BY THE SAME WRITER

THE SECRET ROSE

POEMS
*

THE.

WIND AMONG THE REEDS THE SHADOWY WATERS

The

Celtic Twilight

Printed 1893
Reprinted with additions 1902

Frontispiece.

The Celtic Twilight By W. B. Yeats

A.
St.

H.

BULLEN,
Lane,

18

Cecil

Court

Martin's

London,

W.C.

MCMII

Time drops in decay

Like a candle burnt out, A?id the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day But, kindly old rout

Of the fire-born
You pass
?iot

moods,

aiuay.

THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE

The host
is

riding from Knock?iarea,

And

over the grave of Clooth-na-bare

Caolte tossing his burning hair,

Aftd Niamh

calling,

'

Away, come away;

its

Empty your
Our
Our

heart of

mortal dream.

The winds awaken,

the leaves whirl rou?id,

cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,

breasts are heaving,

our

eyes are a-gleam,

Our arms

are waving, our lips are apart;

And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his We come between him and the hope of his
The host
is

hand,
heart.''

rushing Hwixt night and day

is there

And

where

hope or deed as fair?

Caolte tossing his burning hair,

And Niamh

calling, ''Away,

come away?

vn

1 1

Contents
THIS book
i

a teller of tales
belief

4
8

and unbelief

mortal help
a visionary

12 -

15

village ghosts

23 35

'dust hath closed Helen's eye'

a knight of the sheep

50 56
6

an enduring heart
the sorcerers
the devil
happy and unhappy theologians

69
71 -

the last gleeman

regina, regina pigmeorum, veni

79
9

'and

fair, fierce

women'

97 ioi
-

enchanted woods
miraculous creatures
aristotle of the books

io9
112

the swine of the gods

A VOICE

ii3
115

KIDNAPPERS

117

THE UNTIRING ONES

EARTH, FIRE AND WATER

130
1

35

THE OLD TOWN

ix

37

Contents

the man and his boots

A COWARD

141

I43
1

THE THREE o'BYRNES AND THE EVIL FAERIES

DRUMCLIFF AND ROSSES

45

148

THE THICK SKULL OF THE FORTUNATE

THE RELIGION OF A SAILOR
CONCERNING

160
163

THE

NEARNESS

TOGETHER

OF
1

HEAVEN, EARTH, AND PURGATORY

65

THE EATERS OF PRECIOUS STONES

-

167
1

OUR LADY OF THE HILLS

THE GOLDEN AGE
A REMONSTRANCE WITH SCOTSMEN FOR HAVING

69
73

SOURED THE DISPOSITION OF THEIR GHOSTS AND FAERIES

76

WAR
THE QUEEN AND THE FOOL THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE OF FAERY DREAMS THAT HAVE NO MORAL
EY

183
1

86
95

208
23

THE ROADSIDE

INTO THE TWILIGHT

235

THIS BOOKi

This Book.

have

desired,

like

every

artist,

to

create a
pleasant,

little

world out of the beautiful,

significant

and

things
to

of

this
in

marred and clumsy world, and

show

a vision something of the face of Ireland

to

any of
I

my own
bid

people
I

who would
have

look

where
written

them.

therefore

down
I

accurately

and

candidly

much
that

that

have heard and seen, and,

of commentary,

except by
I

way

nothing
I

have merely imagined.

have,

however, been at no pains to separate

my

own

beliefs

from those of the peasantry,

let

but have rather dhouls and

or

my men
their

and women,

faeries,

go

way unoffended

defended by any argument of mine.

things a
life,

The
fully

man
and

has heard and seen are

if

threads of

he

pull

them

care-

from the confused

will

distaff of

memory,

any who

can weave them into what-

ever garments of belief please them best.

I

too have

woven my garment

like another,

The
Twilight,

but

shall try to

keep warm

in

it,

and

shall

be well content

if it

do not unbecome me.

Hope and Memory have one daughter

and her name
is

Art,

and she has

built

her

dwelling far from the desperate

field

where

men hang
boughs
to

out their garments upon forked

battle.

be banners of

O beloved
with
1893.

daughter of

Hope and Memory, be

me

for a

little.

11

have added a few more chapters

in

the

manner of the
others, but

old ones,

and would have

one grows

added
older,

one

loses, as

something of the lightness of one's

;

dreams

one begins

to take life

up

in

both
than

hands, and to care more for the

the flower, and that
is

fruit

no great

loss perhaps.
I

In these

new

chapters, as in the old ones,

have invented nothing but

my comments
sentences that

and one or two

deceitful

may keep some poor story-teller's commerce

with the devil and his angels, or the
like,

from being known among his neighbours.

I

This Book.

shall publish in a little while a big

book

about the commonwealth of faery, and shall

try to

make
to

it

systematical and

learned

enough
dreams.

buy pardon

for this handful of

1902.

W.

B.

Yeats.

The
Celtic Twilight.

A TELLER OF TALES
Many of told me by
the tales in this book were

one Paddy Flynn, a

little

bright-eyed old man,

who

lived in a leaky

and one-roomed cabin

Ballisodare,
'

in

the village of
to say,

which
'

is,

he was wont

'place
I

the most gentle

in

whereby he meant faery

however, but second to

the whole of County Sligo.'

it,

Others hold

Drumcliff and Drumahair.

The

first

time
for

saw him he was cooking mushrooms

himself; the next time he was asleep under

a hedge, smiling

in

his

sleep.
I

He

was
I

indeed always cheerful, though

thought

could see in his eyes (swift as the eyes of

a rabbit,

when they peered

a
portion

out of their

wrinkled holes) a melancholy which was

well-nigh

of

their

joy

the

visionary melancholy of purely instinctive

natures and of

all

animals.

And
age,

yet there was

much

in his life to

depress him, for in the triple solitude of

eccentricity,

and deafness, he went

4

about

much

pestered by children.

It

was

Teller

for this

very reason perhaps that he ever

hopefulness.

recommended mirth and

was
fond,
for

He
how
'

instance,

of

telling

Collumcille cheered up his mother.

are you to-day, mother
I

How
be

?
'

said
'

the saint.

Worse,' replied the mother.

the

May you
saint.

worse to-morrow,' said

next

The
and
place,

day

Collumcille

came

again,

exactly the

same conversation took

'

but the third day the mother said,

Better,

thank God.'

And

the saint replied,

'May

you be better to-morrow.'

too of telling
last

He

was fond

how the Judge smiles at the day alike when he rewards the good
lost to

and condemns the

unceasing flames.
to
I

He

had many strange sights

keep him
asked him

cheerful or to

make him

sad.

had he ever seen the

reply,
'

faeries,

and got the

?
'

Am
if

not annoyed with them

asked too
I

he had ever seen the banshee.

it,'

have seen

he

said,

'down there by
its

the water, batting the river with

I

hands.'

have copied

this
5

account of Paddy

The
Celtic

Flynn, with a few verbal alterations, from

Twilight,

a note-book which
tales
I

almost

filled

with his

and sayings, shortly

after seeing him.

look

now
up.

at the

note-book regretfully,
will

for the

blank pages at the end

never
;

be

filled

Paddy Flynn

is

dead

friend of

mine gave him a large

bottle of
at

whiskey, and though a sober

times,

man

most

the sight of so

much

liquor filled

him with a great enthusiasm, and he

upon
body,
it

lived

for

some days and then

died.

His

worn out with old age and hard

times, could not bear the drink as in his

young
tales,

days.

He

was a great

teller of

and unlike our common romancers,

to

knew how
stories.

empty heaven,

hell,

and pur-

gatory, faeryland and earth, to people his

He

did not live in a shrunken

world, but

knew

of no less ample circum-

stance than did

Homer

himself.

Perhaps

the Gaelic people shall by his like bring

back again the ancient simplicity and amplitude of imagination.

What

is

literature

but the expression of

moods by the
6

vehicle

of symbol and incident

And

are there

Teller

not

moods which need heaven,

and faeryland
than this dilapidated earth

hell,

purga-

tory,
less

for their expression,

?

no

Nay, are
no exdare to

there not

moods which

shall find

pression unless there be

men who

mix heaven,

hell,

purgatory, and faeryland

together, or even to set the heads of beasts

to the bodies of

men, or to thrust the souls

?

of

men

into the heart of rocks

Let us

go
no

forth,

the

tellers

of tales, and seize

for,

whatever prey the heart long

fear.

and have
is

Everything

exists,
is

everything
little

true,

and the earth

feet.

only a

dust

under our

The
Celtic

BELIEF AND UNBELIEF

There
are

Twilight.

some doubters even

in

the
last

western villages.

One woman

told

me

Christmas that she did not believe either

in hell

or in ghosts.

Hell she thought

was merely an invention got up by the

priest to

keep people good

and ghosts
held,
to

would not be permitted, she

1

go
free

trapsin about the earth

;

'

at their

own
'

will

'but there are faeries,' she added,

and

little

leprechauns,
I

and water-horses, and

fallen angels.'

have met also a man with

mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs.

No

matter what one doubts one

faeries, for,

never doubts the

with the
to

as the

man
said

mohawk

Indian on his
to

arm

me,

'they stand

reason.'

Even
this

the

official

mind does

not

escape

faith.

little girl

who was

at service in the

village of Grange, close

under the seaward

slopes of

Ben Bulben, suddenly disappeared

one night about three years ago.

,

There
.

Belief and Unbelief.

was

at

once great excitement

it

in the neigh-

bourhood, because

was rumoured

that

the faeries had taken her.

said to

villager

was

have long struggled

at last in his

to hold her

from them, but

they prevailed, and

he found nothing
stick.

hands but a broom-

The
at

local constable

was applied

to,

and he
search,

once instituted a house-to-house

at the
all

and

same time advised the

the bucalauns (ragweed)

people to burn

on the

field

she vanished from, because

faeries.

bucalauns are sacred to the

They
In

spent the whole night burning them, the

constable

repeating spells the while.

little

the morning the

girl

was found, the

field.

story goes, wandering in the

said the faeries
distance, riding

She

had taken her away a great

on a faery horse.
and the

At

last

she saw a big

tried

river,

man who had

off

to

keep her from being carried

was

drifting

down

it

such
9

are the topsy-

turvydoms of faery glamour

in a cockle-

The
Celtic

shell.

On
j

the
1

way her companions had

to

Twilight,

r i mentioned the names of several people

who were about

village.

die

shortly

in

the

Perhaps the constable was

better doubtless to believe

right.

It is

much unreason
for denial's for
alike,

and a

little

truth than to

deny

sake truth and unreason

when

we do
to

this

we have

not even a rush candle

to guide our steps, not

even a poor sowlth

dance before us on the marsh, and must

needs fumble our way into the great emptiness where dwell the mis-shapen dhouls.

And
if

after

all,

can

we come

to so great evil

we keep

little fire

on our hearths and

in

our souls, and welcome with open hand

itself,

whatever of excellent come to warm

whether
say too
selves,
'

it

be

man

or phantom, and do not

to the dhouls
'

fiercely,

even

themis

said Be ye gone ? When and done, how do we not know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth ? for it has been warmed
all

IO

on our hearths and

in

our souls, and

is

Belief

and

ready for the wild bees of truth to hive

in
it,

and make
the
!

their sweet honey.

Come
wild

into

world

again,

wild

bees,

bees

ii

The
Celtic

MORTAL HELP
One
hears in
the old

Twilight.

poems of men
in

taken away to help the gods

battle,

and Cuchullan won the goddess Fand

for

a while, by helping her married sister and her

sister's

husband

to

overthrow another
I

nation of the

Land

of Promise.

have

been

told,

too,

that the people

of faery

cannot even play at hurley unless they

have on either side some mortal, whose

body,
place,

or
as

whatever has been put

the
story-teller

in

its
is

would

say,

asleep at home.

Without mortal help they

strike the

are

shadowy and cannot even

balls.

One day
in
old,

was walking over some

friend

marshy land

Galway with a
hard-featured
friend

when
this

we found an
a ditch.

man

digging

My

had heard that

man had
kind,

seen a wonderful sight of some

at last

and

we

got the story out of

him.

When

he was a boy he was workabout thirty

12

ing one day with

men and

women and

boys.
far

They were beyond

from
all

Mortal

Tuam

and not

Knock-na-gur.

Presently they saw,

at a distance

thirty of them,

and

of about
fifty

half-a-mile,

some
dark

hundred and

of the people of faery.

said, in

There were two of them, he

clothes like people of our

own

time,

who

stood about a hundred

another,
all

yards

from one

but
'

the

others
'

wore clothes of

colours,

bracket

or chequered, and

some with red

waistcoats.

He
but
'

could not see what they were doing,

all

might have been playing hurley,

if it

for

they looked as

was that'

Sometimes

they would vanish, and

then he would

almost swear they came back out of the

bodies of the

two men

in

dark clothes.
size of living

These two men were of the

them
old

men, but the others were small.

for

He

saw

about half-an-hour, and then the

those

man he and
for

about him were

said,
'

working

took up a whip and

Get
!

on, get on, or

we

will

have no work done

*3

The
Twilight,

asked

if

he saw the

faeries too,

'

Oh,

yes,

but he did not want work he was

paying wages for to be neglected.'

He
1902.

made everybody work

saw what happened

so hard that

nobody

to the faeries.

*4

A VISIONARY
A
young man came
to see

Visionary.

me

at

my

lodgings the other night, and began to talk

of the

making of the earth and the heavens

else.
I

and much
his life

questioned him about

and

his doings.

He

had written

many poems and painted many mystical designs since we met last, but latterly had
neither written nor painted, for his whole

heart

was

set

upon making

his

mind

strong,
life

vigorous,

and calm, and the emotional

of the artist was bad for him, he feared.

He He

recited

his

poems
in his

readily,

however.

had them

all

memory.
written

Some
down.

indeed

had

never

been

They, with
blowing
1

their wild
1

music as of winds

in the reeds,

seemed

to

me

the

wrote this sentence long ago.

This sadness

now seems to me a part of all peoples who preserve the moods of the ancient peoples of the world. I am not
so pre-occupied with the mystery of
to be, but leave this sentence
it

Race

as I used
like
it

and other sentences

unchanged.
be,

We

once believed them, and have,

may

not grown wiser.

15

(
The
Celtic
'
. .

very inmost voice of Celtic sadness, and of "

Celtic longing for infinite things the world

Twilight.

has never seen.

Suddenly

it

seemed

to

me
I

that he
'

was peering about him a

little
?
!

eagerly.
said.
'

Do

you see anything,

shining,

winged woman, covis

ered by her long hair,

standing near the

doorway,' he answered, or some such words.

1

Is

it

the influence of
thinks

some

living person

who
said

of
in

us,

and whose thoughts

symbolic form
?
'

appear to us
;

that

for

am

well instructed in the

ways

of the

visionaries
'

and

in

the fashion of
if it

their speech.

No,' he replied; 'for

is

were the thoughts of a person who

I

alive

should

feel

the living

influence in

my
It is

living body,

and

my
fail.

heart would beat and

It is

my breath
lived.'
I

would

spirit.

some one who

is

dead or who has never

asked what he was doing, and found

in

he was clerk
sure,

a large shop.

His

plea-

however, was to wander about upon

talking to half-mad and visionary
16

the

hills,

peasants, or to
.

persuade queer and con,

A
Visionary.

science-stricken persons to deliver

,.

up the

keeping of their troubles into his care.

Another

night,

when

was with him

in his

own
talk

lodging,

more than one turned up

disbeliefs,

to

over their beliefs and

it

and

sun them as
his

were

in the subtle light of

mind.

Sometimes
talks

visions

come
and he

to
is

him as he
rumoured
matters
friends,

with

them,

to

have told divers people true

their
left

of

past

days and

distant

and

them hushed with dread

who seems scarce more than a boy, and is so much more subtle than the oldest among them. The poetry he recited me was full of his
of their strange teacher,

nature and his visions.

Sometimes

it

told

of other lives he believes himself to have

lived
in

other

centuries,
to,
I

sometimes
revealing

of

people he had talked

to their

them
would

own

minds.

told

him
it,

write an article
told

upon him and

I

and was
if
I

in turn that

might do so

did

not mention his name, for he wished to be

17

The
Celtic

always

'unknown,

obscure,
.

impersonal.'
arrived,
:

Twilight.

Next day a bundle of

1

his
in

poems

and with them a note

these words

Here

are copies of verses you said you

I

liked.

do not think
I

could ever write

or paint any more.

prepare myself for

a cycle of other activities in some other

life.
I

will

make
not

branches.
into leaves

It is

my roots and now my turn to burst

rigid
all

and

flowers.'

The poems were

net of obscure images.

endeavours

to

capture some high, impalpable

mood

in

There were

fine

passages in

all,

but these were often em-

bedded

in

thoughts which have evidently

value to his mind, but are to
the

a special
other

men

counters of an

unknown

coinage.

To them

they seem merely so

much

brass or copper or tarnished silver at

the best.

At other times the beauty of

the

thought was obscured by careless writing

as

though he had suddenly doubted

if

writing was not a foolish labour.

He

had

frequently illustrated his verses with draw18

ings, in

which an imperfect anatomy did

feel-

not altogether hide extreme beauty of

ing.

The

faeries in

whom

he believes have

given him
of

many

subjects, notably

Thomas
in

Ercildoune sitting motionless

the

twilight while a

young and

beautiful crea-

ture

leans softly out of the

shadow and

whispers in his ear.

He

had delighted
:

above

all

in strong effects of colour

spirits

who have upon

their

heads instead of hair

;

the feathers of peacocks a

phantom reach;

ing from a swirl of flame towards a star

spirit

passing with a globe of iridescent

crystal

symbol

of

the

soul

half

shut
this

within his hand.

But always under

largess of colour lay

some tender homily

This
those

addressed to man's fragile hopes.

spiritual

eagerness draws to him

all

who, like himself, seek for illumination or

else

mourn

for a

joy that has gone.

One

of these

especially

comes

to

mind.

A
the

winter or two ago he spent

night

much

of the

walking

up and
*9

down upon

The
Celtic

mountain talking to an old peasant who,

Twilight,

11 dumb

to

j most men, poured out

i_-

his cares
:

for

him.

Both were unhappy

first

because he had then

decided that art

and poetry were not

peasant because his

for him,
life

and the old

was ebbing out

with no achievement remaining and no

hope

left

him.

Both how Celtic

how

full

of striving after a something never to be

completely expressed

in

word or deed.
in his

The

peasant was wandering

mind
burst

with prolonged sorrow.

out with
'

Once he

God

possesses the heavens

God
the
his old

possesses the heavens

but He covets
all

world

'

and once he lamented that

neighbours were gone, and that

forgotten

had

him

they used to draw a chair

in

to the fire for

him

every cabin, and

now
?

they said,

'

Who

is

that old fellow there

'The

fret' [Irish for

doom]

'is

over me,'

he repeated, and then went on to talk once

more of God and heaven.

also

More than once

arm towards the

he

said,

waving

his

20

mountain,

'

Only myself knows what hapthorn-tree

it

pened under the

ago
;
'

forty

years

and as he said

the tears upon his

face glistened in the moonlight.

This old

man

always
.

rises

before

me
in

when

think of

Both seek
in

one

wandering sentences, the other

pictures

symbolic

and subtle

allegoric
lies

poetry

to

express a something that

beyond the
if

range of expression
will forgive

and both,

X
at the

me, have within them the vast

lies

and vague extravagance that

bottom of the Celtic heart.

The

peasant

visionaries that are, the landlord duelists

that were,

and the whole hurly-burly of

for

legends Cuchulain fighting the sea

days
dies,

two

until the

waves pass over him and he

Caolte storming the palace of the

gods, Oisin seeking in vain for three hun-

dred years to appease his insatiable heart

with
all

the pleasures of faeryland, these

two mystics walking up and down upon

the mountains uttering the central dreams
of their souls in no less dream-laden sen21

The
Celtic Twilight,

tences,
.

interesting

and .11

this
all

mind

that finds
r
i

them so

are a portion of that great

Celtic phantasmagoria

whose meaning no
re-

man

has discovered, nor any angel

vealed.

22

VILLAGE GHOSTS
In the great cities
world,
little

Village

Ghosts.

we

see so

little

of the

we

drift into

our minority.

In the

towns and villages there are no mi;

norities

people are not numerous enough.

You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass
;

the inn at the end of the village you leave

your favourite whimsy behind you

for
it.

you

will

meet no one who can share

We

listen to

eloquent speaking, read books

settle all the affairs of the

and write them,

universe.

The dumb
;

village

multitudes

pass on unchanging
in the

the feel of the spade

:

hand

is

no

different for all our talk

good seasons and bad follow each other as

of old.

The dumb

multitudes are no more

is

concerned with us than

peering through
village pound.

the old horse

the

rusty

gate

of

the

The

ancient map-makers
'

wrote across unexplored regions,

are lions.'

Here

Across the villages of

23

fisher-

The
Celtic Twilight,

men and
are

turners of the earth, so different

.
-

these
line

from
that

us,
is

we can
certain,
'

write

but
are

one

Here

ghosts.'

My
in

ghosts inhabit the village of

Leinster.

History has

in

no manner
with

been burdened by
its

this ancient village,

its its

crooked lanes,
of long grass,

old abbey churchyard

full

green background of
quay, where
lie

small fir-trees, and

its

few tarry fishing-luggers.

of entomology
small bay
lies
it

In the annals

is

well known.
little,

For a

westward a

where he
see a

who watches
certain rare

night after night

may

moth

fluttering along the

edge

of the tide, just at the end of evening or

the beginning of dawn.

hundred years
Italy

ago

it

was
in

carried

here from

by

smugglers
If the
net,

a cargo of silks and laces.

moth-hunter would throw down his

for

and go hunting
faeries

ghost tales or tales

of the
Lillith,

and such-like children of

for far
less

he would have need

patience.
24

To approach the village at man requires great strategy.

once heard complaining,
Jesus!
hill
'

night a timid

Village

man was

Ghosts.

By

the cross of

of

how shall I go? If I pass by the Dunboy old Captain Burney may
If
I

look out on me.

water,

go round by the
is

and up by the

steps, there

the

headless one and another on the quays,

and a new one under the old churchyard

wall. If
I

go right round the other way,

is

Mrs. Stewart

appearing at Hillside Gate,

is

and the devil himself

in

the Hospital

Lane/
I

never heard which

feel

spirit

he braved,
in

but

sure

it

was not the one

up

the

Hospital Lane.

In cholera times a shed

set

had been there

to receive patients.
it

When

the need had gone by,

was pulled
it

down, but ever since the ground where

stood has broken out in ghosts and

demons

and

faeries.

There

is

a farmer at

Paddy B
strength,

by name
and a

man

of great

teetotaller.

His wife and

sister-in-law,

musing on
25

his great strength,

The
Celtic

often

wonder what he would do

if

he

Twilight,

drank.

One
first

night

when passing through

after
cat.

the Hospital Lane, he saw what he sup-

posed at
a
little

to

be a tame rabbit
it

he found that

was a white

When
began

he came near, the creature slowly

to swell larger
felt his
it

and

larger,

and as

it

grew he

own

strength ebbing away,

as though

were sucked out of him.

He

turned and ran.

By
Path.'

the Hospital

Lane goes the

'

Faeries

Every evening they

to the sea,

travel

from
hill.

the

hill

from the sea to the

At

the sea end of their path stands a cot-

tage.

One

night Mrs.

Arbunathy, who

lived there, left her door open, as she

was

expecting
asleep

her son.
fire
;

by the

Her husband was a tall man came in

After he had been

and

sat beside him.

sitting there for a while, the

'In

the

name

of

woman said, God, who are you?'

'

He

got up and went out, saying,

Never

leave the door open at

this hour, or evil

may come

to you.'

She woke her husband

26

and told him.

has been with

'

One
,

of the good r r people &

.

Village Ghosts,

us,

said he.

Probably the
at

man braved

Mrs. Stewart she lived she

Hillside

Gate.

When

was the wife of the Protestant clergyman.

1

Her ghost was never known

say the village people;

to

harm any
'it
is

one,'

only
far

doing a penance upon the

earth.'

Not

from

Hillside Gate,
for

where she haunted,

appeared

a short time a
spirit.

much more
was
the

remarkable
bogeen,

Its

haunt
leading
I

a green lane

from the
quote
its

western end of the

history at length
:

village.

a typical village tragedy.

the
village

In a cottage

at

end of the

bogeen lived a house-painter, Jim Montgomery, and his

children.
wife.

They had

several

He

was a

little

dandy, and came

of a higher class than his neighbours.

His

wife was a very big

woman.

Her husband,

who had been

choir for drink,
day.

expelled from the village

gave her a beating one

Her sister heard of it, and came and took down one of the window shutters
27

The
Twilight,

Montgomery was neat about everything,

and had shutters on the outside of every

window

and

beat him with

it,

being big
threatened

and strong

like

her
;

sister.

He

to prosecute her

she answered that she

in his

would break every bone

did.

body

if

he

She never spoke

to her sister again,

because she had allowed

herself

to

be

beaten by so small a man.

Jim Mont:

gomery grew worse and worse

She told no one,

his wife
eat.

soon began to have not enough to

for

she was very proud.

fire

Often, too, she would have no

cold
night.
If

on a
in

any neighbours came

let

she would say she had

the

fire

out

because she was just going to bed.

people about often

The

heard

her

husband

beating her, but she never told any one.

She got very

and the
longer,

thin.

At

last

one Saturday

there was no food in the house for herself

children.

She could bear

to the priest

it

no

and went

and asked
gave
her
her,

him
thirty

for

some

money.
28

He

shillings.

Her husband met

and took the money, and beat

the
following
for

her.

On
ill,

Village

Monday
saw

she got very

Mrs.
'

and sent

a Mrs. Kelly.
her, said,

Kelly,

as soon as she

My

woman,
and
After
the
to

you are dying,' and sent

the doctor.

for the priest

She died

in

an hour.

her death, as

Montgomery neglected
had them taken

children, the landlord

the workhouse.

few nights after they

had gone, Mrs. Kelly was going home

through the bogeen when the ghost of
Mrs. Montgomery appeared and followed
her.
It

did not leave her until she reached

house.
,

her

own

She

told

the

priest,

Father S

a noted antiquarian, and

could not get him to believe her.

nights afterwards

few

Mrs. Kelly again met

place.

the spirit in the

same

She was

in

too great terror to go the whole way, but

stopped at a neighbour's cottage midway,

and asked them

to

let

her

in.

They
She
in,

answered they were going to bed.

cried out,
'

In the

name
29

of

God

let

me

or

will

break open the door.'

