works of Croker, Keightley, Mrs. Hall, &c, the inquisitive are referred thereto for infor- mation — the only one we mean to produce being, so to say, historical. THE BANSHEE OF THE O'BRIENS. Lady Fanshawe, whose husband was ambassador at the Spanish Court in the reigns of the Charleses, First and Se- cond, has left an account of an individual spirit of this class, which was seen and heard by herself. Being on a visit at the house of Lady Honora O'Brien, and having one night retired to rest, she was awakened about one o'clock by a noise outside one of the windows. She arose, withdrew the curtains, and beheld, by the light of the moon, a female figure leaning in through the open casement. She was of a ghastly complexion, had long red hair, and was enveloped 144 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. in a white gown. She uttered a couple of words in a loud strange tone, and then with a sigh, resembling the rushing of a wind, she disappeared. Her substance seemed of the consistence of dense air, and so awful was the effect pro- duced on the lady that she fainted outright. Next day she related to the lady of the house what she had seen, and the news was received with no marks of surprise. " My cou- sin," said she, " whose ancestors owned this house, died at two o'clock this morning, and, as is the case with the rest of the family, the Banshee was heard wailing every night during his illness. The individual spirit who utters the caoine for this branch of the O'Briens, is supposed to be the ghost of a woman who was seduced and murdered in the garden of this very house by an ancestor of the gentle- man who died this morning. He flung her body into the river under the window ; so the voice and appearance of this waiter causes more terror than those o.f other spirits, with whose grief there is no blending of revenge." On one occasion, when the Bean Sighe of the Knight of Kerry was heard announcing by her wail the approaching demise of the chief, the merchants of Dingle, forgetting their plebeian births and occupations, took it into their heads to get frightened, lest the wild sounds should bode the immediate departure of some of themselves. A native poet, however, re- assured them in this wise : — " At Dingle when the lament grew loud, Great fear fell on the thrifty merchants, But fear on their own account they need not ; The Banshee wails not such as they." TOM KIEKNAN'S VISIT TO FRANCE. The above-named worthy was a servant boy who lived at Ballydonoghue, near Tarbert. Being belated in the neigh- bourhood of a so-called Danish fort, he heard considerable noise within, and, coming close to the fence, he spied in a comfortable nook at the other side a party which he always afterwards described as fairies or witches, but could not tell TOM KIERNAN S VISIT TO FRANCE. 1 45 which. At the conclusion of some (to him) unintelligible ceremony, they pronounced the words Bruchas tha ussa one after the other, and shot off through the air in a S. E. di- rection. " A fine thing to be able to do/' said Tom. " Bruchas tha ussa, if you go to that," and away he flew in their train. All were soon in a wine-cellar in the south of France drinking like kings or fishes. When they had nearly emptied the entire of the vessels, they repeated the same words as before, and all soared back to Ireland, leav- ing the goblets behind. Tom, however, brought away his, and next morning gave it up to his master, with a full ac- count of the expedition. Several years after, a French vessel anchored in Tarbert, and the owner was entertained at the house of Tom's mas- ter, who, to do honour to his guest, produced his finest ar- ticles in plate, and among the others the captured goblet. The guest stared hard, as well he might, at the vessel, and eagerly asked his host how it had come into his possession. He furnished the needful explanation as to its being given up to him by Tom, and Tom's legend of its acquisition,' which he by no means credited. " You may give entire belief to his story," said the other, " for I remember dis- tinctly the morning on which our wine-casks were found empty and this goblet missing. We were nearly ruined by that very drinking bout," said he, " and have scarcely yet recovered. Let me, if you please, see the face of your Mon- sieur Tom." This hero being introduced, the stranger gazed on him for nearly three minutes as on one whose like he should never see again. Before quitting the house, with his lost property in his possession, he slipped a louis d'or into Mr. Kieman's palm, and told him how happy he should be to see him at his home in France, provided he made the visit in the way familiar to ordinary mortals. THE LOVE PHILTRE.— A Fact. Nora, a healthy, bouncing young country damsel, but no way gifted with beauty, registered a vow that she would be the wife of young Mr. Bligh, a " half sir," that lived near. 10 146 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. The young fellow always spoke civilly and good-naturedly to her, but after a year or two's acquaintance, Nora saw no immediate sign of her vow being accomplished. She held consultations with adepts in fairy and demon lore, and dis- covered that the liver of a cat thoroughly black, white paws excepted, was sovereign in the process of procuring a return of love. Aided by her sister and another woman, researches were made, the cat discovered, and slain, with accompani- ments which we do not choose to particularize. The liver was then carefully taken out, broiled, and reduced to an impalpable powder. In a day or two the gallant was passing by Nora's cottage, and seeing her at the bawn gate he " put the speak" on her. She, nothing loth, kept up the conversation, and after some further talk, asked might she take the liberty of requesting him to come in and take a cup of tea. He did not think the better of her prudence for making the demand, but felt he couldn't refuse without incivility. So he was set com- fortably at table, and Nora soon filled his cup from a black -teapot, which, in addition to some indifferent tea, contained a pinch of the philtre. The guest began the banquet with notions and intentions not very complimentary to his en- tertainer; but when he took up his hat to walk home, he was determined on setting her up as the mistress of his heart and house. It is in the nature of this magic potion, that if the dose is not repeated at intervals, the effect be- comes weaker, and at length ceases altogether. Nora, aware of this, renewed the administration at every visit, till his infatuation became such that he announced to his family and relations his immediate marriage with the cabin girl. Vain were coaxings, threats, reasonings, etc. ; and at last the eve of the wedding-day arrived. Paying a visit to his charmer that happy evening, they were enjoying the most interesting and delightful conversation, when the latch was raised, and a party of seven or eight young fellows, armed with good hazel rods, entered and began to lay thousands on his devoted back and shoulders. Nora flung herself be- tween, and received a few slight blows ; but before they ceased practising on the amorous youth, every bone in his body was sore, and he himself unable to use arms or legs. THE LOVE PHILTRE. 147 That was what they wanted. They trundled him into a car, and took him home, where he was tended and watched for a month. The drug not being administered all that time, he was amazed when he was able to quit his bed that he should ever have been guilty of such an absurdity. So to Nora's remorse for the unholy proceeding was now added chagrin at her want of success. It is probable that some of the fairy fictions were the manufacture of scape -graces, who, to cover their neglect on certain occasions, got themselves out of disgrace by the in- vention of some wild adventures that had befallen them. An instance occurred to our own knowledge of a little boy, who, being sent for a pitcher of water at noon, did not re- turn till past sunset, and then saved himself from dis- cipline by a recital of a most dangerous ride on the back of the pooka, who had got between his legs while he was fill- ing his jug. THE POOKA OF BALTRACY. Young Pat Davidson of this townland was sent by his grandmother for a pitcher of water about one o'clock in the afternoon, but it was not till sunset that the truant, whose absence had caused great disquietude in the interim, was seen coming up the meadow from the side of the wood where the well lay. He seemed much fatigued, and various rents were visible in his clothes, and scratches on his naked legs. His overjoyed grandmother went down the path to meet him, but she took good care to dissemble her feelings. She looked at him with lowering brows, winding the strings of herpraskeen [apron] the while round that useful article, presently to do the duty of a whip. " You villian o' the world ! " was her first greeting, " what kep' you till now ? where were you loitering V " Oh, granny honey, it's well you ever seen me again ! look at me clothes, an' me poor legs ! " " Why, child, what happened you V 1 " Musha, an' wasn't it the Pooka happened me : the curse o' Cromwell 10* I48 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. on him ! Just as I was stoopin' down at the well to fill the jug, what did I see but his ears and his neck comin' out betune me legs, and before I had time to bless meself, off he was with me through the wood, knockin' me head again' the boughs, an' tearin' me legs again the brush till we got through, an were out in the fields. Oh, granny, such spon- shees as he made over ditches and rivers, and so 'fraid as I was that I'd be thrown every moment ! Well, at last, where were we chargin' "but at the house where aunt Bessy lived, and that the roof is off [whose roof is off]. He run full plump up to it, and when I was expectin' to have me head broke again' the wall, there we wor thro' the winda, and never crack cried till we got to Cloncurry. Well, there he put his ugly nose to the ground, and kicked up his hine legs, thinkin' to have me down in less than no time, but I held to the mane like vengeance, an' gripped his sides wud me knees. He turned back there and give me the same Jceerhau- lin 9 till we got to the well again, and then he pitched me off like a sack of whate; an', granny honey, isn't it a mercy that you ever seen me again V " Oh musha, my poor paustha [child, pais], but it's grateful I am that the divel of a pooka wasn't allowed to murdher you. Come in alanna ! " etc. The winged words of this story soon went through the townland, and when Pat presented himself at school next day the faithless master began to question the hero on the particulars of his ride. The youth, either discomposed by the cold glances of the judge's eyes, or rendered by the terror accompanying the exploit incapable of exact recollec- tion, was found to vary from himself in some essential par- ticulars, and the result was a severe liaising. After some time, when the wounds were ceasing to smart, and the mas- ter's back was turned, an urchin had the ill nature to jeer him for telling such a bare-faced lie to his grandmother about the pooka. " Oh the sarra pooka you," said he, " if you were there, an' saw granny lookin' so vicious, an' twistin' her praskeen to leather you, you'd invent a worse thing yourself." >-o^~«*-< The ensuing legends cannot in strictness be classed under our general title, as they possess only local interest. How- THE ENCHANTED CAT OF BANTRY. 