'He will go this road to-morrow, and let you welcome him; settle down a wooden chair in the middle of the house; snatch the hat from him, and do not give him any ease until you get back the beautiful comb that was high on the back of your head.'

But an Aran man has told me: 'No, this is a very serious song; it was meant to praise the girl, and to tell what a loss she had in the comb.'

I am told that the song that makes most mirth in Aran is 'The Carrageen'; the day-dream of an old woman, too old to carry out her purpose, of all she will buy when she has gathered a harvest of the Carrageen moss, used by invalids:—

'If I had two oars and a little boat of my own, I would go pulling the Carrageen; I would dry it up in the sun; I would bring a load of it to Galway; it would go away in the train, to pay the rent to Robinson, and what is over would be my own.

'It is long I am hearing talk of the Carrageen, and I never knew what it was. If I spent the last spring-tide at it, and I to take care of myself, I would buy a gown and a long cloak and a wide little shawl; that, and a dress cap, with frills on every side like feathers.'

* * * * *

'(This is what the Calleac said, that was over a hundred years old:—)

'"I lost the last spring-tide with it, and I went into sharp danger. I did not know what the Carrageen was, or anything at all like it; but I will have tobacco from this out, if I lose the half of my fingers!"'

This is a little song addressed by a fisherman to his little boat, his curragh-cin:—

'There goes my curragh-cin, it is she will get the prize; she will he to-night in America, and back again with the tide....

'I put pins of oak in her, and oars of red pine; and I made her ready for sailing; for she is the six-oared curragh-cin that never gave heed to the storm; and it is she will be coming to land, when the sailing boats will be lost.

'There was a man came from England to buy my little boat from me; he offered me twenty guineas for her; there were many looking on. If he would offer me as much again, and a guinea over and above, he would not get my curragh-cin till she goes out and kills the shark.'

For a shark will sometimes flounder into the fishing-nets and tear his way out; and even a whale is sometimes seen. I remember an Aran man beginning some story he was telling me with: 'I was going down that path one time, with the priest and a few others; for a whale had come ashore, and the jaw-bones of it were wanted, to make the piers of a gate.'

As for the love-songs of our coast and island people, they seem to be for the most part a little artificial in method, a little strained in metaphor perhaps so giving rise to the Scotch Gaelic saying: 'as loveless as an Irishman.' Love of country, tir-gradh, is I think the real passion; and bound up with it are love of home, of family, love of God. Constancy and affection in marriage are the rule; yet marriage 'for love' is all but unknown; marriage is a matter of commonsense arrangement between the heads of families. As Mr. Yeats puts it, the countryman's 'dream has never been entangled by reality.' However this may be, my Aran friends tell me: 'The people do not care for love-songs; they would rather have any others.'

Yet I have just seen some love-songs, taken down the other day by a Kinvara man from a Connemara man, that have some charming lines:—

'Going over the hills after parting from the store of my heart, there is a mist on them and the darkness of night.'

'It is my sharp grief, my thousand treasures, my road not to be to the door of your house; it is with you I wore out my shoes from the beginning of my youth until now.'

'It is not sorry I would be if there was the length of a year in the day, and the leaves of the trees dropping honey; I myself on the side where the blossoms are falling, my love beside me, and a little green branch in her hand.'

'She goes by me like a little breeze of the wind.'

And this line that in a country of separations is already, they tell me, 'passing into a proverb':—

'It is far from one another our rising is every day.'

But the tradition of classical allusions, brought in some centuries ago, joined to the exaggeration that has been the breath of Irish poets, from the time Naoise called Deirdre 'a woman brighter than the sun,' has brought monotony into most of the love-songs.

The ideal country girl, with her dew-grey eye and long amber hair, is always likened to Venus, to Juno, to Deirdre. 'I think she is nine times nicer than Deirdre,' says Raftery, 'or I may say Helen, the affliction of the Greeks'; and he writes of another country girl, that she is 'beyond Venus, in spite of all Homer wrote on her appearance, and Cassandra also, and Io that bewitched Mars; beyond Minerva, and Juno, the king's wife'; and he wishes 'they might be brought face to face with her, that they might be confused':—

'She comes to me like a star through the mist; her hair is golden and goes down to her shoes; her breast is the colour of white sugar, or like bleached bone on the card-table; her neck is whiter than the froth of the flood, or the swan coming from swimming.... If France and Spain belonged to me, I'd give it up to be along with you.'

And he gives 'a thousand praises to God, that I didn't lose my wits on account of her.' Raftery puts distinction into each one of his songs; but when lesser poets, echoing the voices of so many generations, bring in the same goddesses, and the same exaggerations, and the same amber hair, monotony brings weariness at last.

There is an Aran song, 'Brigid na Casad,' that has more originality than is usual:—

'Brigid's kiss was sweeter than the whole of the waters of Lough Erne; or the first wheaten flour, worked with fresh honey into dough; there are streams of bees' honey on every part of the mountain, there is brown sugar thrown on all you take, Brigid, in your hand.

'It is not more likely for water to change than for the mind of a woman; and is it not a young man without courage will not run the chance nine times? It's not nicer than you the swan is when he comes to the shore swimming; it's not nicer than you the thrush is, and he singing from tree to tree.'

And here is another, homely in the extreme in the beginning, and suddenly rising to wild exaggeration:—

'Late on the evening of last Monday, and it raining, I chanced to come into Seaghan's and I sat down. It is there I saw her near me in the corner of the hearth; and her laugh was better to me than to have her eyes down; her hair was shining like the wool of a sheep, and brighter than the swan swimming. It is then I asked who owned her, and it is with Frank Conneely she was.

'It is a good house belongs to Frank Conneely, the people say that do be going to it; plenty of whiskey and punch going round, and food without stint for a man to get; and it is what I think the girl is learned, for she has knowledge of books and of the pen, and a schoolmaster coming to teach her every day.

'The troop is on the sea, sailing eternally, and looking always on my Nora Ban. Is it not a great sin, she to be on a bare mountain, and not to be dressed in white silk, and the king of the French coming to the island for her, from France or from Germany?

'Is it not nice the jewel looked at the races and at the church in Barna? She took the sway there as far as the big town. Is she not the nice flower with the white breast, the comeliness of a woman? and the sun of summer pleased with her, shining on her at every side, and hundreds of men in love with her.

'It is I would like to run through the hills with her, and to go the roads with her; and it is I would put a cloak around my Nora Ban.'

The very naivete, the simplicity of these ballads, make one feel that the peasants who make and sing them may be trembling on the edge of a great discovery; and that some day—perhaps very soon—one born among them will put their half-articulate, eternal sorrows and laments and yearnings into words that will be their expression for ever, as was done for the Hebrew people when the sorrow of exile was put into the hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, and the sorrow of death into the lament for Saul and Jonathan, and the yearning of love into what was once known as 'the ballad of ballads,' the Song of Solomon.

I have one ballad at least to give, that shows, even in my prose translation, how near that day may be, if the language that holds the soul of our West Irish people can be saved from the 'West Briton' destroyer. There are some verses in it that attain to the intensity of great poetry, though I think less by the creation of one than by the selection of many minds; the peasants who have sung or recited their songs from one generation to another, having instinctively sifted away by degrees what was trivial, and kept only what was real, for it is in this way the foundations of literature are laid. I first heard of this ballad from the South; but when I showed it to an Aran man, he said it was well known there, and that his mother had often sung it to him when he was a child. It is called 'The Grief of a Girl's Heart':—

'O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with you and do not forget it; and you will have a sweetheart for fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of Greece beside you at night.

'It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

'You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

'You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

'You promised me a thing that is not possible, that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird; and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

'O Donall og, it is I would be better to you than a high, proud, spendthrift lady: I would milk the cow; I would bring help to you; and if you were hard pressed, I would strike a blow for you.

'O, ochone, and it's not with hunger or with wanting food, or drink, or sleep, that I am growing thin, and my life is shortened; but it is the love of a young man has withered me away.

'It is early in the morning that I saw him coming, going along the road on the back of a horse; he did not come to me; he made nothing of me; and it is on my way home that I cried my fill.

'When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, I sit down and I go through my trouble; when I see the world and do not see my boy, he that has an amber shade in his hair.

'It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you; the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday. And myself on my knees reading the Passion; and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

'O, aya! my mother, give myself to him; and give him all that you have in the world; get out yourself to ask for alms, and do not come back and forward looking for me.

'My mother said to me not to be talking with you to-day, or to-morrow, or on the Sunday; it was a bad time she took for telling me that; it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

'My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe, or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge; or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls; it was you put that darkness over my life.

'You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

1901.



JACOBITE BALLADS.

I was looking the other day through a collection of poems, lately taken down from Irish-speaking country people for the Oireactas, the great yearly meeting of the Gaelic League; and a line in one of them seemed strange to me: 'Prebaim mo chroidhe le mo Stuart glegeal,' 'my heart leaps up with my bright Stuart'; for I did not know there was still a memory of James and Charles among the people. The refrain of the poem was: 'Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!' and these are some of its verses:—

'There are young girls through the whole country would sit alongside of me through a half-hour, till we would be telling you the story together of what it was put myself under trouble; I make my complaints, wanting my comrade. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'Where are my people that were wise and learned? Where is the troop readying their spears, that they do not smooth out this knot for me? Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'I was for a while airy and beautiful, and all my treasure with my pleasant James.... On the top of all, my Stuart to leave me. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'It is the truth I cannot sleep in the night, fretting for my comrade; I to be lying down, and he weak under cold. My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'It is hard for me to lie down after that; it is an empty thing to be crying the loss of my comrade, and I lying down with the mean people; it is my death the Stuart not to come at all. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'

I had not heard any songs of this sort in Galway, and I remembered that our Connaught Raftery, whose poems are still teaching history, dealt very shortly with the Royal Stuarts. 'James,' he says, 'was the worst man for habits.... He laid chains on our bogs and mountains.... The father wasn't worse than the son Charles, that left sharp scourges on Ireland. When God and the people thought it time the story to be done, he lost his head.... The next James—sharp blame to him—gave his daughter to William as woman and wife; made the Irish English, and the English Irish, like wheat and oats in the month of harvest. And it was at Aughrim on a Monday many a son of Ireland found sorrow, without speaking of all that died.'