They

The
Twilight.

opened, and so she escaped from the ghost.

Next day she

told the priest again.

it

This

time he believed, and said

her until she spoke to
it.

would follow

She met the

bogeen.
rest.

spirit a

third time in the

it

She asked what kept

from

its

The

spirit said that its children

must

be taken from the workhouse,

its

for

none of

relations

were ever there before, and that

three masses were to be said for the repose

of
its

soul.

'

If

my

husband does not be-

lieve you,' she said,

'show him
wrist

that,'

and

touched
fingers.

Mrs.

Kelly's

with

three

The
up

places

where they touched

swelled

and

blackened.

She then

vanished.

For a time Montgomery would

had appeared
to
:

not believe that his wife

1

she

would not
he
said

Kelly,'

she
'

show

herself

Mrs.

with

respectable

people to appear

to.'

He was

convinced

by the three marks, and the children were

taken from
the

workhouse.

The

priest

said the masses,

and the shade must have

it

been

at rest, for

has not since appeared.

3

Some
died

time afterwards
in

Jim Montgomery

Village

the workhouse, having

come

to

great poverty through drink.

I

know some who

believe they have

seen the headless ghost upon the quay, and

one who, when he passes the old cemetery

wall at night,

sees
1

woman

with white

borders to her cap

him.
his

creep out and follow

The apparition only leaves him at own door. The villagers imagine that
will

she follows him to avenge some wrong.

1

haunt

you when

die

'

is

favourite threat.

His wife was once

half-

scared to death by what she considers a

demon
the

in the

shape of a dog.
spirits

These are a few of the open-air more domestic of

their

tribe gather

within-doors, plentiful as

swallows under

southern eaves.
1

wonder why she had white borders

old

to her cap.

The
tales,

Mayo woman, who

told

has told

me

so

many

has

me

that

her brother-in-law saw 'a

woman

with white borders to her cap going round the

stacks in a field,

and soon

after

he got a

hurt,

and he

died in six months.' 3i

The
Twilight,

One
by
her

night a Mrs. Nolan was watching

dying

child

in

Fluddy's

Lane.

Suddenly there was a sound of knocking

heard at the
fearing
it

door.

She did not open,

ceased.

was some unhuman thing that

knocked.
little

The knocking

After a

the front-door and then the back-door

were burst open, and closed again.

Her
child

husband went

to

see

what was wrong.

He

found both doors bolted.

The

died.

The

doors were again opened and

closed as before.

Then

Mrs. Nolan reto leave

is,

membered
window

that she

had forgotten

or door open, as the custom

for

the departure of the soul.

These strange

openings and closings and knockings were

warnings and reminders from the

spirits

who attend the dying. The house ghost is

and well-meaning

usually a harmless
It
is

creature.
It

put up

with as long as possible.

luck to those

brings good
I

who

live

with

it.

rememtheir

ber

two

children
sisters

who
32

slept

with
in

mother and

and brothers

one

small room.

In the

room was

also a ghost.
streets,

Village

They sold herrings

did not

in the

Dublin

and

mind the ghost much, because they

sell their fish
'

knew they would always

while they slept in the
I

easily

ha'nted

'

room.

have some acquaintance among the

ghost-seers of western villages.

The Conspirits

naught

tales are

very different from those

of Leinster.

These

have

a gloomy, matter-of-fact

way with them.

to
fulfil

They come
some
pay

to

announce a death,
to

obligation,

revenge a wrong, to

their bills

daughter the
to their rest.

as did a fisherman's other day and then hasten

even
All things they do decently
It
is

and

in

order.

demons, and

not

ghosts,

that

transform

themselves into

white cats or black dogs.

The
in

people

who

tell

the tales are poor, serious-minded

people,

fishing

who
is

find

the doings In

of the ghosts the fascination of fear. the western tales

a whimsical grace, a

curious extravagance.

The

people

who

recount

them

live in
33

the most wild and d

The
Celtic

Twilight,

beautiful scenery, under a sky ever loaded n l hey and fantastic with nying clouds,
.

are farmers and labourers,

fishing

the

now and then. spirits too much to

who do a They do not

an
artistic

little

fear

feel

and

humorous pleasure

in their doings. in

The

ghosts themselves share

hilarity.

their quaint

In one western town, on whose

deserted
spirits

wharf

the

grass

grows,
that,

these

have so much vigour

when a
him
after

misbeliever ventured to sleep in a haunted

house,
I

have been

told they flung

through the window,

him.
In the

and

his

bed

surrounding
the

villages

the
dis-

creatures
guises.

use

most

strange

dead old gentleman robs the

in the

cabbages of his own garden

of a large rabbit.

shape

wicked sea-captain

stayed for years inside the plaster of a cot-

tage wall, in the shape of a snipe, making

the most horrible noises.

He

was only
broken

dislodged

when

the

wall

was

down

then out of the solid plaster the

snipe rushed

away

whistling.
34

'DUST HATH CLOSED HELEN'S EYE'

I

'Dust hath

h"
eye.'

have been

lately to a little

group of

houses, not
village,
in

many enough
the

to

be called a
Kiltartan
in

barony

of

County Galway, whose name,

is

Ballylee,

known through
is

all

the west of Ireland.

Ballylee,

There

the old square castle,

inhabited by a farmer and his wife, and a

cottage

where
live,

their

daughter and their

little

son-in-law
old
miller,

and a

mill

with an

and old

ash-trees
little

throwing

green shadows upon a

stepping-stones.
I

river

and great
two
or

went

there

three times last year to talk to the miller

about

Biddy Early, a wise woman that

lived in Clare

some years
is

ago,

and about
all

her saying,

'

There

a cure for

evil

between the two mill-wheels of

Ballylee,'

and

to

find

out

from

him

or

another

whether she meant the moss between the

running waters or some other herb.
I

have been there

this
35

summer, and

shall

The
Twilight.

be there again before

it is

autumn, because

Mary Hynes, a beautiful woman whose name is still a wonder by turf fires, died
there sixty years ago
linger
;

for

our feet would

its
life
it

where beauty has lived

of
is

sorrow to make us understand that

not of the world.

An

old

man brought
mill

me
that

little

way from
lost in
'

the

and the

castle,

and down a long, narrow boreen

brambles and sloe
is

was nearly

bushes, and he said,

That

the

little

old
it

foundation of the house, but the most of

is

taken for building walls, and the goats

have ate those bushes that are growing

over
it
till

they've got cranky, and they

won't grow any more.

They
'

say she was

the handsomest girl in Ireland, her skin

was

like dribbled

snow,
her

perhaps, 'and

snow

he

meant driven

she had blushes in

five

cheeks.
all

She

had

handsome
'

brothers, but
to

are gone
in

now

talked

him about a poem

poet,

Irish, Raftery,

famous
it

made about
36

her,

and how

said, 'there is a

strong cellar in Bally-

lee.'

He

said the strong cellar

river

was the

'Dust hath
Helen's
eye#

great hole where the

sank under-

ground, and he brought

me

to a

deep

pool,

where an
boulder,

otter hurried
told

away under a grey

and

me

that

many

fish

came

up out of the dark water

1

at early

morning

to

taste

the
hills.'

fresh

water coming down

from the
I

first

heard of the poem from an old

lives

woman who
up the
river,

about two miles further

and who remembers Raftery

and Mary Hynes.

She

says,

'

never saw
I

anybody so handsome as she was, and

never
will
till
I

die,'
'

and that he was

no way of living

nearly blind, and had

but to go round and to

to

mark some house

go

to,

and then

all

the neighbours would

gather to hear.

If

you treated him well

if

he'd praise you, but

fault

you did

not, he'd

you

in

Irish.

He

was the greatest

poet in Ireland, and he'd

make

a song

about that bush

if

he chanced to stand

under

it.

There was a bush he stood

rain, 37

under from the

and he made verses

The
Twilight,

praising

it,

and then when the water came

it.'

through he made verses dispraising

She sang the poem

myself in
Irish,

to a

friend

and

to

and every word was audible

in

and expressive, as the words

were always, as
too proud
to
I

a song

think, before

music grew

be the garment of words,

flowing and changing with the flowing and

changing of their energies.

The poem

is

not as natural as the best Irish poetry of the

last century, for

the thoughts are arranged

in a too

obviously traditional form, so the

old poor half-blind

to

man who made

it

has

speak as

if

he were a

rich farmer offer-

ing the best of everything to the

woman

he

loves,

but

it

has naive and tender

that

phrases.

The

friend

was with me

has

made some of the translation, but some of it has been made by the country
people themselves.
I

think

it

has more of

the simplicity of the Irish verses than one

finds in

most

translations.
will of

'Going to Mass by the

God,

The day came wet and

38

the wind rose;

met Mary Hynes

I fell in love

at the cross of Kiltartan,

Dust hath
closed Helen's
eye.'

And
I

with her then and there.

spoke to her kind and mannerly,

report was her

As by

own way;
easy,

And she said, "Raftery, my mind is You may come to-day to Ballylee."

When When

heard her

offer I did

not linger,

her talk went to

to

my

heart

my

heart rose.
fields,

We We
The

had only

go across the three

to Ballylee.

had daylight with us

table was laid with glasses

fair hair,

and a quart measure,

She had

and she

sitting beside

me
hundred

And
There

she said,

"Drink,

Raftery,

and

welcomes,
is

a strong cellar in Ballylee."

star of light

amber
Will you
Till

hair,

and O sun in harvest, O my share of the world,

the people?

come with me upon Sunday

all

we agree together before

a

would not grudge you

evening,

song

every

Sunday

Punch on the
But,

table, or

wine

if

you would drink

it,

King of Glory, dry the roads before me,

way
air

Till I find the

to Ballylee.

There

is

sweet

on the

side of the hill

;

When

you are looking down upon Ballylee

39

The
Celtic

When you
There
is

are walking in

the

valley

picking

nuts

an(j blackberries,

Twilight.

music of the birds in

it

and music of the

Sidhe.

What
Of
She

is

the worth of greatness

till

you have the

light

the flower of the branch that

is

is

by your side?

There
is

no god

to

deny

it

or to try

and hide

it,

the

sun in the heavens

who wounded my

heart.

There was no part of Ireland

did not travel,

From the rivers to the tops of the mountains, To the edge of Lough Greine whose mouth is hidden,

And
Her Her
She

saw no beauty but was behind

hers.

hair

was shining, and her brows were shining

too;
face was like herself, her sweet.
is is

mouth

pleasant and

the pride, and I give her the branch, the shining flower of Ballylee.

She
It is

Mary Hynes, the calm and easy woman, Has beauty in her mind and in her face.
hundred clerks were gathered
write
together,

If a

They could not

down a

half of her ways.'

An
to

old weaver,

whose son
40

is

supposed

go away among the Sidhe

(the faeries)

at night, says,
,

'

Mary Hynes was

.

the most 'Dust hath

.

_ _

beautiful

thing

ever made.

My

mother

closed Helen's

used

to tell

me

about her, for she'd be at

every hurling, and wherever she was she

was dressed

in white.

As many

as eleven

men asked
was a
lot

her in marriage in one day,

but she wouldn't have any of them.

of

There
and

men up beyond

Kilbecanty

one night

sitting

together drinking,

talking of her, and one of

them got up
and see her and when and

and

set out to

go
he

to Ballylee

but Cloon

Bog was open

it

then,

he came to

fell

into the water,

they found him dead there in the morning.

She died of the fever

famine.'

that

was before the

but he
that
his

Another old man says he was

only

a child

when he saw
that
'

her,

remembered
was among

the strongest

man

us,

one John Madden, got

death of the head of her, cold he got

crossing rivers in the night-time to get to
Ballylee.'

This

is

perhaps the

man
is

the

other remembered, for tradition gives the

one thing many shapes.

41

There

an old

The
Twilight,

woman who remembers her, at Derrybrien among the Echtge hills, a vast desolate
place,

which has changed

said,
'

little

since the

old

poem

the stag upon the cold

of.

summit of Echtge hears the cry

wolves,' but
still

the

mindful of

many poems
She

and of the dignity of ancient speech.

says,
'

The sun and

that
it

the

moon never shone

on anybody so handsome, and her skin

was so white
had two

looked blue, and she

little

blushes

on her cheeks.'

And
close
tales

an old wrinkled

by
of

Ballylee,

woman who lives and has told me many

says,
'

the

Sidhe,

often

saw

Mary Hynes, she was handsome

She had two bunches of
saw Mary Molloy
that

indeed.

curls beside her

cheeks, and they were the colour of silver.

I

was drowned

in

the river beyond, and

Mary Guthrie

that

was
of
I

in

Ardrahan, but she took the sway

both,

them was

a very comely creature.

too

at her

wake

she

had seen too

crea-

much
ture.

of the world.

She was a kind

42

One day

was coming home through

that field

beyond, and

was

tired,

and

'Dust hath
closed Helen's
eye#

who

should come out but the Poisin Gle-

geal (the shining flower), and she gave

a glass of

new

milk.'

This old

me woman

meant no more than some

beautiful bright

colour by the colour of silver, for though

I

knew an
evils

old

man

he

is

dead now
'

who
all

thought she might know

the
in

the cure for the

the world,'

that

Sidhe

knew, she has seen too

its

little

gold to

know
at

colour.

But a man by the shore

is

Kin vara, who

too
says,

young
'

to

remember
says

Mary
there
is

Hynes,

Everybody

no one at
;

all

to

be seen now so
hair,

handsome

it is

said she

had beautiful

the colour of gold.

clothes every

She was

poor, but her

day were the same as Sun-

day, she had such neatness.

And

if

she

went
all

to

any kind of a meeting, they would

one another
for a sight of
in love

be

killing

her,

and there was a great many

with her, but she died young.

that no one that has a song

It is

said

made about

them

will

ever live long.'

43

much admired are, it is held, taken by the Sidhe, who can use ungoverned feeling for their own ends, so
are
that a father, as an old herb doctor told

Those who

me

once,

may

give his child

into

their

hands, or a husband his wife.

The
if

ad-

mired and desired are only safe

says
are
'

one

God

bless

them

'

when

one's eyes

upon them.

The

old

the song thinks, too, that

'taken,' as the phrase
is,

woman that sang Mary Hynes was

'for they

have

taken

many

that are not

handsome, and
?

why would
came from

they not take her

all

And people
and

parts to look at her,

maybe
"

there were
bless her."
at
'

some

that did not say

God

An
'

old

man who
little

lives

by the sea
that she

Duras has as

doubt

was taken,
1

for there are

some
to

living yet can

remember her coming

handsomest

the pattern

there

beyond, and she was

girl in Ireland.'

said to be the

She died young because the gods loved

1

'

pattern,' or

'

patron,'

is

a festival in honour of

a saint.

44

her, for the

Sidhe are the gods, and

it

may

'

Dust hath
Helen's eye
*

be that the old saying, which

understand
literally,

we

forget to

meant her manner of

death in old times.

These poor countryin

men and countrywomen

and
in

their beliefs,

their

emotions,

are

many

years

nearer to that old

Greek world,

that set

beauty beside the fountain of things, than

men of learning. She had seen too much of the world but these old men and women, when they tell of her, blame
are our
' ' ;

another and not her, and though they can

be hard, they grow gentle as the old

of

men

Troy grew gentle when Helen passed

walls.

by on the

The
the

poet

who helped

her to so

much

fame has himself a great fame throughout

west of Ireland.

Some

think that
'

Raftery was half blind, and say,

Raftery, a dark

saw

man, but he had sight

enough

to see her,' or the like, but

some

think he was wholly blind, as he

may have

been
all

at the

end of

his

life.

Fable makes

things perfect in their kind, and her

45

The
Celtic

blind people

must never look on the world

T 1

Twilight,

and the
day,

if

sun.
I

asked a

man

met one
na mna

when

was looking

for a pool

women of faery have been seen, how Raftery could have admired Mary
Sidhe where

Hynes
blind
?

so

much

if

he had been altogether

'

He

said,

think

Raftery was

altogether blind, but those that are blind

have a way of seeing

things,

and have the

to
feel

power

to

know more, and

more,

and to do more, and to guess more than

those that have their sight, and a certain
wit

and a certain wisdom

is

given

to

them/
that he

Everybody, indeed,

will tell

you

was very

wise, for

was he not only

blind

but a poet?

The weaver whose

I

words about Mary Hynes

given, says,
'

have already
gift of

His poetry was the

the

Almighty, for there are three things that

are the gift of the Almighty

poetry and
is

dancing and principles.

the
old

That

why

in

times an

ignorant

man coming

down from

the hillside would be better

behaved and have better learning than a

man

with education you'd meet now, for 'Dust hath

it
'

they got

from

God

;
'

and a man

at

Coole says,

When
his

he put

his finger to

Helen's eye
'

one part of

head, everything would

if
it

come
book
says,
;

to
'

him

as

was written
at

in

and an old pensioner

Kiltartan

'

He

was standing under a bush one

to
it,

time,

and he talked
in
Irish.

and
say

it

answered

him back

Some
it
it,

it

was the

bush that spoke, but

enchanted voice
in

must have been an

it

and

gave him the

knowledge of

all

the things of the world.

it is

The bush
to
this

withered up afterwards, and

be seen on the roadside now between

and Rahasine.'

There
I

is

poem

of

his about a bush,

which

have never seen,

and

it

may have come

out of the cauldron

of fable in this shape.

friend of

mine met a man once who

died, but the

had been with him when he

people say that he died alone, and one

Maurteen Gillane

told Dr.

Hyde

that

all

night long a light was seen streaming up

to

heaven from the roof of the house where

47

Th e Celtic
Twilight,

he

lay,

.,1.1 with him

angels

and
'

'

that

was the angels who were

night long there was a
'

and

all

great light in the hovel,

and that was the

who were waking

him.

They gave
songs.'

that honour to

him because he was so good

a poet,
It

and sang such religious

may be

that in a few years Fable,

to immortalities in

who
her

changes mortalities

cauldron, will have changed

Mary Hynes
the

and Raftery

to

perfect

symbols of

sorrow of beauty and of the magnificence

and penury of dreams.

1900.

11

When
ago
I

was

in a

northern town awhile

had a long

talk with a

man who had

told

lived in

a neighbouring country district

when he was a boy. when a very beautiful

looks,

He
girl

me

that
in

was born

family that had not been noted for good

her beauty was thought to have

the Sidhe, and to bring misforit.

come from
tune with

He

went over the names

48

of several

beautiful

girls

that

he

had

'Dust hath
Helen's

known, and said that beauty had never

brought happiness to anybody.
a thing,
afraid
his
of.

It

was

he
I

said,

to
I

be

proud of and
written

wish
the

had
for

out

words

at

time,

they were
of

more
them.

picturesque

than

my memory
1902.

49

The
Celtic

A KNIGHT OF THE SHEEP

Away
to the north of

Twilight.

Ben Bulben and

Cope's mountain lives 'a strong farmer,' a knight of the sheep they would have
called

him

in the

Gaelic days.

Proud of

his descent

from one of the most fighting

clans of the

Middle Ages, he

is

man

of

force alike in his

words and

in his deeds.

There

is

but

one

man
lives

that swears like

far
in

him, and this

the mountain.

man
'

away upon
?
'

Father

heaven, what

have

done

to

deserve this
pipe
;

he says

when he has
but he
rival his

lost his

and no man

who

lives

on the mountain can

fair

language on a

day over a

bargain.
his

He

is

passionate and abrupt in

his

movements, and when angry tosses

left

white beard about with his

hand.

One day
O'Donnell.
the old

was dining with him when

the servant-maid announced a certain Mr.

sudden silence
his

fell

upon

man and upon

the
50

two daughters.
said

At

last

eldest daughter

some-

what

severely

to
.

her

father,
.

'

Go and A
The
in

Knight
of the Sheep.

ask him to come in and dine.'

old

man went
he
will

out,

and then came

'

look-

ing greatly relieved, and said,

He

says

not dine with

us.'

'Go
some

out,' said

the daughter, 'and ask

parlour,

him

into the

back

and

give

him

whiskey.'
his

Her

father,

who had
sullenly,

just

finished
I

dinner,

obeyed

and

heard the
little

door of the back parlour

room
men.

where the daughters

the

sat

and sewed during

behind
to

evening

shut
then

to

the

The daughter
said,
'

turned
is

me and

Mr. O'Donnell
year he

the tax-gatherer,

and

last

raised

our taxes, and

my
sent
sage,

father

was very

angry,

and

when
and

he came, brought him into the

the

dairy,

dairy-woman away on a mesat

and then swore

him a great
O'Donnell
its

deal.

will teach you, sir,"

replied,
;

" that

the law can protect

father

officers

but

my

reminded him that he had

last

no witness.

At
too,

my

father got tired,

and sorry

and said he would show

5i

The
Celtic

him a short way home.

a

When

they were

Twilight,

half-way to the main road they came on

man

of

my
this

father's

ing,

and

who was ploughsomehow brought back

remembrance of the wrong.

He

sent the

man away on
swear
heard of
it I

a message, and began to

at the tax-gatherer again.

When

was disgusted
fuss

that

he should

have made such a

over a miserable

creature like O'Donnell; and

when

heard

a few weeks ago that O'Donnell's only

son had died and

I

left

him heart-broken,
father be kind to

resolved to

make my

him next time he came.'

She then went out

and
lour.
I

to see a neighbour,

sauntered towards the back par-

When

came

to the

door

heard

angry voices

inside.

The two men were

evidently getting on to the tax again, for

I

could
fro.

hear them bandying figures to

I

and

opened the door

at sight of

my

face the farmer

intentions,

was reminded of
and asked

his
I

peaceful

me
I

if

knew where

the

whiskey was.
52

had

seen him put

it

into the

cupboard, and
it

Knight
Sheep.

was able therefore

out,

to find

and get

it

looking at the thin, grief-struck face

of the tax-gatherer.

He

was rather older

than
feeble
type.

my

friend,

and very much more

different

and worn, and of a very

He

was not

like

him,

a robust,

successful

man, but rather one of those

whose
earth.

feet find
I

no resting-place upon the

recognized one of the children

'

of reverie, and said, of the

You

are doubtless
I

stock of the
well the

old O'Donnells.
in the

know
of

hole

river

where

their treasure lies buried

under the guard

heads.'
'

a serpent with

many

Yes,

sur,'

he

replied,

'

am

the last of a line

of princes.'

We

then

fell

to talking of

many comwas very

old
tax-

monplace things, and

once toss
friendly.

my

friend did not

up

his
last

beard,

but

At
hope

the
go,
will
'

gaunt

gatherer got up
said,
'

to

and

my
a

friend

we
53

have
no,'

glass

together

next year.'

No,

was the

The
Celtic

answer,
too
quite

'

shall
lost

be dead next year.

.

'

Twilight,

have

sons,'

said
'

the

other,

in

a gentle
like

voice.

But

your sons
then the
flush

were not

my

son.'

And

two men parted, with an angry

bitter hearts,

and

and had

not cast between

them

some

common

words

or

other,
fallen

might not have parted, but have

rather
into

an angry discussion of
If
I

the

value of their dead sons.

pity
for
all

had not
reverie
out,
I

the
let

children

of
it

should have

them

fight

and

would now have many a wonderful oath

to record.

The
this

knight of the sheep would have

victory,
for

had the

no soul that wears

sur-

garment of blood and clay can

pass him.
this
is

He

was but once beaten

and
and

his tale of

how

it

was.

He

some farm hands were playing

of a big barn.

at cards in

a small cabin that stood against the end

wicked
cabin.

woman had
ace

once lived
of the

in

this

Suddenly one and

players threw
54

down an

began

to

swear without any cause.

His

Knight
Sheep.

swearing was so dreadful that the others

stood up, and
right

my
there

friend said,
is

'

All
in

is

not

here

spirit

him.'

They

ran to the door that led into the

barn to get away as quickly as possible.

The wooden

bolt

would not move, so the

knight of the sheep took a saw which

stood against the wall near at hand, and

sawed through the

bolt,

and

at

once the

door flew open with a bang, as though

some one had been holding

fled through.

it,

and they

55

The
Celtic Twilight.

AN ENDURING HEART
One day
a sketch of
old

a friend of mine was making

my

Knight of the Sheep.

sitting

The
and,

man's daughter was

by,

when

the conversation drifted to love and

said,
'

love-making, she

Oh,

father, tell

him

about your love

affair.'

The
the

old

man
said,

took his pipe out of his mouth, and

'

Nobody

ever

marries

woman he
'

loves,'

and then, with a chuckle,

There

were
the

fifteen of

them

liked better than

woman I married,' and he repeated many women's names. He went on to tell how when he was a lad he had worked
for his

grandfather,
called

his

mother's father,

and was

(my

friend

has forgotten

why) by
will

his grandfather's

name, which we

say

was Doran.
I

He

had a great
;

friend,

whom

shall call

John Byrne
went
to

and

one day he and

his friend

Queens-

town

to await

an emigrant

ship, that

was

to take

John Byrne

to America.

When

they were walking along the quay, they

56

saw a
ably,

girl sitting

on a

seat, crying miser-

An
Heart,

and two men standing up

in front of

her quarrelling with one another.

said,
'

Doran
wrong.

think
will

know what

is

That man

be her brother, and that

lover,

man

will

be her

and the brother

is

sending her to America to get her away

from the lover.

I

How

she

is

crying

but
Pre-

think

could console her myself.'

sently the lover

and brother went away,

to
'

and Doran began

before her, saying,
or the
while,
like.

walk up and down

Mild weather, Miss/

in

She answered him

little

and the three began

to talk together.

The emigrant
days
side
;

ship did not arrive for

some

and the three drove about on outcars

very innocently and

happily,

seeing everything that was to

be seen.

When
had

at last the ship

it

came, and

Doran

to break

to her that

he was not

going to America, she cried more after

him than

after

the

first

lover.

Doran

whispered to

Byrne as he went aboard

57

The
Celtic

ship,

'

Now, Byrne,
don
t

don't

grudge her

Twilight,

to you, but

marry young.
got
to
in
this,

When
farmer's
with,
'

the

story

the

daughter

joined

mockingly

suppose you said that for Byrne's

good,

father.'

But the old man

it

insisted
;

that he

had

said

for Byrne's

good

and

went on

to tell

how, when he got a

letter

telling of Byrne's

engagement

to the girl,

he wrote him the same advice.

passed by,

Years
;

and he heard nothing

and

though he was now married, he could not

keep from wondering what she was doing.

At

last

he went to America to find he asked many people

out,

and though
tidings,

for

he could get none.