1 49 ever, there are none among them which are not popular in some part of the country, and therefore they are considered worthy of a place in our collection. THE ENCHANTED CAT OF BANTRY. Long ago, after the English first came to Ireland, there were continual fights and skrimmages between themselves (their great strength was down in the baronies of Forth and Bargy ), and the people in the upper part of the country, who would have no rulers except the old royal blood of Leinster, the O'Cavanaghs. Parties from each side would drive away cattle from their enemy, and kill the owners if they resisted. A little bodach of the English side that lived off towards Ballinvegga came in the dead of the night with a boy of his to a lonesome house somewhere near the Glounthaan, killed the poor owner and some of his family, and drove away all the cattle that were in the place, and that was only a cow and a sheep. But mind, when they were getting home they found themselves pursued, and had no way to save their lives but by breaking into a chapel. I don't know whether it was the one at Rathgarogue or Temple Udigan . When the crowd went by, and they were relieved of their fright, they began to feel hungry. So they killed the sheep, and were roosting a quarter of it at a fire they made out of old coffin boards, when a big cat with blazing eyes came in through the wall, and miawed out, " Shone feol/" [Is uaiin feoil, flesh is from me, i.e. I want flesh]. They were so frightened they gave him the quarter that was roasting. When he ate it he licked his chops and roared out again, "Shone feol I " and so on till he gobbled up all the sheep and three quarters of the cow. Hoping that he'd leave them a bit for themselves, they were boiling a piece of the beef over the fire in the cow's hide, stuck up on four stakes with some water in the hollow, but he bawled out more vicious than ever, when all the rest was down the red lane, "Shone ftolf" Well, they gave him the piece that was simmering, and while he was aten it they got out and were making the road I^O THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. home as fast as they could. They were not a quarter of a mile away when the moon happening to show her face, the bodach's boy cried out, " Master, master, the cat is sitting on the crupper behind you." He turned round and was so wild with fright and anger, that he pushed at the tormen- tor with his pike over his left shoulder, and whether he was killed or not, down to the ground he came. Ovoch! in a moment you'd think all the cats from Blackstairs to Carrig- byrne were round them, and before they could look round, the boy and his horse were down, and the wild creatures tearing them limb from limb. The master set spurs to his horse while they were at their work, and never cried crack till he was inside his own bawn and the gate locked. He was more dead than alive when he got in, and couldn't tell what happened him for ever so long. At last he began to give his wife an account of what happened, but when he came to the blow he made with the pike and the tumble of the cat, a kitllcn only half a year old that was sitting on a boss screamed out, " Oh, you thief did you kill my uncle V and without another word she flew at his throat, and tore out a piece the size of her own head. If he hadn't gone on a murdering business, his wife wouldn't be a widow from that day to the last one of her life. > » ♦ ♦ < Visitors to the Devil's Glen are so occupied with its savage beau- ties, that they rarely give themselves the trouble of inquiring how the rough defile came to be so called. Father Domenech obtained the fol- lowing legend on the subject in his sojourn among the Wicklow hills. HOW THE DEVIL'S GLEN GOT ITS NAME. Long ago the deep and rugged glen was merely a long low hill, with many trees scattered over its surface. In its neighbourhood was a convent, the ladies of which, espe- cially the novices, would enjoy the free air under the shades of these trees; and to the extreme annoyance of many young princes and chiefs, the lovely Aoife, daughter of a neighbouring magnate, entered the convent as a postulant £jr the veil. Young aspirants to the hand of the insensible HOW THE DEVILS GLEN GOT ITS NAME. 1^1 princess came from near and far, to endeavour to shake her resolution. The rules of the convent not being strict, it was not difficult to gain sight and hearing of the princess, but every suitor left the house with a civil and decided refusal. Among the crowd of rejected who occasionally saun- tered in company under the trees on the slope of the neighbouring hill, and administered such consolation to each other as they could afford, was an ardent young prince, whose voice joined in most musically with the united cho- rus of the praisers of the fair recluse. Being frequently annoyed by the mocking expression on the countenance of a dark-visaged man among the suitors, when the rest were loudest in their eulogies, he at last civilly asked him did not the princess deserve even warmer encomiums than what she had as yet received. "There is no woman in Erin," said he, " who would not be won from what she considers right conduct, by manly beauty or profuse riches." " Prin- cess Aoife would be proof to both," said the youth. " Be at the entrance of the convent to-morrow at noon, and I will convince you of your mistake. She shall be subjected to the influence of beauty to-morrow ; if that fails, gold shall be tried next day." As the prince was sitting sadly enough on a stone before the gate at the hour appointed, he heard the sound of horns executing an enchanting melody, and beheld a mounted chief approaching, from whose jewel- covered dress light flashed at every step of his steed. His face and form were those of a beautiful and well-formed youth, and his retinue wore the most costly clothing. As he passed the prince, he said to him in the tones of his yesterday's acquaintance, " I am going to try the constancy of your adored princess. If you choose, you may enter among my train." The prince endeavoured to shout " treachery " at the top of his voice, but an attendant touched him with a wand which left him powerless to move or speak. There he re- mained till the glittering youth came out again, rather hum- bled this time. " Beauty has failed for once," said he. " Gold must exert its power to-morrow." When the train had passed out of sight, the prince recovered his faculties. At a high point on the hill was an old stone cross, and I j 2 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. near it was the issue of a spring, but the neighbourhood was marshy, and the course of the little brook scarcely dis- cernible with naggers, and rushes, and shrubs encumbering the banks. As the prince mournfully sat and ruminated at the foot of the old cross, he at last fell asleep. During his slumber a beautiful form clothed in white flowing robes, and her long hair encircled by a wreath of shamrocks, ap- peared to him, u I am the Sighe," said she, " to whom the care of this stream is intrusted, and I wish that it should dance and sparkle in the sunshine, and that the sounds of its ripples and falls should come to the ears of man and woman. You can accomplish this for me, and punish the demon who seeks to turn Aoife from her duty by " What followed seemed to be felt by his inward thoughts without meeting his ears. Next day, as he sat on the stone, there came by the hand- some and richly-clad youth, with slaves and horses laden with gold and precious stones, and behind and beside the treasures the same richly-dressed train which had been in attendance the day before. This time the prince entered to witness the conference. The gold, and diamonds, and pearls had no more effect on the right-minded Aoife than the su- pernatural beauty of the wooer. He begged and prayed, but in vain, and he fell into such agitation, that his tail es- caped from under his sparkling tunic, and began to lash about him in fury. This was what the prince was waiting for. He flung his praying chaplet round it, and the demon gave such a spring as took him out over the court, and on to the green hill-side. He sped to the spring, but the shade of the stone cross was on it, and he dared not come near. Overcome by the power of the sacred talisman, he flung himself down, and rolled about in agony, tearing away the soil and stones, and flinging them far on each side. Thus he burned, and tore up, and flung out earth and rocks for the entire length of the present glen, when tho prince, seeing no further impediment to the free course of the stream, relieved him of the torturing beads. When re- leased, he turned on his tormentor to tear him to pieces, but a glance at the chaplet sent him through the air fleeter than the stone hurled from a sling. HOW THE DEVILS GLEN GOT ITS NAME. 1^3 The fairy had now the joy of seeing her stream soon in- creased to a goodly river, leaping from ledge to pool, and rejoicing in its course in the free air and sunshine. If the prince did not persuade Aoife to he his "bride, she induced him to "become a monk in the neighbouring monas- tery. When God really calls, it is sinful not to obey. > ♦♦♦ <: One of the most beautiful