Fairy Tales of Ireland

Fairy Tales of Ireland P.J. Lynch W. B. Yeats A magical collection of twenty classic Irish fairy tales by one of Ireland’s greatest writers, the Nobel Prize-winning W. B. Yeats – with intricate, traditional illustrations throughout by P. J. Lynch.These short, carefully selected stories are told with humour and warmth, drawing on the glorious storytelling tradition of Ireland.With enchanting portrayals of witches, fairies, giants, pixies, hobgoblins and people of the otherworld, plus a notes section that traces the fascinating origin of each story, this book provides the perfect introduction to Irish myths and legends for curious new readers and fans of Yeats alike. First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. in 1990 This edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019 Published in this ebook edition in 2019 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) This selection and layout copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2019 Introduction and Notes copyright © Neil Philip 1990 Illustrations copyright © Patrick James Lynch 1990 All rights reserved. Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019 Patrick James Lynch and Neil Philip assert the moral rights to be identified as the illustrator of the work and the author of the introduction and notes respectively. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008253042 Ebook Edition © November 2018 ISBN: 9780008190095 Version: 2018-11-27 For Rois?n NP For Katrina PJL Contents Cover (#u81893ea9-6371-5e36-896e-99456b7ede74) Title Page (#uc7c4c941-495b-5828-8ed3-2a8b0d340bc8) Copyright (#u3a7e740a-5e0d-566f-a919-f6d8fc05aa1a) Dedication (#u42f4a35b-5cf5-5e15-9e61-dafccd548ccd) Introduction (#u99666c03-649e-5f05-9432-7b4880e22235) 1. The Stolen Child (#ue6b0031d-87c2-5567-aa6e-ca6f9401b14d) 2. The Priest’s Supper (#u2407d2ac-853d-5ce8-9d08-f4c2f89513c8) 3. The Legend of Knockgrafton (#u61391c34-1d15-55bc-a57d-a695bde8e9fd) 4. A Donegal Fairy (#ue4309b72-b79b-5564-bd64-2c363cbfc92f) 5. Jamie Freel and the Young Lady (#u8c55a8c8-961f-53ab-ade0-8c4eaeff38e5) 6. A Legend of Knockmany (#u19d10cbf-4060-5245-aef8-3f34995b02b0) 7. The Twelve Wild Geese (#litres_trial_promo) 8. The Lazy Beauty and her Aunts (#litres_trial_promo) 9. The Haughty Princess (#litres_trial_promo) 10. Far Darrig in Donegal (#litres_trial_promo) 11. Donald and his Neighbours (#litres_trial_promo) 12. Master and Man (#litres_trial_promo) 13. The Witches’ Excursion (#litres_trial_promo) 14. The Man Who Never Knew Fear (#litres_trial_promo) 15. The Horned Women (#litres_trial_promo) 16. Daniel O’Rourke (#litres_trial_promo) 17. The Soul Cages (#litres_trial_promo) 18. The Giant’s Stairs (#litres_trial_promo) 19. The Enchantment of Earl Gerald (#litres_trial_promo) 20. The Story of the Little Bird (#litres_trial_promo) Notes on the Stories (#litres_trial_promo) Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) (#ulink_12b6985c-f44f-57c9-ad9c-35e8cd737937) The Irish are a nation of talkers, and over the years their talk has run richly and naturally into story. Folk and fairy tales of all kinds abound, from long sagas of legendary heroes to personal accounts of dealings with the fairies, from wonder tales full of magic and transformation to comic anecdotes about local characters, from legends of saints or popular history to shivering ghost stories. The Irish fairy tales in this book are chosen from two volumes edited by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats when he was a young man: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) and Irish Fairy Tales (1892). They offer examples of various kinds of story, and various ways of writing down stories which were meant to be heard, not read. But most of all they concentrate on the fairies themselves, creatures which fascinated Yeats, who all his life was entranced by the otherworld. He yearned to know more about these “Nations of gay creatures, having no souls; nothing in their bright bodies but a mouthful of sweet air.” On the fourteenth of October, 1892, he was rewarded with a strange experience, which he described in his book The Celtic Twilight. Here is his account from a letter written the very next day: I went to a great fairy locality – a cave by the Rosses sands – with an uncle & a cousin who is believed by the neighbours & herself to have narrowly escaped capture by that dim kingdom once. I made a magical circle & invoked the fairies. My uncle – a hard headed man of about 47 – heard presently voices like those of boys shouting & distant music but saw nothing. My cousin however saw a bright light & multitudes of little forms clad in crimson as well as hearing the music & then the far voices. Once there was a great sound as of little people cheering & stamping with their feet away in the heart of the rock. The queen of the troop came then – I could see her – & held a long conversation with us & finally wrote in the sand “be careful & do not seek to know too much about us”. Others have received much the same warning. Old Biddy Hart told Yeats much about the fairies, but for long she turned his questions aside with, “I always mind my own affairs, and they always mind theirs.” Another informant, “Paddy Flynn, a little bright-eyed old man, who lived in a leaky and one-roomed cabin in the village of Ballisodare” answered Yeats’s query as to whether he had ever seen the fairies with the long-suffering, “Am I not annoyed with them?” Yet another, an old Galway countryman renowned as a seer and healer whom Yeats calls Kirwan, told him, “I see them in all places, and there’s no man mowing a meadow that doesn’t see them at some time or other.” Yeats’s home district in County Sligo was full of such beliefs. Yeats was born in Dublin in 1865, and died in 1939. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, and he was the central figure of the Irish literary revival in the early years of the twentieth century. Much of that revival, including the work of Yeats and his close friends Lady Augusta Gregory and John Millington Synge, drew its strength from the rediscovery of traditional story and traditional speech. Yeats’s two collections of Irish fairy tales stand at the head of this rediscovery. Indeed he said of Fairy and Folk Tales that, “It was meant for Irish poets. They should draw on it for plots and atmosphere.” He showed he meant what he said in a generous letter to the poet Nora Hopper, who had been accused of stealing from him: “It has given me great pleasure to find by stray words & sentences that my own little collections of Irish folk lore have been of use to you.” His own interest in folk traditions was aroused as a young child in visits to his cousin George Middleton at Rosses, County Sligo: “It was through the Middletons perhaps that I got my interest in country stories, and certainly the first faery-stories that I heard were in cottages about their houses.” His mother and her servant, a fisherman’s wife, were good storytellers, too, and in The Celtic Twilight, his book of about fairy lore, Yeats published an account of one of their story sessions. By his early twenties, the poet was already “searching for people to tell me fairy stories” and noting them down. So the commission from Ernest Rhys (later editor of the “Everyman” series for J.M. Dent) to compile for the Camelot Series a representative collection of Irish fairy stories was a wonderful opportunity for the young man to explore the published and unpublished treasure trove of Irish story. In a few months of furious work, spurred on equally by enthusiasm for his task and the thought of the seven guineas it would earn him, Yeats ransacked all the available books and journals, and added new material of his own and from the collection of his friend Douglas Hyde. Douglas Hyde, later the first President of the Republic of Ireland, was immensely helpful to Yeats, who in turn wrote of him, “Hyde is the best of all the Irish folklorists – His style is perfect – so sincere and simple – so little literary.” The truth of this was proved in 1890 with the publication, through Yeats’s intervention, of Hyde’s marvellous collection of stories Beside The Fire. Later, Hyde was to encourage the work of the Irish Folklore Commission (now the Department of Irish Folklore, University College, Dublin) under the direction of his old assistant James Delargy, which sent collectors to every corner of Ireland in search of stories and traditions, with the result that its archives are now the envy of the world. Its archivist, Sean O’Sullivan, has published two representative collections, Folktales of Ireland (1966) and Legends from Ireland (1977). These, together with Henry Glassie’s Irish Folk Tales (1985), give a fair sample of the riches now available to anyone interested in Irish folklore. But in 1888 when Yeats compiled his Folk and Fairy Tales, while there was still a vibrant storytelling tradition in Ireland, very little of it had been written down, and what there was was often spoilt by the writers, who ignored what Lady Gregory called “the beautiful rhythmic sentences” of the original tellers and put the stories, rued Yeats, into “newspaper English” on the one hand or “ramshackle towrow dialect” on the other. So Yeats had to search hard to find stories from early collectors such as Thomas Crofton Croker, Patrick Kennedy and Letitia McClintock suitable for his book. In his long, favourable review, Oscar Wilde commented particularly on Yeats’s “quick instinct in finding out the best and most beautiful things in Irish folk-lore.” Wilde’s own father and mother had been pioneer collectors (one of their stories was “The Horned Women”, p. 119), so his good opinion was cheering. Criticisms by other reviewers of the unscientific and rather literary nature of the book did not trouble its editor, who retorted that “scientific people cannot tell stories”, and sighed, “Oh these folklorists! and what have they done – murder a few innocent fairy tales.” In fact Yeats and the scientific folklorists were not as far apart as they thought. Both applauded Douglas Hyde as the best of all Irish folklorists; both agreed with Lady Gregory when she wrote that, “To gather folk-lore one needs, I think, leisure, patience, reverence, and a good memory.” Despite modern recording equipment, this is still true today. It was with Lady Gregory that Yeats pursued his interest in folklore, collecting tales, legends and folk beliefs on which he wrote six long essays between 1897 and 1902, incorporating some material in The Celtic Twilight. The plan was for the two friends to write a “big book of folk lore” together, but the bulk of the work was Lady Gregory’s, and the book, Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, came out in her name, with essays and notes by Yeats. Together with Hyde’s Beside the Fire, Visions and Beliefs is one of the best books on Irish traditions of the era before sound recording. Lady Gregory, like Hyde, had patience and reverence, and also what Yeats called “the needful subtle imaginative sympathy” to record the tone, the meaning and the context of a story as well as the words in which it is told. She had also, like Hyde, mastered Gaelic, the Irish language in which the bulk of Irish stories has been recorded. Without fluent Gaelic, Yeats could never be more than an amateur Irish folklorist. Still, if Yeats was hampered by his English tongue and his educated mind, he loved “those old rambling moralless tales, which are the delight of the poor and hard-driven wherever life is left in its natural simplicity.” He discerned in such stories as are collected here, “the simplest and most unforgettable thoughts of the generations”, declaring that, “Folk-art … is the soil where all great art is rooted.” Yeats was himself a great artist, and he recognised in the melancholy, extravagant, spellbinding narratives of unlettered Irish storytellers a poetry and a passion akin to his own. Neil Philip, 1989 (#ulink_18f05b1e-d71f-5fbd-a91f-6fa0778b6782) W.B. Yeats Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water-rats. There we’ve hid our fairy vats Full of berries, And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O, human child! To the woods and waters wild With a fairy hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim grey sands with light, Far off by farthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands, and mingling glances, Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap, And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles. And is anxious in its sleep. Come away! O, human child! To the woods and waters wild, With a fairy hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes, That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout, And whispering in their ears; We give them evil dreams, Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Of dew on the young streams. Come! O, human child! To the woods and waters wild, With a fairy hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us, he’s going, The solemn-eyed; He’ll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hill-side. Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast; Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the woods and waters wild, With a fairy hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand. (#ulink_eab4fd5f-337f-5acd-b692-eed204de8dfc) It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of their companions, who had more sin to sink them, went down farther to a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a merry troop of the fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild pranks, on a bright moonlight evening towards the end of September. The scene of their merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of the county Cork – a poor village, although it had a barrack for soldiers; but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, are enough to strike poverty into any place: however as the fairies can have everything they want for wishing, poverty does not trouble them much, and all their care is to seek out unfrequented nooks and places where it is not likely anyone will come to spoil their sport. On a nice green sod by the river’s side were the little fellows dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red caps wagging about at every bound in the moonshine, and so light were these bounds that the lobs of dew, although they trembled under their feet, were not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols, spinning round and round, and twirling and bobbing and diving, and going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out, “Cease, cease, with your drumming, Here’s an end to our mumming; By my smell I can tell A priest this way is coming!” And away every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could, concealing themselves under the green leaves of the foxglove; where, if their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves at the shady side of stones and brambles, and others under the bank of the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another. The fairy speaker was not mistaken; for along the road, which was within view of the river, came Father Horrigan on his pony, thinking to himself that as it was so late he would make an end of his journey at the first cabin he came to. According to his determination, he stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch, and entered with “My blessing on all here”. I need not say that Father Horrigan was a welcome guest wherever he went, for no man was more pious or better beloved in the country. Now it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his reverence for supper as a relish to the potatoes, which “the old woman”, for so Dermod called his wife, though she was not much past twenty, had down boiling in a pot over the fire; he thought of the net which he had set in the river, but as it had been there only a short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. “No matter,” thought Dermod, “there can be no harm in stepping down to try; and maybe, as I want fish for the priest’s supper, that one will be there before me.” Down to the river-side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a salmon as ever jumped in the bright waters of “the spreading Lee”; but as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon, and went swimming along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened. Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then, with an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent to his feelings by muttering, “May bitter bad luck attend you night and day for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there’s any shame in you, to give me the slip after this fashion! And I’m clear in my own mind you’ll come to no good, for some kind of evil thing or other helped you – did I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself?” “That’s not true for you,” said one of the little fairies who had scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod Leary with a whole throng of companions at his heels; “there was only a dozen and a half of us pulling against you.” Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued, “Make yourself noways uneasy about the priest’s supper; for if you will go back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no time.” “I’ll have nothing at all to do with you,” replied Dermod in a tone of determination; and after a pause he added, “I’m much obliged to you for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you, or the like of you, for a supper; and more than that, I know Father Horrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for ever, out of regard to anything you could put before him – so there’s an end of the matter.” The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermod’s manner, continued, “Will you ask the priest one civil question for us?” Dermod considered for some time, and he was right in doing so, but he thought that no one could come to harm out of asking a civil question. “I see no objection to do that same, gentlemen,” said Dermod; “but I will have nothing in life to do with your supper – mind that.” “Then,” said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding after him from all parts, “go and ask Father Horrigan to tell us whether our souls will be saved at the last day, like the souls of good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says without delay.” Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out on the table, and his good woman handing the biggest of them all, a beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard-ridden horse on a frosty night, over to Father Horrigan. “Please your reverence,” said Dermod, after some hesitation, “may I make bold to ask your honour one question?” “What may that be?” said Father Horrigan. “Why, then, begging your reverence’s pardon for my freedom, it is, if the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?” “Who bid you ask me that question, Leary?” said the priest, fixing his eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at all. “I’ll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in life but the truth,” said Dermod. “It was the good people themselves who sent me to ask the question, and there they are in thousands down on the bank of the river, waiting for me to go back with the answer.” “Go back by all means,” said the priest, “and tell them, if they want to know, to come here to me themselves, and I’ll answer that or any other question they are pleased to ask with the greatest pleasure in life.” Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies, who came swarming round about him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke out among them like a bold man as he was: but when they heard that they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there, and some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and in such numbers that he was quite bewildered. When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went to his cabin, and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Horrigan, who made quite light of the thing; but Dermod could not help thinking it a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to banish the fairies at such a rate, should have no sort of relish to his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have been got away from him in such a manner. (#ulink_12cac169-f0b7-512e-aab0-6e6c6e5261a8) There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so much that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great that he scarcely appeared to be a human creature, and some ill-minded persons had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty skilful hand in plaiting straws and rushes into hats and baskets, which was the way he made his livelihood. Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore (the foxglove), in his little straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than anyone else and perhaps that was the reason why someone, out of envy, had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of Cahir towards Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right-hand side of his road. Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon, which – “Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent Queen, unveil’d her peerless light, And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw, And in her pale dominion check’d the night.” Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices, each mingling and blending with the other so strangely that they seemed to be one, though all singing different strains, and the words of the song were these – Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort; when there would be a moment’s pause, and then the round of melody went on again. Lusmore listened attentively, scarcely drawing his breath lest he might lose the slightest note. He now plainly perceived that the singing was within the moat; and though at first it had charmed him so much, he began to get tired of hearing the same sound sung over and over so often without any change; so availing himself of the pause when Da Luan, Da Mort, had been sung three times, he took up the tune, and raised it with the words augus Da Cadine (and Wednesday), and then went on singing with the voices inside of the moat, Da Luan, Da Mort, finishing the melody, when the pause again came, with augus Da Cadine. The fairies within Knockgrafton, for the song was a fairy melody, when they heard this addition to the tune, were so much delighted that, with instant resolve, it was determined to bring the mortal among them, whose musical skill so far exceeded theirs, and little Lusmore was conveyed into their company with the eddying speed of a whirlwind. Glorious to behold was the sight that burst upon him as he came down through the moat, twirling round and round, with the lightness of a straw, to the sweetest music that kept time to his motion. The greatest honour was then paid him, for he was put above all the musicians, and he had servants tending upon him, and everything to his heart’s content, and a hearty welcome to all; and, in short, he was made as much of as if he had been the first man in the land. Presently Lusmore saw a great consultation going forward among the fairies, and, notwithstanding all their civility, he felt very much frightened, until one stepping out from the rest came up to him and said – “Lusmore! Lusmore! Doubt not, nor deplore, For the hump which you bore On your back is no more; Look down on the floor, And view it, Lusmore!” When these words were said, poor little Lusmore felt himself so light, and so happy, that he thought he could have bounded at one jump over the moon, like the cow in the history of the cat and the fiddle; and he saw, with inexpressible pleasure, his hump tumble down upon the ground from his shoulders. He then tried to lift up his head, and he did so with becoming caution, fearing that he might knock it against the ceiling of the grand hall, where he was; he looked round and round again with the greatest wonder and delight upon everything, which appeared more and more beautiful; and, overpowered at beholding such a resplendent scene, his head grew dizzy, and his eyesight became dim. At last he fell into a sound sleep, and when he awoke he found it was broad daylight, the sun shining brightly, and the birds singing sweetly; and that he was lying just at the foot of the moat of Knockgrafton, with the cows and sheep grazing peaceably round about him. The first thing Lusmore did, after saying his prayers, was to put his hand behind to feel for his hump, but no sign of one was there on his back, and he looked at himself with great pride, for he had now become a