More

years

went

by,

and

his wife

was dead, and he

well on in years, and a rich farmer with

not a few great matters on his hands.

He

found an excuse
to

in

some vague business

again,

go out

to

America

and

to begin
fell

his search
talk with

again.

One day he
53

into

an Irishman

in a railway carriage,

and asked him, as

his

way

was, about
that,

emigrants from this place and

at last,
'

and

Did you ever hear of the

?
'

miller's

daughter from Innis Rath

the

and he named
'

woman he was
'

looking
is

for.

Oh

yes,'

said the other,

she

married to a friend

of mine, John

MacEwing.

She

lives

at

such-and-such a street in Chicago.'

Doran
not
real

went

to

Chicago and knocked

herself,

at her door.
'

She opened the door

a
bit

and was
his

changed.'

He

gave her

name, which he had taken again

grandfather's death, and the

after his

name

of the

man he had met

in

the train.

She did

not recognize him, but asked him to stay

to dinner, saying that her

husband would

be glad to meet anybody

old friend of his.
things,

who knew that They talked of many

their
talk,
I

but

for

all

do not

know why, and perhaps he did why, he never told her who he
put her head
to cry,

not

know was. At

dinner he asked her about Byrne, and she

down on
59

the table and began

afraid her

and she cried so he was

husband might be angry.

to ask
left

He

was

afraid

what had happened

after,

to Byrne,

and

soon

never to see her again.

old
'

When
story,

the

man had

finished

the

he

said,

Tell that to Mr. Yeats,

he

will

make
could

poem about
said,
'

it,

perhaps.'
father.

But the daughter

Oh

no,

make a poem about a woman Alas! I have never made the like that.' poem, perhaps because my own heart,

Nobody

which has loved Helen and

all

the lovely

and

fickle

women

of the world, would be

it

too sore.
to

There are things

is

well not

ponder over too much, things that bare

for.

words are the best suited

1902.

60

THE SORCERERS
In
Ireland

The
Sorcerers.

we hear
1

but

little

of

the

darker powers,

and come across any who

rarely, for the

have seen them even more

imagination of the people dwells rather

upon

the

fantastic

and

capricious,

and

fantasy and caprice would lose the freedom

which
unite

is

their breath of

life,

were they

to

them

either with evil or with good.

And
ever

yet the wise are of opinion that wher-

man

is,

the dark powers

who would
honey
in

feed his rapacities are there too, no less than

the bright beings

who

store their

the cells of his heart, and the twilight beings

who

flit

hither and thither, and that they

encompass him with a passionate and melancholy multitude.

They

hold, too, that

he who by long desire or through accident

of birth possesses the
I know much more
1

power of piercing

into

better now.

We

have the dark powers

than
I

thought, but not as

much

as the

Scottish,

and yet

think the imagination of the people

does dwell chiefly upon the fantastic and capricious.

61

The
Twilight,

their

hidden abode can see them there,

those

who were once men

a terrible

women full of vehemence, and those who have

or
malice.
us,
it

never lived upon the earth, moving slowly

and with a subtler

powers cling about
night, like bats

The dark
said,

is

day and

upon an old

tree

and that
is

we do

not

hear more of them

merely

because the darker kinds of magic have

been but

little

practised.

have indeed

come

across very few persons in Ireland

try to

who

communicate with
I

evil

powers,

and the few

have met keep

their

purpose
those

and practice wholly hidden from

among whom they

live. like,

They

are mainly
for the

small clerks and the

and meet

purpose of their art

black hangings.

in

a room hung with

not admit

They would

me

into

this

room, but finding

me

not

altogether ignorant of the arcane science,

showed gladly elsewhere what they would

do.

'Come

to

us,'

said

their

leader,

clerk in a large flour-mill,

'and we

will

show you

spirits

who
62

will talk to

you

face

to face,

and
t

in

shapes as solid and heavy

The
Sorcerers.

as our own.'
I

had been talking of the power of

in states of trance

communicating
angelical

with the
children

and faery beings,

the

of the day and of the twilight,

and

he

had been contending that we should only

believe in what
in

we can
'I
;

see and feel

when
or

our ordinary everyday state of mind.

I

'Yes,'

said,

will
'

come
I

to

you,'

some such words

myself
to

but

will not

permit
will

become

entranced,

and

therefore

know whether

these shapes you

to

talk of are

any the more

be touched

and

felt
I

by the ordinary senses than are

talk
of.'
I

those

was not denying the

to take

power of other beings

upon them-

selves a clothing of mortal substance, but

only that simple invocations, such as he

spoke
cast

of,

seemed unlikely

to

do more than

the
it

mind

into

trance,

and thereby
powers

bring

into the presence of the

of day, twilight, and darkness.

'But,'

he

said,

'we have seen them

63

The
Celtic

move

the furniture hither and thither, and

Twilight,

they go at our bidding, and help or harm

people

who know nothing

I

of them.'

am
talk.

not giving the

exact words, but as

accurately as

can the substance of our

On

the

night

arranged

turned

up

about eight, and found the leader sitting

alone in almost total darkness in a small

back room.

He
left

was dressed

in

a black

gown,

like

an inquisitor's dress

in

an old

drawing, that

nothing of him visible

except his eyes, which peered out through

two small round

in front of

holes.

Upon

the table

him was a brass dish of burning

two

herbs, a large bowl, a skull covered with

painted

symbols,

crossed

daggers,
like

and

certain implements

shaped
to

quern
the
did

stones,

which were used

control
I

elemental powers in some fashion

not discover.
I

also put
it

on a black gown,
fit

and remember that

did not

perfectly,

and that

it

interfered with

my movements

considerably.

The

sorcerer then took a

64

black cock out of a

*
.

basket, and cut

its

The
Sorcerers.

throat

with

one

of

the

daggers, letting
bowl.

the blood

fall

into the large

He

opened a book and began an invocation,

which was certainly not English, and had
a deep guttural sound.
finished,

Before he had

another of the sorcerers, a

man

of about twenty-five,

came
also,
I

in,

and having

put on a black
at

gown

seated himself
the

my

left

hand.

had

invoker

directly in front of me,

to find
his eyes,

and soon began

which glittered through

in

the

small
in

holes

his
I

hood,

affecting

me

a curious way.
their

struggled hard

against

influence,

and

my
first

head

began

to ache.

The

invocation continued,
for

and nothing happened

minutes.

the

few

Then

the invoker got up and

in

extinguished the light

the

hall,

so that
slit

no glimmer might come through the

under the door.

There was now no

except

light

except from the herbs on the brass dish,

and

no

sound

from

the

deep

guttural

murmur

of the invocation.
65
F

The
Celtic

Presently the

man

at

my

left
'

swayed

Twilight,

himself about, and cried out,

god

god

'

asked him what ailed him, but he

did not
after

know he had spoken.

moment

he said he could see a great serpent

moving about the room, and became considerably

excited.
I

saw nothing with

thought that black
about
if

any

definite shape, but

clouds
I

were forming
fall

me.
I

felt

must

into

a trance
it,

did

not

struggle against

and that the influence

this trance

which was causing

was out of

harmony with

itself,
I

in other words, evil.

After a struggle
clouds,

got rid of the black

to observe with

and was able

my

ordinary senses again.

The two

sorcerers

now began
in

to see black

and white columns

finally

moving about the room, and

puzzled because
also, for to

man

a monk's habit, and they became greatly

I

did not see these things

as solid as the

them they were

table before them.

to

The

invoker appeared
in

be gradually increasing
to feel as
if

power, and

began

a tide of darkness was

66

pouring from him and concentrating

itself
i

The
Sorcerers.

me and now too noticed that the man on my left hand had passed into
about
,

t I

a death-like
effort
I

trance.
off the

With
the

last

great
;

drove

black clouds
only

but
I

feeling

them

to

be

shapes

should see without passing into a trance,

and
asked

having no great love

for
lights,

for

them,

and

after

the

needful

exorcism returned to the ordinary world.

sorcerers
your
spirits

said to the
'

more powerful of the two

What would happen if one of had overpowered me ? You

'
'

would go out of

this room,'

he answered,

'with his character added to your own.'

I

asked about the origin of his sorcery,

little

but got

of importance, except that

it

he had learned

from his
more,
for

father.

He
it

would not

tell

me
I

he had,

appeared, taken a

vow

of secrecy.

For some days

feeling of

could not get over the

having a number of deformed

figures lingering about me.

and grotesque

The

Bright Powers are always beautiful

67

The
Twilight.

and

desirable,
beautiful,

and the Dim Powers are

now

now
in

quaintly

grotesque,
their

but the

Dark Powers express

un-

balanced natures
horror.

shapes of ugliness and

68

THE DEVIL
My
old

The
Devil.

Mayo woman

told

me one day

that something very

bad had come down

the road and gone into the house opposite,

and though she would not say what

I

it

was,
told

knew

quite well.

Another day she

me
to

of two friends of hers

who had been

they believed

made

love to by one
devil.

whom
of

be the

One

them was standing

by the road-side when he came by on

horseback, and

asked her to mount up

behind him, and go riding.

When

she

would not he vanished.

The

other was

out on the road late at night waiting for

her young man,

when something came

up
to

flapping and rolling along the road

her

feet.

It

had the likeness of a newsit

paper, and presently

face,

flapped up into her

size of
it

and she knew by the

Ti?7ies.

that

it
it

was the Irish

changed
to
into a

All of a sudden

young man, who asked her She would

not,

go walking with him.

69

and he vanished.

The
Celtic

know

of an old

man

too,

on the slopes
.

Twilight,

of

Ben Bulben, who found the

devil ringing

a bell under his bed, and he went off and

stole the
It

chapel bell and rang him out.

that this, like the others,
all,

may be

was

not the devil at

spirit

but some poor

feet

wood
into

whose cloven

had got him

trouble.

70

HAPPY AND UNHAPPY THEOLOGIANS

i

Happy and

iKg^
'

A Mayo woman
knew a
priest

once said to me,

servant girl

who hung
1

herself for

the love of God.

She was

lonely for the

to

and her

society,

and hung herself

the banisters with a scarf.

She was no

sooner dead than she became white as a

lily,

and

if it

had been murder or suicide

she would have become black as black.

They gave her

priest

Christian burial, and the

said she

was no sooner dead than

she was with the Lord.

that

So nothing matters
God.'
I

you do

for the love of

do

not wonder at

the

pleasure

she has in

telling this story, for she herself loves all

holy things with an ardour that brings

them quickly

to her lips.

She

told

me

once that she never hears anything described

in

sermon that she does not

with her eyes.

afterwards

see

She has

described to
1

me

the gates of Purgatory as

had belonged
to.

The

religious society she

7i

The
Twilight,

they showed themselves to her eyes, but

remember nothing of the

trouble

description ex-

cept that she could not see the souls in

but only the gates.

is

Her mind
pleasant and

continually dwells on what

beautiful.

One day

she asked

me what
I

month and what flower were the most

beautiful.

When

answered that

did

not know, she said, 'the

month of May,
lily

because of the Virgin, and the

valley,

of the

because

it

never sinned, but came

pure out of the rocks/ and then she asked,

1

what

is

the cause of the three cold months

?
'

of winter

did not

and so she

said, 'the
'

know even that, sin of man and the

vengeance of God.

Christ

H imself was not

all

only blessed, but perfect in

portions in her eyes, so
holiness

manly pro-

much do beauty and

her thoughts.

go together
all

in

He

alone of
all

men was
little

exactly six feet high,

others are a

more

or a

little less.

Her thoughts and her

too,

sights

of

the

people of faery are pleasant and beautiful

and

have never heard her

72

call

them

the Fallen Angels.

They

are people like Happy and

ourselves, only better-looking,

and many
to the

Theologians,

and many a time she has gone

window
long

to

watch them drive their waggons

through the sky, waggon behind waggon

in
line,

or to the door to hear

them

singing and dancing in the Forth.

sing chiefly,
it

seems, a song called

They The
'

Distant Waterfall,' and though they once

knocked her down she never thinks badly of

them.

She saw them most

easily

when she

was

in service in
little
I

King's County, and one

morning a
1

while ago she said to me,

Last night
it

was

waiting

up

for

the

master and
I

was a quarter-past

eleven.
table.

heard a bang right down on the

" King's

County
till
I I

all

over," says

I,

and

laughed

was near dead.

It

was a

warning

was staying too

long.
I

They
told

wanted the place

to themselves.'

her once of somebody

fainted,

who saw
'

a faery and

and she
faery, but

said,

It

could not have

thing,

been a

some bad
It

nobody
I

could faint at a faery.

73

was a demon.

The
Celtic Twilight,

was not

afraid

when they near put me, and

I

the bed under me, out through the roof.

wasn't afraid either

when you were

eel,

at

some

work and
up the
went to

heard a thing coming flop-flop

stairs like
all

an

and squealing.

It

the doors.
I

It

could not get in

it

where

was.

would have sent

through

the universe like a flash of

fire.

There
went

was a man
out to meet

in

my

place, a tearing fellow,

and he put one of them down.

it

He

on the road, but he must

But the
If

have been told the words.

are the best neighbours.
to

faeries

you do good
to

them they

will

do good

you, but

they don't like you to be on their path.'

Another time she

said to me,

'

They

are

always good to the poor.'

ii

There
village
ness.

is,

however, a

man

in a

Galway

who can see nothing but wickedSome think him very holy, and
him a
little

others think

crazed, but

some

74

of

his

talk

reminds

one

of

those

old Happy and

Theologians.

Irish visions of the

Three Worlds, which

But

are

supposed to have given Dante the

I

plan of the Divine Comedy.

could

not

imagine
is

this

man

seeing

Paradise.

He
are

especially angry with the people of

faery,

and describes the faun-like

feet that

so

common among

them,
to

who

are

indeed children of Pan,

children of Satan.

prove them

He
so,'

will

not grant that

'they carry away

are

women, though there

but he
is

many

that say
'

certain

that they are

as thick as the sands of the

sea about us, and they tempt poor mortals.'

He

says,

'

There

is

a priest

know

of

was looking along the ground was hunting

for

like as if

he

something, and a voice

to see

said to him, "If

you want

them

you'll

see enough of them," and his eyes were

opened and he saw the ground thick with

them.

Singing they do be sometimes, and

all

dancing, but
feet.'

the time they have cloven

scornful of unchristian

Yet he was so
all

things for

their

dancing and singing

75

The
Twilight,

that

he thinks that

'

you have only

will

to bid
It

them begone and they

one
from
night,'

go.

was

he says,

'after

walking back

Kinvara
I

and down

by the wood
I

beyond

felt

one coming beside me, and

could feel the horse he was riding on and

the

way he

lifted his legs,

but they do not

make a sound like the hoofs of a horse. So I stopped and turned around and said, very loud, " Be off!" and he went and never troubled me after. And I knew a man who was dying, and one came on his bed, and he cried out to it, "Get out of
that,

you unnatural animal

"

and

it

left

him.
the
fall

Fallen angels they are, and after

God
was

said, "

Let there be Hell," and

there

it

in

a moment.'

An
us,

old

woman
a pity

who was

sitting
'

by the

fire

joined in as he
it's

said this with

God

save

He

said the word,

and there might have

day,' but the seer did

been no Hell the

not notice her words.

He
all

went

on,

'

And

then he asked the devil what would he

take for the souls of
the people.

And

76

the devil said nothing would satisfy him Happy and

but the blood of a virgin's son, so he got

that,

Theologians.

and then the gates of Hell were

opened.'

He
if it

understood

the

story,

it

seems, as
tale.
'

were some riddling old

folk

have seen Hell myself.

it

had a

sight of

one time

in

a vision.
it,

It

had a

very high wall around

all

of metal, and
it,

an archway, and a straight walk into

like

just

what 'ud be leading

into a gentleman's

orchard, but the edges were not trimmed

with

box, but with red-hot metal.

And

inside the wall there

were cross-walks, and

I'm not sure what there was to the right,

but to the
naces,

left

there were five great furfull

and they

of souls kept there with

I

great chains.

So

turned short and went

I

away, and

in
I

turning

looked again at
it.

the wall, and

could see no end to

I

'And another time

seemed
around
to
it,

saw Purgatory.

It

be
but

in
it

a level place, and no walls

all

one bright
it.

blaze,

and

the souls standing in

And

they suffer

77

The
Twilight,

near as

much

as in Hell, only there are no

there,
-

devils with

them

and they have the

hope of Heaven.
*

And
I

heard a
to

call to

me

from there,

"

Help

me

when

come out o' this!" And looked it ^ was a man I used to

army; an Irishman, and from
I

know
this

in the

county, and

believe

him

to

be a

descendant of^King O'Connor of Athenry.

'

So
I

stretched out

my hand

first,

but
the

then

called out, "I'd

I

be burned

in

flames before
of you."

could get within three yards

said, "

So then he

Well, help
I

me

with your prayers," and so

'

do.

And
he's

Father Connellan says the same

thing, to help the

dead with your prayers,

and

a very clever

man

to

make a

sermon,

and has a great deal of cures

made

with the Holy

Water he brought
1902.

back from Lourdes.'

78

THE LAST GLEEMAN

Michael Moran was born about 1794
off
in

The

Last

Gleeman.

Black

Pitts, in

the Liberties of Dublin,

Faddle Alley.

fortnight after birth

illness,

he went stone blind from

and be-

came thereby a

blessing to his parents,

who were soon

and beg
over the

able to send

him

to

rhyme
have

at street corners
Liffey.

and

at the bridges

They may

well
full

wished that their quiver were

as he,
for,

of such

free

from the interruption of

perfect echoing

sight, his

mind became a

chamber, where every movement of the

day and every change of public passion

whispered
saying.
itself

into

rhyme

or

quaint
to

By

the time he

had grown

manhood he was
all

the admitted rector of

Liberties.

the

ballad-mongers of the

Madden, the weaver, Kearney, the blind

fiddler

from Wicklow, Martin from Meath,

M' Bride from heaven knows where, and

that M'Grane,

who

in after days,

when

the
in

true

Moran was

no more, strutted
79

The
Twilight.

borrowed plumes, or rather

rag s
>

in

borrowed

an d gave out that there had never

been any Moran but himself, and many

another, did

homage
all

before him, and held

him chief of

their tribe.

Nor

despite

his blindness did

he find any

difficulty in

getting a wife, but rather was able to pick

and choose,

for

he was just that mixture

is

of ragamuffin and of genius which

to the heart of

dear
be-

woman, who, perhaps

the

cause she
loves

is

wholly conventional herself,

crooked,
the

the

unexpected,

bewildering.
rags,

Nor

did he lack, despite his

for
it

many excellent things, membered that he ever loved

far
its

is

re-

caper sauce,

going so
nation at

indeed

in

his honest indig-

absence upon one occasion

leg of mutton at his wife.

as to fling a

He
and

was

not,

however, much to look

its

at,

with his coarse frieze coat with

scalloped

cape

edge,

his

old

corduroy
his stout

trousers and great brogues,

stick

and

made
:

fast to his wrist

by a thong of

leather

and he would have been a woeful

80

shock to the gleeman MacConghnne, could

that friend of kings
i

The

Last

-i

have beheld him

iiiii-

Gleeman.

in

prophetic vision from the pillar stone at

Cork.

And

yet though the short cloak and

the leather wallet were no more, he was a

true gleeman, being alike poet, jester, and

newsman
wife or

of the people.

In the morning

when he had
newspaper
until

finished his breakfast, his

some neighbour would read the

to

him, and read on and on

'

he interrupted with,

That'll

do

have

me

meditations

;
'

and

from

these

meditations would
jest

come

the day's store of

and rhyme.

He had the

whole Middle

Ages under

his frieze coat.

not,

He

had

however, MacConglinne's

hatred of the Church and clergy, for

when

the fruit of his meditations did not ripen

well, or

when

the crowd called for some-

thing more

solid,

he would

recite or sing a

metrical tale or ballad of saint or martyr

or of Biblical adventure.
at a street corner,

He would

stand

and when a crowd had

8l

gathered would begin in some such fashion

G

The
Celtic

as follows

Twilight,

knew
puddle

him)

(I v

copy the record of one who r/

'

Gather

round

me,
I ?
'

boys,

gather round me.

?

Boys,

am

standin' in

am

standin' in wet
'

Thereon
!

several boys would cry,

Ah, no

yez not
with St.

yer in a nice dry place.

Go on
'

Mary; go on

with Moses

each

calling for

his favourite tale.

Then Moran,

with a susclutch at

picious wriggle of his

his rags,

body and a

would burst out with

All
;
'

me
and

buzzim friends are turned backbiters

after a final
'

If

yez don't drop your coddin'

lave

and diversion

I'll

some of yez a

case,'

by way of warning
recitation,

to the boys, begin his

still

or perhaps

delay, to ask,

'Is there a

crowd round
heretic

blackguard

me now? around me ?

'

Any The
St.

best-known of

his religious tales

was

Mary

of Egypt, a long poem of exceeding

condensed
from
the

solemnity,

much Mary

longer work of a certain

It told

Bishop Coyle.

how

a fast

woman

of Egypt,
to

by name, followed pilgrims

for
82

Jerusalem

no good purpose, and then, turning

penitent on finding herself withheld from

Th e

Last

Gleeman.

entering the Temple by supernatural interference, fled to the desert

and spent the

penance.

remainder of her

life

in solitary

When
God

at last

she was at the point of death,

sent

Bishop Zozimus to hear her

confession, give her the last sacrament,

and

with the help of a

dig her grave.

lion,

whom He

sent also,

The poem

has the intoler-

able cadence of the eighteenth century, but

was so popular and so often

called for that

Moran was soon nicknamed Zozimus, and by that name is he remembered. He had
also a

poem
little

of his

own called Moses, which

ill

went a

nearer poetry without going

very near.

But he could

brook so-

lemnity, and before long parodied his

own
:

verses in the following ragamuffin fashion

In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile,

King Pharaoh's daughter went

She tuk her
dip,

to bathe in style.

then walked unto the land,

To

dry her royal pelt she ran along the strand.

A A

bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw

smiling babby in a

wad
83

o' straw.

The
Celtic

She tuk
'

it

up,

and

said with accents mild,

girls,

"Tare-and-agers,
child?'

which av yez

owns

the

Twill S ht

His humorous rhymes were, however, more

often quips and cranks at the expense of
his contemporaries.
It

was

his delight, for

instance, to

remind a certain shoemaker,

noted alike for display of wealth and for

personal uncleanness, of his inconsiderable
origin
in

song of which but the

to us
:

first

stanza has
At the

come down
dirty

end of Dirty Lane,

Liv'd a dirty cobbler, Dick Maclane

His wife was

in the old king's reign

stout brave orange-woman.

On Essex Bridge she strained And six-a-penny was her note.

But Dickey wore a bran-new

her throat,

coat,

He

got

among

the yeomen.

He

was a

bigot, like his clan,

And

in the streets

he wildly sang,

Roly, toly, toly raid, with his old jade.

He

had

troubles

of divers

kinds,

and

numerous

interlopers to face

and put down.

Once an

officious peeler arrested

84

him

as a

vagabond,

but was

triumphantly routed
the
court,

The

Last

amid

the

laughter of

when
he

Moran reminded his worship of cedent set by Homer, who was

declared, a poet,

the prealso,

and a blind man, and a

had
as
to

beggarman.
serious

He

face

more
grew.

difficulty

his

fame

Various imitators started up upon

all sides.

certain actor, for instance,

made

as

many

guineas as

Moran

did shillings by mimick-

ing his sayings and his songs and his get-

up upon the

stage.

One

night this actor

was

at

supper with some friends, when

dispute arose as to whether his mimicry

was overdone or
settle
it

not.

It

was agreed
the mob.

to

by an appeal
supper
at

to

forty-shilling

a famous coffee-

house was to be the wager.

The

actor

took up his station at Essex Bridge, a

great haunt of Moran's, and soon gathered

a small crowd.
'

He had scarce got through

up, followed

In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile,'

when Moran himself came

another crowd.
85

by

The crowds met

in great

The
Celtic

excitement and laughter. &

.

Good
'

Chris-

Twilight,

tians,

cried the pretender,

is

it

possible

that

any man would mock the poor dark

like that
?

man
*

Who's

that

It's

some

imposhterer,'

replied
1

Moran.

Begone,

you wretch

it's

you'ze

the

imposhterer.

Don't you fear the

light of
for

heaven being struck from your eyes

mocking the poor dark man

'

Saints and angels,

this
?

is

there no protection

against

You're

most

inhuman
of

blaguard to try to
honest

deprive
way,'

me

my
poor

bread

this

replied

Moran.
'

And

you, you wretch, won't let

beautiful

me go

on with the

poem.

Christian

people, in your charity won't you beat this

man away ?
darkness.'

he's taking

advantage of

my

The pretender,
the best of
it,

seeing that he was having

for their

thanked the people

protection,

sympathy and
the poem,

and went on with

Moran

listening for a time in

86

bewildered silence.
protested again with
'

After a while
:

Moran

The Last
Gleeman.

Is

it

possible that

none of yez can know

it's

me ?
4

Don't yez see

else
I

myself

and

that's

some one
Before

can proceed any further

in

this lovely story,' interrupted the pretender,

'

call

on yez

to contribute

your charitable
on.'

donations to help
*

me
?

to

go

Have you no
of

sowl to be saved, you

'

mocker

heaven
beside

cried

Moran, put

completely
injury.
'

himself

by

this

last

Would you
? ?

rob the poor as well

as desave the world

O, was ever such

wickedness known
1

leave

it

to yourselves,
'

my

friends,' said

the pretender,

to give

to

the real dark

man, that you

all

know

so well, and save

me

from that schemer,' and with that he

collected

some pennies
so,

and

half-pence.

While he was doing

Moran

started his

Mary
him,

of Egypt, but the indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour

when they

fell

back bewildered anew

87

The
Twilight,

by

his close resemblance to himself.

The

pretender

now

called to

them

to 'just give

him a grip of
let

that villain,

and he'd soon

!

him know who the imposhterer was

led

They
lings

him over

to

Moran, but instead

shil-

of closing with him he thrust a few

into his

hand, and
to

turning to the

crowd explained

them he was indeed

but an actor, and that he had just gained a

wager, and so departed amid

much

en-

thusiasm, to eat the supper he had won.

In
priest

April
that

1846 word was sent to the

Michael

Moran was
in

dying.

He

found him at 15 (now 14^) Patrick

Street,

on a straw bed,
ballad-singers

a room
to

full

of ragged
his
last

come
fiddles

cheer

moments.