of the Ossianic legends relates the carry- ing away of the poet to Tir-na-n-Og out under the waters of the Atlantic, his return to the earth after a century had elapsed, and the loss of his strength and manly beauty on his touching the earth. All this shall be told in our succeeding volume. Meanwhile we pro- ceed to show the connection which our story-tellers established between our national saint, our national poet, and Cashel Cathedral, though St. Patrick never superintended the laying on of one row of its stones, and Oisin was in his grave about a century and a half before the holy man commenced his labours. The building stands on an isolated rock in a plain, and if our peculiar authorities are to be relied on, that large mass of stone was bitten out of a mountain westward by the devil in one of his fits of evil temper. Flying away with it between his teeth, he was obliged by some holy personage to drop it into its present posi- tion, to be a stance for the future sacred building. THE ROCK OF CASHEL. When St. Patrick was building the great church on the Bock of Cashel, the workmen used to be terribly annoyed, for whatever they put up by day was always found knocked down next morning. So one man watched and another man watched, but about one o'clock in the night every watcher fell asleep as sure as the hearth-money. At last St. Patrick himself sat up, and just as the clock struck one, what did he see but a terrible bull, with fire flashing from his nostrils, charging full drive up the hill, and pucking down every stone, stick, and bit of mortar that was put to- gether the day before. " Oh, ho ! " says the Saint, " I'll soon find one that will settle you, my brave bull/' Now, who was this but Usheen (Oisin) that St. Patrick was striv- ing to make a good Christian. Usheen was a very crooked disciple. When he was listening to pious reading or talk, his thoughts would be among the hunters and warriors of 154 THE FrRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. his you tli, but hejoved the good Saint for his charity to himself. The day after St. Patrick saw the bull, he up and told Usheen all about what was going on. " Put me on a rock or in a tree," says Usheen, " just by the way the bull ran, and we'll see what we can do." So in the evening he was settled comfortably in the bough of a tree on the hill- side, and when the bull was firing away up the steep like a thunderbolt, and was nearly under him, he dropped down on his back, took a horn in each hand, tore him asunder, and dashed one of the sides so hard against the face of .the wall, that it may be seen there this day, hardened into stone. There was no further stoppage of the work ; and in gratitude they cut out the effigy of Usheen riding on his pony, and it may be seen inside the old ruins this very day. I think the black fellow did not covet a second visit from Usheen. A person pretending to have been on the rock, says there is a rude mark, as of the side of an ox, on the outside of one of the walls, and a knight mounted on a diminutive quadruped in bas-relief within. THE TREE OF THE SEVEN THORNS ON THE CURRAGH. During the great plague and famine of 1439, there lived in a castle near this hill one of the powerful O'Kellys. He had several sons, of whom Ulick was his chief favourite. The father was a hard-hearted, proud, and selfish man, and the handsome Ulick was a compound of pride and licen- tiousness. He had brought many young women to ruin without scruple or remorse. Among these was the beauti- ful and graceful Oonah More, whose lot was not so very wretched, as she sincerely repented of her sin, and devoted her remaining life to the solace and relief of the poor crea- tures attacked by the pestilence. Her brothers, who ten- derly loved her, and were keenly alive to the disgrace in- flicted on the family honour, were on the point of seeking out the betrayer and putting him to death, when they heard that Providence had anticipated them. Ulick was seized THE TREE OF THE SEVEN THORNS. 15J with the pestilence, and in spite of his wretched father's remonstrances and prayers, removed in his hed to the side of a field fence by his brothers. A shed was fixed over him to keep out the rain and the sun, and a pitcher of water and a griddle cake, marked with a cross, were left by his side. Oonah heard of his pitiful state, and whether her Chris- tian compassion was influenced by former feelings or not, she came to his bedside, administered all the solace in her power, and supplied every little convenience that might alleviate his sufferings. Before her coming, his cries and complaints were heard fields away, but from her first visit no groans nor cries escaped him but such as were wrung from him by excessive torture. For days and days she at- tended on him, and succeeded, let us hope, in awakening his soul to the sense of his past guilt, and the necessity of true contrition. One day the poor girl was observed sitting motionless, with her face turned towards the bed. Scaldcrows were flying about the shed and attempting to enter it, but were continually driven away by a milk-white bird . When a couple of days had gone by, and she was still seen in the same position, and the carrion crows attempting to enter under the shed, and the white bird still driving them away, the neighbours drew near and called to her to come home. But her soul had gone to its home in heaven. They placed her body beside that of the repentant sinner, they set fire to shed and all, and from the ashes sprung the " Tree of the Seven Thorns/' which remained to modern times. On its branches a white bird was continually utter- ing melancholy notes, and never stirring from its perch at the approach of man or woman. LEGEND OF THE LOVER'S LEAP, IN THE DARGLE. Mary, a capricious damsel of this neighbourhood, showed some preference to one of her lovers named Edward, while she was really attached to another. The first displayed perhaps too much devotion to herself, and too much atten- tion to her slightest wishes. One day she expressed a de- 1$6 ' THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. sire for a certain kind of necklace, and Edward said he would at once start to Dublin for it. She told him not to fatigue himself, and not to think of returning that day. He was too anxious to gratify his lady with the sight of the orna- ment, and to display his own zeal, to allow himself such indulgence. Late the same evening he was hurriedly pa- cing along the bank high over the Dargle towards her house, when on a mossy hillock he discovered her listening, with every sign of loving interest, to the discourse of the secretly favoured rival. He took out the necklace, laid it on the grass before the frightened false one, walked rapidly to the edge of the overhanging rock, and plunged down, smashing bushes and shrubs in his descent. However the young girl afterwards employed herself, the dismal clang of the funeral bell of her destroyed lover never left her ears. She took an intense dislike to the man for whom she had deceived him, and by dint of ever dwell- ing on his tragic fate she became insane. She haunted the fatal spot, and at last, being under the strong delusion of seeing her lover beckoning to her from the opposite side of the ravine to come to him, she sprung from the fatal spot and perished. Her spirit is still seen on the eve of St. John traversing the fatal locality in the form of a milk-white fawn. THE DISCOVE11Y OF MITCHELSTOWN CAVES. Here is a legend which has already grown up round the Kingston caverns, discovered some thirty-five years since. A poor man, named Gorman, who laboured on the Kings- ton estate between Cahir and Mitchelstown, observed one day while quarrying, that, according as he loosed the stones they fell into an underground cavity. Scrambling down after them he became the discoverer of these caves, the finest yet discovered anywhere. So much for the ground- work; now for the embellishments. Gorman was a model of a lazy philosopher of the cottier class. One day, when he was pretending to be weeding his potato-plot, he heard the bleating of a sheep, but there was neither sheep nor THE DISCOVERY OF MITCHELSTOWN CAVES. t^J grass within the field. Examining diligently around he came to an opening, and getting down through it he found a poor sheep suffering with a broken leg. He lifted her up care- fully, brought her to his cabin, and was about making mut- ton of her ; but she looked so pitifully in his face that he could not find it in his heart to draw her blood. His wife wash- ed and tied up the limb, gave her provender, and the poor animal soon could use the leg. In time she had two lambs. The wool of the sheep and lambs resembled silk, and brought four times the price of ordinary wool ; and in a reasonably short time their lazy master became a comfortable farmer. The venerable great grandmother who had brought this luck into the family was grown old and useless, and it en- tered the head of the ungrateful Gorman to kill her for St. Martin's day. In vain his better dispositioned wife strove to dissuade him from the thankless act. Kill her he would next day. The morning came, and with it came the young herd to Gorman's bedside. " Get up, master/' said he, " every sheep on the pasture has gone away, and not a cru- been of them can I find anywhere." Up he jumped and put on his clothes, and to the fields with him without saying a prayer, or even blessing himself. After a long chase he came up with the sheep and drove them home ; but as they passed the hole from which he had taken the first of them, every one of them slipped into it, and he might as well have thought of catching'last years snow as gripping one of their fleeces. Down after them he went, but he found all empty, and when the neighbours joined him with dipped rushes and /angles [lighted cones of banded straw, the French faineul], and looked about, they found the beautiful caves with their alabaster pillars and ornaments. The sheep were lost for ever. LORD CLANCAHTY'S GHOST : A LEGEND OF BLARNEY CASTLE. A modern proprietor of Blarney Castle took the liberty of cutting down various old trees which had shed honour on the grounds for centuries. Having received the price of them IjS THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. in Cork, he returned home wet and weary, ate a hearty