So I went to ask some of the wise old neighbours, who sit in wide chimney-nooks by turf fires, and to whom I go to look for knowledge of many things, if they knew of any songs in praise of the Stuarts. But they were scornful. 'The Stuarts?' one said; 'no, indeed; they have no songs about them here in the West, whatever they may have in the South. Why would they, running away and leaving the country? And what good did they ever do it?' And another, who lives on the Clare border, said: 'I used to hear them singing "The White Cockade" through the country. "King James was beaten, and all his well-wishers; my grief, my boy that went with them!" But I don't think the people had ever much opinion of the Stuarts; but in those days they were all prone to versify. But the famine did away with all that.' And then he also was scornful, and said: 'Sure King James ran all the way from the Boyne to Dublin, after the battle. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when he got there; and he told her the battle was lost; and she said: "Faith you made good haste; you made no delay on the road." So he said no more after that.'

And then he told me of the Battle of Aughrim, that is still such a terrible memory; and how the 'Danes'—the De Danaan—the mysterious divine race that were conquered by the Gael, and who still hold an invisible kingdom—'were dancing in the raths around Aughrim the night after the battle. Their ancestors were driven out of Ireland before; and they were glad when they saw those that had put them out put out themselves, and every one of them skivered.'

And another old man said: 'When I was a young chap knocking about in Connemara, I often heard songs about the Stuarts, and talk of them and of the blackbird coming over the water. But they found it hard to get over James making off after the Battle of the Boyne.' And another says of James: 'They liked him well before he ran; they didn't like him after that.'

And when I looked through the lately gathered bundle of songs again, and through some old collections of Jacobite songs in Irish, I found they almost all belonged to Munster. And if they are still sung there, it is not, I think, for the sake of the kings, but for the sake of the poets who made them—Red-haired Owen O'Sullivan, potato-digger, harvestman, hedge-schoolmaster, whose poems are still the joy of the Munster people; O'Rahilly, more learned, and as boundlessly redundant; O'Donnell, whose heart was set on translating Homer into Irish; O'Heffernan, the blind wanderer; and many others. For the Munstermen have always been more 'prone to versify' than their leaner neighbours on the bogs and stones of Connaught.

There is a common formula for most of these songs or 'Visions,' Aislinghe, as they are called. Just as artists of to-day find no monotony in drawing Ireland over and over again with her harp, her wolf-dog, and her round tower, so the Munster poets found no monotony in representing her as a beautiful woman, white-skinned, with curling hair, with cheeks in which 'the lily and the rose were fighting for mastery.' The poet asks her if she is Venus, or Helen, or Deirdre, and describes her beauty in torrents of alliterative adjectives. Then she makes her complaint against England, or her lament for her own sorrows or for the loss of her Stuart lover, spoken of sometimes as 'the bricklayer,' or 'the merchant's son.' The framework is artificial; but the laments are often very pathetic the love of Ireland, and the hatred of England born of that love, finding expression in them.

John O'Donnell sees her 'like a young queen that is going astray for the king being banished from her, that had a right to come and set her loose.' O'Rahilly, in one of his poems, shows the beautiful woman held to her Saxon lover by some strange enchantment:—

'I met brightness of brightness upon the path of loneliness; plaiting of plaiting in every lock of her yellow hair. News of news she gave me, and she as lonely as she was; news of the coming back of him that owns the tribute of the king.

'Folly of follies I to go so near to her; slave I was made by a slave that put me in hard bonds. She made away from me then, and I following after her, till we came to a house of houses made by Druid enchantments.

'They broke into mocking laughter, a troop of men of enchantments, and a troop of young girls with smooth-plaited hair. They put me up in chains; they made no delay about it; and my love holding to her breast an awkward ugly clown.

'I told her then with the truest words I could tell her, it was not right for her to be joined with a common clumsy churl; and the man that was three times fairer than the whole race of the Scots, waiting till she would come to him to be his beautiful bride.

'At the sound of my words her pride set her crying; the tears were running down over the kindling of her cheeks. She sent a lad to bring me safe from the place I was in. She is the brightness of brightness I met in the path of loneliness.'

Sometimes the Stuart is almost forgotten in the story of sorrows and the indictment of England. O'Heffernan complains in one of his songs that many of the heroes of Ireland have passed away, and their names have never been put in a song by the poets; 'and they even leave their verses without any account of Charles the wanderer, though I promise you they are not satisfied without giving some lines on Seaghan Buidhe' (one of the names for England). Yet he himself, when very downhearted, 'on the edge of the great wood under a harsh cloak of sorrow,' is cheered by the pleasant sound of a swarm of bees in search of their ruler; and with the pleasant thought that 'the harvest will be a bad one and with no joy in it to Seaghan. George will be sent back over the sea, and the tribe that was so high up will be left without gold or townlands; and I not pitying their sorrow.' And he winds up: 'In Shronehill, if I were stretched at rest under a hard flag, and to hear this story moving about so pleasantly, by force and strength of my shoulders I would throw the sod off me; and I coming back leaping to hear the news.'

And another writer, Seaghan Clarach, looks forward to seeing 'timid George tame upon the road, without wine, without meat, without thread for his shoes.' And his last verse, his 'binding,' is, 'I beseech of God, I ask and I pray very hard, to cast out the gluttons that tormented the generous race of the Gael, from the island of the west, under hard bonds, and to banish the foreign devils from us.'

For poets and people found it hard to forget Cromwell; and how 'the sons of the Gael are scorched, tormented, pitchforked, put under the yoke, by boors that are used to doing treachery.'

When the Stuarts come to mind, they are given fair words enough. 'The prince and heart-secret Charles that is sorrowful now and under weariness ... will be under esteem; and the Gael pleasant in the lime-white house.' ... 'It is friendly, fair bright, companionable, loving, brave, Charles will be, with sway, without a mist about him.'

And in one of Red Owen's 'Visions' he is told not to forget James, who is 'persevering, well-tempered, affectionate, stout, sweet, kind, poetical.'

Yet the Stuart seems to be always a faint and unreal image; a saint by whose name a heavy oath is sworn. There are no personal touches such as I find in a song taken down from some countryman, on Patrick Sarsfield, the brave, handsome fighter, the descendant of Conall Cearnach, the man who, after the Boyne, offered to 'change kings and fight the battle again.' This ballad seems to have more of Connaught simplicity than of Munster luxuriance in it:—

'O Patrick Sarsfield, health be to you, since you went to France and your camps were loosened; making your sighs along with the king, and you left poor Ireland and the Gael defeated—Och ochone!

'O Patrick Sarsfield, it is a man with God you are; and blessed is the earth you ever walked on. The blessing of the bright sun and the moon upon you, since you took the day from the hands of King William—Och ochone!

'O Patrick Sarsfield, the prayer of every person with you; my own prayer and the prayer of the Son of Mary with you, since you took the narrow ford going through Biorra, and since at Cuilenn O'Cuanac you won Limerick—Och ochone!

'I will go up on the mountain alone; and I will come hither from it again. It is there I saw the camp of the Gael, the poor troop thinned, not keeping with one another—Och ochone!

'My five hundred healths to you, halls of Limerick, and to the beautiful troop was in our company; it is bonfires we used to have and playing cards, and the word of God was often with us—Och ochone!

'There were many soldiers glad and happy that were going the way through seven weeks; but now they are stretched down in Aughrim—Och ochone!

'They put the first breaking on us at the Bridge of the Boyne; the second breaking on the Bridge of Slaney; the third breaking in Aughrim of O'Kelly; and O sweet Ireland, my five hundred healths to you—Och ochone!

'O'Kelly has manuring for his land, that is not sand or dung, but ready soldiers doing bravery with pikes, that were left in Aughrim stretched in ridges—Och ochone!

'Who is that beyond on the hill, Beinn Edair? I a poor soldier with King James. I was last year in arms and in dress, but this year I am asking alms—Och ochone!'

There are other symbolic songs besides the 'Visions.' Mangan's fine translation of Kathleen ni Houlihan is well known; and it is likely the king is calling to Ireland in 'Ceann dubh deelish,' that is beautiful in all translations. This is An Craoibhin's:—

'The women of the village are in madness and trouble, Pulling their hair and letting it go with the wind; They will not take a boy of the men of the country Till they go into the rout with the boys of the king.

'Black head, darling, darling, darling, Black head, darling, move over to me; Black head brighter than swan and than seagull, It's a man without heart gives not love to thee.'

But most of the translations have been in the affected style of the early part of the last century twisting the sense to give what was thought to be a romantic turn. A verse of Seaghan Clarach's, for instance, the lament of a farmer 'who has been wrestling with the world': 'The two that belong to me are without shelter, and my yoke of cattle without grass, without growth; there is misery on my people and their elbows without sound clothes,' is turned into:—

'The loved ones my life would have nourished Are foodless, and bare, and cold. My flocks by their fountain that flourished Decay on the mountain wold.'