After his death the

ballad-singers, with
like,

many

and the
wake,

came again and gave him a

in the

fine

each adding to the merriment whatever he

knew

way

of rann,

tale,

old saw, or

quaint rhyme.
said his prayers

He

had had

his day,

had

and made
88

his confession,

and why should they not give him a hearty

send-off?
day.

The

funeral took place the next

his admirers

The

Last

good party of

and

friends got into the hearse with the coffin,

for the

day was wet and

nasty.

They had
'
'

not gone far

when one

of

them burst out

it
?

with

'

It's

cruel cowld, isn't

'

Garra','

replied another,

we'll all

be as

stiff

as the

corpse

when we get

to the berrin-ground.'

'Bad
he'd

cess to him,' said a third; 'I wish

held

out another

month

until

the

weather got dacent.'

man

called Carroll

thereupon produced a half-pint of whiskey,

and they
parted.

all

drank

to the soul of the de-

Unhappily, however, the hearse

was

over-weighted,

and

they

had

not

reached the cemetery before the spring

broke, and the bottle with
it.

Moran must have

entering,

felt

strange and out

of place in that other

kingdom he was
Let us hope that

perhaps while his friends were

in his

drinking

honour.

some kindly middle

for

region
call

was

found

him,

where he can
89

dishevelled

The
Twilight,

angels about

him with some

new and

more rhythmical form

of his old
will

Gather round me, boys, Gather round

yez

me?
I

And

hear what

have to say

Before ould Salley brings

me

My
and
at
fling

bread and jug of tay

outrageous

quips

and cranks
Perhaps he

cherubim and seraphim.

may have found and

though he

gathered, ragamuffin

be, the Lily of

High Truth,
for

the

Rose of Far-sought Beauty,

so

whose lack

many

of the writers of Ireland, whether

futile as

famous or forgotten, have been

the blown froth upon the shore.

90

REGINA, REGINA PIGMEORUM, VE N

I

Regina,

Regina Pigmeorum,
Veni.

One
lived

night a middle-aged man,

his life far

who had
his,

all

from the noise of caba relation of

wheels, a

young
to

girl,

who

was reported

be enough of a seer to
lights

catch a glimpse of unaccountable

moving over the

and myself,
were

fields

among

the cattle,

walking

along

far

western sandy shore.

We

talked of the

Forgetful People as the faery people are

sometimes

called,

and came

in the

midst

of our talk to a notable haunt of theirs,

a shallow cave amidst black rocks, with

reflection

its
I

under

it

in the

wet sea sand.

asked the young

thing, for
I

girl if

she could see any-

had quite a number of things

to ask the Forgetful People.

still

She stood
saw
that she
trance,

for a

few minutes, and

into a kind of

was passing
in

waking

which the cold sea breeze no longer

nor the dull

troubled her,

boom
I

of the

sea distracted her attention.

91

then called

The
Celtic

aloud the names of the great faeries, and

a

Twilight,

moment

or two

i-ii she
talking,

in

said that she could

hear music

far inside the rocks,

and then a

sound of confused
stamping their

and of people
applaud some

feet as if to

unseen performer.
friend

Up

to this to

my
fro

other

had been walking

off,

and

some

yards

but

now he passed
be interrupted,

close to us,

and as he did so said suddenly that we

were going
to
for

he heard

the laughter of children

somewhere beyond
had begun
also.

the rocks.

We

were, however, quite alone.

to cast

The

spirits of the place

their influence over

him

In a
girl,

he was corroborated by the

that bursts of laughter

moment who said

to

had begun

mingle

with the music, the confused talking, and

the noise of
light
feet.

She next saw a bright

which

streaming out of the cave,

to

seemed

have grown much deeper, and a

quantity of little people, 1 in various coloured

1

as big as
I

The people and faeries we are, sometimes

told,

in Ireland are

sometimes
as

bigger,

and sometimes,

have been

about three
92

feet high.

The

old

dresses, red predominating-, dancing; to a

.

Regina,

tune which she did not recognize.

I

Regina Pigmeorum,
Veni.

then bade her

little

call

out to the queen of

us.

the

people to come and talk with

to

There was, however, no answer

her

command.

therefore repeated the words

in

aloud myself, and

beautiful
I

moment

very

tall

woman came

out of the cave.

too had by this time fallen into a kind of

in

trance,

which what we

call

the unreal
a masterful

had begun to take upon

reality,

itself

and was able

to see the faint

gleam

of golden ornaments, the

shadowy blossom
girl tell this

of dim hair.
tall

then bade the

queen to marshal her followers accord-

ing to their natural divisions, that

see them.
I

we might
I

found as before that

had

to

repeat the

command myself.
if
I

The

creatures

then came out of the cave, and drew themselves up,

remember

rightly,

in four

bands.

One

of these bands carried quicken

I

Mayo woman
something
or
little.

so

often

quote,

thinks that

it

is

in

our eyes that makes them

seem big

93

The
Twilight,

boughs

in

their hands,

and another had

of
serpents'

necklaces

made apparently
I

scales, but their dress

cannot remember,
in that
tell

for

was quite absorbed

I

gleaming
the
seer

woman.

asked her to

whether these caves were

the

greatest

faery haunts in the neighbourhood.

lips
I

Her

moved, but the answer was

inaudible.

bade the seer lay her hand upon the and

after

breast of the queen,

that

she

heard every word quite

this

distinctly.

No,
for

was not the greatest faery haunt,

there

was a greater one a

I

little

further
it

ahead.

then asked her whether

was

true that she and her people carried

mortals,

away

and

if so,

whether they put another

soul in the place of the one they

'

had taken ?

We

change the

bodies,'

was her answer.

'

Are any

of you ever born into mortal

life?'

'Yes.'

'Do

know any who

?
'

were among your people before birth

'You

do.'

'Who

are they?'

It

would
I

not be lawful for you to know.'

then

asked whether she and her people were

94

not 'dramatizations of our

moods

'

'She

Regina,

does not understand,' said

says that her people are
beings,

my

friend,

'but pigmeorum,

much

like

and do most of the things

I

human human
in the

Vem

beings do.'

asked her other questions,

as to her nature,

and her purpose

universe, but only

seemed

to puzzle her.

At

last

she appeared to lose patience, for

she wrote this message for

me upon

the

sands

the sands of
know
I

sands under our feet

not seek to

vision, not the grating

'

Be

careful,

and do
us.'

too

much about
her,
I

Seeing that

had offended

thanked
told,

her for what she had shown and

let

and
In a

her depart again into her cave.

while the young girl

little

awoke out of her

trance,

and

felt

again the cold wind of the

world, and began to shiver.

I

tell

these things as accurately as

to blur

can,

and with no theories

the history.
best,

Theories are poor things at the

and

the bulk of mine have perished long ago.

I

love better than any theory the sound of

its

the Gate of Ivory, turning upon

95

hinges,

The
Celtic

and hold that he alone who has passed the

rose-strewn
threshold

Twilight,

can

catch

the
It

far

glimmer of the Gate of Horn.

perhaps well
for

were
but

us

all

if

we would

raise the cry Lilly the astrologer raised in

Windsor

Forest,

'

Regina, Regina Pigme-

orum, Veni,' and remember with him, that

God

visiteth

His children

in

dreams.

Tall,
let

glimmering queen, come near, and

see again the
hair.

me

shadowy blossom of thy dim

96

'AND FAIR, FIERCE WOMEN'

One day
a

'And

Fair,

Fierce

Women.'

woman
Blake

that

know came
least

face to face with heroic beauty, that highest

beauty which

says

changes

from youth to age, a beauty which has

been fading out of the

decadence we
beauty in
its

arts,

since

that

call

progress, set voluptuous

place.

She was standing

thought

at

the window, looking over to Knocknarea

where Queen Maive

buried,
'

is

to

be

when she

saw, as she has told me,

the finest

woman you

ever saw travelling

right across from the

to her.'

mountain and straight

a sword by her

The woman had

lifted

side

and a dagger

up

in

her hand,

and was dressed

in white,

with bare arms

strong, but

and

feet.

She looked 'very

is,

not wicked,' that

not cruel.
the
Irish

The
giant,

old

woman had
'though

seen

and

he

was a

fine
'

man,' he

was

nothing to this

woman,
was

for

he was round,
sol'

and could not have stepped out so

dierly
;
'

she

like
97

Mrs.

The
Celtic

stately lady of the

neighbourhood,

'

but

Twilight,

she had no stomach on her, and was slight

and broad

in the shoulders,

and was hand;

somer than any one you ever saw

looked about
thirty.'

she

The
her

old

woman
and

covered her

eyes

with

hands,

when she uncovered them

had vanished.
with
her,'

the apparition
l

The neighbours were

if

wild

she told me, because she did

there was a mesit

not wait to find out

sage,
for

they were sure

often

was Queen
to

Maive,
pilots.

who
I

shows herself

the

asked the old

woman

if

she had
said,

seen
'

others like of

Queen Maive, and she

their hair

Some

them have

down, but

they look quite different, like the sleepylooking

ladies

one sees
hair

in

the

papers.
like
this

Those with
one.

their

up are

The

others have long white dresses,

but those with their hair up

dresses,

have short
their

so that
to the
I

you can see

calf.'

legs

right

up

After some careful

questioning

found that they wore what

;

might very well be a kind of buskin

98

she

went

on,

'

They
the
in

are

fine

and dashing

'

And

Fair,

Fierce

looking,

like

men

one sees riding

Women.'

their horses

twos and threes on the

slopes of the mountains with their swords

swinging.'
1

She repeated over and

proportioned,' or the like,
'

over,

There

is

no such race living now, none

so

finely
said,

and

then

The

present

Queen

is

a nice,
is

pleasant-looking
like her.

woman, but she

not
little

What makes me
is

think so

of the ladies

that

see none as they be,'

'

meaning

as the

spirits.

When

think

of her and of the ladies now, they are like

little

children running about without

to put their clothes
?

knowIs

ing
it

how

on

right.
call

the ladies
at

women

all.'

Why, The

would not

them

other day a friend of

in a

mine questioned an old woman

Galway

workhouse about Queen Maive, and was

told

that

'

Queen Maive was handsome,

all

and overcame
stick,

her enemies with a hazel

is

for

the hazel

blessed,

and the

best

weapon

that can be got.

1

You might

Queen

Victoria.

99

The
Twilight,

walk the world with

'very disagreeable
disagreeable.
it.

it,'

but

she grew

in

the end

oh

very

Best not to be talking about

it

Best leave

between the book and

friend thought the old

the hearer.'

My

woman had got some scandal about Fergus son of Roy and Maive in her head. And I myself met once with a young man in the Burren Hills who remembered an old poet who made his poems in
Irish

and had met when he was young,

the young
self
1

man

said,

one who called hershe was a queen

Maive,

and said

among them,' and asked him if he would He said he have money or pleasure.
would have pleasure, and she gave him
her love for a time, and then went from
him, and ever after he was very mournful.

the

The young man had often heard him sing poem of lamentation that he made,
it

but could only remember that

was

'

very

mournful,' and that he called her 'beauty

of

all

beauties.'

1902.

100

ENCHANTED WOODS
I

'

Enchanted Woods.

Last summer, whenever

had finished

my

day's work,

used to go wandering
there
I

in certain

roomy woods, and

his

would
talk

often
to

meet an old countryman, and

him about

work and about the

woods, and once or twice a friend came

with

me

to

whom

he would open his heart

more
all

readily than to me.

He

had spent

his life lopping

away

the witch elm and

the hazel and

the

privet

and the horn-

beam from much about

hedgehog
he

the

paths,

and had thought

the natural and supernatural

creatures of the wood.

'

He

has heard the

calls
is

grainne oge,' he

him
certain

'grunting like a Christian,' and

that
steals

apples

by

rolling
is

about

under an apple tree

until there

an apple

sticking to every quill.

that the cats, of

He
there

is

certain too
in

whom

the woods, have a

many language of their own

are

some kind of

old Irish.

He

says,

'Cats

were serpents, and they

IOI

were made into

The
Twilight,

ca t s at the time of
the world.
to
kill,

some great change

in

That
it

is is

why

they are hard

and why
If

dangerous to meddle
cat
it

with them.

you annoy a

might

claw or bite you in a

poison in you,
serpent's
tooth.'

way
that

that

would put
be the

and

would

Sometimes he thinks
cats,

they change into wild

nail

and then a
;

grows on the end of

their tails

but

these wild cats are not the

same

as the

marten
woods.

cats,

who have been always in The foxes were once tame,

the
as

the cats are now, but they ran

away and
he hates

became

wild.

He

talks of all wild crea-

tures except squirrels

whom

with what seems an affectionate interest,

though

at times his eyes will twinkle with

pleasure as he remembers

hedgehogs unroll

how he made themselves when he was

a boy, by putting a wisp of burning straw

under them.
I

am

not certain that he distinguishes

between the natural and supernatural very

clearly.

He

told

me
102

the other day that

foxes and cats

'

like,

above

all,

to

be
;

in the

Enchanted Woods.

forths

'

and

lisses after nightfall

and he

will certainly

pass from

some

story about

a fox to a story about a

spirit

with less
is

change of voice than when he

to

going
beast

speak about a marten cat

a rare

now-a-days.

Many
in
loft

years ago he used to

work
him

in the

garden, and
a
full

once they put

to

sleep

garden-house
of apples,

where
and
all

there was a

night he could hear people rattling plates

and knives and forks over

the
loft.

his

head

in

Once, at any
in the

rate,

he has seen

an unearthly sight
1

woods.

He

says,

One

time

was out cutting timber over

eight
I

in

Inchy,

and about
I

o'clock

one
girl

morning when

got there

saw a

picking nuts, with her hair hanging

down
tall

over her shoulders, brown

hair,

and she

had a good, clean

face,

and she was

and nothing on her head, and her dress

no way gaudy but simple, and when she
felt

me coming

she gathered herself up

if

and was gone as

the earth had swal-

103

The
Celtic Twilight,

lowed her up.

And
I

followed her and

looked for her, but

never could see her

this,

again from that day to

never again.'

He

used the word clean as

like fresh or comely.

we would

use

words

Others too have seen

chanted Woods.

spirits in the

Enof

A
his
is

labourer told

us

what a friend of
the

had seen

in a part of

woods

that

called

Shanwalla, from

some

old village that

said,
'

was before the wood.

parted
yard,
in

He

One evening I Lawrence Mangan in the

went away through the path
an'

from

and he

Shanwalla,

bid

me

good-night.

And two
again

hours
in

after,

there

he was

back

the

yard, an' bid

in the stable.

me

light a candle that

was

An' he told

me

that

when

he got

into Shanwalla, a little fellow about

as high as his knee,

but having a head

as big as a man's body,

came beside him

an'

and led him out of the path

about, and at last
lime-kiln,
it

round

brought him to the

it

and then

vanished and

left

him.'
104

A woman
in the river.
stile

told

me

of a sight that she

Enchanted

and others had seen by a certain deep pool

She

said,

came over the

wind came

from the chapel, and others along

with

me

and a great
trees

blast of

and two
fell

were bent and broken and

into the river,

it

and the splash of water

to the skies.

out of
that

went up

And

those

were with
I

me saw many
the
trees

figures, but

myself
the

only saw one, sitting there by

fell.

bank where
had
told

Dark

clothes he

on,

and he was
that

headless.'

man

me
in

one day, when he

to

was a boy, he and another boy went

catch a horse

certain

field,

full

of

boulders and bushes of hazel and creeping

juniper and rock-roses, that
lake side
is

is

where the
woods.

for a little clear of the

He
'

said to the

boy that was with him,

if
I

bet a button that

to that

fling

a pebble

on

bush

it

will stay

on

it,'

meaning

i:hat

the bush was so matted the pebble

to

would not be able

he took up
'

go through

it.

So

a pebble of cow-dung, and as

105

The
Celtic

soon as
.

it

hit

the bush there

came out

Twilight,

of

it

the most beautiful music that ever

was heard/

They
back

ran

away, and when

they had gone about two hundred yards

they

looked

and

saw

woman

dressed in white, walking round and round

the
bush.
'

First

it

had the form of a

it

woman, and then of a man, and

going round the bush.'

was

ii

often entangle myself in arguments

more complicated than even those paths

of Inchy as to what
is

the true nature of

I

apparitions, but at other times

say as
learned
Ilissus,

Socrates said
opinion

when they told him a about a nymph of the

is

'The common opinion

I

enough

for me.'

believe
is

when
full

am

in the

nature
see,

of people

mood that all whom we cannot

or foolish, but

and that some of these are ugly or*

grotesque, and

some wicked
1

very

many

beautiful

beyond any one we

06

have ever seen, and that these are not

far

Enchanted Woods,

away when we are walking

quiet places.

in pleasant

and

Even when I was a boy I could never walk in a wood without feeling that at any moment I might find before me
somebody or something
for without
I

had long looked

I

knowing what
will

looked

for.

And now
little

at

times explore every

nook of some poor coppice with

imagination upon me.

almost anxious footsteps, so deep a hold has

this

You

too meet

with a like imagination, doubtless, somewhere, wherever your ruling stars will have
it,

Saturn driving you to the woods, or the

it

Moon,
I

may

be, to the

edges of the

sea.

will

not of a certainty believe that there

in the sunset,

is

nothing

where our

fore-

fathers imagined the

dead following their

shepherd the sun, or nothing but some

vague presence as
If

little

moving

as nothing.

beauty

is

not a gateway out of the net

in at

we were taken
to sit at

our birth,

it

will
it

not

long be beauty, and

we

will find

better

home by

the

fire

and

fatten a lazy

107

The
Celtic

body or
;

to run hither

and thither

in

some

Twilight,

foolish

sport

than to look at the finest

show

that light

and shadow ever made

I

among green leaves. when I am well out of

people,
for

say

to

myself,

that thicket of argu-

ment, that they are surely there, the divine

only

we who have
all

neither

simplicity nor

wisdom have denied them,

times and the wise

and the simple of

men

of ancient times have seen

them and
and
if

even spoken to them.

passionate lives not far

They
off,

live out their

I

as

think,

we we

shall

be among them when

we

die

but

keep

our
it

natures

simple

and

passionate.

May

not even be that death

shall unite us to all

romance, and that some

day we
or
'

shall fight

dragons

among

blue

hills,

come

to that

whereof

all

romance

is

but

Foreshadowings mingled with the images

Of man's misdeeds
as the old

in greater days than these,'

men thought

in
in

The Earthly

Paradise when they were

good

spirits.

1902.
108

MIRACULOUS CREATURES
There
are marten cats and badgers and

Miraculous
Creatures,

foxes in the Enchanted

Woods, but there

are of a certainty mightier creatures, and

the lake hides what neither net nor line

can take.

These creatures are of the race

flits

of the white stag that

in

and out of

the tales of Arthur, and of the evil pig that

slew Diarmuid where Ben Bulben mixes

with the sea wind.

They

are the wizard

creatures of hope and

fear,

they are of

them

that

fly

and of them that follow

that

among

the

thickets

are
I

about

the
rein

Gates of

Death.

A
'

man

know

members
the

that his father

was one night

wood

of Inchy,

where the lads of Gort

used to be stealing rods.

He

was

sitting

by the

wall,

and the dog beside him, and

he heard something come running from

Owbawn
was

Weir, and he could see nothing,

of
its

but the sound

like the

feet

on the ground
feet of a deer.

sound of the
it

And when

passed him,
109

the

dog got

The
Celtic

between him and the wall and scratched

at
it

Twilight.

there as

if it

was

afraid,

but

still

he

could see nothing but only hear the sound

of
hoofs.

So when

it

was passed
'

he

turned and came away home.'

time,' the

Another

man

says,

'

my

father told

me

he was
or three

in

a boat out on the lake with two

Gort, and one of them
it

men from
it

had an
water,
fainted

eel-spear,

and he thrust

into the

and

hit

something, and the

to carry

man
to

and they had

him out of

the boat to land, and

when he came
was,

himself he said that what he struck was

like a calf, but
fish
!

whatever

it

it

was not

'

friend of

mine

is

convinced that

these
lakes,

terrible

creatures,

so

common
the

in

were

set there in old times

by subtle
gates
of

enchanters

to

watch over
thinks that
if

wisdom.
spirits

He

we

sent our

down

into the water

we would make

them of one substance with strange moods of ecstasy and power, and go out it may be
to the conquest of the world.

We

would,

however, he believes, have

first

to outface

no

and perhaps overthrow strange images

of a

full

Miraculous

more powerful
It

life

than
that

if

they were

really alive.
at

may be
fear

them

without
last

we shall look when we have

is

endured the

adventure, that

death.

1902.

in

The
Celtic

ARISTOTLE OF THE BOOKS

t he
anybody
wife.

Twilight.

friend

who can
went
lately

get

the

wood-

cutter to talk
else

more

readily than he will to

to

see his old

She

lives in a cottage not far

is

from
of old

the edge of the woods, and

talk as her husband. to talk of
his

as

full

This time she began

Goban, the legendary mason, and

'

wisdom, but said presently,

Aristotle

of the Books, too,

was very

wise,

and he

had a great deal of experience, but did not

the bees get the better of

him

in the

end

He

wanted

to

know how they packed

the

comb, and he wasted the better part of a

fortnight watching them,

and he could not

a hive
it

see them doing

it.

Then he made
it

with a glass cover on

and put

over

them, and he thought to see.

But when

he went and put his eyes

to the glass, they

it

had

it all

covered with wax so that

;

was as

black as the pot

before.
till

and he was as blind as

he was never rightly
kilt
!

He

said

then.

They had him

113

that time surely

1902.

THE SWINE OF THE GODS

A
me
few
years ago a friend of mine told
to

The
Swine of the Gods.

of something that happened

him

when he was a young man and out with some Connaught Fenians.
were but a
side
until
left

drilling

They
hill-

car-full,

and drove along a

they came to a quiet

place.

They
hill

the car and went further up the

rifles,

with their

and

drilled for a while.

As

they

were coming down again they

thin,

saw a very

long-legged pig of the

old Irish sort, and the pig began to follow

them.
that
it

One
was a

of

them

cried out as a joke

fairy pig,

and they

all

began

to run to
too,

keep up the joke.

The

pig ran
this

and presently, how nobody knew,

terror

mock

became
lives.

real terror,

and they

ran as for their

the car they
as
possible,

When
pig

they got to

made
but

the horse gallop as fast the

still

followed.

Then one of them put up his rifle to fire, but when he looked along the barrel he
could see nothing.

Presently they turned

113
1

The
TwUight.

a corner and
t0

came

to

a village.

They

P e pl e f ^e village what had happened, and the people of the village

t ^ie

took pitchforks and spades and the

like,

and went along the road with them

drive the pig away.

to

When

they turned

the corner they could not find anything.

1902.

114

A VOICE
One day
I
I

A
bit of

Voice.

was walking over a

close to Inchy

marshy ground
felt,

Wood when
for

all

of a

sudden,

and only
I

second, an emotion which

said to myself

was the root of Christian mysticism. There

had swept over

me

a sense of weakness, of

dependence on a great personal

Being

somewhere

far off yet

near at hand.

No

thought of mine had prepared

emotion, for
I

me

for this

had been pre-occupied with

/Engus and Edain, and with Mannanan,

son of the
sea.

That night

awoke

lying

upon

my

back and hearing a voice speak-

ing above
is

me and

saying,

'

No human

soul

like

any other human

soul,

and there-

fore the love of

is

God
in

for

any human soul

satisfy

infinite,

for

no other soul can

God.'
to

the
after

same need
this
I I

A A

few nights
the
loveliest

awoke

see

people

have ever seen.

girl

young man
olive-green

and a young

dressed in

raiment, cut like old

Greek raiment, were

"5

The
Twilight,

standing at
girl

my

bedside.

looked at the

and noticed that her dress was gathered

about her neck into a kind of chain, or

perhaps into some kind of

stiff

embroidery

which represented ivy-leaves.

filled

But what

me

with wonder was the miraculous

face.

mildness of her
faces

There are no such

beautiful, as

now.

It

was
it

few faces

are beautiful, but

think,

had

neither,
is

one would

the
in

light
fear

that

in

desire or in
It

hope or

or

in

speculation.
faces

was peaceful
or
like

like

the

of animals,

mountain
it

pools at
little

evening,
I

so

peaceful that
for

was a

sad.

thought
the
that

moment that she might be beloved of ^ngus, but how could

a

hunted, alluring, happy, immortal wretch

have a face

like this

Doubtless she was

from among the children of the Moon, but

who among them

shall

never know.
1902.

116

KIDNAPPERS

Kidnappers.

little north of the town of Sligo, on

the southern side of

Ben Bulben, some

plain, is

hundreds of

feet

above the

a small

white square in the limestone.

No

mortal
;

has ever touched

it

with his

hand

no

sheep or goat has ever browsed

beside
it.

grass

There

is

no more inaccessible

place upon the earth, and few

circled
is

more

enIt

by awe

to the

deep considering.

the door of faery-land.

it

In the middle

of night

swings open, and the unearthly

out.

troop

rushes

All

night

the gay

rabble sweep to and fro across the land,

invisible to
all,

unless perhaps
'

where, in
'

some more than commonly

gentle

place
night-

Drumcliff
capped
chief the
'

or

Drum-a-hair
of

the
To

heads

faery-doctors

may be
their

thrust from their doors to see

what mis-

gentry

'

are doing.

trained eyes and ears the fields are covered

by red-hatted
shrill

riders,

and the

air is full

of

voices

a sound
117

like whistling, as

an

The
Celtic

ancient

Scottish

seer

has recorded, and

Twilight,

wholly different from the talk of the angels,

who
said.

'

speak much

in the throat,

like the

Irish,'

as Lilly, the astrologer, has wisely

If there

be a new-born baby or new-

wed

bride in the neighbourhood, the night'

capped

doctors
care,

'

will

peer with more than

common

for the unearthly troop

do

not always return empty-handed.

Somethe

times a new-wed bride or a new-born baby

goes with them into their mountains

door swings to behind, and the new-born

or the

new-wed moves henceforth

;

in the

bloodless land of Faery

happy enough,

but

doomed
live

to melt out at the last judgfor the soul can-

ment
not

like bright vapour,

without sorrow.

Through

this

door of white stone, and the other doors of

that land

where geabheadh tu an sonas aer

for

pig kin ('you can buy joy

a penny'),
princes, but

have gone kings, queens, and

so greatly has the
that there are

power of Faery dwindled,

in these

none but peasants

118

sad chronicles of mine.