din- ner in the " King of Sweden's room," warmed his inside with a couple of tumblers of hot punch, and with the feel- ings of a man who had done a good action, betook himself to his arm-chair to enjoy a sleep. At midnight he awoke and rung for his body-servant, Thady, and immediately after, heard a heavy and stately step on the grand stair-case. Looking towards the door, he saw a gentleman enter in the costume of James IL's Court, holding a gold-headed cane in his hand. He ceremoniously saluted the proprietor, advanced to the window, and sor- rowfully contemplated the trunks of the tine old trees cum- bering the ground. After a while, the last Lord Clancarty (for it was his ghost) approached the frightened " sleeper awakened," looked down on him sadly and sternly, and pointed with his cane towards the dismal scene abroad. He then stamp- ed on the floor and vanished. At the same moment the castle shook, the bells began ringing, and every piece of furniture in the room fell down. The poor man was co- vered up with a mass of articles, and there he lay till morning. Thady then entering, cried out for help. Help came, and with some trouble the servants disencumbered the body of the poor man ; and, by a good deal to do, he was brought to consciousness, the ghost not intending his death. However, he never ate another dinner, nor slept another night in Blarney Castle. From among local narratives of adventurers who brave the rage of guardian cats, and hounds, and serpents, in pursuit of buried trea- sures, we select one adventure which we have from oral authority. THE TREASURE SEEKERS OF MAYNOOTH. It is said that under the ruins of Maynooth Castle may be found a cave from which a subterraneous passage ex- tends to the old church-yard of Borreheen, some three miles distant. Rich treasures are reported to lie within THE TREASURE SEEKERS OF MAYNOOTH. 1 59 this cave ; and some sixty years ago a dozen young men, one of whom was lately alive, and related the exploit to our informant, set to work to clear away the rubbish from the entrance of the cavern. They worked away for two nights, withdrawing every morning before the daylight should reveal their proceedings ; and after unheard-of toil, sinking a shaft, and then burrowing horizontally, they ef- fected an opening into the vault. Just as they were clear- ing away the last obstacle, they found a piece of an ancient candle of an unhealthy yellowish hue, and a few minutes later the breach was effected. A violent current of air then rushed forth and extinguished all their candles. It brought such a clayey sickly smell with it that they nearly fainted. They lighted the candles again, but they were again blown out on the instant. At this point of the proceeding, their sentinel, who kept watch on upper earth, announced the approach of light, and all agreed to separate till welcome darkness fell on the old castle again. One of the party, however, remained in the neighbourhood of their burrow, to do what he could in case of the mining operation being discovered. As ill-luck would have it, an unbribable fol- lower of the Duke's came in his rambles through the ruins, and stumbled on the fresh clay and the passage. He made no delay in apprizing his master of the fact, and he at once set a sufficient number of hands at work, to fill up the aperture again. This was a great blow to the adven- turers, who had been sure of getting at the hoard early in the ensuing night. A watch w T as kept for some time after- wards, to prevent any more tunnelling. The man who brought home the candle remained convinced in mind, that if they had lighted it they would have gained the spoil. He lighted it several times, and from the rate at which it burned he calculated that it w r ould have held out for a week. This is a sufficiently flat tale of treasure-seek- ing, but in the writer's judgment it is true in all its main points. l6o THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. THE ORIGIN OF LOCH ERNE. At some early period of Irish history, the region now co- vered by this beautiful sheet of water was inhabited by very wicked people. They were supplied with water from a fine well sunk deep in the earth, and the upper part was surrounded by a handsome circular frame of stonework. A benevolent fairy king or queen had favoured the earlier inhabitants by the grant of this spring- well, and the only conditions were that they shonld never leave it uncovered. The descendants of these good people proved a wicked race ; and after many years their destruction approached. As a woman who lived near the spring was filling her earthen vessel one evening, she heard her child, who had been left in the cradle, cry out pitifully. Forgetting the fairy's in- junction, she snatched up her pitcher and ran home ; and instant attention to the infant's wants, and afterwards some pressing household concerns, put all connected with the well out of her mind. Towards morning the inhabitants of the valley were awakened, one after the other, by the chilly plash of water rising round them as they lay on their beds. Many were unable to escape at the low doors, as the surface of the flood was already on a level with the lintels. All the children and aged people perished ; and the legend does not inform us whether the few vigorous sinners who suc- ceeded in effecting their escape reformed their lives or not. At the next rising of the sun his rays no longer fell on houses, and gardens, and fields, but flashed instead on the smooth surface of a long inland sea. THE DEATH OF THE RED EARL. The ruins of Athassel (Ath Caisiol, castle at the ford), stand where once flourished an extensive monastery. There was a subterranean passage which conducted from it to Castlepark on the other side of the Suir ; and when the monastery was invested in the old troublous times, and the inmates obliged to have recourse to this means of es- cape, the most advanced of the fugitives were some distance THE DEATH OF THE RED EARL. l6l on the east side of the river when the last were only quit- ting the building. At this point, the abbot, who was among the vanguard of the party, missed his richly-bound illumi- nated breviary. There was no occasion, however, for any one to return. The word w r as passed from front to rear, and in a few minutes, the book being searched out by the last man, was transferred from hand to hand till it reached its owner. In time the building and its dependencies became the property of De "Burgho, the Red Earl, who was about as tyrannical and as uncharitable a nobleman as ever trod on Irish soil. One day a poor creature accosted him at his gate, and begged for relief, as he was nearly perishing for hunger and thirst. He spoke harshly to the beggar, and bade him begone. " At any rate," said he, " allow the servants to give me a draught of milk." " No." " Well, water/' " Sot even water : the river is not far — go and drink as much as you like from it." " Ah, then, my lord, as great as you hold yourself now, it might happen that you may perish yet for want of a drink of cold water." The earl called his dogs, and set them on the poor man, but they could not be induced to worry him ; and he saw by the faces of those about him that they were far from approving his harshness : so he turned into the courtyard. Several years went by ; and on a very warm summer evening the Earl found himself all at once very ill, and afflicted with a violent thirst. He stretched himself on his bed after some efforts to bear up against the attack, and requested a draught of wine. All the vessels in the beau- fet were examined, and not a drop found. The servant thought that very strange, as he had seen abundance of it there just after dinner. " Go to the cellar/' said the earl, " and be quick about it." The poor fellow soon returned with great fright on his features, but his flagon empty " How's this I" cried the choking man ; " where' s the wine]" " My Lord, there's not a drop to be got from a single barrel, and they sound as empty as drums." The angry master swore at the unfortunate man, and ordered two of his fellows to go down, and not return without a drink for him. His thirst became so terrible, that before they could return, he dispatched others to the spirit casks. Still another de- 1 62 THE FIRESIDE STORIES OF IRELAND. lay. If he was able he would have followed them with a whip ; but his limbs were powerless, and he was suffering dreadful agony from excessive heat and thirst inside. " Go," said he, as well as he could, " and let me have even a drink of milk." Off went one or two more, but they were in no haste to return. At last one was hardy enough to put in his head and say, u Ah, my lord! the dairy vessels are empty, and not a drop can be got from the cows." He was now in the most extreme terror and rage, but after ut- tering the word " water" with the greatest pain and diffi- culty, he could not get out another syllable. Several ran off at the moment to the Suir, which lay a short distance to the east of the castle ; but when they came to the bank, the bed of the stream was as dry as the hearth where a fire has just been burning. Several had joined the party, and all w T ere in wild confusion. They threw up their hands, they ejaculated, they prayed, they were at their wits' end. On a sudden they heard a noise like the murmuring of a river on the west side of the castle. Off they ran, and found a newly-made channel ; but the sound of the rushing w T ater gradually growing faint, ceased altogether, and they only caught a glimpse of the last shal- low ripples making their escape down the slope when they reached the margin. Some rushed after the retreating treasure, but it was too speedy for them. Again they paused ; and now the rush and gurgle were heard in the old channel. Back they sped to find it dry, and to get anew the sound of the flow from the west side. Half of the crowd returned to the other course, and they all heard the rush of the river somewhere between them. They ran, each in the direction of the other body, and now they filled their vessels with ease from the welcome stream. They raised a shout, and ran to the castle ; as they entered they heard their joyful cries answered from the dairy, from the byres, and from the cellars. The dying man heard the joy- ful tumult rushing up the turret stairs, and as the