But there is one mistranslation for whose sake we must forgive many others, for it has given the sad refrain that has often been on Irish lips:—

'Seaghan O'Dwyer a Gleanna, We're worsted in the game!'

Here are one or two of the many verses sung to the Little Black Rose by her lovers, poor or royal:—

'There is love through and through me for you all the length of a year; sore love, vexing love, lasting love, love that left me without health, without a road, without running; and for ever, ever, without any sway at all over my Fair Black Rose.

'I would travel through Munster with you, and the boundaries of the hills, if I thought I could find your secret, or a part of your love. O branch of the tree, it seems to me that you love me; that the flower of kind women is my Fair Black Rose.'

'My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart!' James and Charles are, I think, the only English kings whose names, as it were by accident, have found their way into Irish song. And it is likely they are the last to find a place there, for the imagination of Ireland still tilts the beam to the national side; and the loyalty the poets of many hundred years have called for, is loyalty to Kathleen ni Houlihan. 'Have they not given her their wills, and their hearts, and their dreams? What have they left for any less noble Royalty?'

1902.



AN CRAOIBHIN'S POEMS

'"I would much rather (and I take every occasion of making this protest) write, so to say, in a dead language and for a dead people, than write in those deaf and stammering (sorde e mute) tongues, French and English, notwithstanding they are the fashion with their rules and exercises." This is so with me. Alfieri wrote these words a hundred years ago, and they express what is in my own mind. I would like better to make even one good verse in the language in which I am now writing, than to make a whole book of verses in English. For if there should be any good found in my English verses, it would not go to the credit of my mother, Ireland, but of my stepmother, England.'

I have translated this from Douglas Hyde's preface to his little book of poems, lately published in Dublin, Ubhla de'n Craoibh, "Apples from the Branch." An Craoibhin Aoibhin, "The delightful little branch," is the name by which he is called all over Irish-speaking Ireland; and a gold branch bearing golden apples is stamped on the cover of his book. The poems had already been published, one by one, in a weekly paper; and a friend of mine tells me he has heard them sung and repeated by country people in many parts of Ireland—in Connemara, in Donegal, in Galway, in Kerry, in the Islands of Aran.

Three or four of the thirty-three poems the book holds are, so to speak, official, written for the Gaelic League by its president; and these, like most official odes, are only for the moment. Some are ballads dealing with the old subjects of Irish ballads—emigration, exile, defeat, and death; for Douglas Hyde, as may be guessed from his preface, has, no less than his fellows—

'Hidden in his heart the flame out of the eyes Of Kathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.'

But these national ballads, though very popular, are, I think, not so good as his more personal poems. I suppose no narrative of what others have done or felt or suffered can move one like a flash from 'that little infinite, faltering, eternal flame that one calls oneself.' Even in my bare prose translation, this poem will, I think, be found to have as distinct a quality as that of Villon or of Heine:—

'There are three fine devils eating my heart— They left me, my grief! without a thing; Sickness wrought, and Love wrought, And an empty pocket, my ruin and my woe. Poverty left me without a shirt, Barefooted, barelegged, without any covering; Sickness left me with my head weak And my body miserable, an ugly thing. Love left me like a coal upon the floor, Like a half-burned sod, that is never put out, Worse than the cough, worse than the fever itself, Worse than any curse at all under the sun, Worse than the great poverty Is the devil that is called "Love" by the people. And if I were in my young youth again, I would not take, or give, or ask for a kiss!'

The next, in the form of a little folk-song, expresses the thought of the idealist of all time, that makes him cry, as one of the oldest of the poets cried long ago, 'Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are against her.' Yet, with its whimsical fancies and exaggerations, it could hardly have been written in any but Irish air.

'It's my grief that I am not a little white duck, And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain; I would not stay in Ireland for one week only, To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug.

'Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking, Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat, Without high dances, without a big name, without music; There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.

'It's my grief that I am not an old crow; I would sit for awhile up on the old branch, I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am, With a grain of oats or a white potato.

'It's my grief that I am not a red fox, Leaping strong and swift on the mountains, Eating cocks and hens without pity, Taking ducks and geese as a conqueror.

'It's my grief that I am not a fair salmon, Going through the strong full water, Catching the mayflies by my craft, Swimming at my choice, and swimming with the stream.

'It's my grief that I am of the race of the poets; It would be better for me to be a high rock, Or a stone or a tree or an herb or a flower Or anything at all, but the thing that I am.'

The sympathy of the moods of nature with the moods of man is a traditional heritage that has come to us through the poets, from the old time when the three great waves of the sea answered to a cry of distress in Ireland, or when, as in Israel, the land mourned and the herbs of every field withered, for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein. The sea, and the winds blowing from the sea, can never be very far from the dweller in Ireland; and they echo the loneliness of the lonely listener.

'Cold, sharp lamentation In the cold bitter winds Ever blowing across the sky; Oh, there was loneliness with me!

'The loud sounding of the waves Beating against the shore, Their vast, rough, heavy outcry, Oh, there was loneliness with me!

'The light sea-gulls in the air, Crying sharply through the harbours, The cries and screams of the birds With my own heart! Oh! that was loneliness.

'The voice of the winds and the tide, And the long battle of the mighty war; The sea, the earth, the skies, the blowing of the winds. Oh! there was loneliness in all of them together.'

Here is a verse from another poem of loneliness:—

'It is dark the night is; I do not see one star at all; And it is dark and heavy my thoughts are that are scattered and straying. There is no sound about but of the birds going over my head— The lapwing striking the air with long-drawn, weak blows And the plover, that comes like a bullet, cutting the night with its whistle; And I hear the wild geese higher again with their rough screech. But I do not hear any other sound, it is that increases my grief— Not one other cry but the cry and the call of the birds on the bog.'

Here is another, in which the storm outside and the storm within answer to one another:—

'The heavy clouds are threatening, And it's little but they'll take the roof off the house; The heavy thunder is answering To every flash of the yellow fire. I, by myself, within in my room, That is narrow, small, warm, am sitting, I look at the surly skies, And I listen to the wind.

'I was light, airy, lively, On the young morning of yesterday; But when the evening came, I was like a dead man! I have not one jot of hope But for a bed in the clay; Death is the same as life to me From this out, from a word I heard yesterday.'

The next is very simple, and puts into more homely words the feeling of 'lonesomeness' that is looked upon as almost the worst of evils by the Irish countryman, as we see by his proverb: 'It is better to be quarreling than to be lonesome.' 'I would be lonesome in it,' is often the reason given for a refusal to go from bog or mountain cabin to some crowded place 'where there is not heed for one or love.'

'Oh! if there were in this world Any nice little place, To be my own, my own for ever, My own only, I would have great joy—great ease— Beyond what I have, Without a place in the world where I can say: "This is my own."

It's a pity for a man to know, And it's a pain, That there is no place in the world Where there is heed for him or love; That there is not in the world for him A heart or a hand To give help to him To the mering of the next world.

'It is hard and it is bitter, And a sharp grief, It is woe and it is pity, To be by oneself. It is nothing the way you are, To anyone at all. It is nothing the way you are, To yourself at last!'

I suppose the following may be called a political poem, from its elusive reference to Home Rule. I was not sure on the point myself; for I thought the wearer of the 'blue cloak and birds' feathers,' must be a fine lady, perhaps laying enchantment on the fields. But I heard some one ask the Craoibhin who he meant, and his answer was: 'I suppose I was thinking of an aide-de-camp':—

'I am looking at my cows walking, What are you that would put me out of my luck? Can I not walk, can I not walk, can I not walk in my own fields?

'I will not always be turned backwards. If there is need to be humble to you, great is my grief, If I cannot walk, if I cannot walk, if I cannot walk in my own fields.

'It's little my respect, and it's little my desire, For your blue cloak, and your birds' feathers. Can I not walk, can I not walk, can I not walk in my own fields?

'The day is coming as it's easy to see, When there shall not be among us the ugly like of you. And each one shall be walking, and each one shall be walking, Wherever shall be his will and his own desire.'

There are some love songs in the little volume. But their writer has had, in his beautiful translations of the 'Love Songs of Connacht,' to put such intensity of passion into English, that he must despair of putting any new wings to passion, or any new exaggeration into lovers' words. In one of these Connacht songs, the lover says: 'Blacker is the sun when setting than your features, Mary!' And she answers back: 'Neither star nor sun shows one-third much light as your shadow!' Another lover says of the woman he desires: 'I will write largely of her, because of the thousands who hoped for her, and who have been lost; and a hundred men of these who still live, are in pain and under locks through love. And I myself am not free, but am a bondsman in bonds.' And another boasts of 'a love without littleness, without weakness; love from age till death, love from folly growing, love that shall send me close beneath the clay, love without a hope of the world, love without envy of fortune, love that left me outside in captivity, love of my heart beyond women.' Douglas Hyde's own love songs are quiet and staid in contrast to these; but nevertheless they have a sober charm. Here are the last verses of one of them:—

'Will you be as hard, Colleen, as you are quiet? Will you be without pity On me for ever?

'Listen to me, Noireen, Listen, aroon; Put healing on me From your quiet mouth.

'I am in the little road That is dark and narrow, The little road that has led Thousands to sleep.'