Somewhere about
Market
Street, Sligo,
is,

the beginning of last Kidnappers,

century appeared at the western corner of

where the butcher's

shop now

not a palace, as in Keats's

Lamia, but an apothecary's shop, ruled

over by a certain unaccountable Dr. Opendon.

Where he came
There
had
also

from,

none ever
those

knew.
days, a

was

in Sligo, in

woman, Ormsby by name, whose

fallen

husband

mysteriously

sick.

The

doctors could

make nothing
wrong
with

of him.

Nothing seemed

him,

yet

weaker and weaker he grew.

the wife to Dr. Opendon.
into the
sitting

Away went

She was shown

shop parlour.

black cat was

fire.

straight

up before the
and

She

had

just time to see that the side-board

fruit,

was covered with

self,
'

to say to her-

Fruit must be

wholesome when the

doctor has so much,' before Dr.

Opendon
black, the

came
same

in.

He

was dressed
and

all in

as the cat,
in

his wife

walked behind

him dressed

black likewise.
little

She gave
bottle in

him a guinea, and got a

119

The
Celtic

return.

Her husband recovered

that time.

Twilight.

Meanwhile the black doctor cured many

people
;

but one day a rich patient died,

and

cat, wife,

and doctor

all

vanished the

night after.
fell

In a year the

man Ormsby
felt

sick once more.

Now

he was a goodsure the

looking man, and his

'

wife

gentry were coveting him.

She went and

'

called

on the
as he

'

faery-doctor

at Cairnsfoot.
tale,

As soon

had heard her

he went

behind the back door and began muttering,

muttering, muttering

making
time

spells.

Her
after

husband got well

this

also.

But
fatal

a while he sickened again, the

time,

third
to

and away went she once more

Cairnsfoot,

and out went the faery-doctor

behind his back door and began muttering,

but soon he

came

in

and

told her
;

it

was no

use

her

husband would die

died,

and sure
after

enough the man

and ever

when

she spoke of him Mrs.

Ormsby shook her

head saying she knew well where he was,

and

it

wasn't in heaven or hell or purgatory

either.

She probably believed

120

that a log

of

wood was

left

behind
it

in his

place, but Kidnappers.

so bewitched that
of her husband.

seemed the dead body

She
living
for

is

dead now

herself,

but

many
I

still

remember

her.

She was,
else

believe,

a time a servant or

a kind

of

pensioner of some relations of

my

own.
off are

Sometimes those who are carried

allowed after
a
final

many

years

seven usually
Many
suddenly

glimpse of their friends.

years

ago a

woman

vanished

from a Sligo garden where she was walking with

her husband.

When

her son,

who was

then a baby, had grown up he

received word in

some way, not handed

for the

down, that his mother was glamoured by

faeries,

and imprisoned

time in a

house

in

Glasgow and longing

in

to see him.

Glasgow
seemed
the

those

days of sailing-ships

to the peasant

mind almost over

he,

edge of the known world, yet

being a dutiful son, started away.

For a

long time he walked the streets of Glas-

gow

at last

down

in a cellar
121

he saw his

The
Twilight,

mother working.
said,

She was happy, she and had the best of good eating, and
?

would he not eat

and therewith
;

laid all

kinds of food on the table

well that she

but he, knowing

was trying

to cast

on him the

glamour by giving him faery

might keep him with
her,

food, that she

refused

and

came home

to his people in Sligo.

Some

five miles

southward of Sligo

is

gloomy and tree-bordered pond, a great

gathering-place of water-fowl, called, be-

cause of

its

form, the Heart Lake.

It is

haunted by stranger things than heron,

snipe,

or wild

duck.

Out of

this
in

lake,

as from the white square

stone

Ben Once
house

Bulben, issues an unearthly troop.

men began
them
in flames.

to

drain

it

suddenly one of

raised a cry that

he saw

his

They

turned round, and every

cottage burning.
find
it

man there saw his own They hurried home to

faery

was but
on
the

glamour.

To
is

this

hour

border of the lake

trench

shown a half-dug
impiety.

the

signet

of their
122

little

way

from

this

lake

heard

a Kidnappers.

beautiful

and mournful history of faery

I

kidnapping.

heard
white

it

from a

little

old
to

woman

in

cap,

who

sings

herself in Gaelic,
to the other as

and moves from one

foot

though she remembered

the dancing of her youth.

A
the
his

young man going

at nightfall to the
in

house of his just married bride, met

way

a jolly company, and with them

bride.

They were
a wife

faeries,

and had
chief

stolen

her as

for

the

of

their band.

To him

they seemed only a

company
welcome,
should

of

merry mortals.
old
love,

His

bride,

when she saw her

but was
the
eat

bade him
lest

most

fearful

he
be
that

faery

food,

and

so

glamoured
bloodless

out

of

the

earth

into

dim

nation, wherefore

she set

him down
cavalcade
;

to play cards with three of the

and he

played on,

realizing

nothing until he saw the chief of the band

carrying
his

bride

away

in

his

arms.

Immediately he started up, and knew that

123

The
Twilight,

they were faeries

for slowly all that jolly

company melted

into

shadow and

night.

He
the

hurried to the house of his beloved.

As he drew
keeners.

near came to him the cry of

She had died some time

before

he came.

Some
this

noteless

Gaelic

poet
ballad,

had

made some odd

into

forgotten

verses

of

which

my

white-capped friend remembered and sang

for

me.
stolen people

Sometimes one hears of

acting as
this tale,

good

genii to the living, as in

heard also close by the haunted

pond, of John Kirwan of Castle Hacket.

The Kirwans 1

are a family

much rumoured

of in peasant stories, and believed to be

have since heard that

it

was not the Kirwans,

Hacket, the Hackets
a
I

but their predecessors at Castle

themselves, I
think,

who were descended from

for beauty.

man and

spirit,

and were notable

imagine that the

mother of Lord Cloncurry was

It

descended from the Hackets.

all

may

well be that

through these stories the name of Kirwan has

taken the place of the older name.

everything together in her cauldron.
%

Legend mixes

124

the descendants of a

man and
the

spirit.

Kidnappers.

They have ever been famous

and
I

for beauty,

have

read

that

mother

of

the present Lord Cloncurry

tribe.

was of

their

John Kirwan was a great horse-racing

man, and once landed
in

Liverpool with
in

a fine horse, going racing somewhere

middle

England.

That evening,
slip of

as

he

walked by the docks, a

a boy came
his

up and asked where he was stabling

horse.

In

such and
'

such

place,

he

answered.
the
slip

Don't put him there,' said

of a

boy

' ;

that

stable will

be

burnt to-night'

He

took his horse

else-

where, and sure enough the stable was

burnt down.

Next day the boy came

to ride as his

and asked as reward

in the

jockey

coming

race,

and then was gone.

The race-time came round. At the last moment the boy ran forward and mounted,
saying,
'

If

strike
I

him with the whip

but
if

in

my

left

hand
all

will lose,

in

my

right

hand bet

you are worth.'

125

For, said

The
Celtic Twilight.

Paddy Flynn, who

l

told

me

the

tale,
I

'

the

arm 1S good for nothing. go on making the sign of the

e ft
it,

might

cross with

and

all

that,

come Christmas, and a

like,

Banshee,

or
if

such
it

would

no more
Well,

mind than

was

that broom.'

the slip of a boy struck the horse with

his right hand,

and John Kirwan cleared

the field out.

'

When
do
for
this,'

the race was over,

What

can

you now
said

?
'

said he.
' :

Nothing but
has a

the

boy

my

mother

cottage

on

your

land

they stole
to her,

me
I

from the

cradle.

Be good
follows

John Kirwan, and wherever your

will

horses go

watch that no
will

ill

them

but you
that

never see
himself

me

more.'

With

he

made

air,

and

vanished.

Sometimes animals
apparently
others.

are

carried

off

drowned animals
Claremorris,

more

than

In

Gal way,

Paddy

Flynn

told me, lived a poor

its

widow with
fell

one cow and

calf.

The cow

into

the river, and was washed away.

126

There

was a man thereabouts who went

red-haired
to

to

a Kidnappers.

woman

for

such are supposed

be wise

in these

things

and
to the

she told

him
the

to take the calf

river,

down
told
calf

edge of

and hide himself and watch.

as

He
and

did

she

had

him,

and as
to

evening came on the

after a while the

began

low,

cow came along the

he caught

edge of the river and commenced suckling

it.

Then, as he had been

tail.

told,

the cow's

Away

they went at a great

ditches,
till

pace, across hedges

and

they
little

came

to

a royalty (a

name

for the

circular ditches,
forts,

commonly
is

called raths or

that

Ireland

covered with since

Pagan

times).
all

Therein he saw walking

or sitting

the people

of his village in his

sitting

who had died out time. A woman was

him
to

on the edge with a child on her

knees, and she called out to

mind
Bleed

what the red-haired woman had

and he remembered she had
the cow.

told him,

said,

So he stuck
blood.
127

his knife into the

cow and drew

That broke the

The
Celtic

spell,

and he was able

'

to turn her

home-

Twilight,

ward.
the

Do

not forget the spancel,' said

woman

with the child on her knees

'take the inside one.'

spancels the

There were three

he took one, and
safely

on a bush

cow was driven

home

to

the

widow.

There
side

is

hardly a valley or mountainfolk cannot tell

where

you of some

one pillaged from amongst them.

or three miles from the Heart

Two
lives
in

Lake

an old

woman who was

After seven

stolen

away

her youth.

years

she was

brought

home

again for some reason or

other, but she

had no
off.

toes

left.

She had

danced them
stone

Many

near the white

door

in

Ben Bulben have been

be sensible
I

stolen away.
It
is

far easier to

in cities
tell

than in

many

country places

could

you

of.

When

one walks on those grey

roads at evening by the scented elder-

bushes of the white cottages, watching the

faint

mountains gathering the clouds upon

128

their heads,

one
thin

all

too readily discovers, Kidnappers.

veil of

beyond the

cobweb

the senses,

those creatures, the goblins, hurrying from

the white square stone door to the north,
or from the Heart

Lake

in the south.

129

The
Celtic

THE UNTIRING ONES

It
life
is

Twilight.

one

of

the

great

troubles

of

that

we cannot have any unmixed

There
that
is

emotions.

always something

in
in

our

enemy

we

like,

and something

our sweetheart that

entanglement of
old,

we dislike. It is this moods which makes us

If

and puckers our brows and deepens

the furrows about our eyes.

we

could

love and hate with as good heart as the

faeries do,
like

we might grow
But
sorrows

to

be long-lived

them.

until that

day

their

un-

tiring

joys and

must

ever

be

one-half of their fascination.

Love with
dancing

them

never

grows weary, nor can the

circles of the stars tire out their

feet.

this
full

The Donegal peasants remember when they bend over the spade, or sit
of the heaviness of the fields beside
tell

the griddle at nightfall, and they

stories

about
short
little

it

that

it

may
one

not be forgotten.

while

ago,

they say,
like a

two

faeries,

creatures,

young man, one

130

like a

young woman, came

,
. i

to a

farmers
i

The
Untiring Ones.

house, and spent the night sweeping the

hearth and setting

night

all

tidy.

The

next
the

they

came

again,

and while
all

farmer was away, brought

up-stairs
into
it it

the furniture

one

room,

and

having

arranged

round the

walls, for the greater

grandeur

seems, they began to dance.

on,

They danced on and

days went by, and

and days and

country-side
their feet

all

the

came
never

to look at
tired.

them, but

still

The farmer
;

did not dare to

after

live at

home the while and months he made up his mind

no more, and went and
told

three
it

to stand

them

that the

priest

was coming.
this

The

little

creatures
to their

when they heard

went back
their

own

country,

and there

joy shall

last as

long as the points of the rushes

is

are brown, the people say, and that

until

God

shall
it

burn up the world with a

is

kiss.

But

not merely faeries

there
falling
131

untiring days, for

who know have been men

under their en-

and women who,

The
Twilight,

chantment, have attained, perhaps by the

right of their

God-given

spirits,

an even
life

more than
feeling.
It

faery

abundance of

and

seems that when mortals have

gone amid those poor happy leaves of

the Imperishable Rose of Beauty, blown
hither

and

thither

by

the

winds

that

awakened
haps a
best.

the

stars,

the

dim

kingdom
perits

has acknowledged
little

their

birthright,

sadly,

and given them of

Such a mortal was born long ago

at a village in the south of Ireland.

She
of the

lay
sat

asleep

in

a cradle, and her mother

her,

by rocking

when
came

a
in,

woman

Sidhe (the

faeries)

and said that

the child was chosen to be the bride of

the prince of the dim kingdom, but that

as
it

would never do

for his wife to

still

grow
first

old and die while he was

in

the

ardour of his love, she would be gifted

with a faery
life.

The mother was

fire

to take

the glowing log out of the

it

and bury

in the

garden, and her child would live

it

as long as

remained unconsumed.
132

The

mother buried the

up,

log,

and the child grew

The
Ones,

became a beauty, and married the

prince of the faeries,

nightfall.

who came

to her at

After seven hundred years the

prince died, and another prince ruled in his

stead
girl

and married the beautiful peasant

;

in his turn

and

after another
also,

seven

hundred years he died

and another

prince and another husband

stead,

came

in his

and so on

until

she had had seven

husbands.

At

last

one day the priest of

the parish called upon her, and told her

that

she

was a

scandal

to

the

whole

neighbourhood with her seven husbands

and her long

life.

She was very

sorry,

she said, but she was not to blame, and

then she told him about the

log,

and he

went straight out and dug

it,

until

he found
died,

and then they burned

it,

and she

and

was buried

like

Christian,

and

everybody was pleased.

Such a mortal
went
be
all

too was Clooth-na-bare, 1 who

1

Doubtless

Clooth-na-bare

should
old

Cailleac

Bare,

which would mean the

i33

Woman

Bare.

The
Celtic

over the world seeking a lake deep enough

to

Twilight.

drown her faery

life,

of which she had

hill

grown weary, leaping from

and lake
to
hill,

to

lake

and setting up a cairn

of stones wherever her feet lighted, until

at last she

found the deepest water

little

in the

world

in

Lough

la,

on the top of

the Birds' Mountain at Sligo.

The two
on,

little

creatures

may
for

well dance

and the woman of the log and Cloothsleep

in

na-bare

peace,

they

have

known untrammelled
love,

hate and unmixed

and have never wearied themselves

'

with
feet

yes

'

and

'

no,'

or entangled their
'

with the sorry net of

maybe

'

and

'perhaps.'

The

great

winds

came and

took them up into themselves.

Bare or Bere or Verah or Dera or Dhera was a
very famous
person,

perhaps the
Of

mother

of

the

Gods

herself.

friend

mine found

her, as

he

thinks, frequenting

Lough Leath,
the

or the Grey

Lake

on a mountain of the Fews.

is

Perhaps Lough la
mispronun-

my

mishearing, or

story-teller's

ciation of

Lough Leath,

for there are

many Lough

Leaths.

134

EARTH, FIRE AND WATER

Some French
I

Earth, Fire

and Water.

writer that

read

when
went
their

was a boy,
the

said that the desert

into

heart

of

the

Jews

in

wanderings and made

are.
I

them what they

even yet
but

cannot remember by what arguto

ment he proved them

the
it

be

indestructible

children

of earth,

may

well

be that the elements have

If

their

children.

we knew
might

the
find

Fire
that

Worshippers better we

their centuries of pious observance

have

been rewarded, and that the

fire
;

has ^iven
I

them a

little

of

its

nature

and

am

certain that the

water,

the water of the

seas and of lakes and of mist and rain,

has

all

but

made
if

the Irish after

in

its

image.

Images form themselves

petually as
pool.

our minds perin

they were reflected

some
times

We

gave ourselves up

in old

to mythology,

and saw the Gods every-

where.

We

talked to

them

face to face,

and the

stories of that
i35

communion

are so

The
Celtic

many J
Even

that
.

think they outnumber

of
all

all

the

Twilight,

hke stones
to-day

the

rest

of

Europe.

our

country people speak

with the dead and with some

who

per-

haps have never died as we understand

death
;

and even our educated people pass

without great difficulty into the condition

of quiet that
is

the

condition of vision.
so
like
still

We
they

can

make our minds

see,

water that beings gather about us that

may

it

may

be,

their

own
life

images, and so live for a

clearer,

moment

with a

perhaps even with a

fiercer

because of our quiet.

Did not the wise

all

Porphyry think that

souls

come

to

be

born because of water,

and that 'even

is

the generation of images in the mind

from water'?

1902.

136

THE OLD TOWN

I

The Old
Town.

fell, one
into

night

some

fifteen

years
of

ago,
faery.
I

what

seemed

the

power

had gone with a yojung man and

his

sister

friends and

relations of

my own
;

to pick stories out of

an old countryman

and we were coming home talking over

what he had

told us.

It

was dark, and our

imaginations were excited by his stories

of apparitions, and this
us,

may have brought

to

unknown
and

to

us,

the

threshold,

between
Sphinxes

sleeping

and

waking,
sit

where

Chimaeras

open-eyed

and where there are always murmurings and

whisperings.
I

cannot

think

that

what we saw was an imagination of the

waking mind.
trees that

We

had come under some

made

the road very dark,

when

the girl saw a bright light

across the road.
self

moving slowly

Her

brother and my-

saw nothing, and did not see anything

until

we had walked
i37

for

about half-an-

The
Twilight,

hour along the edge

of

the

river

and

down a narrow
ivy,

lane to

some

fields

where

there was a ruined church covered with

and

the

foundations

of

what was

called

"the Old Town," which had been

it

burned down,
day. so far

was

said,

in

Cromwell's

We
as
fields

had stood
I

for

some few minutes,

looking over

can
of

recollect,

the

full

stones

and brambles
I

and

elder-bushes,

when

saw a small
it

bright light on the horizon, as

seemed,

mounting
then

up slowly towards

the

sky

we saw
and

other faint lights for a minute

at
last

or two,

a bright

flame

like

the flame of a torch

the river.

moving
in

rapidly over

We

saw
all

it all

such a dream,
I

and

it

seems

so
it

unreal, that

have

never written of
ever spoken of
ing,
I

until

now, and hardly

it,

and even when think-

because of some unreasoning impulse,

it

have avoided giving

Perhaps
of
I

weight
felt

in

the

argument.
recollections

have

that

my
the

things

seen

when

sense of reality was

138

weakened must be

untrustworthy.
ever,
I

A
it

few months ago, how-

The Old

talked

over with
their

my

two

friends,

and compared

somewhat
own.
the
I

meagre

recollections with

my
all

That sense

of unreality was

more wonderful
heard sounds as
lights,

because the next day

unaccountable as were those

and
I

without any emotion of unreality, and

remember them with

and
confidence.

perfect distinctness
gfirl

The

was

sitting

reading under a large old-fashioned mirror,

and

was reading and writing a couple

of yards away,
if

when

heard a sound as

shower of peas had been thrown

the
at
it

against

mirror,
I

and

while

was

looking

heard the sound again,

I

and presently, while

room,
I

was alone
if

in

the

heard a sound as

something

much bigger than

wainscoting beside
that
for

a pea had struck the

my
me

head.

And

after

some days
to

came other
but to the

sights

and sounds, not

brother, and

girl,
it

her

the servants.

Now

was
of

bright

light,

now
139

it

was

letters

The
Celtic

fire

that
3

vanished before they could be

Twilight,

read,

now
in

it

was a L heavy
seemingly

/ foot
empty

moving
house.
live,

about

the

One wonders whether

creatures

who

the country people believe, wherever

men

and women have lived

followed us

in

earlier

times,

from the ruins of the old

town
of
first

or did they
river

come from
the
trees
for a

the banks

the

by

where
?

the

light

had shone

moment

1902.

140

THE MAN AND

There was

HIS BOOTS

The Man
and
his

Boots.

a doubter in Donegal, and

he would not hear of ghosts or sheogues,

and there was a house

remember, and

in

Donegal that

had been haunted as long as man could

this is the story of

house got the better of the

how the man. The

fire

man came
in

into the

house and lighted a

the

room under the haunted

and
stretched

one, and

took off his boots and set them on the

hearth,

out

his

feet

and

warmed

himself.
;

For a time he prospered

but a
little

in his unbelief

while after the

night had

fallen,

and everything had got

very dark, one of his boots began to move.

It

got up off the floor and gave a kind of

slow

jump towards
first
it

the door, and then the

other boot did the same, and after that

the

boot jumped again.

struck the

And

there-

upon

man
in

that an invisible

being had got into his boots, and was

now going away

them.

When

the

boots reached the door they went up-stairs

141

The
Celtic

slowly,

and then the man heard them go

L

Twilight,

J U tramp, tramp round the haunted room over

his head.

few minutes passed, and he

stairs,

could hear them again upon the

after that in the

and

passage outside, and then

in at the door,

one of them came

other gave a

and the

jump past it and came in too. They jumped along towards him, and then
hit

one got up and

him, and afterwards the

first hit

other hit him, and then again the

him, and so on, until they drove him out

of the room, and finally out of the house. In this
boots,

way he was kicked

It

out by his

own
its

and Donegal was avenged upon

is

doubter.

not recorded whether the

invisible being

was a ghost or one of the

Sidhe, but the fantastic nature of the ven-

geance

is

like the

work of the Sidhe who

live in the heart of fantasy.

142

A COWARD
One day
I

Coward.

was

at

the house of

my

friend the strong farmer,

who

lives

beyond

Ben Bulben and Cope's mountain, and met

there a

young

lad

who seemed
I

to

be

dis-

liked by the

two daughters.

asked

why
some

they disliked him, and

a coward.

was

told

he was
for

This interested me,

whom

robust children of nature take to be

cowards are but

men and women with a nervous system too finely made for their
life

and work.

looked at the lad

face

but

no,

that pink-and-white

and strong
sensibility.

body had nothing of undue

After a
little

he told

me

his story.
life,

He
one

had lived a wild and reckless

day,
late

until

two years
at

before,

he was coming home

felt

night,
in,

and suddenly
it

himself

sinking
world.

as

were, upon the ghostly

face of

For a moment he saw the

rise

a dead brother

up before him, and

then he turned and ran.

till

He

did not stop

he came to a cottage nearly a mile

143

The
Twilight,

down

the road.

He

flung himself against

the door with so

broke the thick

the
wild
floor.
life,

much of violence that he wooden bolt and fell upon

that

From
but

day he gave up
hopeless

his

was

coward.
to look,

Nothing could ever bring him

either

by day or

night,

upon

the spot

where he had seen the

went two miles round
could,

face,

and he often
it
;

to

avoid

nor

he
'

said,

'the prettiest girl in the

country

persuade him to see her

home
feared

after a party if

he were alone.

He

everything, for he had looked at the face

no man can see unchanged

derable face of a
spirit.

the

impon-

144

THE THREE O'BYRNES AND THE EVIL FAERIES

In
the

The Three
O'Byrnes

and the Evil Faeries.

dim kingdom there

all

is

a great

abundance of
is

excellent things.

There
;

more love there than upon the earth

is

there

more dancing there than upon

;

the earth

and there

is

more treasure there

than upon the earth.

earth was perhaps

In the beginning the

to
fulfil

made

the desire

of man, but
into decay.
pilfer

now it has got What wonder

was once
at

old
if

and

fallen

we

try

and

the treasures of that other

friend

kingdom
near

a village

Sleive League.

One day he was

'

straying

about a rath called

Cashel
face
in

Nore.'

man
hair,

with a haggard

and unkempt
pieces,

and clothes
the
rath

falling

came

into

and began digging.

My

friend turned to a peasant

ing near
1

who was workand asked who the man was.

the
third

That

is

O'Byrne,'
after

was

the
this

answer.
story
:

few days

he learned

great quantity of treasure

145
l

had

The
Celtic

been buried

in

the rath in pagan times,

evil faeries set to
it

Twilight,

and a number of
it
;

guard

but some day

the

was

to

be found and
the

belong to

family

of

O'Byrnes.

Before that day three O'Byrnes must find

it

and

die.

Two

had already done

so.

The

first

had dug and dug

until at last

he got a glimpse of the stone

contained
it,

coffin that

but immediately a thing like

a huge hairy dog came

down

the mountain

and tore him

to pieces.

The

next morning

the treasure had again vanished deep into the earth.

The second
until
lid

O' Byrne came and

coffer,

dug and dug

lifted

he found the

and

the

and saw the gold shining

within.

He

saw some horrible sight the

next moment, and went raving

mad and

soon died.
of sight.
ging.

The treasure again sank out The third O' Byrne is now digbelieves
that

He

he

will

die

in

some
the

terrible

way

the
that

moment he
the
spell

finds

treasure, but

will

be
rich

broken, and the O' Byrne family

for ever, as

made

they were of
146

old.

peasant of the neighbourhood once

treasure.

The Three
and the
EvllFaenes
-

saw the

He

found the shin-bone

of a hare lying on the grass.

He
;

took

it

up

there

was a hole

in

it

he looked

through the hole, and saw the gold heaped

up under the ground.

to bring a spade, but

He

hurried

home
to the

when he got

rath again he could not find the spot

where

he had seen

it.

i47

The
Celtic

DRUMCLIFF AND ROSSES

Drumcliff and Rosses were,
ever shall
be,
are,

Twilight.

and

please
I

Heaven

places of

unearthly resort.

have lived near by

them and

in

them, time after time, and

have gathered thus many a crumb of faery

lore.

Drumcliff
the
in

is

a wide green valley,

of

lying- at

foot

Ben Bulben, the

mountain

whose

side the square white

door swings open

at nightfall to loose the

faery riders on the world.

The
valley,

great St.
of

Columba
of the

himself,

the
in

builder

many

old

ruins

the

climbed

the mountains on one notable day to get

near heaven with his prayers.

a
little

Rosses

is

sea-dividing, sandy plain, covered

with short grass, like a green table-cloth,

and lying

in

the foam

midway between
Knocknarea and

the round cairn-headed

'

Ben Bulben, famous

1

for

hawks

'

But

for

Benbulben and Knocknarea

Many
as the
**

a poor sailor 'd be cast away,'

rhyme

goes.
148

At
little

the northern corner of Rosses

is

Drumchff and Rosses,

promontory of sand and rocks and

:

grass

a mournful,

haunted place.
fall

No
its

wise peasant would

asleep under

low

cliff,

for

he who sleeps here may wake

people' having carried
is

'silly,'

the 'good
soul.

off his

There

no more ready
this

short-cut to the

dim kingdom than

for,

plovery headland,
ered

covered and smoth-

now from

sight

by mounds of sand,
'

a long cave goes thither

silver,

full

of gold and

and the most beautiful parlours and

Once, before the sand
in,

drawing-rooms.'

covered

it,

a dog strayed

and was heard

yelping helplessly deep underground in a

fort

far

inland.