earliest- arrived entered the chamber, they beheld the convulsed features of their master in the last agony. His looks were eager, and he made a feeble motion towards them with his arm ; but before the bed was reached, the arm had dropped motionless, and his sufferings in this life were over. [ t6 3 ] NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. Hairy Eouchy ; p. 3. The ch in the surname of this heroine must get a guttural sound as in all Irish words where it occurs, c and G never get the soft sound which belongs to them in such English words as rancid, gem, &c. In the tying of the three smalls, her waist, her wrists, and her legs above the ancles were secured. In several of the household narratives of Teuton and Celt there was a profusion of bloodshed, and very small regret for maiming or killing outright. Were our labours of a purely archaeological nature, we should not spare our readers a single horror of the many with which this class of fireside traditions abound. But we prefer cultivating for our little selection a popularity among folk whose joys are many, and years few, and to whom even the rough Juvenal declared that the greatest reverence should be paid. Therefore let our critics forgive us for using some of our materials with reserve, and relating deeds of cutting, thrusting, and gashing "with a difference." Some forms of this present tale are of a decidedly truculent charac- ter. There is a variety of it in Campbell's West Highland Tales under the title of Maol a Chliobain, and another in Dasent's Norse Tales, where the heroine is called Tatterhood. The professional story-tellers delighted in verbal repetitions at dif- ferent points of the story, nor did even the good Homer despise them. They afforded intervals of rest. Economy of space is essential to our design and therefore we cannot indulge in them. However, when these stories are read out for children it will be found advisable to give all these repetitions without stint. The MishS of the heroine will re- mind scholars of the Outis [no one] of Odysseus. A Legend of Clever Women ; p. 9. The original compiler of this tale probably intended to question the wisdom of folks who delight in working out simple ends by compli- cated and difficult processes, such as that of promoting the happiness of a country by getting five-eighths of its able-bodied men killed in battle, or by the ordinary hardships of warfare. It is found in German collections under the titles — Kluge Else [Clever Bessy], Klugen Leute [Clever People], and Der Frieder und das Catherlieschen. Campbell tells it in his " West Highland Tales " under the title The Three Wise Men, and in another form as Sgire mo Chealag, which may be inter- preted " The Parish of my Darling ; " it is also to be found in Gerald Griffin's Works. The Italian Tale, Bardiello, belongs to the same class. 1 64 NOTES. The Twelve Wild Geese, p. 14. The grouping of the white snow, the black raven, and the red blood, was put in requisition at an early period of story-telling. It is found in the old Cymric tale of Peredur, the original of "Sir Percival of the Round Table,' 1 also in the old Irish tragic tale of "The Sons of Uis- neach," from which MacPherson extracted Darthula. The German counterparts are Die Zwolf Briider [The Twelve Brothers], Bruderchen und Schwesterchen [The Little Brother and Little Sister], Die Skben Raben [The Seven Ravens], Sneewittchen [Snow-white], Marienhivd [The God-child of the Blessed Virgin]. In Dasent's Norse Tales the story is called " The Twelve Wild Ducks." In some of these stories a part only of our story is preserved. Among the Wends, [Wanderers] a people of Gallicia, it is called Die Pathenschaft der Heiligen Maria [synonymous with 3IarienJcind], The Wonderful Cake; p. 19. One good feature in the household tales of the Aryan peoples is the attention paid to the sayings and doings of the animal world. The characters of most of the individuals introduced are marked by grati- tude, and their exertions in behalf of their humane friends cannot be surpassed for earnestness and energy. In the earliest shape of the stories, these were all divinities in disguise. The essence of the legends escaped the story-tellers in time, but they retained the form. Many a young person must have beeen disposed by the hearing of these tales to treat the birds and beasts about them with due tenderness. These remarks are not so applicable to the present piece of extravagance as to other specimens of fireside stories. The False Bride ; p. 21. Such tales as we are engaged with, stood in their original form thoroughly distinct from each other : but in the lapse of generations a part of one would be joined to a portion of another to make a se- parate story. Perhaps in the whole collection of Aryan folk-lore there is not to be found thirty per cent of purely distinct plots. In the present small collection it is hoped that there will not be found many repetitions. The German varieties of the present tale are Die Ganzemagd [The Goose-Girl], Bruderchen und Schwesterchen, Die Drei Mannlein im Walde [The Three Dwarfs in the Wood], Die Weisse und die Srhwarze Brant [The Fair and the Dark Bride]. In Dasent's Collection it is called " Bushy Bride." The End of the World ;p. 25. Many light and apparently useless seeds are carried by their downy wings to foreign fields, while the acorn drops at the foot of the oak. Foxy Coxy is or was a familiar acquaintance with the peasantry from Cape Clear to Ulmea at the very end of the Gulf of Bothnia, yet how few individual peasants ever heard of the grave works of Buckle or Malthus S NOTES. 1 6 j The Three Gifts ; p. 25. The cudgelling scene in this story used to give as much pleasure to the younger portion of fireside audiences as the marriage of Pamela did to the Windsor folk, who heard her story from beginning to end at a smithy during successive nights. It is met with among the Hindoos (somewhat disguised) by the name of " The Jackal, the Brahmin, and his Seven Daughters;" in the Norse Tales as "The Boy that went to the North Wind ;" and in Italy as " The Woodman." Gerald Griffin has also told the tale, and Crofton Croker has embalm- ed it in his " Hungry Hill." The Unlucky Messenger ; p. 30. The following apologue in motley belongs to the family of fiction which claims " I'll be wiser next time " as a member. It illustrates the folly of expecting good management from an incapable person, however judicious may be the instructions given to him. He follows the rule laid down for him without taking circumstances into account. The other moral inculcated is the same as that in the fable of the man, his son, and their ass. Under a grotesque exterior many a one of the household tales conveyed an excellent lesson of practical wisdom. The Maid in the Country Under Ground ; p. 33. This is one of the many household tales in which grateful animals figure. Another good specimen is preserved in the " Legendary Fic- tions of the Irish Celts " under the title of " Jack and his Comrades." Shakspeare or his authority borrowed the idea of the Three Caskets from some early variety of the story. The sentient and speaking tree testifies to the nature-worship of the pagan times from which the greater portion, if not all, of these fictions have come down to us. The Continental versions are the German Fran Holle, Die Zwei Brihdcr, Die Drei Mannlein im Walde ; "The Girl at the Well," and "The Step- sisters" in the Norse collection. The ancient Irish believed that the abode of the blessed, Tir na n-oge, w T as within the earth ; the Greeks and Bomans had their subterranean elysium, and we find the idea pre- served in this old fireside tale and in the Three Crowns in the " Le- gendary Fictions of the Irish Celts." Jack the Cunning Thief ; p. 38. The title of this tale is the worst feature in it. Unlike the greater portion of modern rogue literature, it is not calculated to urge young folk to a breach of the decalogue. The curious will find other versions of Jack in " The Master Thief" of the Norse collection, and in the " Shifty Lad " of Campbell's " West Highland Tales." It is also to be found in one of Gerald Griffin's stories. The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener ; p. 47. The name Greece is spelled in our vernacular Greig, hence the pecu- liarity of the name in this story. The editor has heard the country so named on more than two or three occasions near the Wexford moun- 1 66 NOTES. tains. He hopes to escape blame for allowing his fireside chronicler to send his characters dry-shod from Spain to Greece via Morocco. He has heard few foreign countries mentioned at Bantry or Duffrey firesides, except France, Spain, Greece, Denmark. Norway, and Moroco. The phrase " Through them with the boy till he got intothe stable," p. 51, is idiomatic for " The boy went through them," &c. In foreign versions of the story, the elder brothers kill the youngest as they are returning, and dispute about the princess when they arrive. But the fox revives his favourite, and the traitors are punished. In Russian collections the story goes by the title, " The Fire Bird and the Grey Wolf," and a variety of it is called the Czarewitsch Ljubini's Adventures. It also appears as Mac Iain Direach [Son of John the Upright] in the West Highland Tales. The Giant and his Royal Servants ; p. 56. The pursuit in this tale forms part of the story of "The Three Crowns " in " The Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts." The whole tale is the same in substance as the late Wm. Carleton's "Little house under the Hill," in which the rich comic power of the writer was displayed. The present editor found it easier to adopt the seriou tone of the story as orally received, than to rival the vis comica o the author of "The Poor Scholar." It is told in Russia under the name of King Kojata, in Poland as Madey, in Hungary as " The Glass Hat- chet," and in Germany as Der Trommler [The Drummer]. In the Norse collection it is called "The Master Maid," and in the " West Highland Tales " The Battle of the Birds ;" the versions more or less differing from each other. The Lazy Beauty and her Aunts; p. 63. In Grimm's collection this story is called Die Drei Spinnerin, and a portion of it is found in Rumpelstiltschen. The Italian tales "The Seven Slices of Bacon," and " Goatsface," bear a strong resemblance to it. In the Norse collection it is entitled " The Three Aunts." Mrs. Ellen Fitzsimon furnished Duffy's Fireside Magazine with a charming variety of it under the title of " The White Hen." GlLLA NA GRUAGA DONNA j p. 67. A version of this tale is told in Germany under the title of Die drei Soldaten [The Three Soldiers]. Shan an Omadhan ; p. 71. J. F. Campbell has preserved a version of this story in his most valuable collection, "The West Highland Tales" under the title, Mae an Rusf/aich [Son of the Skinner]. It would appear that the Bodach was guilty of a solecism in the construction of his order. Staidhear do chosaibh na gcaorach would be " a path for the sheep's feet ; " Stai- dhear le cosaibh na gcaorach, a path with the sheep's feet. For neglect- ing the trifling difference between the two expressions, Shan made NOTES. 