well-shaped dapper little fellow, and more than that, found himself in a full suit of new clothes, which he concluded the fairies had made for him. Towards Cappagh he went, stepping out as lightly, and springing up at every step as if he had been all his life a dancing-master. Not a creature who met Lusmore knew him without his hump, and he had a great work to persuade everyone that he was the same man – in truth he was not, so far as the outward appearance went. Of course it was not long before the story of Lusmore’s hump got about, and a great wonder was made of it. Through the country, for miles round, it was the talk of everyone high and low. One morning, as Lusmore was sitting contented enough at his cabin door, up came an old woman to him, and asked him if he could direct her to Cappagh. “I need give you no directions, my good woman,” said Lusmore, “for this is Cappagh; and whom may you want here?” “I have come,” said the woman, “out of Decie’s country, in the county of Waterford, looking after one Lusmore, who, I have heard tell, had his hump taken off by the fairies; for there is a son of a gossip of mine who has got a hump on him that will be his death; and maybe, if he could use the same charm as Lusmore, the hump may be taken off him. And now I have told you the reason of my coming so far: ’tis to find out about this charm, if I can.” Lusmore, who was ever a good-natured little fellow, told the woman all the particulars, how he had raised the tune for the fairies at Knockgrafton, how his hump had been removed from his shoulders, and how he had got a new suit of clothes into the bargain. The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and easy in her mind. When she came back to her gossip’s house, in the county of Waterford, she told her everything that Lusmore had said, and they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning creature from his birth, upon a cart, and took him all the way across the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, if the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton. Jack Madden, for that was the humpy man’s name, had not been sitting there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much sweeter than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore had settled their music for them, and the song was going on: Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, augus Da Dardeen, without ever stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great hurry to get quit of his hump, never thought of waiting until the fairies had done, or watching for a fit opportunity to raise the tune higher again than Lusmore had; so having heard them sing it over seven times without stopping, out he bawls, never minding the time or the humour of the tune, or how he could bring his words in properly, augus Da Dardeen, augus Da Hena (and Thursday and Friday), thinking that if one day was good two were better; and that if Lusmore had one new suit of clothes given him, he should have two. No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came crowding round him with great anger, screeching and screaming, and roaring out, “Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?” and one stepped up to him above all the rest, and said – “Jack Madden! Jack Madden! Your words came so bad in The tune we felt glad in; – This castle you’re had in, That your life we may sadden; Here’s two humps for Jack Madden!” And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore’s hump, and put it down upon poor Jack’s back, over his own, where it became fixed as firmly as if it was nailed on with twelve-penny nails, by the best carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked him; and in the morning, when Jack Madden’s mother and her gossip came to look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the foot of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well to be sure, how they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say anything, lest a hump might be put upon their own shoulders. Home they brought the unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts and their looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight of his other hump, and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving, they say, his heavy curse to anyone who would go to listen to fairy tunes again. (#ulink_d3cc1a6a-7011-54a7-b188-607add0f398e) Ay, it’s a bad thing to displeasure the gentry, sure enough – they can be unfriendly if they’re angered, an’ they can be the very best o’ gude neighbours if they’re treated kindly. My mother’s sister was her lone in the house one day, wi’ a big pot o’ water boiling on the fire, and ane o’ the wee folk fell down the chimney, and slipped wi’ his leg in the hot water. He let a terrible squeal out o’ him, an’ in a minute the house was full o’ wee creatures pulling him out o’ the pot, an’ carrying him across the floor. “Did she scald you?” my aunt heard them saying to him. “Na, na, it was mysel’ scalded my ainsel’,” quoth the wee fellow. “A weel, a weel,” says they. “If it was your ainsel scalded yoursel’, we’ll say nothing, but if she had scalded you, we’d ha’ made her pay.” (#ulink_b03e4016-9442-5283-86e8-71027d66ba8b) Down in Fannet, in times gone by, lived Jamie Freel and his mother. Jamie was the widow’s sole support; his strong arm worked for her untiringly, and as each Saturday night came round, he poured his wages into her lap, thanking her dutifully for the halfpence which she returned him for tobacco. He was extolled by his neighbours as the best son ever known or heard of. But he had neighbours, of whose opinion he was ignorant – neighbours who lived pretty close to him, whom he had never seen, who are, indeed, rarely seen by mortals, except on May eves and Halloweens. An old ruined castle, about a quarter of a mile from his cabin, was said to be the abode of the “wee folk”. Every Halloween were the ancient windows lighted up, and passers-by saw little figures flitting to and fro inside the building, while they heard the music of pipes and flutes. It was well known that fairy revels took place; but nobody had the courage to intrude on them. Jamie had often watched the little figures from a distance, and listened to the charming music, wondering what the inside of the castle was like; but one Halloween he got up and took his cap, saying to his mother, “I’m awa’ to the castle to seek any fortune.” “What!” cried she, “would you venture there? you that’s the poor widow’s one son! Dinna be sae venturesome an’ folitch, Jamie! They’ll kill you, an’ then what’ll come o’ me?” “Never fear, mother; nae harm ’ill happen me, but I maun gae.” He set out, and as he crossed the potato field, came in sight of the castle, whose windows were ablaze with light, that seemed to turn the russet leaves, still clinging to the crabtree branches, into gold. Halting in the grove at one side of the ruin, he listened to the elfin revelry, and the laughter and singing made him all the more determined to proceed. Numbers of little people, the largest about the size of a child of five years old, were dancing to the music of flutes and fiddles, while others drank and feasted. “Welcome, Jamie Freel! welcome, welcome, Jamie!” cried the company, perceiving their visitor. The word “Welcome” was caught up and repeated by every voice in the castle. Time flew, and Jamie was enjoying himself very much, when his hosts said, “We’re going to ride to Dublin tonight to steal a young lady. Will you come too, Jamie Freel?” “Aye, that will I!” cried the rash youth, thirsting for adventure. A troop of horses stood at the door. Jamie mounted and his steed rose with him into the air. He was presently flying over his mother’s cottage, surrounded by the elfin troop, and on and on they went, over bold mountains, over little hills, over the deep Lough Swilley, over towns and cottages, where people were burning nuts, and eating apples, and keeping merry Halloween. It seemed to Jamie that they flew all round Ireland before they got to Dublin. “This is Derry,” said the fairies, flying over the cathedral spire; and what was said by one voice was repeated by all the rest, till fifty little voices were crying out, “Derry! Derry! Derry!” In like manner was Jamie informed as they passed over each town on the route, and at length he heard the silvery voices cry, “Dublin! Dublin!” It was no mean dwelling that was to be honoured by the fairy visit, but one of the finest houses in Stephen’s Green. The troop dismounted near a window, and Jamie saw a beautiful face, on a pillow in a splendid bed. He saw the young lady lifted and carried away, while the stick which was dropped in her place on the bed took her exact form. The lady was placed before one rider and carried a short way, then given to another, and the names of the towns were cried out as before. They were approaching home. Jamie heard “Rathmullan”, “Milford”, “Tamney”, and then he knew they were near his own house. “You’ve all had your turn at carrying the young lady,” said he. “Why wouldn’t I get her for a wee piece?” “Ay, Jamie,” replied they, pleasantly, “you may take your turn at carrying her, to be sure.” Holding his prize very tightly, he dropped down near his mother’s door. “Jamie Freel, Jamie Freel! is that the way you treat us?” cried they, and they too dropped down near the door. Jamie held fast, though he knew not what he was holding, for the little folk turned the lady into all sorts of strange shapes. At one moment she was a black dog, barking and trying to bite; at another, a glowing bar of iron, which yet had no heat; then, again, a sack of wool. But still Jamie held her, and the baffled elves were turning away, when a tiny woman, the smallest of the party, exclaimed, “Jamie Freel has her awa’ frae us, but he sall hae nae gude o’ her, for I’ll mak’ her deaf and dumb,” and she threw something over the young girl. While they rode off disappointed, Jamie lifted the latch and went in. “Jamie, man!” cried his mother, “you’ve been awa’ all night; what have they done on you?” “Naething bad, mother; I ha’ the very best of gude luck. Here’s a beautiful young lady I ha’ brought you for company.” “Bless us an’ save us!” exclaimed the mother, and for some minutes she was so astonished that she could not think of anything else to say. Jamie told his story of the night’s adventure, ending by saying, “Surely you wouldna have allowed me to let her gang with them to be lost forever?” “But a lady, Jamie! How can a lady eat we’er poor diet, and live in we’er poor way? I ax you that, you foolitch fellow?” “Weel, mother, sure it’s better for her to be here nor over yonder,” and he pointed in the direction of the castle. Meanwhile, the deaf and dumb girl shivered in her light clothing, stepping close to the humble turf fire. “Poor creature, she’s quare and handsome! Nae wonder they set their hearts on her,” said the old woman, gazing at her guest with pity and admiration. “We maun dress her first; but what, in the name o’ fortune, hae I fit for the likes o’ her to wear?” She went to her press in “the room”, and took out her Sunday gown of brown drugget; she then opened a drawer and drew forth a pair of white stockings, a long snowy garment of fine linen, and a cap, her “dead dress”, as she called it. These articles of attire had long been ready for a certain triste ceremony, in which she would some day fill the chief part, and only saw the light occasionally, when they were hung out to air; but she was willing to give even these to the fair trembling visitor, who was turning in dumb sorrow and wonder from her to Jamie, and from Jamie back to her. The poor girl suffered herself to be dressed, and then sat down on a “creepie” in the chimney corner, and buried her face in her hands. “What’ll we do to keep up a lady like thou?” cried the old woman. “I’ll work for you both, mother,” replied the son. “An’ how could a lady live on we’er poor diet?” she repeated. “I’ll work for her,” was all Jamie’s answer. He kept his word. The young lady was very sad for a long time, and tears stole down her cheeks many an evening while the old woman spun by the fire, and Jamie made salmon nets, an accomplishment lately acquired by him, in hopes of adding to the comfort of his guest. But she was always gentle, and tried to smile when she perceived them looking at her; and by degrees she adapted herself to their ways and mode of life. It was not very long before she began to feed the pig, mash potatoes and meal for the fowls, and knit blue worsted socks. So a year passed, and Halloween came round again. “Mother,” said Jamie, taking down his cap, “I’m off to the ould castle to seek my fortune.” “Are you mad, Jamie?” cried his mother, in terror; “sure they’ll kill you this time for what you done on them last year.” Jamie made light of her fears and went his way. As he reached the crabtree grove, he saw bright lights in the castle windows as before, and heard loud talking. Creeping under the window, he heard the wee folk say, “That was a poor trick Jamie Freel played us this night last year, when he stole the nice young lady from us.” “Ay,” said the tiny woman, “an’ I punished him for it, for there she sits, a dumb image by his hearth; but he does na’ know that three drops out o’ this glass I hold in my hand wad gie her her hearing and her speeches back again.” Jamie’s heart beat fast as he entered the hall. Again he was greeted by a chorus of welcomes from the company – “Here comes Jamie Freel! welcome, welcome, Jamie!” As soon as the tumult subsided, the little woman said, “You be to drink our health, Jamie, out o’ this glass in my hand.” Jamie snatched the glass from her and darted to the door. He never knew how he reached his cabin, but he arrived there breathless, and sank on a stove by the fire. “You’re kilt surely this time, my poor boy,” said his mother. “No, indeed, better luck than ever this time!” and he gave the lady three drops of the liquid that still remained at the bottom of the glass, notwithstanding his mad race over the potato field. The lady began to speak, and her first words were words of thanks to Jamie. The three inmates of the cabin had so much to say to one another, that long after cock-crow, when the fairy music had quite ceased, they were talking round the fire. “Jamie,” said the lady, “be pleased to get me paper and pen and ink, that I may write to my father, and tell him what has become of me.” She wrote, but weeks passed, and she received no answer. Again and again she wrote, and still no answer. At length she said, “You must come with me to Dublin, Jamie, to find my father.” “I ha’ no money to hire a cart for you,” he replied, “an’ how can you travel to Dublin on your foot?” But she implored him so much that he consented to set out with her, and walk all the way from Fannet to Dublin. It was not as easy as the fairy journey; but at last they rang the bell at the door of the house in Stephen’s Green. “Tell my father that his daughter is here,” said she to the servant who opened the door. “The gentleman that lives here has no daughter, my girl. He had one, but she died better nor a year ago.” “Do you not know me, Sullivan?” “No, poor girl, I do not.” “Let me see the gentleman. I only ask to see him.” “Well, that’s not much to ax; we’ll see what can be done.” In a few moments the lady’s father came to the door. “Dear Father,” said she, “don’t you know me?” “How dare you call me Father?” cried the old gentleman, angrily. “You are an imposter. I have no daughter.” “Look in my face, Father, and surely you’ll remember me.” “My daughter is dead and buried. She died a long, long time ago.” The old gentleman’s voice changed from anger to sorrow. “You can go,” he concluded. “Stop, dear Father, till you look at this ring on my finger. Look at your name and mine engraved on it.” “It certainly is my daughter’s ring; but I do not know how you came by it. I fear in no honest way.” “Call my mother, she will be sure to know me,” said the poor girl, who, by this time, was crying bitterly. “My poor wife is beginning to forget her sorrow. She seldom speaks of her daughter now. Why should I renew her grief by reminding her of her loss?” But the young lady persevered, till at last the mother was sent for. “Mother,” she began, when the old lady came to the door, “don’t you know your daughter?” “I have no daughter; my daughter died and was buried a long, long time ago.” “Only look in my face, and surely you’ll know me.” The old lady shook her head. “You have all forgotten me; but look at this mole on my neck. Surely, Mother, you know me now?” “Yes, yes,” said the mother, “my Gracie had a mole on her neck like that; but then I saw her in her coffin, and saw the lid shut down upon her.” It became Jamie’s turn to speak, and he gave the history of the fairy journey, of the theft of the young lady, of the figure he had seen laid in its place, of her life with his mother in Fannet, of last Halloween, and of the three drops that had released her from her enchantment. She took up the story when he paused, and told how kind the mother and son had been to her. The parents could not make enough of Jamie. They treated him with every distinction; and when he expressed his wish to return to Fannet, said they did not know what to do to show their gratitude. But an awkward complication arose. The daughter would not let him go without her. “If Jamie goes, I’ll go too,” she said. “He saved me from the fairies, and has worked for me ever since. If it had not been for him, dear Father and Mother, you would never have seen me again. If he goes, I’ll go too.” This being her resolution, the old gentleman said that Jamie should become his son-in-law. The mother was brought from Fannet in a coach and four, and there was a splendid wedding. They all lived together in the grand Dublin house, and Jamie was heir to untold wealth at his father-in-law’s death. (#ulink_75ef7a19-c394-5d27-b2a4-9620fe779c11) What Irish man, woman, or child has not heard of our renowned Hibernian Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M’Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway, nor from that back again to Cape Clear. And, by the way, speaking of the Giant’s Causeway brings me at once to the beginning of my story. Well, it so happened that Fin and his gigantic relatives were all working at the Causeway, in order to make a bridge, or what was still better, a good stout pad-road, across to Scotland; when Fin, who was very fond of his wife Oonagh, took it into his head that he would go home and see how the poor woman got on in his absence. To be sure, Fin was a true Irishman, and so the sorrow thing in life brought him back, only to see that she was snug and comfortable, and, above all things, that she got her rest well at night; for he knew that the poor woman, when he was with her, used to be subject to nightly qualms and configurations, that kept him very anxious, decent man, striving to keep her up to the good spirits and health that she had when they were first married. So, accordingly, he pulled up a fir tree, and, after lopping off the roots and branches, made a walking stick of it, and set out on his way to Oonagh. Oonagh, or rather Fin, lived at this time on the very tip-top of Knockmany Hill, which faces a cousin of its own called Cullamore, that rises up, half-hill, half-mountain, on the opposite side – east-east by south, as the sailors say, when they wish to puzzle a landsman. Now, the truth is, for it must come out, that honest Fin’s affection for his wife, though cordial enough in itself, was by no manner of means the real cause of his journey home. There was at that time another giant, named Cucullin – some say he was Irish, and some say he was Scotch – but whether Scotch or Irish, sorrow doubt of it but he was a targer. No other giant of the day could stand before him; and such was his strength, that, when well vexed, he could give a stamp that shook the country about him. The fame and name of him went far and near; and nothing in the shape of a man, it was said, had any chance with him in a fight. Whether the story is true or not, I cannot say, but the report went that, by one blow of his fists he flattened a thunderbolt, and kept it in his pocket, in the shape of a pancake, to show to all his enemies, when they were about to fight him. Undoubtedly he had given every giant in Ireland a considerable beating, barring Fin M’Coul himself; and he swore, by the solemn contents of Moll Kelly’s Primer, that he would never rest, night or day, winter or summer, till he would serve Fin with the same sauce, if he could catch him. Fin, however, who no doubt was the cock of the walk on his own dunghill, had a strong disinclination to meet a giant who could make a young earthquake, or flatten a thunderbolt when he was angry; so accordingly kept dodging about from place to place, not much to his credit as a Trojan, to be sure, whenever he happened to get the hard word that Cucullin was on the scent of him. This, then, was the marrow of the whole movement, although he put it on his anxiety to see Oonagh; and I am not saying but there was some truth in that too. However, the short and long of it was, with reverence be it spoken, that he heard Cucullin was coming to the Causeway to have a trial of strength with him; and he was naturally enough seized, in consequence, with a very warm and sudden fit of affection for his wife, poor woman, who was delicate in her health, and leading, besides, a very lonely, uncomfortable life of it (he assured them) in his absence. He accordingly pulled up the fir tree, as I said before, and having snedded it into a walking stick, set out on his affectionate travels to see his darling Oonagh on the top of Knockmany, by the way. In truth, to state the suspicions of the country at the time, the people wondered very much why it was that Fin selected such a windy spot for his dwelling-house, and they even went so far as to tell him as much. “What can you mane, Mr M’Coul,” said they, “by pitching your tent upon the top of Knockmany, where you never are without a breeze, day or night, winter or summer, and where you’re often forced to take your nightcap without either going to bed or turning up your little finger; ay, an’ where, besides this, there’s the sorrow’s own want of water?” “Why,” said Fin, “ever since I was the height of a round tower, I was known to be fond of having a good prospect of my own; and where the dickens, neighbours, could I find a better spot for a good prospect than the top of Knockmany? As for water, I am sinking a pump, and, plase goodness, as soon as the Causeway’s made, I intend to finish it.” Now, this was more of Fin’s philosophy; for the real state of the case was, that he pitched upon the top of Knockmany in order that he might be able to see Cucullin coming towards the house, and, of course, that he himself might go to look after his distant transactions in other parts of the country, rather than – but no matter – we do not wish to be too hard on Fin. All we have to say is, that if he wanted a spot from which to keep a sharp look-out – and, between ourselves, he did want it grievously – barring Slieve Croob, or Slieve Donard, or its own cousin, Cullamore, he could not find a neater or more convenient situation for it in the sweet and sagacious province of Ulster. “God save all here!” said Fin, good-humouredly, on putting his honest face into his own door. “Musha, Fin, avick, an’ you’re welcome home to your own Oonagh, you darlin’ bully.” Here followed a smack that is said to have made the waters of the lake at the bottom of the hill curl, as it were, with kindness and sympathy. “Faith,” said Fin, “beautiful; an’ how are you, Oonagh – and how did you sport your figure during my absence, my bilberry?” “Never a merrier – as bouncing a grass widow as ever there was in sweet ‘Tyrone among the bushes’.” Fin gave a short, good-humoured cough, and laughed most heartily, to show her how much he was delighted that she made herself happy in his absence. “An’ what brought you home so soon, Fin?” said she. “Why, avourneen,” said Fin, putting in his answer in the proper way, “never the thing but the purest of love and affection for yourself. Sure you know that truth, anyhow, Oonagh.” Fin spent two or three happy days with Oonagh, and felt himself very comfortable, considering the dread he had of Cucullin. This, however, grew upon him so much that his wife could not but perceive something lay on his mind which he kept altogether to himself. Let a woman alone, in the meantime, for ferreting, or wheedling a secret out of her good man, when she wishes. Fin was a proof of this. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/p-j-lynch/fairy-tales-of-ireland/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.