In his preface to the 'Love Songs of Connacht' he says he finds in them 'more of grief and trouble, more of melancholy and contrition of heart, than of gaiety or hope'; and he writes: 'Not careless and light-hearted alone is the Gaelic nature; there is also beneath the loudest mirth a melancholy spirit; and if they let on to be without heed for anything but sport and revelry, there is nothing in it but letting on.' There is grief and trouble, as I have shown, in many of his own songs, which the people have taken to their hearts so quickly; but there is also a touch of hope, of glad belief that, in spite of heavy days of change, all things are working for good at the last.

Here are some verses from a poem called 'There is a Change coming':—

'When that time comes it will come heavily; He will grow fat that was lean; He will grow lean that was fat, Without shelter for the head, without mirth, without help.

'The low will be raised up, says the poet; The thing that was high will be thrown down again; The world will be changed from end to end: When that time comes it will come heavily.

'If you yourself see this thing coming, And the country without luck, without law, without authority, Swept with the storm, without knowledge, without strength, Remember my words, and don't let your heart break.

'This life is like a tree; The top green, branches soft, the bark smooth and shining; But there is a little worm shut up in it Sucking at the sap all through the day.

'But from this old, cold, withered tree, A new plant will grow up; The old world will die without pity, But the young world will grow up on its grave.'

Here is a fine vision of a battle-field:—

'The time I think of the cause of Ireland My heart is torn within me.

'The time I think of the death of the people Who protected Ireland bravely and faithfully.

'They are stretched on the side of the mountain Very low, one with another.

'Hidden under grass, or under tall herbs, Far from friends or help or friendship.

'Not a child or a wife near them; Not a priest to be found there or a friar;

'But the mountain eagle and the white eagle Moving overhead across the skies.

'Without a defence against the sun in the daytime; Without a shelter against the skies at night.

'It's many a good soldier, joyful and pleasant, That has had his laughing mouth closed there.

'There is many a young breast with a hole through it; The little black hole that is death to a man.

'There is many a brave man stripped there, His body naked, without vest or shirt.

'The young man that was proud and beautiful yesterday, When the woman he loved left a kiss on his mouth.

'There is many a married woman, with the child at her breast, Without her comrade, without a father for her child to-night.

'There's many a castle without a lord, and many a lord without a house; And little forsaken cabins with no one in them.

'I saw a fox leaving its den Asking for a body to feed its hunger.

'There's a fierce wolf at Carrig O'Neill; There is blood on his tongue and blood on his mouth.

'I saw them, and I heard the cries Of kites and of black crows.

'Ochone! Is not the only Son of God angry; Ochone! The red blood that was poured out yesterday!'

I do not know who the following poem was written about, or if it is about anyone in particular; but one line of it puts into words the emotion of many an Irish 'felon.' 'It is with the people I was; it is not with the law I was.' For the Irish crime, treason-felony, is only looked on as a crime in the eyes of the law, not in the eyes of the people:—

'I am lying in prison, I am in bonds; To-morrow I will be hanged, Who am to-night so quiet, So quiet; Who am to-night so quiet.

'I am in prison, My heart is cold and heavy; To-morrow I will be hanged, And there is no help for me, My grief; Och! there is no help for me.

'I am in prison, And I did no wrong; I only did the work Was just, was right, was good, I did, Oh, I did the thing was good.

'It is with the people I was, It is not with the law I was; But they took me in my sleep, On the side of Cnoc-na-Feigh; And so To-morrow they will hang me.'

'I am weak in my body, I am vexed in my heart, And to-morrow I will be hanged; Lying beneath the clay, My sorrow, Lying beneath the clay.

'May God give pardon To my vexed, sorrowful soul; May God give mercy To me now and forever, Amen! To me now and forever.'

But translation is poor work. Even if it gives a glimpse of the heart of a poem, too much is lost in losing the outward likeness. Here are the last lines of the lament of a felon's brother:—

'Now that you are stretched in the cold grave May God set you free: It's vexed and sorry and pitiful are my thoughts; It's sorrowful I am to-day!'

I look at them and read them; and wonder why when I first read them, their sound had hung about me for days like a sobbing wind; but when I look at them in their own form, the sob is in them still:

Nois ann san uaigh fhuair o ta tu sinte Go saoraigh Dia thu Is buaidhcartha, bronach bocht ata mo smaointe Is bronach me andhiu.



BOER BALLADS IN IRELAND

Yesterday I asked a woman on the Echtge hills, if any of her neighbours had gone to the war. She said: 'No; but I know a great many that went to America when the war began—even boys that had business to do at home; they were afraid of being brought away by the Press.' On another part of the Echtge hills, where a rumour had come that the police were to be sent to the war, an old woman said to a policeman I know: 'When you go out there, don't be killing the people of my religion.' He said: 'The Boers are not of your religion'; but she said: 'They are; I know they must be Catholics, or the English would not be against them.' Others on that wild range think that this is the beginning of the great war that will end in the final rout of the enemies of Ireland. Old prophecies say this war is to come at the meeting of these centuries; and there is an old Irish verse which seems to allude to this, and which has been thus translated:—

'When the Lion shall lose its strength, And the bracket Thistle begin to pine, The Harp shall sound sweet, sweet, at length, Between the eight and the nine.'

Lonely Echtge still keeps old prophecies and old songs and some of the old speech, and but few newspapers are seen there; but on the lowland, sympathy with the Boers, and prophecies of their victory, are put into the doggerel English verse that must be poor in form, because a ballad, more than another song, must have a long tradition of folk-thought and folk-expression behind it; and in Ireland this tradition does not belong to the English language. Even the beautiful air of 'The Wearing of the Green' cannot give poetic charm to such verses as these, which, like the others that follow, have been sung and sold by ballad-singers in market-towns and at fairs, and at country race-meetings, during the last year:—

'Oh! Paddy dear, and did ye hear The news that's going round? No cheers for brave Paul Kruger Must be heard on Irish ground. No more the English tourist at Killarney will be seen, Unless you join the pirate's cause, And chant "God save the Queen."'

Or this other, sung during the siege of Ladysmith:—

'And I met with White the General, And he's looking thin enough; And he says the boys in Ladysmith Are running short of stuff. Faith, the dishes need no washing, Now they're left so nice and clean; Oh! it's anything but pleasant To be starving for the Queen!'

The defender of Ladysmith is treated with greater courtesy than some other generals, for, in spite of sympathy with the besiegers, the singer says:—

'But if he gave in to-morrow, I would not think it right To throw the least disparagement On a man like General White. He is making a bold resistance, As great as could be made, Against their deadly Mauser rifles, And their tremendous cannonade.'

The 'Song of the Transvaal Irish Brigade' has more literary quality:—

'The Cross swings low; the morn is near— Now, comrades, fill up high; The cannon's voice will ring out clear When morning lights the sky. A toast we'll drink together, boys, Ere dawns the battle's grey, A toast to Ireland, dear old Ireland! Ireland far away! Ireland far away! Ireland far away! Health to Ireland, strength to Ireland! Ireland, boys, hurrah!

'Who told us that her cause was dead? Who bade us bend the knee? The slaves! Again she lifts her head— Again she dares be free! With gun in hand, we take our stand, For Ireland in the fray: We fight for Ireland, dear old Ireland! Ireland far away! Ireland far away! Ireland far away! We fight for Ireland, die for Ireland— Ireland, boys, hurrah!

'Oh, mother of the wounded breast! Oh, mother of the tears! The sons you loved, and trusted best, Have grasped their battle spears. From Shannon, Lagan, Liffey, Lee, On Afric's soil to-day, We strike for Ireland, brave old Ireland! Ireland far away! Ireland far away! Ireland far away! We smite for Ireland, brave old Ireland! Ireland, boys, hurrah!'

'The Irish Boy,' which is sung to the air of 'The Minstrel Boy,' is also in honour of the Irish Brigade:—

'While the Irish boy is on the shore, He'll help to crush the stranger; He'll sweep them hence for evermore, And free thy land from danger. And then he'll pray to God above, That his courage ne'er shall falter, To guard him to the land he loves— To Ireland o'er the water.'

Mayo is the county to which John MacBride, the leader of the Irish Brigade, belongs; but I heard of a ballad-singer at Ballindereen, near my Galway home, the other day, whose refrain was:—

'And Erin watches from afar, with joy and hope and pride, Her sons who strike for liberty, led on by John MacBride!'

At Galway Railway Station, whence the Connaught Rangers set out for the war, I have heard that wives, saying good-bye, begged their husbands 'not to be too hard on the Boers.' Anyhow, a 'Mother's lament for her son gone to the war,' that was sung at Galway Races the other day, shows more impartiality than most of the ballads:—

'When the battle rages fiercely, our boys are in the van; How I do wish the blows they struck were for dear Ireland! But duty calls, they must obey, and fight against the Boer, And many a cheerful Irish lad will fall to rise no more.

'I wish my boy was home again! Oh! how I'd welcome him, With sorrow I'm broken-hearted, my eyes are growing dim; The war is dark and cruel, but whoever wins the fight, I pray to save my noble lad, and God defend the right!'

But it is the small farmers of Ireland who look with special sympathy on their fellows in the Transvaal. They give them a warning:—

'England sends her grabbers, From far across the sea, To rob you of your friends and home, Likewise your liberty.'

And the Boers say in answer:—

'When we came to this country, 'Twas but a barren plain; But the honest hand of labour Was rewarded for its pain. We found the precious metal, And of it we have great store; But Britain came to rob us As she often done before. As she thought to do before, As she thought to do before; But Britain comes to rob us, As she often done before.'