167 him suffer. The sheep's eye in the Bodach's meaning was a look ex- pressive of mutual intelligence, or of wishing for something. Shan understood it in the sense which served his own purpose. The Princess in the Cat-skins ; p. 81. This tale will be at once recognized as a variety of Cinderella in the French repertory. The German versions are called Allerleirauk, [Rough altogether] and Ashenputtel [Covered with Ashes]. In the Norse tales the heroine is " Kattie Wooden-cloak." Campbell calls her fairy friend A'Chaora Biorach Ghlas [The Sharp Grey Sheep]. The Italians have a variety under the title of "The She-Bear." The Well at the World's End ; p. 87. This story is a relative of The White Cat in the printed fairy tales, and of " The Water of Life" among the Germans. " The Sick Queen'' in the West Highland Tales has a slight connexion with it. The Poor Girl that became a Queen ; p. 91. This is rather a lesson of conduct under a grotesque disguise than a mere household tale. The German version is called Die Kluye Bauerntochier [The Clever Peasant Girl]. The Grateful Beasts ; p. 95. Stories of this class are abundant in the folk lore of every people. They give evidence of animal worship having been contemporary with their invention, and in their preservation they display the genial kindly feeling towards all created beings, prevailing among groups of country people met to relax after their daily labours. The Mongols tell a story similar to this and under the same title. The corresponding stories told in "Russia are the Czareicitsch [Czar's son] Ljubim, "The Fire Bird and the Grey Wolf;" in Hungary, "The Grateful Animals" and Pen go ; in Italy, Gagliuso, [Puss in boots] and The Jewel in the Cock's Head ; in Germany, Die Zivei Briider [The Two Brothers] ; in India, " The Woodman's Daughter ;" among the Wends, (N. E. Prussia), Der Krieg des Wolfe* und cles Fachses, [The War between the Wolf and the Fox]. The Gilla Rua ; p. 98. In Italian collections a near relation of this story is entitled Signor Scarpacifico. In the Norse Tales it figures as " Big Peter and Little Peter." In The West Highland Tales it is represented by " The Three Widows" and " The Poor and Rich Brother." In " Holland Tide," by Gerald Griffin, it is called " Owny and Owny na Peak." S. Lover contributed a variety of it to an early number of the "Dublin University Magazine," with the title "Big Fairly and Little Fairly." Cahlr na Goppal [Charley of the horses] was a noted horse-stealer, who used the lower story in the ruined castle of Leix near Portarlington, for stables. See the chap-book entitled, "The Irish Rogues and Rapparees." 1 68 NOTES. The Fellow in the Goatskin ; p. 103. The descents made by Hercules, and Theseus, and our hero into hell, are probably modifications of a myth that was current in Central Asia before the Pelasgi made their first settlement in Northern Greece. The correct style of the name is Giolla na Chroiceann Gobkair. The fireside chronicler overlooked the fact of the King of Dublin being a Dane himself, and as such, in no dread of an attack by his countrymen. In a Flemish tale, Fourteen Man, by whose side the Irish youth is a dwarf, also pays a visit to the infernal regions, and astonishes the na- tives not a little. In the Polish story of Madey, a fine young boy goes down to recover a parchment signed by his father. On his return he converts a dreadful miscreant by describing the peculiar punishment preparing for him. " Yellow Bellies," a favourite nickname for Wex- fordians, was given to them (by their own account) by Queen Eliza- beth, when with yellow silk scarfs round their bodies, they won a hurling match in her presence. The free-spoken woman, rapping out a mouthful of an oath, protested " These Yellow Bellies are the finest fellows I've ever seen." The Haughty Princess; p. 114. Modifications of this story are to be found in all popular collections. Shakespeare had an old English version in his mind when he began " The Taming of a Shrew." Probably Tobin looked for no higher authority than Shakespeare for the outline of his " Honeymoon." The conclusion of our tale resembles that of Gruelda, which Chaucer bor- rowed from Boccaccio, who himself had borrowed it from the Norman Trouveres. These gay minstrels did not invent the plot any more than their imitators. They found it current in the oral literature of their day. In the collection of the Brothers Grimm, the domestic reformer is called Konig Drosselbart [King Thrushbeard or Throat- beard] . Doctor Cure-all; p. 116. In the German collection this worthy is called Dohtor Allwissend [Doctor Know-every-thing] . Moliere founded his comedy of Le M(fdecin malgre lui [The Doctor in spite of himself] on an early ver- sion of the present tale long current in France, and seized on by the Trouveres before him. In the Gallic form, a rustic, being compelled to prescribe for a princess, effects her cure, and rather to his own sur- prise. All the sick of the city crowd next day to the palace to be healed, and the king orders the unwilling practitioner to go into the large hall where all are assembled, and put them out of pain. He enters, makes a speech to the infirm crowd, and promises an imme- diate cure, but then the greatest sufferer must allow himself to be roasted for the general good. His ashes taken on water are to be the specific. However no one would acknowledge himself to be ill on such terms. They make their escape by twos and threes, every one declaring to the king as he passes out that he has been miraculously NOTES. 169 restored to ^health, thanks to the royal physician. Of course the learned man quickly ascends to the top of his profession. The Wise Men of Gotham; p. 119. A locality in one of the eastern shires of England would seem to claim these sages among its notabilities, but every country, almost every district, has its Gotham, to whose inhabitants everything which combines silliness with gravity is attributed by their neighbours. Some years since a book made up of such exploits from Hindoo sources, and entitled " The Surprising Adventures of the Venerable Gooroo Simple and his Five Disciples," was published by Messrs. Triibner. They appear to have been selected from the Hitopadesa by Father Beschi, and translated into the Tamul language in the early part of last century for the use of pupils. Father Beschi was one of the most learned, benevolent, and successful of Indian mission- aries. The Tamul is spoken in the southern part of the Peninsula. Two of Grimm's stories, Der Gute Handel [The Profitable Bargain] and IIa7is im Gluck [Jack in Luck], resemble our tale in some re- spects. The early story-tellers, in order to interest their audiences for the time, and flatter their self-esteem, would tell similar stories, laying the scene in a neighbouring locality, whose inhabitants laboured under the dislike or contempt of the listeners. The Good Boy and the one that Envied Him; p. 122. This and the next two tales, and " The Music of Heaven," are among the apologues selected from the current household fictions of ancient times, and read for the inhabitants of religious houses when at their meals, or introduced by preachers into their sermons. The Trouveres converted " The choice of Three Evils" into a rather unedi- fying story, by their mode of telling it. " The Good Boy, &c.," is the subject of Schiller's Poem of The Road to the Foundry, so beauti- fully illustrated by Retsch. Johannes a Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, embodied most of the moral legends to which he had access in his Legenda Aurea [Golden Legends]. No clergyman of our days would venture on reciting to his congregation many of those tales once considered rather edifying, or as the name Legenda imports, " Things useful to be read." " The Music of Heaven ' has always appeared to us one of the finest, if not the very finest, of all the saintly legends. " The Birth and Baptism of St. Mogue" and " The Greedy Mason" are fair specimens of the use which our old storytellers made of incidents in the lives of the Irish saints. In our old pagan lore a wonderful cow cuts an imposing figure. The daily restoration of the slain and eaten animal was a household incident among the Norse gods of Asgard, the boar afford- ing a supper to Odin and the other divinities, and enjoying buxom life the next day. HOW DONN FlKINNE GOT HIS HOESE SHOD ; p. 131. This pagan story was too curious to be neglected by the tamperers I/O NOTES. with the lives of saints. So they feigned St. Eloi, the skilful worker in metals, to be much puffed up with pride of skill, and an angel thus curing him of his spiritual malady. Coming mounted to his forge, he fashioned a shoe, pulled a leg out of his steed, shod the hoof, put the limb back in its place, made the beast go through his paces as well as if no operation had been performed on him, and asked the saint could he do such a thing. Of course he could (in his own con- ceit), but when he tried the experiment on a steed of his own, and saw the life-blood gushing out, and the poor beast at the point of death, he humbly besought pardon for his presumption, and obtained it. The angel assumed his ethereal form, administered spiritual com- fort, and then vanished. Cliona of Munster; p. 133. For the legend of this powerful Fairy Queen, see the Dublin Uni- versity Magazine for November, 1870, the outlines of the story having been taken from a MS. obligingly lent to the compiler by W. M. Hennessy, Esq., M.R.I. A. The legend