These

forts

or

raths,

made
cover

before
all

modern

history
all

had begun,

Rosses and

Columkille.
has, like

The
most

one where the dog yelped

others, an

underground beehive chamber

in the midst.

Once when

was poking

about there, an unusually intelligent and

who had come with me, and waited outside, knelt down by the
'

reading

'

peasant

149

The
Twilight.

opening, and whispered in a timid voice,

'

Are you
little
I

all

right,

sir ?

'

had been

some
feared

while

underground,

and

he

had been carried

off like the dog.

No
It is

wonder he was

afraid, for the fort

has long been circled by ill-boding rumours.

on the ridge of a small

lie

hill,

on whose

northern slope

a few

stray cottages.

One

night a farmer's young son

came from
flaming,
'

one of them and saw the

fort all
'

and ran towards

it,

but the

glamour

fell

on him, and he sprang on to a

legged, and
stick,

fence, crossit

commenced beating

with a

for

he imagined the fence was a

all

horse,

and that

night long he went on

the most wonderful ride through the country. In the morning he was
fence,
still

beating his

and they carried him home, where

for

he remained a simpleton
before he
later a

three years

came

to himself again.

little

farmer tried to level the

died,

fort.

His

cows and horses

and

all

manner of

trouble overtook him, and finally he himself

was led home, and

150

left

useless with

his

head on

his knees

by the

fire

to the

Drumcliff

and Rosses,

day of

his death.'

few hundred yards southwards of the

is

northern angle of Rosses

another angle
this

having also
not

its

cave,

though

one

is

covered with sand.

About twenty

years

ago a brig was wrecked near by,

to

and three or four fishermen were put

watch the deserted hulk through the darkness.

At midnight they saw

sitting

on a

stone at the cave's

mouth two red-capped

fiddlers fiddling with all their might.

The

men

fled.

great

crowd of

villagers
fiddlers,

rushed down to the cave to see the

but the creatures had gone.

To

the wise peasant the green

full

hills

and

woods round him are

mystery.

of never-fading

When
words,

the aged countrywoman the evening, and,

stands at her door in

in

her

own

'

looks at the mountains

and thinks of the goodness of God,' God

is all

the nearer, because the pagan powers

far
:

are not

because northward in

Ben

Bulben, famous for hawks, the white square

151

The
Twilight,

door swings open at sundown, and those

wild unchristian riders rush forth upon the
fields,

while southward the

doubtless

White Lady,
wanders

who

is

Maive

herself,

under the broad cloud nightcap of Knocknarea.

How may

she doubt these things,

even though the

her?

priest shakes his

head

at

Did not a herd-boy, no long while

since, see the

White Lady?

She passed

so close that the skirt of her dress touched

him.
days.'

'

He
But

fell

down, and was dead three

merely the small gossip
little

this is

of faerydom
this

the
I

stitches

that join

world and the other.

night as
sat eating Mrs.

One
story,

's

soda-bread, her husband told

me

a longish

much the best of all I heard in Rosses. Many a poor man from Fin M'Cool to our own days has had some such adventure to
tell of, for

those creatures, the 'good people,'

love to repeat themselves.

the story-tellers do.
'

At any
he

rate

In the times
canal,'

when
'

we used

to travel

by the
152

said,

was coming down from Dublin.

When we

came
began

to

Mullingar the canal ended, and

walk, and
stiff
I

Drumcliff

to

and fatigued

was

after the slowness.

had some friends

with me, and

now and then we walked, now and then we rode in a cart. So on till we saw some girls milking cows, and
stopped to joke with them.
After a while
"

we asked them
have nothing
" but

for a drink of milk.

it

We

to put

in here,"

they

said,

come

to the

house with us."

sat

We
others

went home with them, and

fire

round the

talking.
left
I

After

while

the

went, and

me, loath to

stir

from the

good

fire.

asked the

girls for

something
fire,
it

to eat.

There was a pot on the

and

and
on a

they took the meat out and put

plate,

told

me

to eat only the

meat
I

that
eaten,

came
them

off the

head.

When
I

had

the girls went out, and

again.
I

did not

see

It

grew
and

darker

and

darker, and there

to leave the

still sat,

loath as ever
after a while

good
in,

fire,

two men came

a
corpse.

carrying between them

I

When

saw them coming

i53

The
Celtic

hid

behind the door.

.

Says one

to

the
spit,

Twilight,

other,

putting

the

corpse
" ?

on

the

" Who'll turn the spit

"

Says the other,

of that and
all

Michael
the

H
meat."

come out
I

turn

came out
turning
says
it

of a
spit.

tremble,
"

and

began
,"

the

Michael
first,

the

one
we'll
;

who
have

spoke
to put

"if you let

burn

you on the

spit instead
I

"

and on

that they

went

out.

sat there trembling

till

and turning the corpse

night.

towards mid-

The men came

was
burnt,
right.

again,

and the one

it

said

it

and the other said

fallen out

was
it,

done

But having

over

they both said they would do

that time
;

me

no harm
one of
,

and, sitting by the

:

fire,

them
you
I.

cried out

"

Michael

H
me by
Never

can

tell

me

a story?"

" Divil a one," said

On

which

he

caught

the
It

shoulder,

and put me out

like a shot.

was a wild blowing

night.

in all

my

born days did

see such a night

the
was

darkest night that ever came out of the

heavens.

did not
i54

know where

for the life of

me.

So when one
touched

of the

men came
you
tell

after

me and
" ?

me on
,

Drumchff and Rosses,

the shoulder, with a " Michael a story

can
In

now
;

"

can," says

I.

he brought
fire,

me

and putting
"
I

me by
was
in

the

says

" Begin."
I,

have no story
I

but the one," says

here,

" that

sitting

and you two men brought

it

a corpse
turning

and put
it."

on the

spit,

and

set
;

me
"

"
in
I

That

will do,"
lie

says he

ye

may

go

there and

down on
;

the bed."
in the

And

went, nothing loath

I

and

morning where was

a green
'

but in the middle of

field
'

Drumcliff

is

a great place for omens.

fishing
in

Before

prosperous

season

herring-barrel appears

the midst of a

storm-cloud
kille's

and

at a place called

Colum-

Strand, a place of marsh and mire,

an ancient boat, with St. Columba himself,

comes

floating in
:

from sea on a moon-

light night
ing.

a portent of a brave harvesttheir dread portents too.

They have

Some few

seasons ago a fisherman saw,

i55

The
Celtic

far

on the horizon, renowned

Hy

Brazel,

Twilight,

where he who touches

shall find

no more

labour or care, nor cynic laughter, but shall

go walking about under shadiest boscage,

and enjoy the conversation of Cuchullin and
his heroes.

vision of

Hy

Brazel

forebodes national troubles.

Drumcliff and Rosses are chokeful of

ghosts.

By

bog, road, rath, hillside, seain all

border they gather

shapes

headless
hares,

women,

men

in

armour,

shadow

fire-tongued hounds, so on.

whistling seals, and

whistling seal sank a ship the

other day.

At Drumcliff
this

there

is

a very
the

ancient graveyard.

The Annals of

Four Masters have

soldier

verse about a
died in
of

871
lies

named Denadhach, who 'A pious soldier of the race

hazel
crosses
old
at

Con

under

Drumcliff.'

Not very long ago an

to

woman, turning
at night to pray,
in

go

into the

churchyard

saw standing before her a man

armour,
It

who asked her where she was

was the
'

going.

pious soldier of the race of Con,'

156

says
.

local

wisdom,

still

keeping watch,

Drumchff and Rosses,

with his ancient piety, over the graveyard.

Again, the custom

is

still

common

here-

abouts of sprinkling the doorstep with the

blood of a chicken on the death of a very

young
into

child,

thus (as belief

is)

drawing
from the

the blood

the evil spirits

too

weak

soul.

Blood

is

a great gatherer

of evil

spirits.

To

cut your
is

hand on a
said to be

stone on going into a fort

very dangerous.

There
There
village

is

no

more curious ghost

behind a house
well
:

in

Drumcliff or Rosses than the snipe-ghost.

is

a bush
I

in

that
I

know

for
in

excellent

reasons

do not say whether

Drumcliff

or Rosses or on the slope of

Ben Bulben,

or even on the plain round Knocknarea.

There

is

a history concerning the house

and the bush.

man once

lived there

who found on
It

the quay of Sligo a package

containing three hundred pounds in notes.

was dropped by a foreign sea

captain.
It

This

my man

knew, but said nothing.

i57

The
Celtic

was money }
,
.

for freight,
.

and the sea

captain,
.

'

Twilight,

not daring to face his owners, committed

suicide in mid-ocean.

Shortly afterwards
rest.

my man
At any

died.
rate,

His soul could not

strange sounds were heard

round his house, though that had grown

and prospered since the

freight

money.
still

The
alive

wife

was often seen by those

in

out
I

the garden praying at the

of, for

bush

have spoken

the shade of the

at times.
:

dead man appeared there

bush remains
of a hedge,
it

The
for

to this

day

once portion
itself,

now

stands by

no

one dare put spade or pruning-knife about

it.

As

to the strange

sounds and voices,

a few years ago, a snipe flew

they did not cease

till

when, during some

out

repairs,

of the solid plaster and

away

the
of

troubled ghost,

say

the

neighbours,

the note-finder was at last dislodged.

My
near
years.

forebears and relations have lived

Rosses and

DrumclirT these

many
I

few

miles

northward

am

wholly a stranger, and can find nothing.

158

When
answer

ask for stories of the

faeries,

my
fort

is

some such

as

was given me by a
a white stone

Drumckff and Rosses,

woman who

lives near

one
1

of the few stone ones in Ireland

:

under the seaward angle of Ben Bulben

They always mind

always mind mine

their
:
'

own
it

affairs

and

for

is

dangerous

to talk of the creatures.

for yourself or
will

Only friendship

knowledge of your forebears

loosen these cautious tongues.

'

My
of

friend,

the sweet Harp-String'

his
Irish

(I

give no
fear

more

than

name

for

gaugers), has

the

science

of unpacking

the stubbornest heart, but then he supplies

the poteen-makers

with grain from his

is

own
'

fields.

Besides, he

descended from

a noted Gaelic magician

who

raised the

dhoul

'

in

Great Eliza's century, and he

tell

has a kind of prescriptive right to hear

of
all

kind of other-world creatures.

if all

They

are almost relations of his,

people say

concerning the parentage of magicians be

true.

i59

The
Celtic

Twilight.

THE THICK SKULL OF THE FORTUNATE

i

Once

number

of Icelandic peasantryin the

found a very thick skull

cemetery
Its
it

where the poet Egil was

great thickness

buried.

made them

feel certain

was the
Egil

skull of a great

man, doubtless of

himself.

To
It

be doubly sure they

hit
it

put

it

on a wall and

hard blows with

a hammer.
fell

got white where the blows

but did not break, and they were conit

vinced that
poet,

was

in truth the skull of the

and worthy of every honour.

In

Ireland

we have much
or
'

kinship with the

as

Icelanders,

Danes

'

we

call

them

and

all

other dwellers in the Scandinavian

In

countries.

some of our mountainous

and
in

and barren
villages,

places,

our seaboard

we still test each other in much the same way the Icelanders tested the head of Egil. We may have acquired the
custom from those ancient Danish
160
pirates,

whose descendants the people of Rosses The

tell

Thick

me

still

remember every
and are able any

held

and
to

Sku11 of the Fortunate.

hillock in Ireland
their forebears,

which once belonged

to describe

Rosses
is

itself as well as

native.

There

one seaboard

district

where the men are

known as Roughley, never known to shave

foot.

or trim their wild red beards, and where

there

is

a fight ever on

have
each

seen them at a boat-race

other,

fall

foul of

and

after

much

loud Gaelic, strike

each other with oars.

The

first

boat had

gone aground, and by dint of

hitting out

with the long oars kept the second boat

from passing, only to give the victory to

the
third.

One day

the

Sligo

people
tried
in

say a

man from Roughley was

the defence not

Sligo for breaking a skull in a row, and

made
that

unknown

in Ireland,

some heads

are so thin you cannot be

responsible for them.

Having turned with

a look of passionate contempt towards the

solicitor
1

who was

prosecuting, and cried,

that

little

fellow's skull if
161

ye were to M

hit

The
Twilight,

it

would go

like

an egg-shell,' he beamed
said in a wheedling

upon the judge, and

voice,
'

but a

man might

wallop away at

your lordship's

for a fortnight'

ii
I

wrote

all

this years ago, out of

I

what
in

were even then old memories.

was
it

Roughley the other day, and found

like

much

other desolate places.

been

thinking

of

may have Moughorow, a much

I

wilder place, for the

memories of one's

childhood are brittle things to lean upon.

1902.

162

THE RELIGION OF A SAILOR

A
sea captain when he stands upon the

The
Religion of a Sailor.

bridge, or looks out from his deck-house,

much about God and about the world. Away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget
thinks
all

things except the

face,
;

warmth of the sun

upon the

and the kind shadow under

the hedge

but he

who journeys through

storm and darkness must needs think and

think.

One
s.s.

July a couple of years ago

took

my

supper with a Captain Moran on

board the

Margaret, that had put into

a western river from

found

him a

know not where. man of many notions

I

all

flavoured

with his personality, as

sailors.

is

the

way with
sea

He

talked in his queer

manner of God and the world, and up

all

through

his

words broke the hard energy

of his calling.
1

Sur,' said he,

'

did you ever hear

?
'

tell

of

the sea captain's prayer

'

No,' said

'

what
163

is it ?

The
Twilight,

<

It

is,'

he

replied,
'

'

"

Lord, give

me

stiff
1

upper

lip."

And what
to

does that

mean
'that

'

'It

means,' he said,

come
and
that
sur,
in'

me some
make
in

night

when they and wake me up,

o'

say,
I

"Captain,

we're going down,"

meself.

won't

a fool

Why,
stand-

we war
to

mid

Atlantic,

and

on the bridge, when the third mate

comes up
he,
11

me

lookin' mortial bad.

Says
I,

"Captain,

all's

up with

us."

Says

Didn't you

certain

know when you joined that a " percentage go down every year ?
he; and says
? "
I,

"Yes,

sur," says

"Arn't

you paid

to

go down
I,

" Yes, sur," says

like a

he; and says

"Then go down
"
!

man, and be damned to you

164

CONCERNING THE NEARNESS

Concerning
together of

TOGETHER OF HEAVEN, EARTH, AND PURGATORY

In Ireland this world and the world

Heaven,
Earth, and Purgatory.

we

go

to after death are not far apart.

have

heard of a ghost that was

tree

many

years in a

and many years and

is

in the

archway of a

bridge,
'

my

There

Mayo woman says, bush up at my own place,

old

and the people do be saying that there

are two souls doing their penance under
it.

When

the wind blows one

way
It

the

one has
the

shelter,

and when
other has

it

blows from
is

north the

shelter.

twisted over with the

way they be
I

rooting
it,

under

it

for shelter.
is

don't believe

but there
it

many

a one would not pass by

at night.'

Indeed there are times when

it

the

worlds are so near together that

if

seems as

our earthly chattels were no

more than the shadows of things beyond.

lady

knew once saw a

165

village child

running about with a long trailing petticoat

The
Celtic

upon f
did

her,

'

and asked the creature why she 7

it

Twilight,

not have

cut short.
said

'

It

was

my

grandmother's,'

the

child;

'would

you have her going about yonder with her

petticoat

up

to her knees,
?
'

and she dead

but four days a

have read a story of

woman whose

ghost haunted her people

because they had

so short that the

made her

grave-clothes

fires

of purgatory burned

her knees.

The

peasantry expect to have

like their

beyond the grave houses much

earthly homes, only there the thatch will

never grow leaky, nor the white walls lose

their lustre, nor shall the dairy

be

at

any
But

time empty of good milk and butter.

now and then

gauger
will

a landlord or an agent or a
his bread, to

go by begging

show how God divides the righteous from

the unrighteous.

1892 and 1902.

166

THE EATERS OF PRECIOUS

c t ni tvt 17 c blUrsliib

The
Eaters of Precious Stones.

Sometimes when
from
little

have been shut

off

common
now

interests,

and have
I

for

forgotten to be restless,
faint

get waking

dreams,
vivid

and shadow-like, now

like the material

and solid-looking,

world under

my

feet.

Whether they be
alter in
will,

faint or vivid,

they are ever beyond the

will

power of
and

my

to

any way.

They have
hither
to
its

their

own

and

sweep

thither,

and change according

commands.

One day

saw

faintly

an immense

pit of blackness,

round which
this para-

went a

circular parapet,

and on

pet sat innumerable apes eating precious

stones out of the

palms of

their

hands.

The

stones glittered green and

crimson,
in-

and the apes devoured them with an

satiable hunger.
I

knew

that

saw the

Celtic Hell,

and

my own
all

Hell, the Hell of

the

artist,

and that

who sought

after

beautiful

and wonderful things with too

167

The
Twilight,

avid a

thirst,

lost

peace and form and

I

became shapeless and common.

seen into other people's hells

have

also,

and

saw

in

one an infernal Peter, who had a

lips,

black face and white

and who weighed

on a curious double scales not only the

evil
left

deeds committed, but the good deeds

undone, of certain invisible shades.
I I I

could see the scales go up and down, but

could

not

see

the

shades

who
I

were,

knew, crowding about him.

saw on

another occasion a quantity of

of
all

demons
serpent-

kinds of shapes

fish-like,

like, ape-like,

and dog-like

sitting

about a

black pit such as that in

my own

Hell,

and

looking at a moon-like reflection of the

Heavens which shone up from the depths

of the
pit.

168

OUR LADY OF THE HILLS

When we
at

Our Lady
of the Hills.

were children we did not say

such a distance from the post-office, or

so far from the butcher's or the grocer's,

but measured things by the covered well

in the

wood, or by the burrow of the fox

hill.

in the

We

belonged then to
to things

God
come
would

and

to

His works, and

down from

the ancient days.

We

not have been greatly surprised had

met the shining

the white
for

feet of

an angel

we among

mushrooms upon the

in

mountains-,

we knew

those days immense delove the

spair,

unfathomed

every
is

eternal

mood,
our
Gill,

but
A

now

draw-net

about

feet.

few miles eastward of Lough

girl,

a young Protestant

who was both

those
letter

pretty herself and prettily dressed in blue

and

white,

wandered up among
I

mountain mushrooms, and

of hers telling
children,

have a

how
they

she met a troop of

their

and became a portion of

dream.

When

first

saw her

they

169

The
Celtic

threw themselves face down

rushes, as
little
if

in
;

a bed of

Twilight,

in a great fear

but after a

other children

came about them, and

followed
their

they got
bravely.

up

and

her

almost

She

noticed
still

fear,

and

presently stood

and held out her arms.

little

girl
'

threw herself into them with

o'

the cry,
picture
also,
'
!

Ah, you are the Virgin out

'

the

'

No,' said another, coming near

she

is

a sky faery, for she has the

'No,' said a third,
'

colour of the sky.'

is

she

the faery out of the foxglove

grown

big.'

The
it

other children, however, would have

that she

was indeed the Virgin,

Virgin's
colours.

for

she

wore

the

Her good
her,

Protestant heart was greatly troubled, and

she got the children to

sit

down about
she was,

and

tried

to

explain

who

but

they would have none of her explanation.

Finding explanation of no

avail,

she asked
?
'

had they ever heard of Christ

said one
'

Yes,'

but
us

we do
if
it

not like Him, for

He
the

would
Virgin.'

kill

were not
to

for

'Tell

Him
170

be good to me,'

whispered r

another
let

into

her

ear.

'

He

Our Lady
of the Hills,

would not
I

me
to

near Him, for dad says

am

divil,'

burst out a third.

She talked
Christ and
interrupted
stick,

them a long time about

but was finally

the apostles,

by an elderly

woman

with a

who, taking her to be some advenhunter

for

turous
children

converts,

drove

the

away, despite their explanation

that here

was the great Queen of Heaven

walk upon the mountain and be

come
gone

to

kind to them. she went

When
on

the children

had
had

her way,

and

walked about

half-a-mile,
'

when
'

the child

who was

called

a divil

jumped

down
'

from the high ditch by the lane, and said

she would believe her
if
'

an ordinary lady

she had 'two

skirts.'

skirts,' for

'ladies always
skirts'

had two

The 'two

were
crest-

shown, and the child went away

fallen,

but

few minutes later jumped

down
I'm a

again
'

from the
divil,

ditch,

and

cried

angrily,

Dad's a

mum's a

divil,

and

divil,

and you are only an ordinary

171

The
Celtic

lady,'

and having flung a handful of

mud
her

Twilight,

and pebbles ran away sobbing.

When
to

my

pretty

Protestant had

come

own home she found

that she

had dropped

the tassels of her parasol.

year later

she was by chance upon the mountain, but

wearing now a plain black dress, and met

the
child

who had
o'

first

called

her the

Virgin
tassels
said,
'

out

the

picture,

and saw the and

hanging about the

child's neck,
last year,

am

the lady you

met
'

who
!

told

you about
!

Christ.'
!

No,

you are

not

no,

you are not

no,

you are not

was the passionate

it

reply.

And
in

after

all,

was not

my pretty

Protestant, but Mary,

Star of the Sea,

still

walking

sadness

and

in

beauty upon

by many a shore,

many a mountain and who cast those tassels at

It is

the feet of the child.

that

indeed
is

fitting

men pray

to

her

who

the mother

of peace, the mother of dreams, and the

mother of

purity, to leave

them yet a
and
to

little

hour to do good and

old

evil in,

watch

Time

telling the rosary of the stars.

172

THE GOLDEN AGE

A
while ago
I

The
Golden Age.

was

in the
last

train,

and had

getting near Sligo.

The

time

been there something was troubling me,

and

had longed

for a

message from those

or

beings

or bodiless

moods,

whatever

they be,

who

inhabit the world of spirits.

The message

came, for one night

saw

with blinding distinctness a black animal,

half weasel, half dog,

moving along the top

of a stone wall, and presently the black

animal vanished, and from the other side

came a white
flesh shining
all in

weasel-like

dog, his

pink

through his white hair and

;

a blaze of light

and

remembered

a peasant belief about two faery dogs

who
good

go about representing day and

and
lent
evil,

night,

and was comforted by the excelBut

omen.

now

longed

for

a
if

message of another kind, and chance,

chance there
is,

brought

it,

for

man
old

got into the carriage and began to play

on a

fiddle

made apparently
*73

of an

The
Twilight,

blacking-box,

and

though
filled

am

quite

unmusical the sounds

strangest emotions.
I

me

with the
to hear a

seemed

voice of lamentation out

of the Golden
are imperfect,

Age.

It

told

me

that

we

incomplete, and no

more

like a beautiful

woven web, but

It said that

like

a bundle of cords

knotted together and flung into a corner.

the world was once
all

perfect

and

kindly,

and that

still

the kindly and

perfect

world existed, but buried like a

mass of roses under many spadefuls of

earth.

The

faeries

and the more innocent

it,

of the spirits dwelt within

and lamented
lamentation

over our

fallen

world

in the

of the wind-tossed reeds, in the song of

the birds, in the
in the

moan

of the waves, and

fiddle.
It

sweet cry of the

said that

with us the beautiful are not clever and

the clever are not beautiful, and that the
best of our
little

moments

are

marred by a

vulgarity,

or by a pin-prick out of

sad recollection, and that the fiddle must

ever lament about
it
J

all.

It

said that

if

74

only they
could die
voices

who live in the Golden Age we might be happy, for the sad
be
still
;

The

would

but alas

alas
until

they must sing and

we must weep

the Eternal gates swing open.

We

were now getting into the big

glass-

roofed terminus, and the fiddler put

his old blacking-box
for a

away

and held out

his hat

copper,

and then opened the door

and was gone.

75

The
Twilight.

WITH REMONSTRANCE HAVING SCOTSMEN FOR SOURED THE DISPOSITION OF THEIR GHOSTS AND FAERIES
Not
extant.

only
It

in

Ireland

is

faery belief

still
I

was

only the

other

day

heard of a Scottish farmer

that

who

believed

the lake in front of his house was

haunted by a water-horse.
of
it,

He

was

afraid

and dragged the lake with

nets,
It

and

then tried to

pump
him.

it

empty.

would

have been a bad thing

for the water-horse

had he
would

found

An
in

Irish

peasant
to

have long

since

come

terms

with the creature.

is

For

Ireland there

something of timid affection between

spirits.

men and
side to

They

only

ill-treat

each

other in reason.

Each admits the other

There are points
will go.

have

feelings.

beyond which neither

No
He

Irish

peasant would treat a captured faery as

did the

man Campbell
176

tells of.

caught

a kelpie, and tied her behind him on his

horse.
,

She was
.
.

fierce,
.

but he kept her

,
-.1
.

Remon-

quiet by driving an awl and a needle into

her.

strance with

Scotsmen.

They came
restless,

to a river,

and she grew

very

fearing to cross the water.

into

Again he drove the awl and needle

her.

She

cried out,

'

Pierce

me

with the

awl, but

keep that slender,

out
of
me.'

hair-like slave

(the
to

needle)
inn.

They came
a

an

He
;

turned the light of

lantern on her

immediately she dropped

down
a

like a falling star,

jelly.

and changed
dead.
as

into

lump of

She was
the
faeries

Nor
one
is

would they

treat

treated in an old

Highland poem.

A faery

loved a

little

child

who used
hill.

to cut turf at

the side of a faery

faery put out his

Every day the

hill

hand from the

with

an enchanted

knife.

The

child used to
It

cut the turf with the knife.

did

not

take long, the knife being charmed.

brothers wondered
quickly.

Her

why

she was done so

At

last

they resolved to watch,

her.

and

find out

who helped
177

They saw
earth,

the small hand

come out of the

N

The
Celtic

and the

little

child take
all

from
cut,

it

the knife.

Twilight.

When
make
hill.

the turf was

they saw her

three taps on the ground with the

handle.

The

small hand

came out of the

child,

Snatching the knife from the

they cut the hand off with a blow.

faery

The
his

was never again seen.

He

drew

bleeding arm into the earth, thinking, as

it is

recorded, he had lost his hand through

the treachery of the child.

In

Scotland you

are

too

theological,

too gloomy.

You have made even the Where do you live, Devil religious. good-wyf, and how is the minister ? he
'
'

said to the witch

when he met her on

came
out
in

the

high-road,

as

it

the

trial.

You have burnt all the Ireland we have left them

sure,

witches.
alone.