Another ballad explains:—

'Those Boers can't be blamed, as you might understand; They are trying to free their own native land, Where they toil night and day by the sweat of their brow, Like the farmers in Ireland that follow the plough. Farewell to Old Ireland, we are now going away, To fight the brave Boers in South Africa; To fight those poor farmers we are not inclined: God be with you, Old Ireland, we are leaving behind.'

Some verses—'The Boer's Prayer'—that I have not seen on a ballad-sheet, but in a weekly paper, give better expression to this feeling of farmer sympathy:—

'My back is to the wall; Lo! here I stand. O Lord, whate'er befall, I love this land!

'This land that I have tilled, This land is mine; Would, Lord, that Thou hadst willed, This heart were Thine!

'This land to us Thou gave In days of old; They seek to make a grave Or field of gold!

'To us, O Lord, Thy hand, Put forth to save! Give us, O Lord, this land Or give a grave!'

'A New Song for the Boers' says:—

'Hark! to the curses ringing From all smitten lands; In sob and wail, they tell the tale Of England's blood-red hands.

'And wheresoe'er her standard flings Forth its folds of shame, A people's cries to heaven arise For vengeance on her name!'

But for passionate expression, one cannot, as I have already said, look to the comparatively new and artificial English ballad form; one must go to the Irish, with its long tradition. Here is a poem, 'The Curse of the Boers on England,' which I have translated literally from the Irish:—

'O God, we call to Thee, This hour and this day, Look down on this England That has come down in our midst.

'O God, we call to Thee, This day and this hour, Look down on England, And her cold, cold heart.

'It is she was a Queen, A Queen without sorrow; But we will take from her, Quietly, her Crown.

'That Queen that was beautiful Will be tormented and darkened, For she will get her reward In that day, and her wage.

'Her wage for the blood She poured out on the streams; Blood of the white man, Blood of the black man.

'Her wage for those hearts That she broke in the end; Hearts of the white man, Hearts of the black man.

'Her wage for the bones That are whitening to-day; Bones of the white man, Bones of the black man.

'Her wage for the hunger That she put on foot; Her wage for the fever, That is an old tale with her.

'Her wage for the white villages She has left without men; Her wage for the brave men She has put to the sword.

'Her wage for the orphans She has left under pain; Her wage for the exiles She has spent with wandering.

'For the people of India (Pitiful is their case); For the people of Africa She has put to death.

'For the people of Ireland, Nailed to the cross; Wage for each people Her hand has destroyed.

'Her wage for the thousands She deceived and she broke; Her wage for the thousands Finding death at this hour.

'O Lord, let there fall Straight down on her head The curse of the peoples That have fallen with us.

'The curse of the mean, And the curse of the small, The curse of the weak, And the curse of the low.

'The Lord does not listen To the curse of the strong, But He will listen To sighs and to tears.

'He will always listen To the crying of the poor, And the crying of thousands Is abroad to-night.

'That crying will rise up To God that is above; It is not long till every curse Comes to His ears.

'The crying will be put away; Tears will be put away, When they come to God, These prayers to His kingdom.

'He will make for England Strong chains, very heavy; He will pay her wages With strong, heavy chains.

1901.



A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND

The Irish poem I give this translation of was printed in the Revue Celtique some years ago, and lately in An Fior Clairseach na h-Eireann, where a note tells us it was taken from a manuscript in the Gottingen Library, and was written by an Irish priest, Shemus Cartan, who had taken orders in France; but its date is not given. I like it for its own beauty, and because its writer does not, as so many Irish writers have done, attribute the many griefs of Ireland only to 'the horsemen of the Gall,' but also to the faults and shortcomings to which the people of a country broken up by conquest are perhaps more liable than the people of a country that has kept its own settled rule.

A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND.

My thoughts, alas! are without strength; My spirit is journeying towards death; My eyes are as a frozen sea; My tears my daily food; There is nothing in my life but only misery; My poor heart is torn, And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me, Mourning the miserable state of Ireland, Without ease, without mirth for any person That is born on the plains of Emer. And here I give you the heavy story, And the tale of all the remnant of her deeds.

She lost her pomp and her strength together When her strong men were banished across the sea; Her churches are as holds of pain, Without altars, without Mass, without bowing of knees; Stables for horses—this story is pitiful— Or without a stone of their stones together.

Since the children of Israel were in Egypt Under bondage, and scarcity along with that, There was never written in a book or never seen Hardship like the hardships in Ireland. They parted from us the shepherds of the flock That is the flock that is astray and is wounded, Left to be torn by wild dogs, And no healing for it from the hand of anyone. Unless God will look down on our distress Ireland will indeed be lost for ever! Every old man, every strong man, every child, Our young men and our well-dressed women, Keening, complaining, and reproaching; Going under the power of the Gall or going across the sea. Our dear country without any ears of corn, Without store, without cattle, but only the green grass; Our fatherless children are wasted and weak, Famine and sickness travelling over Ireland, And every other scourge that was ever known, And the rest of her pain has not yet been told.

Nevertheless, my sharp woe! I see with my eyes That the High King has a bow ready in His hand, And His quiver is full of arrows with sharp points, And every arrow of them for our sore wounding, From the sole of our feet to the top of our head, To bruise our hearts and to tear our sinews; There is no spot of our limbs but is scarred; Misfortune has come upon us all together— The poor and the rich, the weak and the strong; The great lord by whom hundreds were maintained; The powerful strong man, and the man that holds the plough; And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every man.

I do not know of anything under the sky That is friendly or favourable to the Gael, But only the sea that our need brings us to, Or the wind that blows to the harbour The ship that is bearing us away from Ireland; And there is reason that these are reconciled with us, For we increase the sea with our tears, And the wandering wind with our sighs.

We do not see heaven look kindly upon us; We do not see our complaint being listened to; Even the earth refuses us shelter And the wood that gives protection to the birds; Every cliff, every cave, every mountain-top, Every hill, every lough, and every meadow.

Our feasts are without any voice of priests, And none at them but women lamenting, Tearing their hair, with troubled minds, Keening pitifully after the Fenians. The pipes of our organs are broken; Our harps have lost their strings that were tuned That might have made the great lamentations of Ireland; Until the strong men come back across the sea, There is no help for us but bitter crying, Screams, and beating of hands, and calling out.

It is not strength of hosts, not loss of food, Not the horsemen of the Gall coming from Britain, Nor want of power, nor want of calling to war, That has put defeat upon the armies of Ireland, And has filled the cities with a sad multitude, Alas! alas! but the greatness of our sins.

See, we are now put in the crucible In which every worthless metal is tried, In which gold is cleansed from every tarnish; The Scripture is true in everything it says; It says we must suffer before we can be cured; It is through repentance we shall find forgiveness, And the restoring of all that we have lost.

Let us put down the sum of our sins; Oppression of the poor, thieving, robbery, Great vows held in light esteem; Giving our soul to the man that is the worst; The strength of our pride was greater than our life, The strength of our debts was more than we could pay.

It was with treachery Ireland was lost, And the ill-will of men one to another. There was no judge that would give a hearing To the oppressed people whose life was under hardship. Outcasts and widows crying aloud Without right judgment to be had or punishment.

We were never agreed together, But as one ox bound and one free from the yoke; No right humility to be found. All trying for the headship of Ireland At the time when her enemies were doing their work. No settlement to be made of any quarrel, The share of the wheat-ear for the man that was strongest; It is long that this has been the hurt of Ireland; It is thus that the battle ended with the Gael.

Let us turn now and change our manners, Let us make repentance of our sins together— It is thus that the Israelites came out of Egypt; Nineveh was given pardon for all its sins, And even Peter for denying Christ.

O saints of Ireland, arise now together; O Patrick, who hast care of us, bless this flock; We who are exiled, we who are forsaken, This sod is gone out unless thou blow upon it; Is thy sleep heavy or is thy hearing slow That thou dost not give an answer to us? Awake quickly; let it not be as a tale with thee That there is no help for the fate of the Gael.

This, Patrick, is my own quarrel with thee That every enemy of thy flock is saying That thy ears are not ears that listen, That thou art not troubled by the sight of thy people, That if they did trouble thee thou wouldst not deny them. Be with us nevertheless with thy strong power. Make our enemies to quit Ireland for ever.

1900.



MOUNTAIN THEOLOGY

Mary Glyn lives under Slieve-nan-Or, the Golden Mountain, where the last battle will be fought in the last great war of the world; so that the sides of Gortaveha, a lesser mountain, will stream with blood. But she and her friends are not afraid of this; for an old weaver from the north, who knew all things, told them long ago that there is a place near Turloughmore where war will never come, because St. Columcill used to live there. So they will make use of this knowledge, and seek a refuge there, if, indeed, there is room enough for them all. There is a river by her house that marks the boundary between Galway and Clare; and there are stepping-stones in the river, so that she can cross from Connaught to Munster when she has a mind. But she cannot do her marketing when she has a mind; for the nearest town, Gort, is ten miles away. The roof of her little cabin is thatched with rushes, and a garden of weeds grows on it, and the rain comes through. But she is soon to have a new thatch; for she thinks she won't live long, and she wouldn't like the rain to be coming down on her when she is dead and laid out. There is heather in blow on the hills about her home, and foxglove reddens the clay-banks, and loosetrife the marshy hollows; and rush-cotton waves its little white flags over the bogs. Mary Glyn's neighbours come to see her sometimes, when the sun is going down, and the hurry of the day is over. Old Mr. Saggarton is one of them; he had his learning from a hedge-schoolmaster in the old times; and he looks down on the narrow teaching of the National Schools; and he was once in jail for nine months, having been taken in the very act of making poteen. And Mrs. Casey comes and looks at the stepping-stones now and again, for she is a Clare woman; and though she has lived fifty years in Connaught, she is not yet quite reconciled to it, and would never have made it her home if she could have seen it before she came. And some who do not live among the bogs and the heather, but among the green pastures and the grey stones of Aidne, come to Slieve Echtge and learn unwritten truths from the lips of Mary and her friends.

The duty of giving is taught as well as practised by these poor hill-people. 'For,' says Mary Glyn, 'the best road to heaven is to be charitable to the poor.' And old Mrs. Casey agrees, and says: 'There was a poor girl walking the road one night with no place to stop; and the Saviour met her on the road, and He said: "Go up to the house you see a light in; there's a woman dead there, and they'll let you in." So she went and she found the woman laid out, and the husband and other people; but she worked harder than they all, and she stopped in the house after; and after two quarters the man married her. And one day she was sitting outside the door, picking over a bag of wheat, and the Saviour came again, with the appearance of a poor man, and He asked her for a few grains of the wheat. And she said: "Wouldn't potatoes be good enough for you?" and she called to the girl within to bring out a few potatoes. But He took nine grains of the wheat in His hand and went away; and there wasn't a grain of wheat left in the bag, but all gone. So she ran after Him then to ask Him to forgive her; and she overtook Him on the road, and she asked forgiveness. And He said: "Don't you remember the time you had no house to go to, and I met you on the road, and sent you to a house where you'd live in plenty? and now you wouldn't give Me a few grains of wheat." And she said: "But why didn't You give me a heart that would like to divide it?" That is how she came round on Him. And He said: "From this out, whenever you have plenty in your hands, divide it freely for My sake."'

And this is a marvel that might occur again at any time; for Mary Glyn says further:—

'There was a woman I knew was very charitable to the poor; and she'd give them the full of her apron of bread, or of potatoes or anything she had. And she was only lately married; and one day, a poor woman came to the door with her children and she brought them to the fire, and warmed them, and gave them a drink of milk; and she sent out to the barn for a bag of potatoes for them. And the husband came in, and he said: "Kitty, if you go on this way, you won't leave much for ourselves." And she said: "He that gave us what we have, can give more." And the next day when they went out to the barn, it was full of potatoes—more than were ever in it before. And when she was dying, and her children about her, the priest said to her: "Mrs. Gallagher, it's in heaven you'll be at 12 o'clock to-morrow."'

But when death comes, it is not enough to have been charitable; and it is not right to touch the body or lay it out for a couple of hours; for the soul should be given time to fight for itself, and to go up to judgment. And sometimes it is not willing to go; for Mrs. Casey says:—

'The Saviour, one time, told St. Patrick to go and prepare a man that was going to die. And St. Patrick said: "I'd sooner not go; for I never yet saw the soul depart from the body." But then he went, and he prepared the man. And when he was lying there dead, he saw the soul go from the body; and three times it went to the door, and three times it came back and kissed the body. And St. Patrick asked the Saviour why it did that: and He said: "That soul was sorry to part from the body, because it had held it so clean and so honest."'

When the hill-people talk of 'the time of the war,' it is the war that once took place in heaven that is understood. And when 'Those' are spoken of, the fallen angels are understood, the cloud of witness, the whirling invisible host; and it is only to a stranger that an explanation need be given.

'They were in heaven once,' Mary Glyn says 'and heaven is the first place there was war; and they were all to be done away with; and it was St. Peter asked the Saviour to help them, when he saw Him going to empty the heavens. So He turned His hand like this; and the earth and the sky and the sea were full of them, and they are in every place, and you know that better than I do, because you read books. Resting they do be in the daytime, and going about at night. And their music is the finest you ever heard, like all the fifers, and all the instruments, and all the tunes of the world. I heard it sometimes myself, and there is no music in the world like it; but not all can hear it. Round the hill it comes, and you going in at the door. And they are quiet neighbours if you treat them well. God bless them, and bring them all to heaven.'

And then, having mentioned Monday (a spell against unseen listeners), and said, 'God bless the hearers, and the place it is told in'—and her niece, Mary Irwin, having said, 'God bless all we see, and those we don't see,' they tell—first one speaking and then the other—that: 'One night there were banabhs in the house; and there was a man coming to dig the potato-garden in the morning—and so late at night, Mary Glyn was making stirabout, and a cake to have ready for the breakfast of the banabhs and the man; and Mary's brother Micky was asleep within on the bed. And there came the sound of the grandest music you ever heard from beyond the stream, and it stopped there. And Micky awoke in the bed, and was afraid, and said: "Shut up the door and quench the light," and so we did.' 'It's likely,' Mary says, 'they wanted to come into the house, and they wouldn't when they saw me up and the lights about.' But one time when there were potatoes in the loft, Mary and her brothers were pelted with the potatoes when they sat down to supper. And Mary Irwin got a blow on the side of the face, from one of them, one night in the bed. 'And they have the hope of heaven, and God grant it to them.' 'And one day, there was a priest and his servant riding along the road, and there was a hurling of them going on in the field. And a man of them came out and stood in the road, and said to the priest: "Tell me this, for you know it, have we a chance of heaven?" "You have not," said the priest. ("God forgive him," says Mary Irwin, "a priest to say that!") And the man that was of them said: "Put your fingers in your ears, till you have travelled two miles of the road; for when I go back and tell what you are after telling me to the rest, the crying and the bawling and the roaring will be so great that, if you hear it, you'll never hear a noise again in this world." So they put their fingers then in their ears; but after a while the servant said to the priest: "Let me take out my fingers now." And the priest said: "Do not." And then the servant said again: "I think I might take one finger out." And the priest said: "Since you are so persevering, you may take it out." So he did, and the noise of the crying and the roaring and the bawling was so great, that he never had the use of that ear again.'

Old Mr. Saggarton confirms the story of the fall of the angels and their presence about us, but goes deeper into theology. 'The soul,' he says, 'was the breath of God, breathed into Adam, and it is the possession of God ever since. And I could never have believed there was so much power in the shadow of a soul, till I saw them one night hurling. They tempt us sometimes in dreams—may God forgive me for saying He would allow power to any to tempt to evil. And they would destroy the world but for the hope they have of being saved. Every Monday morning they think the day of judgment may be coming, and that they will see heaven.

'Half the world is with them. And when you see a blast of wind, and it comes sudden and carries the dust with it, you should say, "God bless them," and throw something after them. For how do you know but one of our own may be in it?

'There never was a funeral they were not at, walking after the other people. And you can see them if you know the way—that is, to take a green rush and to twist it into a ring, and to look through it. But if you do, you'll never have a stim of sight in the eye again.'



HERB-HEALING

September 28th, 1899.

'HONOURABLE LADY GREGORY,

'I, Bridget Ruane, wish to inform you that there is in the Oratory in London one of the Fathers, a Saint. I do not know his name; but there was a young woman of the name of Meara; she got two falls and could get no cure. She went to London and found this holy man; and he sent her back to Gort, here to me, and I cured her. If your honourable Ladyship could make him out, it would be a wonderful thing, and a great happiness to many a weary heart, and the great God would have it in store for you and your son. May you enjoy many happy days together is the prayer of your humble servant,

'BRIDGET RUANE.'

This letter was brought to me one morning; and I went down to see the writer, a respectable-looking old woman, dressed in the red petticoat and blue cloak of the country-people. She repeated what she had said in her note, and added: 'Now if you could find out the name of that Saint through the press, he'd tell me his remedies; and between us, all the world would be cured. For I can't do all cures, though there are a great many I can do. I cured Michael Miscail when the doctor couldn't do it, and a woman in Gort that was paralyzed, and her two sons that were stretched. For I can bring back the dead with some of the herbs our Lord was brought back with, the Garblus and the Slanlus. But there are some things I can't do. I can't help anyone that has got a stroke from the Queen or the Fool of the Forth.

'It was my brother got the knowledge of cures from a book that was thrown down before him on the road. What language was it written in? What language would it be but Irish? May be it was God gave it to him, and may be it was the other people. He was a fine strong man; and he weighed fifteen stone; and he went to England, and there he cured all the world, so that the doctors had no way of living. So one time he got in a ship to go to America; and the doctors had bad men engaged to shipwreck him out of the ship; he wasn't drowned, but he was broken to pieces on the rocks, and the book was lost along with him. But he taught me a good deal out of it. So I know all herbs, and I do a good many cures; and I have brought a good many children home to the world, and never lost one, or one of the women that bore them.'

I asked her to teach me some of her fragments of Druids' wisdom, the healing power of herbs. So she came another day, and brought some herbs, and sorted them out on a table, and said: 'This is Dwareen (knapweed); and what you have to do with this, is to put it down with other herbs, and with a bit of threepenny sugar, and to boil it, and to drink it, for pains in the bones; and don't be afraid but it will cure you. Sure the Lord put it in the world for curing.

'And this is Corn-corn [tansy]; it s very good for the heart—boiled like the others.

'This is Athair-talav, the father of all herbs (wild camomile). This is very hard to pull; and when you go for it, you must have a black-handled knife. And whatever way the wind is when you begin to cut it, if it changes while you're cutting it, you'll lose your mind. And if you are paid for cutting it, you can do it when you like; but if not, they mightn't like it. I knew a woman was cutting at one time, and a voice, an enchanted voice, called out: "Don't cut that if you are not paid, or you'll be sorry." But if you put a bit of this with every other herb you drink, you'll live for ever. My grandmother used to put a bit with everything she took, and she lived to be over a hundred.

'And this is Camal buidhe (loose-strife), that will keep all bad things away.

'This is Cuineal Muire (mullein), the blessed candle of our Lady.

'This is the Fearaban (water-buttercup); and it's good for every bone of your body.

'This is Dub-cosac (trichomanes), that's good for the heart; very good for a sore heart.

'Here are the Slanlus (plantain) and the Garblus (dandelion); and these would cure the wide world; and it was these brought our Lord from the Cross, after the ruffians that were with the Jews did all the harm to Him. And not one could be got to pierce His heart till a dark man came; and he said: "Give me the spear and I'll do it." And the blood that sprang out touched his eyes and they got their sight. And it was after that, His Mother and Mary and Joseph gathered these herbs and cured His wounds.

'These are the best of the herbs; but they are all good, and there isn't one among them but would cure seven diseases. I'm all the days of my life gathering them, and I know them all; but it isn't easy to make them out. Sunday afternoon is the best time to get them, and I was never interfered with. Seven Hail Marys I say when I'm gathering them; and I pray to our Lord, and to St. Joseph and St. Colman. And there may be some watching me; but they never meddled with me at all.'

A neighbour whom I asked about Bridget Ruane and her brother said:—'Some people call her "Biddy Early" (after a famous witch-doctor). She has done a good many cures. Her brother was away for a while, and it is from him she got her knowledge. I believe it's before sunrise she gathers the herbs; any way no one ever saw her gathering them. She has saved many a woman from being brought away when her child was born by whatever she does; and she told me herself that one night when she was going to the lodge gate to attend the woman there, three magpies came before her and began roaring into her mouth to try and drive her back.

Another neighbour, who has herself some reputation as an herb-doctor, says:—'Monday is a good day for pulling herbs, or Tuesday—not Sunday: a Sunday cure is no cure. The Cosac is good for the heart. There was Mahon in Gort—one time his heart was wore to a silk thread, and it cured him. And the Slanugad (ribgrass) is very good: it will take away lumps. You must go down where it is growing on the scraws, and pull it with three pulls; and mind would the wind change when you are pulling it, or your head will be gone. Warm it on the tongs when you bring it in, and put it on the lump. The Lus-mor is the only one that's good to bring back children that are "away."'

Another authority says:—'Dandelion is good for the heart; and when Father Quinn was curate here, he had it rooted up in all the fields about to drink it; and see what a fine man he is. The wild parsnip (Meacan-buidhe) is good for the gravel; and for heart-beat there's nothing so good as dandelion. There was a woman I knew used to boil it down; and she'd throw out what was left on the grass. And there was a fleet of turkeys about the house, and they used to be picking it up. At Christmas they killed one of them; and when it was cut open, they found a new heart growing in it with the dint of the dandelion.'

But an old man says there are no such healers now as there were in his youth:—'The best herb-doctor I ever knew was Connolly up at Kilbecanty. He knew every herb that grew in the earth. It is said he was away with the fairies one time; and when I saw him he had the two thumbs turned in; and it was said it was the sign they left on him. I had a lump on the thigh one time, and my father went to him, and he gave him an herb for it; but he told him not to come into the house by the door the wind would be blowing in at. They thought it was the evil I had—that is given by them by a touch; and that is why he said about the wind; for if it was the evil there would be a worm in it, and if it smelled the herb that was brought in at the door, it might change to another place. I don't know what the herb was; but I would have been dead if I had it on another hour—it burned so much—and I had to get the lump lanced after, for it wasn't the evil I had.

'Connolly cured many a one; Jack Hall, that fell into a pot of water they were after boiling potatoes in, and had the skin scalded off him, and that Dr. Lynch could do nothing for, he cured. He boiled down herbs with a bit of lard, and after that was rubbed in three times, he was well.

'And Cahill that was deaf, he cured with the Riv mar seala, that herb in the potatoes that milk comes out of.'

Farrell says:—'The Bainne bo blathan (primrose) is good for the headache, if you put the leaves of it on your head. But as for the Lus-mor, it's best not to have anything to do with that.' For the Lus-mor is good to bring back children that are 'away,' and belongs to the class of herbs consecrated to the uses of magic, apart from any natural healing power. The Druids are said to have taken their knowledge of these properties from the magical teachers of the Chaldeans; but anyhow the belief in them lives on in Ireland and in other Celtic countries to this day.

A man from East Galway says: 'To bring anyone back from being with the fairies, you should get the leaves of the Lus-mor, and give them to him to drink. And if he only got a little touch from them, and had some complaint in him at the same time, that makes him sick like, that will bring him back. But if he is altogether in the fairies, then it won't bring him back, for he'll know what it is, and he'll refuse to drink it.

'There was a man I know, Andy Hegarty, had a little chap—a little summach of four years—and one day Andy was away to sell a pig in the market at Mount Bellew, and the mother was away some place with the dinner for the men in the field; and the little chap was in the house with the grandmother, and he sitting by the fire. And he said to the grandmother: "Put down a skillet of potatoes for me, and an egg." And she said: "I will not; for what do you want with them? you're just after eating." And he said: "Take care but I'll throw you over the roof of that house." And then he said: "Andy"—that was his father—"is after selling the pig to a jobber, and the jobber has given it back to him again; and he'll be at no loss by that, for he'll get a half-a-crown more at the end." So when the grandmother heard that, she wouldn't stop in the house with him, but ran out—and he only four years old. When the mother came back, and was told about it, she went out and got some of the leaves of the Lus-mor, and she brought them in and put them on the child; and he went away, and their own child came back again. They didn't see him going, or the other coming; but they knew it by him.'

And a Galway woman, who has been in England says: 'I was delicate one time myself, and I lost my walk; and one of the neighbours told my mother it wasn't myself that was there. But my mother said she'd soon find that out; for she'd tell me she was going to get a herb that would cure me; and if it was myself, I'd want it; but if it was another, I'd be against it. So she came in and said she to me: "I'm going to Dangan to look for the Lus-mor, that will soon cure you." And from that day I gave her no peace till she'd go to Dangan and get it; so she knew I was all right. She told me all this afterwards.'

The man from East Galway says: 'The herbs they cure with, there's some that's natural, and you could pick them at all times of the day.'

'Sea-grass' is sometimes useful as a natural and sometimes as an occult cure. One who has tried it and other herbs, says: 'Indeed the porter did me good, and good that I'd hardly like to tell you, not to make a scandal. Did I drink too much of it? Not at all. But this long time I am feeling a worm in my side that is as big as an eel, and there's more of them in it than that. And I was told to put seagrass to it; and I put it to the side the other day; and whether it was that or the porter I don't know, but there's some of them gone out of it.

'Garblus—how did you hear of that? That is the herb for things that have to do with the fairies. And when you drink it for anything of that sort, if it doesn't cure you, it will kill you then and there. There was a fine young man I used to know, and he got his death on the head of a pig that came at himself and another man at the gate of Ramore, and that never left them, but was with them all the time, till they came to a stream of water. And when he got home, he took to his bed with a headache. And at last he was brought a drink of the Garblus, and no sooner did he drink it than he was dead. I remember him well.

'There is something in flax, for no priest would anoint you without a bit of tow. And if a woman that was carrying was to put a basket of green flax on her back, the child would go from her; and if a mare that was in foal had a load of flax on her, the foal would go the same way.'

And a neighbour of hers confirms this, and says: 'There's something in green flax, I know; for my mother often told me about one night she was spinning flax before she was married, and she was up late. And a man of the fairies came in—she had no right to be sitting up so late: they don't like that—and he told her it was time to go to bed; for he wanted to kill her, and he couldn't touch her while she was handling the flax. And every time he'd tell her to go to bed, she'd give him some answer, and she'd go on pulling a thread of the flax, or mending a broken one; for she was wise, and she knew that at the crowing of the cock he'd have to go. So at last the cock crowed, and she was safe, for the cock is blessed.'

* * * * *

Old Bridget Ruane will not do any more cures by charms or by simples, or 'bring children home to the world' any more. For she died last winter; and we may be sure that among the green herbs that cover her grave, there are some that are 'good for every bone in the body,' and that are 'very good for a sore heart.'

1900.



THE WANDERING TRIBE

When poor Paul Ruttledge made his great effort to escape from the doorsteps of law and order—from the world, the flesh, and the newspaper—and fell among tinkers, I looked with more interest than before at the little camps that one sees every now and then by the roadside for a few days or weeks. And I wondered why our country people—who are so kind to one another, and to tramps and beggars, that they seem to live by the rule of an old woman in a Galway sweet-shop: 'Refuse not any, for one may be the Christ'—speak of a visit of the tinkers as of frost in spring or blight in harvest. I asked why they were shunned as other wayfarers are not, and I was told of their strange customs and of their unbelief.

'They come mostly from the County Mayo,' I am told; 'and, indeed, they have not much religion; but last year Father Prendergast offered to marry a man and woman of them for nothing. But after he had them married, they made him give them a shilling for a lodging.

'The people wouldn't like to let them into their house; for if you would let one man in, maybe twelve families would follow them and take possession of the whole place.

'Some of them that do smiths' work are middling decent. They will sit there with their little pot and melt metal in it, and make things that belong to a plough; but the most of them have no trade but to be going to fairs and doing tricks, and having a table for getting money out of you with games. Indeed the most of them are no better than pickpockets—"newks" they are called. And they never go to Mass; and, as to marriage, some used to say they lepped the budget, but it's more likely they have no marriage at all.

'They never go in lodgings; but they'll tilt up the cart, and put a bit of guano cloth over it and a little kennel of straw in it. Or if a man is alone, he'll lay down on the sheltery side of a wall and sleep there. They are hardy with all the hardships they go through; they are the hardiest people in the world.

'And they make sport and fun sometimes. I used to see them dancing at Rathin gate; but no one would dance along with them; it is only among themselves they would have it. And they sing songs too—"The sweet boy of Milltown" I heard them singing.

'There was a sweep in Gort joined them. Charlie his name was. He went into Greely's shop one time, that had set up a little public-house, and bid him give him five pounds and he'd make his fortune. And he was afraid to refuse; and gave it to him, and off walked Charlie, and was never seen there again.

'He died after that in hospital. He slept out one night and the frost went through his body. There was another of them stole two of old Quin's geese at Ballylee one night, and sold them to him again next day. After he had them bought, Mrs. Quin came down and when she looked at them she knew them to be her own geese. "Give me back the money," she said. "I'd be a fool if I did," said he, and he went away.'

Another neighbour says: 'They often made their camp in the boreen near my house; but one of them never came into the house, and I never saw one of them at Mass. One very hard morning I passed by them as I was bringing in pigs to the fair of Gort. There they were, sleeping under an ass-cart, quite happy and satisfied. They fight at night and make friends again in the daytime; and they sell their wives to one another; I've seen that myself.'

And an old man says: 'I think the tinkers are not the same as the rest of us; I think they originated in themselves. They are very mirthful, and they have no control; but sometimes there will be a tyrant among them that is a good fighter, and they will obey him.

'They have no religion; and it might be true they don't believe in the devil—but what of that? Aren't there many on your side and our own that think there is no resurrection, but that we go straight to heaven at the minute of death?

'They never go into any house; and there's a great many of them wouldn't go in a house if they were asked. My father went one time from Ballylee to Limerick; and there was a tinker at that time the Government wanted to get information from; something about Bonaparte it was. And they offered him a good lodging with a feather-bed in it to sleep on; and he said if he slept one night on a feather-bed, he'd never be any good after; that it was more wholesome to sleep outside on a bed of rushes. They didn't get any information out of him after; though they offered him good reward, he wouldn't give it to them.

'They have no marriage at all; but their women might be ten times better than the rural women for all that, and true to their men. The women are very smart at cooking. You'll see them make a fire by the roadside with a bundle of straw and a bit of wood, and they'll put the pot down. What goes into the pot? Well, how would I know? but the men are very handy, and when they put their hand in the pot, believe me it doesn't go in empty.

'They used to be prone to coining at one time; but the law of transportation stopped that. And there's few of the police would like to grabble with them. I saw four of the police trying to take one the other day, and he bet them all; and it was a countryman got a hold of him in the end.'

And a woman whose house they have often made their camp near, says: 'They are bad, and we don't like them to be coming near us. There was a little lad of them came running to the door one night, and he called to us to come; for there was a man killing his mother. But we drove him away and didn't go; for we knew her to be a bad woman.' And another woman says: 'If they have a religion, it's a wandering one; wandering like themselves.'

And a farmer living by the roadside says: 'A bad class they are, indeed, sleeping out under a little bit of cloth, and hardy for all that. Wild beasts they are, stealing turf from the banks.'

But an old man from Slieve Echtge takes a more kindly view of them. 'There are very nice men among them,' he says; 'and they are as hardy as goats or as Connemara sheep. They go about to fairs and deal in asses and in horses, and sometimes they are rich. There was one I knew, a sieve-maker—they are of the same class—and that married a tinker's daughter; they were in here two or three times. I told him I wondered they wouldn't settle down in one place; for if I knew the way to make money, I said, I'd make plenty—for they are said to coin money. But he said it made no difference if they had money; they couldn't stop in one place; they must be walking always and going through the whole country.'

And then we got to the reason of their wandering.

'It was a tinker put St. Patrick astray one time. For he was a slave in Ireland after he was brought out of France, and it would take a hundred pounds to buy his freedom. And he found a lump of gold or of silver in a field one day, where he was minding sheep; and he brought it to a tinker and asked the value of it. "It's nothing at all but a bit of solder," says the tinker. "Give it here to me." But St. Patrick brought it to a smith then, and he told him the value of it. And then St. Patrick put a curse on the tinkers that they might be for ever with every man's face against them, and their face against every man; and that they should get no rest for ever but to travel the world.

'And there are some say that when our Lord was on the cross there could be no tradesman found to drive the nails in His hands and His feet till a tinker was brought, and he did it; and that is why they have to walk the world; and I never met anyone that had seen a tinker's funeral.

'But they may believe some things. For there was a woman of them told me one time they were camping near the railway bridge that in the night-time she saw the whole wall beside her falling down and shattered; but in the morning it was standing as it did before. "And we'll get out of this place as fast as we can," she said.'

'They are a class of themselves,' says another man, 'and they have been there ever since the world began. I often heard it said that our Lord asked a tinker one time to make Him some vessel He wanted, and he refused Him. He went then to a smith, and he did what was wanted. And from that time the tinkers have been wandering on the roads; but they wouldn't have refused Him if they had known He was God. I never saw them at Mass; but I am sure they believe in God. It was here in Ireland they refused our Lord, the time He walked the whole world after the Crucifixion.'

'To be sure they are under a curse,' said another, 'like the Jews, to be wandering always; and they have some religion of their own, but it's a bad one. It's likely St. Patrick put the curse on them; for a fleet of children of tinkers went after him one time, mocking at him, and he turned one of them into a pillar of stone.'

And that is their story as I have heard it so far.



WORKHOUSE DREAMS

Last June I had a few free days, and I chose to spend them among the imaginative class, the holders of the traditions of Ireland, country people in thatched houses, workers in fields and bogs.

I was looking for legends of those shadow-heroes, Finn and his men, to help me in writing their story; and I heard many tales and long poems about fair-haired Finn, who 'had all the wisdom of a little child'; and Conan of the sharp tongue, who was 'some way cross in himself,' and who had a briar on his shield; and their adventures beyond sea, and their hunting after deer that were 'as joyful as the leaves of a tree in summer time.' But some of the people repeated verses by Raftery and Callinan and Sweeny, and some told stories of the kingdom of the Sidhe.

I spent three happy afternoons in a workhouse in my own county, but not in my own parish; and after we had spoken of the Fianna for a while, the old men began to tell me these long, rambling stories I am about to repeat.

We sat in a gravelled yard, where only the leaves of a few young sycamores told that spring had come. Some of the old men sat on a bench against the whitewashed wall of a shed, in their rough frieze clothes and round grey caps, and others stood round, pressing closer and closer as their interest in the story grew.

Some of the stories were new to me; some I had heard in other versions; but all—even those like the 'Taming of the Shrew,' which have, one must believe, been brought in from other countries—have taken an Irish colouring. I began to listen, half interested and half impatient; for I had never cared much for this particular kind of tale.

But as I listened, I was moved by the strange contrast between the poverty of the tellers and the splendours of the tales. These men who had failed in life, and were old and withered, or sickly, or crippled, had not laid up dreams of good houses and fields and sheep and cattle; for they had never possessed enough to think of the possession of more as a possibility. It seemed as if their lives had been so poor and rigid in circumstance that they did not fix their minds, as more prosperous people might do, on thoughts of customary pleasure. The stories that they love are of quite visionary things; of swans that turn into kings' daughters, and of castles with crowns over the doors, and lovers' flights on the backs of eagles, and music-loving water-witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for seven hundred years.

I think it has always been to such poor people, with little of wealth or comfort to keep their thoughts bound to the things about them, that dreams and visions have been given. It is from a deep narrow well the stars can be seen at noonday; it was one left on a bare rocky island who saw the pearl gates and the golden streets that lead to the Tree of Life.

One of the old men told me a story in Irish—another translating it as he went on; for my ear was not practised enough to follow it well:—'There was a farmer one time had one son only, and the son died, and the father wouldn't go to the funeral, where he had had some dispute with him.

'And, after a while, a neighbour died, and he went to his funeral. And a while after that he was in the churchyard looking at the grave. And he took up a skull that was lying there—one of four—and he said: "It's a handsome man you may have been when you were young; and I'd like to know something about you," he said. And the skull spoke, and it is what it said: "I'll go spend to-morrow night with you, if you'll come and spend another night with me." "I will do that," said the farmer.

'And on the way home he met with the priest, and he told him what had happened. "I would never believe that a skull spoke," said the priest. "Come to my house to-morrow night, and you'll hear him speak," said the farmer.

'So the next night they were sitting together in the house, and they had dinner set out on the table. And after a while they heard something come to the door; and the skull came in, and it got up on the table, and it ate all the dinner that was there; and after that it went out again. "Why didn't you speak to it?" said the farmer to the priest. "Why didn't you speak to it yourself?" said the priest. "What will it do to me at all when I go to see it to-morrow night?" said the farmer; "but I must hold to my promise when it came here first."

'So the next evening he set out for the churchyard, and he could see nothing at all in it. And then he went down three steps that were beside the church; and presently he was in a field, and it full of men fighting one against the other with spades and reaping-hooks. "Is it looking for a head you are?" they said; "it's gone into that field beyond."

'So he went on into the other field; and it was full of men and women, all of them fighting one against the other. "Are you looking for a head?" they said; "it's after going into that field beyond."

'So he went into the third field; and there he saw a big house, and he went into it. And he saw a fire on the hearth, and a lady in the room, and a serving-girl. And the lady was walking up and down the room; and whenever she would go near to the fire to warm herself, the serving-girl would put her away from it.