of the Red Druid is intended for publication in the forthcoming u Bardic Stories of Ireland." Pro- bably the threatening rhapsody dashed in Cliona's face by the hand- some young witch was as little intelligible to her as it will prove to our readers. " The Birds speaking to the border of the Foxes" must have inflicted no small degree of fright on her. The wildly attired maiden had surely heard in some way the equivalent of Omne ignotum pro terribile. Cliona and our other fairy queens detained Irish youths in their Sighe palaces, as Calypso and Circe did the comely hero of the Odyssey, ages before their day. The Fairy-Stricken Servant ; p. 139. There were probably stories current among the country folk of Italy and Greece in which the Lares and Penates, or their representa- tives, punished or rewarded domestics according as they showed them- selves negligent and slovenly, or the reverse. These household gods and the corresponding divinities of other countries have survived to our own times as fairies, brownies, Shakespearian lubber-fiends, &c. The fragments of food and the drinks spared to the fairies continue the libations made by the ancient pagans to the gods. If reapers and mowers neglect to spare scraps from their open-air repasts, the fairies leave a curse on the spot, which afterwards produces the fenr gorthach (hungry grass). Whoever inadvertently crosses the doomed strip of verdure, falls down and perishes in a short time from mere weakness, unless he is discovered and given some food and drink. Wm. Carleton treated this superstition in detail in one of his stories. The Fairy Rath of Clonnagowan ; p. 141. This and the next legend have been communicated to us by an unimaginative lady, a native of the locality. The Love Philtre, p. 145, is from the MSS. of my lamented friend, John Windele of Cork. NOTES. I 7 T The Enchanted Cat of Bantry ; p. 149. In the volume of the Transactions of the " Historical and Archaeo- logical Association of Ireland" for 1868, and at pages 187 et seq. this legend will be found at full length. Its appearance in print dates from the middle of the sixteenth century. William Baldwyn the writer, asserted that as he was spending a night in company with Master Ferrers, master of the revels to King Henry viii., Master Willot his astronomer, and Master Streamer his divine, this latter related the story of the Cat as having been told him while on a visit in the county of Vvashford at the house of a churle of Fitzheries (Fitzharris). We are indebted for the legend to Robert Malcomson, Esq., in whose possession the unique old volume rests. The present w r riter has ventured to give an English explanation of the language of the cat, who, as is only reasonable to suppose, miawed in the native tongue, and was from the beginning of the tragedy bent on annoying the strangers. Non-Irish scholars will please pronounce Is in the explanation as if spelled Iss. The Glounthaun is a hollow through which the road to New Ross runs. It is considered an eirie spot by the Bantry folk. The Mitchelstown Caves ; p. J 56. The sheep in this tale are distant relatives to the sea cattle on Dursey island, on the Munster coast. These suspecting evil designs on the part of their keeper, repaired to their native element, leaving stone effigies of themselves on the shore. The Death of the Red Earl; p. 160. Ath Caislol would be better explained by "The Ford of (or near) the Castle," but for the name being applied to the building, not to the river-pass. Any of our readers who wish for a closer acquaintance with fo- reign folk lore, may enjoy it, provided they understand German, by consulting the following authorities : — For German Stories reference may be made to the collection of the Brothers Grimm, of which an edition was published at Berlin in 1822, and another at Gottingen in 1843. There are many separate collections of German household tales, for mention of which we can- not afford space. For Hindoo Stories, Dr. Herman Brockhaus's selections from the Amadeva Bhatta of Cashmere, published at Leipzig, 1843, and " Old Deccan Days ; Hindoo Fairy Legends current in Southern India," collected by Miss M. Frere, Murray, 1868 ; also, " Vikram and the Vampire," edited by the great traveller R. Burton, 1869. In this collection the stories are told by a Vampire to King Vickraniaditya, who is carrying him from a burial ground to a magician, in order to convert him to a certain use. If the King happens to answer any 1/3 NOTES. question which the Vampire insidiously proposes to him at the end of each tale, the cunning fellow escapes from his wrapping cloth, and goes back to his place, and the King is obliged to return and impri- son him again, and another tale follows. Professor Theodor Benfey published at Leipzig in 1859 a translation into German of the Hin- doo Tales found in the Hitopadesa [Good Advice], and the Pancha- tantra [Five Books], under the title, Panchatantra, Funf Bucher Indischen Fdbeln, Mdrchen und Erzahlungen [Five Books of Indian Fables, Tales, and Stories]. There is a French paraphase of these stories by M. Dubois ; Paris, 1826. For Hungarian Stories see Saal's collection, Vienna, 1820 ; Magyar Sagas and Stories by Johann Grafen Maylath ; Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1837. For Italian Stories, — The Cento Novelle Antiche, a mixture of Saracen, Hispano-Moorish, and Eastern tales, and of those told by the French Trouveres ; Straparola's Le Tredici Piacevolissime Notte [The Thirteen Very Pleasant Nights], 74 in number, and first pub- lished at Venice in 1550 ; and the Pentamerone of Count J. B. Basile, of Torone, a Neapolitan poet, who flourished in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Basile's tales are related by a Moorish slave. In Del Dialetto Napoletano, of Galiane, 1789, and in D'Affliito Memo- He degli Scrittorl del Regno di Napoli of Eustach, i794> will be found information concerning the last named writer and his works. For Mongol Tales we give reference to a German version of Benjamin Bergmann's '* Nomad "Wanderings among the Kalmucs in 1802-1803," printed at Riga in 1804 ; as well as Lehmann's Magazin der Litteratur des Auslandes [Magazine of Foreign Literature], 1838. The frame-work is the same as that of Burton's " Vickram and the Vampire." A young Khan, for expiation of his sins, has to fetch the vampire Ssidl Kiir from the burial ground, and every time he gives a wrong answer to the question proposed to him at the end of each tale, the vampire escapes, and the Khan's labour begins anew. Of Polish Household Tales, K. W. Moncicki made a collection, and F. W. Lewestan published a German Version at Berlin in 1839. The Russian Fireside Tales were translated into German, and published at Leipzig with a preface by Jacobus Grimm in 1831. Johannes R. Vogel published another German version of them in Vienna, in 1841. The best collection in the original Russ is the Nowosselje. Moscow abounds in chap-books of the land. The best Scandinavian Legends of the Fireside are Arndt's Selec- tion, Berlin, 1842, and a collection in a poetical form made by Afzelius, entitled Svenska Folk Visor, [Swedish Folk Stories], and issued at Stockholm in 18 14, 18 16. A German edition of this wRh a preface by Ludwig Tieck was published in 1842 at Leipzig. The latest collection by Asbjornsen and Moe has been given to the Eng- lish reading public by G. W. Dasent, under the title of " Norse Tales." The Wendish Tales were published under the title Vollcslieder der Vitnden [Folk-lore of the Wends], by Von Leopold Haupt and Joh. Ernst Schmaler, at Grim ma, 1843. [ '73 ] GLOSSAEY. The correctly spelled Irish words are printed in Italics. In these the hard sounds are to be given to c and g, and the final vowels to be heard. Aoife : Eve, a woman's name. Aoibhil : all lovely. Banacht Lath : beanachd teat, a blessing with you. Bawjst (before explained) has its root in bo, cow, being the enclosure in which cattle were gathered in the old disturbed times. Bodach (same root), originally meaning a grazier, has come to desig- nate a churl, a purse-proud, ignorant person. Bodher (buidre deafness, bodhraim I deafen): annoyance. "Moi- dher " is another form of the word. Boorawn : a domestic utensil for carrying meal or corn — a tambourine enlarged, has the same root owing to its drum-like sound when struck. Brishe (prise, a breach ; fr. briser, to break) : smash, debris. Bresna : brosna, a bundle of sticks or brushwood intended for fuel. Cashel (cios tribute, all rock) : rock of tribute. Cashel was the ancient capital of Munster. Cannat : probably from Ceannaidhe, a dealer, peddler, such folk being considered the reverse of simple or upright. The " canny sugach " (jolly packman) was a welcome, though not much trusted, visitor at farm-houses. Cliona : beautiful. Cloncurry (cluan a pasture, currach a race-course or marsh) : the marshy meadow, or meadow in the marsh. Cooramuch {coirm or cuirm banquet, cuirmeach festive) : comfortably social. Coshering (cosltair feast, bed) : living at a neighbour's expense. Cuggering (cumhgairin, I convoke ; comligair rejoicing, convoking, convenience) : holding confidential conversation with some one. Dargle (dair oak, geal beautiful, dorcha dark). The reader may assume the meaning to be "fair oaks," or " fair-shade, " the latter equivalent to the " Beltenebros," of Don Quixote's library. Gaum (gam gazing about) : a gaping, dawdling fellow. GOMULA (gamaille) : a gowk, a simpleton. Good People : didne matha, the fairies, said by way of propitiation, Waverley students will recollect " the kind gallows of Crieff." Googeen ( ge goose, ceann head, gugaille a talkative fellow) : a silly person, a goose-cap. GoRSOOiST : garsun, the French garcon, a boy. Haggard (stackyard). Besides the Irish namas before quoted, there is also adyort {adag a bundle of sheaves, cuirth a yard). 