In

To

be
out

the

'

loyal

minority

'

knocked

the eye of one with a cabbage-stump on the

of
31st of

March,

171

1,

in

the

town
'

Carrickfergus.
is

But

then

the

loyal

minority'

half

Scottish.
to

You have

discovered

the

faeries
178

be pagan and

wicked.

You would
the

like to

have them
In

all

Remon-

strance with

up

before

magistrate.

Ireland

Scotsmen.

warlike mortals have gone amongst them,

and helped them

in

their

battles,

and
skill

they in turn have taught

with
herbs,
their

men

great

and permitted some few

tunes.

to

hear

Carolan

slept

upon

a faery rath.
in

Ever

after their tunes ran

his

head,

and made him the great

In Scotland you have

musician he was.

denounced

them

from

the

pulpit.

In

Ireland they have been permitted by the

priests

to

consult

them on the

state

of

their souls.

Unhappily the

priests

have

decided that they have no souls, that they

will

dry up like so
;

much

bright vapour at

the last day

but more

in
it.

sadness than in

anger have they said

religion likes to
its

The

Catholic

keep on good terms with

neighbours.

These two
things

different

ways of looking
in

at

have influenced

each country

the whole world of sprites and goblins.

For

their

gay and graceful doings you

179

The
Celtic

must go

to

Ireland

for
.

their

deeds of

Twilight,

terror to Scotland.

Our

Irish faery terrors

have

about

them

something

of

make-

believe.

When

a peasant strays into an

is

enchanted hovel, and

corpse
all

made

to turn a
fire,

night on a spit before the

;

we do
wake

not feel anxious

in the

we know he
field,

will

midst of a green
old coat.

the
it

dew on
naturally

his

In Scotland

is

altogether different.
excellent

You have
disposition

soured the
of ghosts

and
the

goblins.

The

piper

M'Crimmon, of

Hebrides, shouldered his pipes, and

into a sea cavern, playing loudly,
his

marched
time

and followed by
the

dog.

For a long

people

could

hear the pipes.

mile,

He

must have gone nearly a

they heard the sound of a struggle.

the piping ceased suddenly.

when Then
time

Some

went

by,

and then

his

dog came out of the

cavern completely flayed, too weak even

to howl.

Nothing

else ever

came out of

the cavern.

Then

there

is

the tale of the

man who

dived into a lake where treasure

180

was thought
of iron.

to be.

He
to

saw a great

coffer

A Remonstrance with

Close to the coffer lay a monster,

return

Scotsmen.

who warned him

came.

whence he
;

He

rose to the surface

but the

bystanders,

when they heard he had seen

In a

the treasure, persuaded him to dive again.

He
man
are

dived.

little

while his heart and

liver floated up,

reddening the water.

No

ever saw the rest of his body.

These water-goblins and water-monsters

common

in

Scottish

folk-lore.

We
less

have them
dreadfully.
to favour

too, but take

them much

Our
and

tales turn all their

doings

to prettiness, or hopelessly

humorize the creatures.

Sligo
river
is

hole

in

the

haunted by one of these

is

monsters.

He

ardently believed in by

many, but

that

does

not

prevent

the

peasantry playing with the subject, and

surrounding

it

with conscious
I

fantasies.

When
for

was a small boy

in the

fished

one day
Return-

congers

monster hole.

ing home, a great eel on

my

shoulder, his
his
tail

head

flapping

down
181

in

front,

The
Twilight,

sweeping

the

ground behind,

met a
I

fisherman of
a tale of an
larger

my

acquaintance.

began

immense conger, three times

I

than the one

carried,

that

had

broken

my

line

and

escaped.
'

'That

was
ever

him,' said the fisherman.

Did you
brother

hear

how he made my

emigrate?

My

brother was a diver, you

for the

know, and grubbed stones

Board.

Harbour
?

One day
says,
"

the beast comes up to

him, and

What

are you
" Don't

after

" Stones, sur," says he.

you think
sur,"

you had better be going?"

says he.
emigrated.

" Yes,

And that's why my The people said it was

that's not true.'
will

brother

because

he got poor, but

You
spirits

you
of
fire

make no terms with

air

the

and earth and

and water.

You have made the Darkness your enemy. We we exchange civilities with the world

beyond.

182

WAR
When
there was a rumour of war with
I

War.

France a while ago,

met a poor Sligo

I

woman, a
and
I
I

soldier's

widow, that

know,

read her a sentence out of a letter

:

had just had from London

The

people

here are

mad

for war,

but France seems

inclined to take things peacefully,' or

like sentence.

some

Her mind

ran a good deal

on war, which she imagined partly from

what she had heard from

but the word
for

soldiers,

and

partly from tradition of the rebellion of '98,

London doubled her

interest,

she knew there were a great

many

people in London, and she herself had once

lived in 'a congested district.'

'There are

too

many over one another in London. They are getting tired of the world. It is
killed they

want

to be.

It will

be no matter;

but sure the French want nothing but peace

and quietness.

The people here don't mind the war coming. They could not be worse than they are. They may as well die
183

The
Twilight,

soldierly before

God.

Sure they

will

get

quarters in heaven.'

Then

she began to
to see

say that
children
I

it

would be a hard thing

tossed about

on bayonets, and
tradi-

knew her mind was running on

of the great
'

tions

rebellion.

She
that
it

said

presently,

never knew a

man

was

in a battle that liked to

speak of

after.

They'd sooner
from a hayrick/

be

throwing hay down

She

told
to

me how

she

and her neighbours used

the
fire

be sitting over
girl,

when she was a

that
it

talking of

the war

was coming, and now she

for
'

was

afraid

was coming again,

all

she had
stranded

dreamed
was

that

the bay was

I

and covered with seaweed.'

if
it

asked her

in

the

Fenian times that she

afraid of
'

had been so much

But she cried
out,

war coming.
I

Never had
some

such

fun and pleasure as in the Fenian times.

I

was

in

a house where

of
in

the
the

officers

used to be staying, and

I

daytime

would be walking

after

the

soldiers' band,

and

at night
184

I'd

be going

down

to the

end of the garden watching

drill-

War.

a soldier, with his red coat on him,

ing the Fenians in the
house.
field

behind the

One
to

night the boys tied the liver

of an old horse, that had been dead three

weeks,

the

knocker,

and
in

found

it

when

opened the door

the morning.'

And
it

presently our talk of war shifted, as

to

had a way of doing,

Black
Pig,

the battle of
to

the

which

seems

her a

battle

between Ireland and England, but

an Armageddon which
shall

to
all

me

quench

things in the Ancestral Darkness again,

this to sayings
'

and from
vengeance.

about war and

'what

Do you know,' she said,

Four Fathers
is?

the curse of the

They

put the man-child on the spear, and some-

body

said to them,

"You
or

will

be cursed
you," and

in the fourth generation

after

that

is

why

disease

anything always
1902.

comes

in the fourth generation.'

185

The
Celtic

THE QUEEN AND THE FOOL

I

Twilight.

have heard

one

Hearne, a witch-

doctor,

who

is

on the border of Clare

in
'

and Galway, say that

of faery 'there
that
if
is
'

every household
fool,'

a queen and a

and

you are

touched

'

by

either

you
the

never recover, though you

touch of any other

may from

in faery.
'

He

said of

the fool that he was

of
all,'

maybe

the wisest
like

and spoke of him as dressed

to

one of 'the mummers that used

going about the country.'
friend has gathered

be

Since then a

me some
I

few stories
is

of him, and

have heard that he

known,

too, in the highlands.

remember seeing
sitting

a long,

lank,

ragged

man

by the

hearth in the cottage of an old miller not

far

from where

am now
was
a

writing,
fool
;

and
I

being told that he

find

and

from the stories that

is

my

friend has

gathered that he
in his sleep
;

believed to go to faery

but whether he becomes an

fool

Amaddn-na-Breena, a
186

of the

forth,

and

is

cannot
I

attached n t
tell.

to a

household there,
11
i

It

was an old woman

of him.

The Queen and

the Fool.

that

know

well,

and who has been

spoke

in faery
said,

herself,
1

that

She

There are

fools

amongst them, and the

fools
lee,

we

see, like that

Amadan
at night,
call

of Bally-

go away with them

and so do
Oinseachs

the

woman

(apes).'

we woman who is
fools

that

related to the

witch-doctor on the border of Clare, and

who
said,
I

can cure people and cattle by

'

spells,

There are some cures

can't do.

can't help

any one that has got a stroke

fool

from the queen or the

I

of the forth.

knew

of a

woman

that

saw the queen

like

one time, and she looked

tian.
I

any Chris-

never heard of any that saw the

fool

but

one

woman

that

was walking

near Gort, and she called out, " There's

the fool of the forth coming after me."

So her
out,
I

friends that

were with her

called

though they could see nothing, and

that,

suppose he went away at

for

she

got no harm.

He was
187

like a big strong

man, she
is

said,

and half naked, and that

I

all

she said about him.

I

have never
a cousin
of

seen any myself, but

am

Hearne, and

my
The
said

uncle was

away twentyold
miller

one
said,

years.'

wife of the

'It

is

they are mostly good

is

neighbours, but the stroke of the fool

what there
gets
that

is is

no cure
gone.

for

any one that

Breena we

call

him

'

The Amaddn-naAnd an old woman

of Kiltartan, and
is

who
is

lives

in the

Bog
'It for

very poor,
is

said,

true

enough,
of the

there

no cure

the

stroke

Amad&n-na-Breena.

There was an old

ago,

man

knew long
tell

he had a tape,

and he could

what diseases you had

;

with measuring you

things.

and he knew many

And

he said to

me

one time,

What month of the year is the worst ? " and I said, " The month of May, of course."
"
" It is

not,"

he said

" but the

month of

June, for that's the

month
"
!

that the

Amalooks

ddn gives
like

his stroke

They say he

any other man, but

188

he's leathan (wide),

and not smart.

got a great
the
wall
r

I
i

knew
r

fright, for

iiii a lamb looked

i

a boy one time

The Queen and

the Fool.

over
it,

at

him
it

with

beard on
for

and he knew

was the Amaddn,

it

was the month of June. And they brought

him
"

to that

man

was

telling about, that

said,

had the

tape,

and when he saw him he

Send

for the priest,

and get a Mass said

over him."

And

so they did, and what

he's living yet

would you say but

a family
!

and has
They,

certain

Regan

said, "

the other sort of people, might be passing

you close here and they might touch you.

But
any
that

gets
is

the

touch
for."

of
It's

the
true

Amaddn-na-Breena
enough
most
that
it's

done

in the

month

of June he's
I

likely

to give the touch.

it,

knew
it

one that got

himself.

and he

told
I

me

about
well,

He
me

was a boy
that

knew

and

he told

one night a gentleman

came
and
to

to him, that

had been

his landlord,

that

was dead.

And he
for

told

him

come along with him,

to fight another

he wanted

him

man.

And when he

189

The
Celtic

went he found two great troops of them,

J u u and the other troop U J a 1had living man with

Twilight,

them

too,

and he was put

to fight him.

And
the

they had a great

better of the

fight,

and he got

other man,

and then

the troop on his side gave a great shout,

and he was
three

left

home

again.

But about
cutting

years
in

after

that

he was
the

bushes

wood and he saw

at him.
it

Ama-

ddn coming
in his

He
was

had a big vessel

shining,
else
;

arms, and

so that

the

boy could see nothing

it

but he

put

behind his back then and came

running, and the boy said he looked wild

and wide, boy

ran,
it

like the side of the

hill.

And

the

and he threw the vessel

after him,

and

broke with a great noise, and whatit,

ever came out of

there
after,

his

head was gone

for

and

then.
to

He
tell

lived

a while
things,

and used

us

many

but his wits were gone.

He

thought they

mightn't have liked him to beat the other

man, and he used to be afraid something

would come on him.'

190

And an

old

woman

in

a Galway workhouse,

little

knowledge of
other
day,
'

who had some Queen Maive, said

Some-

The Queen and

the Fool.

the

The Amadan-na-Breena

changes his shape every two days.

times he comes like a youngster, and then

he'll

come

like the

worst of beasts, trying

to be.
I

to give the touch

it

he used

heard
think

said of late he
it

was

shot, but

myself
I

would be hard

to shoot him.'

knew a man who was

trying to bring

before his mind's eye an image of /Engus,

the old Irish god of love and poetry and
ecstasy,

who changed

four

of his kisses

into birds,

and suddenly the image of a and grew vivid and spoke

'

man
and
I

with a cap and bells rushed before

his mind's eye,

called itself

^Engus' messenger.'

And

knew another man, a who saw a white fool

cocks'

truly great seer,

in

visionary

garden, where there was a tree with peafeathers

instead

of

leaves,
little

and

flowers that opened to

faces

show
fool

human
at

when

the
his

white

had touched

them with

coxcomb, and he saw

191

The
Twilight.

another time a white fool

sitting

by a

Pl an d smiling and watching the images of

many

fair

women

floating

up from the

pool.

What

else can death

be but the begin?

ning of wisdom and power and beauty

and foolishness may be a kind of death.

I

cannot think

it

wonderful

that

many

should see a fool with a shining vessel

of

some enchantment

or

wisdom or dream
'

too powerful for mortal brains in

every
too,

household of them.'
that there

It

is

natural,

should be a queen to every

household of them, and that one should

hear
little

of their kings, for

women come
that

more

easily

than

men

to
all

wisdom

which ancient peoples, and

wild peoples

even now, think the only wisdom.

self,

The

which
is

is

the foundation of our knowin pieces

ledge,

broken

by

foolishness,

and

is

forgotten in the sudden emotions

of women, and therefore fools

and.

may

get,

of

women do get of a certainty, glimpses much that sanctity finds at the end of
192

its
,

painful journey.
i

The man who saw

i

the white tool said of a certain

The Queen and

the Fool.

woman, wisdom

not a peasant
of vision
I

woman,

If

had her power

the

would know

all

of the gods, and her visions do not interest

her.'

And

know

of another

woman,

also

not a peasant woman,

who would
for

pass in

sleep into countries of an unearthly beauty,

and who never cared

anything but to
;

be busy about her house and her children

and presently an herb doctor cured

as he called
it.

her,

Wisdom and
I

beauty and
think,

power may sometimes, as

to

come
live,

those

who

die

every day they

though their dying may not be

dying Shakespeare spoke
of.

like the
is

There

a war between the living and the dead,

and the
it.

Irish

stories

keep harping upon

it

They

will

have

that

when

the

potatoes or the wheat or any other of the

fruits

of the

earth

decay, they ripen in

faery,

and that

our

dreams

lose

their

wisdom when the sap

193

rises in the trees,

and that our dreams can make the

o

trees

The
Celtic

wither,

and that one hears the bleating

Twilight,

of tne lambs of faery in

that blind eyes can see
eyes.

November, and

more than other

and

Because the soul always believes

or in like things, the
cell

in these,

the wilderness shall never be long empty,

or

lovers

come

into the

world

who

will

not understand the verse

1

Heardst thou not sweet words among

That heaven-resounding minstrelsy?

Heardst thou not that those who die

Awake

in a

world of ecstasy?
are interwoven,
life
is

How
And And

love,

when limbs when the

to

sleep,

night of
world's

cloven,

thought
clinging,

the

dim boundaries
singing,

And music when

Is

one's beloved

is

death?'
1

90 1.

194

THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE

OF FAERY
Those
often,

The
Friends of the People
of Faery.

that see the people of faery

most

and so have the most of their wisdom,

are often very poor, but often, too, they

are

thought to have a strength beyond

that of man, as though one came,

when
saw

one has passed the threshold of trance, to

those sweet waters where Maeldun
the dishevelled eagles bathe and

become

young

again.

There was an old Martin Roland, who

lived near a

bog a

little

out of Gort,

who
and

saw them often from

would hardly

his

young

days,

always towards the end of his

I

life,

though

call

him

their friend.

He
at

told

me
'

a few months before his death

'

that

they

would not

let

him sleep him

in

night with crying things at

Irish,

and with playing

their

pipes.

He

had

asked a friend of his what he should do,

and the friend had and play on

it

told

him

to

buy a

flute,

when they began

i9S

to shout

Th e
Twilight,

or to play on their pipes, and

maybe they
;

would give up annoying him

and he

did,

and they always went out

into the field

when he began

to play.

He
it,

showed me
and made
to play

the pipe, and blew through

a noise, but he did not

know how

and then he showed

me where
it

he had

pulled his chimney down, because one of

them used
the pipes.
to see

to

sit

up on

and play on

friend of his

and mine went

him a

little

time ago, for she heard

'

that
to

'

three of

them
said

had

told

him he was

die.

He

they had gone away

after

warning him, and that the children

(children they

had

'

taken,'

suppose)

who

used to come with them, and play about

the house with them, had 'gone to

some
the

other

place,'

because
for

'they

found
'

house too cold

them,

maybe

and

he died a week
things.

after

he had said these

His neighbours were not certain that he

really

saw anything
all

in

his old age,

but

they were

certain that
196

he saw things

when he was a young man.

said,
'

His brother
all

Old

he

is,

and

it's

in

his

brain

the things he sees.

If

he was a

young man we might believe

he was improvident, and
with his brothers.

in him.'

But

never got on
said,

neighbour

'The
in his

poor man, they say they are mostly

head now, but sure he was a

fine fresh

man twenty
them linked
of girls

years ago the night he saw

in

two

lots,

like

young
It

slips

walking

together.

was the
girl.'

night they took

away

Fallon's

little

how Fallon's little girl had met a woman with red hair that was as bright as silver,' who took her away. Another neighbour, who was herself
she told
'

And

'clouted
for

over the ear' by one of them

fort

going into a
'

where they were,

in his

said,

believe

it's

mostly

head they
door
last

are

and when he stood

I

in the

night
in

said, ears,

"

The wind
think
I

does be always
it

my

and the sound of

it

never

stops," to

make him

was the same

with him; but he

says, "
197

hear them sing-

ing and making music

all

the time, and

one of them
flute,

is

after bringing out

it

little

and
this

it's
I

on

he's playing to them."

And
down

know, that when he pulled

the chimney where he said the piper

lifted
I

used to be sitting and playing, he

stones,

up

and he an old man, that

could

not have lifted

strong.'

when

was young and

friend has sent

me

from Ulster an
of true
It

account of one

who was on terms

for

friendship with the people of faery.

has

been taken down accurately,

my

friend,

who had heard

time before
I

the old woman's story

it,

some
tell it

heard of

got her to

over again, and wrote

it

out at once.

She

began by

telling the old

woman

that she did

not like being in the house alone because of

the ghosts and fairies
said,
*
;

and the old woman

be frightened

There's
in

nothing to
miss.

about
I

faeries,

Many's the time

myself that was a
sort,

talked to a

woman

faery,
less

or something of the

and no

and more than mortal anyhow.

198

She

used to come about

your
ir

grandfathers
i

The
Friends of the People aery
*

house

your
all

mother s grandfather, that

days.

>

is

in

my young
about

But

you'll

have

heard

her.'

My

friend said that

she had heard about her, but a long time

before,

and she wanted

to hear about her on,

'

again

and the old woman went

I

Well,

dear, the very first time ever

heard word
uncle

of her coming about was

when your
uncle

that
for

is,

your

mother's

Joseph
up
father

married, and building a house for his wife,

he brought her

first

to his father's,

at the

house by the Lough.

living

My

and us were
the

nigh hand to where

to

new house was

be

built,

to over-

look the

men

at

their work.

My

father

was a weaver, and brought

all

his

looms and

there into a cottage that was close by.

The

foundations

were marked
about,
;

out,

and

the building stones lying

but the

masons had not come yet

I

and one day

was standing with

my

mother foment
a smart wee

the house,

when we
199

sees

woman coming up

the field over the burn

The
Twilight,

to us.

was a

bit of

girl at

the time,
I

playing about and sporting myself, but

mind her

as well

as

if

saw her there

now

! '

My

friend asked

was dressed, and the old

how the woman woman said, It

'

was a gray cloak she had

cashmere
kercher country
times.'
skirt

on, with a
silk

green handthe

and

black

tied

round

her

head,

like

women

did use to wear in

'

them
Well
think

My
And
for

friend asked,

How
when
her

wee^was
'

she

?
'

the old

woman
at all

said,
I

now, she wasn't wee

of
it,

all

we

called

the

Wee
say.

Woman.
one,

She was bigger than many a

tall

and yet not

like a

as

you would
thirty,

She was

woman

about

brown-

haired and round in the face.

like

She was
sister,

Miss Betty, your grandmother's

like

and Betty was

like

none of the

rest,

not

your grandmother, nor any of them.

fresh in the face,

She was round and

would take any man
that

and

she never was married,

;

and

she never
to say
like

and we used

the

Wee Woman her

being

Betty

was,

maybe,

one

of

their

own

The
Friends of the People of Faery
*

people that had been took off before she

grew

to her full height,

and

for that she

was always following us and warning and

foretelling.

This time she walks straight

over to where
"

my

mother was standing.

"
!

Go

over to the Lough this minute

ordering her like that

"

Go

over to the

Lough, and

tell

Joseph

that
this

he

must

change the foundation of

house to

where
bush.

I'll

show you foment the thornis

That
to

where

it

is

to

be

built, if

he

is

have luck and prosperity, so do

telling

what I'm

ye

this

minute."

The
I

house was being

suppose
faery

built

on

" the path "

the

path used by the people of

in

their journeys,

and

my

mother

brings Joseph

down and shows

him, and he

changes the foundations, the way he was

bid,

but didn't bring

it

exactly to where
that

was pointed, and the end of

was,

when he come
lost

to the house, his

her

life

with an accident

own wife that come

to a horse that hadn't room to turn right

20I

The
Celtic Twilight,

w ith
wall.

a harrow between the bush and the

The Wee Woman was queer and angry when next she come, and says to
us,

"

He

didn't
he'll

do as
see.'"

bid him, but

he'll

see

what

My

friend
this

asked
time,

where the woman came from

and
if

she was dressed as before, and the

said,
'

woman

Always the same way, up

It

the field beyant the burn.

sort of shawl she

was a
in
;

thin

had about her

in winter

summer,

and a cloak about her

and many
it

and many a time she came, and always

was good advice she was giving

to

my

mother, and warning her what not to do

if

she would have good luck.

There was

none of the other children of us ever seen

her unless

me

but

used to be glad

when
and

seen her coming up the burn, and

would run out and catch her by the hand

the
cloak,

and

call

to
!

my
"

mother,

" Here's

the

Wee Woman
her.

No man

body ever seen

be wanting
to,

My

father used to

and was angry with

202

my

mother and me, thinking we were

telling

lies

and talking

foolish like.

And

so one
sitting
I

The
the People

day when she had come, and was

by the

fireside

talking to

my

mother,

ofFaer y-

slips out to the field

where he was digging.

"
at
if

"Come
her.

up," says

I,

ye want to see
fireside

She's

sitting

the
in

now,

talking to mother."

So

he comes with

me and

looks round angry like and sees

nothing, and he

up with a broom that was

near hand and hits

me

a crig with
he, "for

it.

"Take

that

now!" says
!

making
fast

a fool of

me

"

and away with him as

as he could,

and queer and angry with

The Wee Woman says to me then, " Ye got that now for bringing people to see me. No man body ever seen me,
me.

and none ever

1

will."

There was one day, though, she gave

fright
not.

him a queer

anyway, whether he

had seen her or

the cattle

He

was

in

among
" Don't

when
house

it

happened, and he comes

trembling
like.

up
let

to the

all

me hear you say another word of your Wee Woman. I have got enough of her
203

The
Celtic

this time."

Another time,

all

the same, he

Twilight,

was up Gortin
he went
off,

to sell horses,

and before
and

in steps the

Wee Woman
is

says she to
of a weed,
Gortin, and

my

mother, holding out a sort

"Your man
there's

gone up by
and sew

a bad fright waiting

this
it

him coming home, but take

in his coat,

and

he'll

get no

harm by

it."

My

mother takes the herb, but thinks

"
it

to

herself,

Sure there's nothing

in it,"

and

throws

on the

floor,
!

and

lo

and behold,

and sure
Gortin,

enough

coming

home from
fright as
it

my

father got as
life.

bad a

ever he got in his

don't right mind, but

What
was

was

anyway he was badly

in

damaged by

it.

My mother

a queer
after

way, frightened of the

Wee Woman,
"Ye

what she done, and sure enough the next

time she was angry.
didn't believe

me," she
I

said,

"and ye threw the herb

the
fire,

gave ye
for

in
it."

and

went

far

enough

There was another time

she came and told

how William Hearne

"

was dead

in

America.
204

Go

over," she

says, 1
is

"to the Lough, and say that William 7 5 dead, and he died happy, and this was
'
.

Tne
Friends of the People

aery
*

the last Bible chapter ever he read," and

with that she gave the verse and chapter.

"

Go," she says, " and

tell

them

to read
I

them
held

at the next class meeting,

and that

his

head while he died."

after

word came

that

And sure enough how William had

And, doing

died on the day she named.

as she bid about the chapter and

hymn,

they never had such a prayer-meeting as

that.

One day

she and

me and my mother
says of a
in all
off.'

was standing
"

talking,

and she was warning

her about something,

sudden,

when she

Here comes Miss Letty

it's

her finery, and

time for

me

to

be

And
her

with that she gave a swirl round on

feet,

and

raises

up

in the air,

and round
up, as
if it

and round she goes, and up and

was a winding
swifter.

stairs

she went up, only far

up,
till

She went up and

she was

no bigger than a bird up against the clouds,

singing and singing the whole time the
loveliest

music

ever heard in
205

my

life

The
Celtic

from that day to

, .

this.

It

wasn't a
,

hymn

Twilight,

she was singing, but poetry, lovely poetry,

and

me and my mother
all

stands gaping up,

"

and
all,
is,

of a tremble.
?

What
it

is

she at

mother

"

says

I.

" Is

an angel she
"

or a faery

woman, or what ?
that

With

that

up come Miss Letty,

was your grand-

mother, dear, but Miss Letty she was then,

and no word of her being anything and she wondered

way,
till

else,

to see us

gaping up that
told her of
it.

me and my mother

She went on gay-dressed

lovely looking.

then,

and was

She was up the

rose

lane where

none of us could see her coming forward

when
queer
Letty

the

Wee Woman
saying,
"

up

in

that

way,
in all
far
?

Here comes Miss

her finery."

Who

knows

to

what
dying
'

country she went, or to see

whom

It

was never

after

dark she came, but

I

daylight always, as far as

mind, but wanst,

night.

and that was on a Hallow Eve

mother was by the
supper
;

My

fire,

making ready the

she had a duck

206

down and some

apples.

In slips the
T T

Wee Woman,

T-,
.

''I'm
,,

The
Friends of
t

come
and

to pass

my Hallow
I

Jive with you,

says she.

" That's right," says

my

mother,

h e People ofFaer y-

thinks to herself, "

can give her her

sits

supper nicely."
a while. bring
"

Down
I'll

she

by the

fire

Now

tell

you where
" In the

you'll

my

supper," says she.

room

beyond there beside the loom

in

set a chair

and a plate."

"

When

ye're spending the

sit
?

night, mayn't

ye as well

by the
"

table

and eat with the

rest of us

"

Do

what

you're bid, and set whatever you give

in

me
and

the

room bey ant.

else."

I'll

eat there

nowhere
plate of

So my mother
where she

sets her a

duck and some apples, whatever

in bid,

was going,

and we got
;

to our supper

and she to hers

in,

and when
lo

we

rose

went

and

there,

and beof

hold ye, was her supper-plate a

bit ate
!

each portion, and she clean gone

i8 97

207

The
Celtic

Twilight.

DREAMS THAT HAVE NO MORAL

The
the
friend

who heard about Maive and

went
to

hazel-stick

the

workhouse
old

another day.
cold

She found the

people

and wretched,
;

'like flies in winter,'

she said

but they forgot the cold

talk.

when

they began to

man had
in

just left

them who had played cards

with the people of faery,
1

a rath

very

fair

'

and one old

who had played man had seen an

enchanted black pig one night, and there

were

two

old

people

my

friend

had

heard quarrelling as to whether Raftery

or

Callanan was the better poet.

'

One

had said of Raftery,

He

was a big man,

and

his

songs have
I

gone through the

well.

whole world.

remember him
wind
;
'

He

had a voice

like the
'

but the other

in the

was

certain

that

you would stand

snow
old

to listen to Callanan.' to tell

Presently an
friend a story,

man began
all

my

and

listened delightedly, bursting into

208

laughter
I

now and

then.
lt
.

The

story,
.

which
told,

Dreams
that

am

have

going to

tell

just as

it

was

no Moral.

was one of those old rambling moralless

tales,

which are the delight of the poor

life
is

and the hard driven, wherever

in
its

left

natural simplicity.

They
killed, if

tell

of a

time

when
if

nothing

had

consequences,
only you

when even
had a good
you

you were

heart,

somebody would bring

and
to

to life again with a touch of a rod,

if

when
go
to

you were a prince and happened

look exactly like your brother, you might

bed with

his queen,

and have only a

little

quarrel afterwards.

We

too,

if

we

were so weak and poor that everything

threatened us with misfortune, would re-

member,

if

foolish

people
that

left

us

alone,

every old

dream

has been

strong

enough
from
its

to fling the

weight of the world

shoulders.

There was a king one time who was

very

much put

out because he had no son,

at
last to consult

and he went
adviser.

his chief
'

And

the chief adviser said,

209
p

It's

The
Celtic

"easy enough managed

you'to

if

you do as

tell

Twilight,

Let you send some one,

fish.
it

says he,

such a place to catch a

is

And when

the fish

brought
eat.'

in,

give

to the queen,

your wife, to

So the king
fish

sent as he was told, and the

in,

was caught and brought

it

and he
it
it,

gave

to the cook,
fire,

and bade her put

before the

but to be careful with

and not
it.

to let
it

any blob or
impossible

blister rise

on

But

is

to

cook a
it

fish

before the
in

fire

without the skin of

rising

some

place or other, and so there

came

a blob on the skin, and the cook put her

finger

on

it

to

smooth

it

down, and then

she put her finger into her mouth to cool

it,

and so she got a

it

taste of the fish.

to the queen,
left

And

then
ate

was sent up
and what was

and she

it,

of

it

was thrown

out into the yard, and there was a mare in

the yard and a greyhound, and they ate

the bits that were thrown out.

And

before a year was out, the queen

son,

had a young

and the cook had a

young
. .

son,

and the mare had two

.

foals,

Dreams
that have

and the

ill greyhound had

the two

two pups.

no Moral.

And

young sons were sent out

place to be cared, and
so

for a while to

some

when they came back they were

like

much

one another no person could know

which was the queen's son and which was

the cook's.
that,

And

the queen was vexed at

to the chief adviser

and she went

'

and

said,

Tell
is

which

me some way that I can know my own son, for I don't like to

be giving the same eating and drinking to

the cook's son as to
to

my

own.'

'

It

is
'

easy

know

that,' said
I

the chief adviser,

if

you

will

do as

tell

you.

Go you

outside,

and
in

stand at the door they will be coming

by,
will

and when they see you, your own son

bow

his head, but the cook's

son

will

only laugh.'

So she

did that, and

when her own son

mark
their

bowed

his head, her servants put a

on him that she would know him again.

And when

they were

all

sitting

at

dinner after that, she said to Jack, that

The
Celtic

was the cook's

son,
r
1

'

It is
r

time for you to

Twilight,

go away out of
son.'

this, for

you are not

my

And
'

her

own

son, that

we
'

will call

Bill, said,

Do
?
'

not send

him away, are we

said,
I

not brothers

But Jack

would
if I

have been long ago out of

this

house

knew

it

was not
it.'

my own
for all

father
Bill

and mother

owned

And

could say to

him, he would not stop.

But before he

went, they were by the well that was in

the garden, and he said to
Bill,
'

If

harm

ever happens to me, that water on the top

of the well will be blood, and the water

below

will

be honey.'
of the pups, and one

Then he took one

mare eating the
was
after

of the two horses, that was foaled after the

fish,

and the wind that

him could not catch him, and he

that

caught the wind

was

before

him.

And

he went on

till

he came

to a weaver's

house, and he asked

him

for

a lodging,

and he gave
on
till

it

to him.

And
'

then he went

he came

to a king's house,

and he

sent in at the door to ask,

212

Did he want

a servant
'

?
'

'

All
will

want,' said the king, fe

Dreams
that have

is

a boy that

drive out the cows to

no Moral.

the field every morning, and bring

at night to

them

in

be milked.'
;

'

will

do that

for

you,' said

Jack

so the king engaged him.

In the morning Jack was sent out with

the four-and-twenty cows, and the place

he was told to drive them to had not a

blade of grass in
of stones.
place
it

for them, but

was

full

So Jack looked about for some where there would be better grass,
he saw a
field

and

after a while
in
it,

with good

green grass
giant.

and

it

belonging to a
bit

So he knocked down a
in,

of the

wall

and drove them

and he went up

himself into an apple-tree and

eat the apples.

began

to

Then

the giant

came
'

into

the

field.

'

Fee-faw-fum,' says he,

Irishman.
I

smell

the blood of an

see

you
;

where you

are,

up

in the tree,'

he said

'you are too big

for

one mouthful, and

I

too small for two mouthfuls, and

don't

know what

I'll

do with you
for

if

don't grind
nose.'
'

you up and make snuff

213

my

As

The
Celtic

you are strong, be

Twilight,

the

tree.

/-i 'Lome down

'

merciful, says Jack

up

out of that,
'or
I'll

you
tear

little

dwarf,' said the

giant,

you and the

down.

tree asunder.'

So Jack
sooner

came

Would
giant,

you

be

driving red-hot knives into one another's

hearts,'

said

the

'or

would

you

sooner be fighting one another on red-hot

flags
?
' '

Fighting

on red-hot

flags

is

what I'm used

your dirty

to at home,' said Jack, 'and

will

feet

be sinking
rising.'

in

them
was

and

my

feet will
fight.

be

So then they
that

began the

The ground
soft,

hard they made

and the ground that

hard, and they

was

soft

they

made

made

spring wells
flags.

come up through the green

like

They were

that

all

through

the day, no one getting the upper hand

of the other, and at last a
little

bird

came
'

and

sat

on the bush and said to Jack,

If

you don't make an end of him by sunset,

he'll

make an end down on

of you.'

Then Jack
'

put out his strength, and he brought the

giant
his knees.
214

Give

me my

life,'

says the giant, 'and 7

gifts.'
'

1 11

give you the

i

Dreams
that have

three best
Jack.
against,
on,
'

What

are those

, ?

'

said

no Moral.

sword that nothing can stand

suit that

and a
will

when you put

it

you

see everybody, and

nobody
will

will see you,

and a pair of shoes that

faster than the

make you run

1

wind
?
'

blows.'

Where
In

are they to be found

said Jack.
in

that red door

you see there

the
out.

hill.'
'

So Jack went and got them

will
I

Where
Try
it

try the

sword

?
'

says he.
tree,'

on that ugly black stump of a

'

says the giant.

uglier than

see nothing blacker or

your own head,' says Jack.

And
the
it

with that he

made one

stroke,
it

and
into

cut off the giant's head that

air,

went

and he caught

it

on the sword as

was coming down, and made two halves

it.

of

'It

is

well for

you

did not join

'

the body again,' said

the head,

or you
it

would have never been able

again.'
that,'
'

to strike

off

did not give you the chance of

Jack.

said

And
2I 5

he brought away

the great suit with him.

So

he

brought

the

cows

home

at
all

evening, and every one wondered at

the milk they gave that night.

And when
the
rest,

the king was sitting at dinner with the

princess,
said,
'

his

daughter, and
I

he

think

only hear two roars from

in place of three.'

beyond to-night

The

next morning Jack went out again

field full

with the cows, and he saw another

of grass, and he knocked

down

the wall

and

let

the cows

in.

All

happened the

same

as the
this

day before, but the giant that

came

time had two heads, and they

little

fought together, and the

bird

came

and spoke

to

Jack as before.

And when
said,

Jack had brought the giant down, he

1

Give

me my
I

life,

and
'

I'll

give you the

is

best thing
Jack.

have.'

What

that

'

says

'It's

a suit that you can put on,

see every one but no one

and you

will

can see you.'

'

'Where
little

is

it?' said Jack.

It's

inside that
hill.'

red door at the side

of the

So Jack went and brought

out the

suit.

And

then he cut off the

216

giant's

two heads, and caught them coming

four halves of them.
for

Dreams
no Moral,

down and made

they said
it

And

was well

him he had not

given them time to join the body.

That night when the cows came home

they gave so

much milk

that

all

the vessels

that could be found

were

filled up.

The
and
this
all

next morning Jack went out again,

happened as

before,

and the giant

time had four heads, and Jack

made

eight halves of them.

told

And

the giant had

him

to

go
hill,

to a little blue

door

in the

side of the

and there he got a

pair of

shoes that

when you put them on would

go

faster than the wind.

That night the cows gave so much milk

that

there
it,

were not vessels enough

it

to

hold

and

was given

to tenants

and

to poor people passing the road,

rest

and the
I

was thrown out

at the

windows.
I

was passing that way myself, and

drink of
it.

got a

That night the king

is
it

said to Jack,

'

Why

the cows are giving so

217

much milk

The
Twilight,

these days

Are you bringing them

?
'

to

any other grass

1

'I

am
or

not,' said

Jack,

but

have a good
still

stick,
lie

and whenever
down,
I

they would stop

give
leap

them blows of

it,

that they

jump and
;

over walls and stones and ditches

the

that's

way

to

make cows give

plenty

of

milk.'

And
said,
'

that night at the dinner, the king

I

hear no roars at
next

all.'

The

morning, the king and the

princess were watching at the

window

to

see what would Jack do the

field.

when he got

to

And

Jack knew they were there,

stick,

and he got a

and began

to batter

the cows, that they went leaping and jump-

ing over stones, and

walls,

and

ditches.

'There

is

no

lie

in

what Jack

said,' said

the king then.

Now

there was a great serpent at that

time used to come every seven years, and

he had to get a king's daughter

unless she would have
fight for her.

to

eat,

some good man

was the princess

to
at

And

it

218

the place Jack was had to be given to

that time,

it

and the king had been feeding

a bully underground for seven years, and

you may believe he got the best of everything, to

be ready to

fight

it.

And when
went
out,

the time came, the princess

to

and the bully with her down

the shore, and

did
tree,

when they got

tie

there what
to a

he do, but to
the

the princess

way

the serpent would be able to

swallow her easy with no delay, and he

himself went and hid

up

in

an ivy-tree.
for

And

Jack knew what was going on,

the princess had told

him about
her, but

it,

and

had asked would he help

he would
not.

he said

But he came out now, and

suit

he put on the
first

he had taken from the

giant,

and he came by the place the

she didn't

princess
'

was, but

know
not,

him.

Is that right for a princess to

be tied to
indeed,'

a tree?' said Jack.

said
she,

'It
told

is

and she

him what had

happened, and
to take her.
'

how
If

the serpent was coming

will let

you

me

sleep for

awhile with
Jack,

my

head

in

your

lap,'

said
it

'you

could

wake me when
that,

is

coming.'

So he did

and she awakened

him when she saw the serpent coming, and

Jack got up and fought with
it
it,

and drove

back into the

sea.

And

then he cut the

rope that fastened her, and he went away.

The

bully

came down then out of the

to

tree,

and he brought the princess

king was, and he
said,
'

where the

got a friend of

mine

to
I

come and
was a

fight the serpent to-day,

where

little

timorous after being

I'll

so long shut up underground, but

do

the fighting myself to-morrow.'

The

next day they went out again, and

the same thing happened, the bully tied

up the princess where the serpent could

come

at

her

fair

and easy, and went up

in

himself to hide

the

ivy-tree.

Then

Jack put on the

suit

he had taken from

the second giant, and he walked out, and

the
told

princess did

not

know

him, but she

him

all

that

had happened yesterday,

220

and how some young gentleman she did

know had come and saved her. So Jack asked might he he down and take a
not

Dreams
h ave no Moral.
***at

iiii
And

sleep with his head in her lap, the

way she
the

could

awake him.
as

all

happened the

same way
bully

the day before.

to the king,

And

gave her up

and said

he had brought another of

fight for her that day.

his friends to

The

next day she was brought

to the shore as before,

and a great

down many

people gathered to see the serpent that

was coming
away.
clothes

to bring the king's daughter

And

Jack brought out the

suit of

he had brought away from the

third giant,

and she did not know him,

before.

and they talked as

But when he
she
find

was asleep

this

time,

she thought
to

would make sure of being able

him

again,

and she took out her

scissors

and cut
a
little

off a piece of his hair,

and made
it

packet of

it

and put

away.

And

she did another thing, she took off

his feet.

one of the shoes that was on

And when

she saw the serpent coming

221

The
Twilight,

she woke him, and he

will

said,

'

This time

put the serpent in a

way

that he will

eat

no more king's daughters.'

So he

took out the sword he had got from the

giant,

and he put

it

in at the

back of the

serpent's neck, the

way blood and water

that

came spouting out

inland,

went

for fifty miles

and made an end of him.

And

then he

made

off,

and no one saw what

way he

went, and the bully brought the

princess to the king, and claimed to have

saved her, and

it

is

he who was made

after

much
that.

of,

and was the right-hand man

But when the

feast

was made ready

for

the wedding, the princess took out the bit

of hair she had, and she said she would

marry no one but the man whose hair

would match
that,

and she showed the

shoe and said that she would marry no

one whose foot would not

well.

fit

that shoe as

And
it,

the bully tried to put on the

shoe, but so
into

much

as his toe
it

would not go
didn't

and as

to his hair,
222

match

at all to the bit of hair she

.

had cut from

Dreams
that have

the

man
all

that saved her.

ball,

no Moral.
to

So then the king gave a great

bring
the chief

men

of the
fit

country

together to try would the shoe

any of

them.

And

they were

all

going to car-

penters and joiners getting bits of their

feet cut off to try could they

wear the shoe,

but get

it

was no
on.

use, not

one of them could

it

Then

the king went to his chief adviser

do.

and asked what could he

chief adviser bade
ball,

And
'

the

him

to

give another

and

this

time he said,
rich.'

Give

it

to

poor as well as

So the

ball
it,

was given, and many came

but the shoe would not
fit

flocking to

any one of them.

said,
'

And
are

the chief adviser

Is

every one here that belongs to

?
'

the house
king,
'

'

They
the

all

here,' said the

except
I

boy that
like

minds

the

cows, and

would not

him

to

be

coming up

here.'
in the

Jack was below

yard at the time,

223

The
Celtic

and he heard what the king

j
i_

said,

and he
his

Twilight,

was very angry, and he went and got

sword and came running up the
strike off the king's
stairs

to

head, but the

man
stairs

that kept the gate

met him on the

before he could get to the king, and quieted

him down, and when he got

of the
stairs

to

the top

and the princess saw him,

she gave a cry and ran into his arms.

And
and

they tried the shoe and

his hair
off.

it

fitted

him,

matched

to the piece that

had

been cut

So then they were

was given

married,

and a great

feast

for three

days

and three

nights.

And at
there

the end of that time, one morning

came a deer outside the window,

it,

with bells on
it

and they
is

ringing.

And
'

called

out,

'

Here

the hunt, where

?

is

the

huntsman and the hound

that he got

So

when Jack heard

his horse

up and took

and

his

hound and went hunting

it

the deer.

When
hill,

was

in the
it

hollow he

was on the
hill

and when
224

was on the

he was

in the hollow,

and that went

on
fell

all
it

through the day, and when night

Dreams
have no Moral.
that

went

into a

wood.
it,

And
all

Jack went

into the

wood

after

and

he could see
in,

was a mud-wall
there

cabin,

and he went

and

he saw an old woman, about two

old,

hundred years
the
fire.
'

and she

sitting

over
this

'

Did you see a deer pass

'

way ?
'

says Jack.
too late
let
I

did not/ says she,

for

but

it's

now

you

to

be follow-

ing a deer,
'

you stop the night here/

What
?

will
'

do with
Jack.
'

my
let

horse and

my
ribs

hound

said

Here are two

you
tie

of hair,' says she, 'and

them up
tied

with them.'

So Jack went
again
the
old

out and

up the horse and the hound, and when

he came
in

woman

said,

'You
to
kill

killed

my

three sons, and I'm going

you now,' and she put on a pair of

boxing-gloves, each one of them nine stone

weight, and the nails in
long.

them

fifteen inches

Then
!

they

began

to

fight,
it.
'

and

Jack was getting the worst of

Help,
hair,'

hound

'

he cried

out,

then

'

Squeeze,

cried out the old

woman, and the

225

rib of

The
Celtic

hair

that

was

about the
to

hound's

neck

Twilight,

squeezed him

death.
'

'Help, horse!'
hair,' called

Jack called
out
that

out,

then

Squeeze,

the old

woman, and the

him

rib of hair

was about the horse's neck began

to death.

to

tighten and squeeze

Then

the old

woman made an end

back now
to Bill.

of Jack and

threw him outside the door.

To go
in the

He

was out

garden one day, and he took a look

at the well,

and what did he see but the

water at the top was blood, and what was

underneath was honey.

So he went
meal
at

into

the house again, and he said to his mother,

1

will

never eat a second

the

same
same

table, or sleep

a second night in the

is

bed,

till

know what

happening

to Jack.'

So he took the other horse and hound

then,

and

set

off,

over

hills

where cock

never crows and horn never sounds, and

the devil never blows his bugle.
last

And
'

at

he came

to the
in,

weaver's house, and

when he went

the weaver says,

226

You

are

welcome, and
I

can give you better

the last

Dreams
no Moral.

treatment than

did
for

time you
it

came

in

to me,'

she thought

was

Jack who was there, they were so much

like

one another.

'

That

is

good,'

said
here.'

Bill to himself,

'my brother has been

the weaver the
full

And he gave
left.

of a

basin of gold in

the morning before he

Then he went on till he came to the king's house, and when he was at the door the princess came running down the stairs, and said, Welcome to you back
'

again.'

And

all

the people said, 'It

is

wonder you

have gone

hunting

three

days after your marriage, and to stop so

long
away.'

So he stopped
the time.

that

night
it

with the princess, and she thought

her

was

own husband
in the

all

And
and

morning the deer came, and

on
'

bells ringing

her,

under the windows,

is

called out,

The hunt

here,
?
'

where

are the
Bill

huntsmen and the hounds

227

Then
his

got up and got his

horse and

The
Twilight,

hound, and followed her over

hollows
there
till

hills

and

they came to the wood, and

he saw nothing but the mud-wall

the old

cabin and
fire,

woman

sitting

by the
there,

and she bade him stop the night

and gave him two

ribs of hair to tie his

horse and his hound with.

wittier than
out,

But

Bill

was

Jack was, and before he went

ribs of hair into the fire

he threw the

secretly.
said,
'

When

he came

in the old

woman

Your brother
killed

killed
I'll

my
kill

three sons,

and

him, and

you along

with him.'

And
'

she put her gloves on,

fight,
'

and they began the

called out,

and then
Squeeze,
can't

Bill
hair,'

Help, horse.'

called the old

woman

'
;

squeeze,

I'm in the

fire,'

said the hair.

And
Bill

the

horse came
his hoof.
'

in

and gave her a blow of

then.
'

'

Help, hound,' said

said the old
fire,'

Squeeze,

hair,'

woman

can't,

I'm in the
the

said the second hair.

his teeth in her,

Then
Bill

hound put

and

brought her down, and she cried for

mercy.

'Give

me my
228

life,'

she

said,

'and

I'll tell

you where
his

you'll get

your brother
'

Dreams
no Moral.

again,

and
'

hound and
'

horse.'

Where's

that

said

Bill.
'

Do
;

you see that rod

'

over the

fire ?

said she

take

it

down and

go outside the door where

you'll see three

green stones, and strike them with the

rod, for

they are your brother, and his

horse and hounds, and they'll

again.'
'

come

to life

will,
first,'

but
said

I'll

make

a green
off

stone of you

Bill,

and he cut

her head with his sword.

Then he went
horse

out and struck the stones,

his

and sure enough there were Jack, and and hound,

alive

and

well.

And

they began striking other stones around,

and men came from them, that had been

turned to stones, hundreds and thousands
of them.

Then they set out for home, but on the way they had some dispute or some argument
together, for Jack

was not well pleased

his

to hear
wife,

he had spent the night with

Bill

and

got angry, and he struck

to a

Jack with the rod, and turned him

229

green stone.
princess

And

he went home, but the

his

saw he had something on

'

mind, and he said then,

brother.'

have

killed

my

And he went back

life,

then and

brought him to
ever
after,

and they lived happy

and they had children by the

basketful,
shovelful.

and
I

threw them out

by the

was passing one time myself,

and they
of tea.

called

me

in

and gave me a cup

1902.

230

BY THE ROADSIDE
Last night
I

By

the

Roadside.

went

to a

wide place on

the Kiltartan road to listen to

songs.
old

some

Irish

While

waited for the singers an

man sang about that country beauty who died so many years ago, and spoke of a singer he had known who sang so beautifully
that no horse

would pass him, but must

its

turn

its

head and cock

ears to listen.
girls,

Presently a score of

men and boys and

their

with shawls over

heads, gathered

under the trees

to listen.

Somebody sang
then

Sa Muirnin
else

Diles,

and

somebody

Jimmy Mo

Milestor, mournful songs

of separation, of death, and of exile.

Then
to

some of the men stood up and began

dance,

while another
to,

lilted

the measure

they danced

and then somebody sang

Eiblin a Ruin, that glad song of meeting

which has always moved

other songs, because the
it

me more than lover who made

the

sang

it

to

his

sweetheart under
I

shadow of a mountain
231

looked at every

The
Twilight,

day through

my

childhood.

The

voices

melted into the twilight, and were mixed

into the trees,

and when

thought of the

words they too metted away, and were

mixed with the generations of men.

it

Now

was a phrase, now

it

was an

attitude of

mind, an emotional form, that had carried

my memory
that
it

to

older verses, or even to

I
I

forgotten mythologies.

was carried so
to

far

was

as though

came
it

one of the

four rivers,

and followed

under the wall

of Paradise to the roots of the trees of

knowledge and of
or story

life.

There

is

no song

handed down among the cottages

words and thoughts
to carry

that has not

one as
little

far, for

though one can know but a

of their ascent, one

knows

that they

ascend like medieval genealogies through

unbroken
world.

dignities to the beginning of the

art
is,

Folk

indeed, the oldest of

it

the aristocracies of thought, and because

refuses

what

is

passing and

trivial,

the

merely clever and pretty, as certainly as

the vulgar and insincere, and because
232
it

has gathered into

itself
i

the simplest and

of the
all
r
-\

By

the

most
tions,

ill uniorgetable thoughts

r
it

Roadside.

generais

is

the

soil

where
it

great art

rooted.

Wherever

is

spoken by the

fireside, or

sung by the roadside, or carved

lintel,

upon the

appreciation of the

arts

that a single
to,

mind gives unity and design

spreads quickly

when

its

hour

is

come.

In a society that has cast out imaginative tradition, only a

few people

three or
labour,
things,

four thousand out of millions

their

favoured by
happy circum-

own

characters and by
after

stance,

and only then

much
the

have understanding of imaginative

and yet
self.'

'

the imagination

is

man

him-

The

churches

in

the

Middle Age

won all the arts men understood

impoverished,

into their service because

when imagination is a principal voice some

that

would say the only voice

for the

awakenand
in

ing of wise hope and durable

faith,

understanding charity, can speak but

broken words,

if

it

does

not

fall

silent.

And

so

it

has always seemed to

233

me

that

we,

who would re-awaken

by making old songs
stories

imaginative
live again,

tradition

or

by gathering old

into books,

take part in the quarrel of Galilee.

Those

who

are Irish and would spread foreign

all

ways, which, for

but a few, are ways

of spiritual poverty, take part also.

part
is

Their

with those
'

who were

of Jewry, and

yet cried out,

If

thou

let this

man go thou
1

art not Caesar's friend.'

90 1.

234

INTO THE TWILIGHT

Out-worn
heart, in a time out-worn,

into the Twilight.

Come

clear of the nets of wrong and right

heart, again in the

Laugh,

gray

twilight;

Sigh, heart, again in the

dew of the morn.

Thy mother Eire

is

always young,

Dew

ever shining

and twilight gray ;

thee or love decay

Though hope fall from

Burning

in fires of a slanderous tongue.

is

Come, heart, whei'e hill

heaped upon

hill,

For

there the mystical brotherhood

hilly

Of hollow wood and the

wood

And the changing moon work out their will. And God stands winding his lonely horn ; And Time and the World are ever in flight, And love is less kind than the gray twilight,

And

hope

is less

dear than the dew of the

morn.

Richard Clay

&

Sons, Limited,

London & Bungay.

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