1 74 GLOSSARY. Ktppeen : ce'qrin, a dibble or planting stick. Lewd : ladar, awkward, clownish, ashamed. Moddheeeen Rua (madha or madkraclli a dog, ritadh red) : a fox. Omadhawn, before explained, boasts the cognate word "moodan" in Hindustani. Oxter, Oscal (Uchd the bosom, staidheir (pr. stair), a step, a path) : the armpit. The pass from the bosom. Pishrogues (puhreog or pitheog t witchcraft) : magic spells. Praskeen : praiscin, an apron, RaMPIKE {reimshe staff) : a young tree stripped of its boughs and bark. Sarra (sar contempt, disdain) : misfortune. Country folk sometimes combine the idea with that of an evil spirit. Sraumoges : sram, matter oozing from the eye-lids. Sturk (sturrach rugged, stuirt pride) : an obstinate, disobliging person. Sthronshuch (sthru, prodigality ; Strogh a rent) : a lazy good-for- nothing fellow. Shuchrawn (sugradh mirth, diversion) : state of dissipation and hope- lessness (in modern slang •• being on the batter "). Thuckeen {thoigheach loving, thocha love, thogliadh, chosen) : a pet expression for a young girl. %*% To Irish or corrupt words in the book not here explained, the writer begs to refer to the glossaries of the three books mentioned in the succeeding pages. A well-digested, most masterly, and useful work on the names of Irish localities is Mr. Joyce's " Origin and History of Irish Names of Places." Colonel James A. Robertson has done good duty by Scotland in the same line. LEGENDABY FICTIONS OF THE IEISH CELTS. By PATEICK KENNEDY. Post 8vo., Cloth, Illustrations, 7s. 6d. MACMILLAN & CO. > ■♦ + « < ■ The Athenwum. " As an author combining archaeological learning with a sly grave humour, we commend Mr. Kennedy to the public, reminding the latter that to the scholar and historian, the real value of the book lies in its archaeology. In the latter department the author has rendered great services. . . . His book Will keep his name young as an admirable Irish story teller." The Spectator. •'This is a very admirable selection of Irish Fairy Stories and Legends, fresh and full of the peculiar vivacity, and humour, and ideal beauty, of the true Celtic legend. . . . Mr. Kennedy has produced a beautiful and popular book." The Dublin University Magazine. "No writer ever came to his work armed with a shrewder and more philoso- phic discrimination, with imagination and humour so in harmony with his Subject, or with a more racy and admirable gift of narration. . . . He ap- proaches the most grotesque and extravagant of Iris Celtic stories with the veneration due to immense antiquity, and rude but undoubted national inspira- tion; l)i him we admire not only an admirable story teller, but a man of quiet and pleasant humour, and a sound and comprehensive scholar." The Dublin Evening Mail. " It would be unfair to Mr. Kennedy, to treat his work as merely an entertain- ing collection of home tales. That it is, and much more. It is a vivid picture of the ancient Celts in their interesting superstitions, customs, kindly sympathies, and simple piety ; and much is due to the reverent hand of the painter, who lias lent to it no false colour, but presented the stories in their truthful simplicity. This will make his work a classic — one to stand beside the best books of folk- lore-. We consider that he has laid Irishmen of every creed and class under an obligation, by a work which will offend none, and please and instruct all. The purest taste has presided over the selection andnarration of the stories." The Limerick Chronicle. " Since the publication of Crofton Croker's ' Legends ' and Keightley's ' Fairy Mythology,' no such attractive work of folk-lore and household fiction has ap- peared as the present. When we compare it with the above works, however, we must decidedly give it the preference for the comprehensive variety and local interest of its multifarious fairy tales, ghost stories, witchcraft, sorcery, fetches, and diablerie of every kind. It will bring back to many of us the most pleasing reminiscences of our childhood. At the same time the author's repertory has been so well filled from all our archaeological stores, that the more learned and fastidious reader will find something to attract his attention, and add to his stock of knowledge. The book is in short quite a gem in its way." THE BANKS OE THE BOEO. BY THE SAME WRITER. Foolscap Octavo j 2s. Qd. free by post. DUBLIN: M'GLASHAN & GILL, AND P. KENNEDY. LONDON : BURNS, OATES, AND CO. EDINBURGH: JOHN MENZIES AND CO. > ♦ ♦ ♦ C The Athenaeum. " Under the cover of the tale, the author pourtrays scenes and incidents in Irish life in a simple unpretending manner. ... On the thread of the story- are hung illustrations of Irish life, legends, morals, and poetry, which are the real staple of the book." The Spectator. " For the somewhat numerous class who like to look at nations through a mi- croscope, and those who arc seeking to understand better many curious phase3 of Irish thought and feeling, this volume will have considerable interest." The Dublin Evening Mail. " Mr. Kennedy's picturesque sketches are as green, sunny, and vivid as a bit of landscape from a true artist's pencil. The scenes are full of character and inno- cent humour. The feature most marked in his sketches is the life which ani- mates every page. We ask no truer painter of the Irish character, in its simpler and tenderer aspects, than the author." The Nation. "Here is no exaggeration, no straining after effect, no outrageous caricatures of the people. Yet a great amount of mirth and oddity is to be found in the scenes, and the warmth and intensity of Irish feelings is well displayed. We are taken to the wake, the dancing school, the hurling match, and the harvest-home, where the wit and humour of the country-folk run on right merrily. The jokes and the songs are often exceedingly comic." The Irish Times. " As a delineator of the people and their manners, the writer is perhaps unri- valled. This present work is characterized by a quaint, sly humour, pungency, and raciness. It is as remarkable for originality, for truthfulness, and simple philosophy, as for its wealth of information concerning curious customs, local traditions, and social gatherings, which the writer attaches to an interesting nar- rative of quiet country life." The Freeman! s Journal. " This little work rescues from oblivion the household stories, manners, and amusements of half a century since. The style is pure and as simple as the habits the writer describes. Not the least interesting in the collection are the songs and ballads of his youthful days." The Irishman. " In the Banks of the Boko we become a guest at the fireside of the comfort- able farmer, and a confidant of the gossip that flows in fluent streams round his bright heai-th. Episodes— racy, rollicking, and genial, and ballads of the real na- tional type, are strung together on a string of fiction, as country children string the wild flowers of the field." The Kilkenny Moderator. " We have here a tale racy of the Irish soil. All the scenes are clearly drawn from nature, and the characters are the living counterparts of personages photo- graphed in the memory of the writer. They are here produced with life-like effect." EVENINGS IN THE DUFFKEY; BY THE SAME WRITER. Foolscap octavo ; 2s. 6d. free by post. DUBLIN: M'GLASHAN & GILL, AND P. KENNEDY. LONDON: BURNS, OATES, & CO. EDINBURGH: JOHN MENZIES & CO. > ♦ <■ »<— The Athenceum. Attentive readers of these Evenings will be delighted with the faithful pic- tures of rural life, and with the light which is thrown upon the customs <>f country homes in Ireland. . . . They will see that a graceful wit pervades the every-day conversation of the country-folk ; that they have deep religious feeling, and even possess some knowledge of history. . . . The manners which Mr. Kennedy depicts have not become obsolete. Long may they prevail ! for the.\ are those of a simple, virtuous people. . . . Mr. Kennedy's present work gives the reader a vivid picture of living Irishmen and women." The Month. "The course of the narrative introduces us into many an Irish home, and gives us the details of their every day life. Love, simplicity, and a taste for the vellous are all blended together just as they are in the lives of the peasai with a free interchange of wit and practical jokes. But in nothing is the v. more happy than in the thoroughly Catholic tone which he has unconsciously imparted to all the acts and feelings of his characters. In pourtraying the su- perstitions of country life, he shows how much of sprightly romance and poetrj there is about them." The Irish Times. "Mr. Kennedy has depicted the social and domestic existence of his dramatis persona? with such realistic minuteness, that those who desire to know what Ire- land, at least the county of Wexford, was some quarter of a century before bha great famine, will find much to their purpose in this work. The legends an tremely interesting and well-told. The Usurer's Ghost and the Young Prophet are amongst the most powerful we have read. In a different vein the tragi-comedy of the Three Geese and the Earl of Stairs' Son are equally excellent." The Scotsman. " None of Mr. Kennedy's stories are of the rollicking order, but all are full of good humour, fun, or pathos. Several ballads also occur in the volume, and some of them are capital. The volume is one which probably conveys as good an idea as can be got of the life of the industrious farmers and agricultural popula- tion of Ireland." The Nation, " The author's tales and pictures recal and preserve the life and love of a pea- santry at once loveable and loving, kindly, quaint, and contented. The indul- gent landlord surrounded by his tenantry, patronising the sports of the pea- santry, and reaping the reward of his kindliness and generosity in the undivided affection of the people, is the centre of a charming picture." The Dublin Evening Mail. ''The remarkable simplicity of the tales, their quaintness and purity, will sus- tain the character Mr. Kennedy has won for himself in his former works. With- out exaggeration or colouring he represents the simple life of his countrymen when quietly allowed to pursue their ordinary occupations." 202 Main Library M PERIOD 1 )ME USE 2 3 5 6 L BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS .S AND RECHARGES MAY BE MADE 4 DAYS PRIOR TO DUE DATE 310DS ARE 1-MONTH, 3-MONTHS. AND 1-YEAR .S: CALL (415) 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW r-^h W29 1990 jum -iscr t>Oh f AUG 1 ( mz CIRCULATION •W n 1995 39& pine. FEB 01,555 MHOStg fcflfc JUL 15*91 AUG OS 1997 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKEl \ NO. DD6, 60m, 1 /83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 VA 02 J UC. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 3 2 MM. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY