Chapter VIII: Part 8

When he went in he saw the boys playing cards. They asked him to play, and (said) that perhaps he might gain all that he lost the day before. As there is a temptation on the cards, Donal began playing, and he did not stop until he lost every penny of all that he had. “There is no good in my going home now,” says Donal; “I’ll stake the horses and the cart against all I lost.” He played again, and he lost the horses and the cart. Then he did not know what he should do, but he thought and said: “Unless I go home, my poor mother will be anxious. I will go home and tell the truth to her. They can but banish me.”

When he came home, Dermod asked him: “Did you sell the oats? or where are the horses and the cart?” “I lost the whole playing cards, and I would not come back except to leave ye my blessing before I go.” “That you may not ever come back, or a penny of your price,” said Dermod, “and I don’t want your blessing.”

He left his blessing with his mother then, and he went travelling, looking for service. When the darkness of the night was coming, there was thirst and hunger on him. He saw a poor man coming to him, and a bag on his back. He recognised Donal, and said: “Donal, what brought you here, or where are you going?” “I don’t know you,” said Donal.

“It’s many’s the good night I spent in your father’s house, may God have mercy upon him,” said the poor man; “perhaps there’s hunger on you, and that you would not be against eating something out of my bag?”

“It’s a friend that would give it to me,” says Donal. Then the poor man gave him beef and bread, and when he ate his enough, the poor man asked him: “Where are you going to-night?”

“Musha, then, I don’t know,” says Donal.

“There is a gentleman in the big house up there, and he gives lodging to anyone who comes to him after the darkness of night, and I’m going to him,” says the poor man.

“Perhaps I would get lodgings with you,” says Donal. “I have no doubt of it,” says the poor man.

The pair went to the big house, and the poor man knocked at the door, and the servant opened it. “I want to see the master of this house,” says Donal.

The servant went, and the master came. “I am looking for a night’s lodging,” said Donal.

“I will give ye that, if ye wait. Go up to the castle there above, and I will be after ye, and if ye wait in it till morning, each man of ye will get five score ten-penny pieces, and ye will have plenty to eat and drink as well; and a good bed to sleep on.”

“That’s a good offer,” said they; “we will go there.”

The pair came to the castle, went into a room, and put down a fire. It was not long till the gentleman came, bringing beef, mutton, and other things to them. “Come with me now till I show ye the cellar, there’s plenty of wine and ale in it, and ye can draw your enough.” When he showed them the cellar, he went out, and he put a lock on the door behind him.

Then Donal said to the poor man: “Put the things to eat on the table, and I’ll go for the ale.” Then he got a light, and a cruiskeen (jug), and went down into the cellar. The first barrel he came to he stooped down to draw out of it, when a voice said: “Stop, that barrel is mine.” Donal looked up, and he saw a little man without a head, with his two legs spread straddle-wise on a barrel.

“If it is yours,” says Donal, “I’ll go to another.” He went to another; but when he stooped down to draw, Trunk-without-head said: “That barrel is mine.” “They’re not all yours,” says Donal, “I’ll go to another one.” He went to another one; but when he began drawing out of it, Trunk-without-head said: “That’s mine.” “I don’t care,” said Donal, “I’ll fill my cruiskeen.” He did that, and came up to the poor man; but he did not tell him that he saw Trunk-without-head. Then they began eating and drinking till the jug was empty. Then said Donal: “It’s your turn to go down and fill the jug.” The poor man got the candle and the cruiskeen, and went down into the cellar. He began drawing out of a barrel, when he heard a voice saying: “That barrel is mine.” He looked up, and when he saw Trunk-without-head, he let cruiskeen and candle fall, and off and away with him to Donal. “Oh! it’s little but I’m dead,” says the poor man; “I saw a man without a head, and his two legs spread out on the barrel, and he said it was his.” “He would not do you any harm,” said Donal, “he was there when I went down; get up and bring me the jug and the candle.” “Oh, I wouldn’t go down again if I were to get Ireland without a division,” says the poor man. Donal went down, and he brought up the jug filled. “Did you see Trunk-without-head?” says the poor man. “I did,” says Donal; “but he did not do me any harm.”

They were drinking till they were half drunk, then said Donal: “It’s time for us to be going to sleep, what place would you like best, the outside of the bed, or next the wall?”

“I’ll go next the wall,” said the poor man. They went to bed leaving the candle lit.

They were not long in bed till they saw three men coming in, and a bladder (football) with them. They began beating _bayrees_ (playing at ball) on the floor; but there were two of them against one. Donal said to the poor man: “It is not right for two to be against one,” and with that he leaped out and began helping the weak side, and he without a thread on him. Then they began laughing, and walked out.

Donal went to bed again, and he was not long there till there came in a piper playing sweet music. “Rise up,” says Donal, “until we have a dance; it’s a great pity to let good music go to loss.” “For your life, don’t stir,” says the poor man.

Donal gave a leap out of the bed, and he fell to dancing till he was tired. Then the piper began laughing, and walked out.

Donal went to bed again; but he was not long there till there walked in two men, carrying a coffin. They left it down on the floor, and they walked out. “I don’t know who’s in the coffin, or whether it’s for us it’s meant,” said Donal; “I’ll go till I see.” He gave a leap out, raised the board of the coffin, and found a dead man in it. “By my conscience, it’s the cold place you have,” says Donal; “if you were able to rise up, and sit at the fire, you would be better.” The dead man rose up and warmed himself. Then said Donal, “the bed is wide enough for three.” Donal went in the middle, the poor man next the wall, and the dead man on the outside. It was not long until the dead man began bruising Donal, and Donal bruising in on the poor man, until he was all as one as dead, and he had to give a leap out through the window, and to leave Donal and the dead man there. The dead man was crushing Donal then until he nearly put him out through the wall.

“Destruction on you,” said Donal, then; “it’s you’re the ungrateful man; I let you out of the coffin; I gave you a heat at the fire, and a share of my bed; and now you won’t keep quiet; but I’ll put you out of the bed.” Then the dead man spoke, and said: “You are a valiant man, and it stood you upon[31] to be so, or you would be dead.” “Who would kill me?” said Donal. “I,” says the dead man; “there never came any one here this twenty years back, that I did not kill. Do you know the man who paid you for remaining here?” “He was a gentleman,” said Donal. “He is my son,” said the dead man, “and he thinks that you will be dead in the morning; but come with me now.”

The dead man took him down into the cellar, and showed him a great flag. “Lift that flag. There are three pots under it, and they filled with gold. It is on account of the gold they killed me; but they did not get the gold. Let yourself have a pot, and a pot for my son, and the other one—divide it on the poor people.” Then he opened a door in the wall, and drew out a paper, and said to Donal: “Give this to my son, and tell him that it was the butler who killed me, for my share of gold. I can get no rest until he’ll be hanged; and if there is a witness wanting I will come behind you in the court without a head on me, so that everybody can see me. When he will be hanged, you will marry my son’s daughter, and come to live in this castle. Let you have no fear about me, for I shall have gone to eternal rest. Farewell now.”

Donal went to sleep, and he did not awake till the gentleman came in the morning, and he asked him did he sleep well, or where did the old man whom he left with him go? “I will tell you that another time; I have a long story to tell you first.” “Come to my house with me,” says the gentleman.

When they were going to the house, whom should they see coming out of the bushes, but the poor man without a thread on him, more than the night he was born, and he shaking with the cold. The gentleman got him his clothes, gave him his wages, and off for ever with him.

Donal went to the gentleman’s house, and when he ate and drank his enough, he said: “I have a story to tell you.” Then he told him everything that happened to him the night before, until he came as far as the part about the gold. “Come with me till I see the gold,” said the gentleman. He went to the castle, he lifted the flag, and when he saw the gold, he said: “I know now that the story is true.”

When he got the entire information from Donal, he got a warrant against the butler; but concealed the crime it was for. When the butler was brought before the judge, Donal was there, and gave witness. Then the judge read out of his papers, and said: “I cannot find this man guilty without more evidence.”

“I am here,” said Trunk-without-head, coming behind Donal. When the butler saw him, he said to the judge: “Go no farther, I am guilty; I killed the man, and his head is under the hearth-stone in his own room.” Then the judge gave order to hang the butler, and Trunk-without-head went away.

The day on the morrow, Donal was married to the gentleman’s daughter, and got a great fortune with her, and went to live in the castle.

A short time after this, he got ready his coach and went on a visit to his mother.

When Dermod saw the coach coming, he did not know who the great man was who was in it. The mother came out and ran to him, saying: “Are you not my own Donal, the love of my heart you are? I was praying for you since you went.” Then Dermod asked pardon of him, and got it. Then Donal gave him a purse of gold, saying at the same time: “There’s the price of the two loads of oats, of the horses, and of the cart.” Then he said to his mother: “You ought to come home with me. I have a fine castle without anybody in it but my wife and the servants.” “I will go with you,” said the mother; “and I will remain with you till I die.”

Donal took his mother home, and they spent a prosperous life together in the castle.

THE HAGS OF THE LONG TEETH.

Long ago, in the old time, there came a party of gentlemen from Dublin to Loch Glynn a-hunting and a-fishing. They put up in the priest’s house, as there was no inn in the little village.

The first day they went a-hunting, they went into the Wood of Driminuch, and it was not long till they routed a hare. They fired many a ball after him, but they could not bring him down. They followed him till they saw him going into a little house in the wood.

When they came to the door, they saw a great black dog, and he would not let them in.

“Put a ball through the beggar,” said a man of them. He let fly a ball, but the dog caught it in his mouth, chewed it, and flung it on the ground. They fired another ball, and another, but the dog did the same thing with them. Then he began barking as loud as he could, and it was not long till there came out a hag, and every tooth in her head as long as the tongs. “What are you doing to my pup?” says the hag.

“A hare went into your house, and this dog won’t let us in after him,” says a man of the hunters.

“Lie down, pup,” said the hag. Then she said: “Ye can come in if ye wish.” The hunters were afraid to go in, but a man of them asked: “Is there any person in the house with you?”

“There are six sisters,” said the old woman. “We should like to see them,” said the hunters. No sooner had he said the word than the six old women came out, and each of them with teeth as long as the other. Such a sight the hunters had never seen before.

They went through the wood then, and they saw seven vultures on one tree, and they screeching. The hunters began cracking balls after them, but if they were in it ever since they would never bring down one of them.

There came a gray old man to them and said: “Those are the hags of the long tooth that are living in the little house over there. Do ye not know that they are under enchantment? They are there these hundreds of years, and they have a dog that never lets in anyone to the little house. They have a castle under the lake, and it is often the people saw them making seven swans of themselves, and going into the lake.”

When the hunters came home that evening they told everything they heard and saw to the priest, but he did not believe the story.

On the day on the morrow, the priest went with the hunters, and when they came near the little house they saw the big black dog at the door. The priest put his conveniencies for blessing under his neck, and drew out a book and began reading prayers. The big dog began barking loudly. The hags came out, and when they saw the priest they let a screech out of them that was heard in every part of Ireland. When the priest was a while reading, the hags made vultures of themselves and flew up into a big tree that was over the house.

The priest began pressing in on the dog until he was within a couple of feet of him.

The dog gave a leap up, struck the priest with its four feet, and put him head over heels.

When the hunters took him up he was deaf and dumb, and the dog did not move from the door.

They brought the priest home and sent for the bishop. When he came and heard the story there was great grief on him. The people gathered together and asked of him to banish the hags of enchantment out of the wood. There was fright and shame on him, and he did not know what he would do, but he said to them: “I have no means of banishing them till I go home, but I will come at the end of a month and banish them.”

The priest was too badly hurt to say anything. The big black dog was father of the hags, and his name was Dermod O’Muloony. His own son killed him, because he found him with his wife the day after their marriage, and killed the sisters for fear they should tell on him.

One night the bishop was in his chamber asleep, when one of the hags of the long tooth opened the door and came in. When the bishop wakened up he saw the hag standing by the side of his bed. He was so much afraid he was not able to speak a word until the hag spoke and said to him: “Let there be no fear on you; I did not come to do you harm, but to give you advice. You promised the people of Loch Glynn that you would come to banish the hags of the long tooth out of the wood of Driminuch. If you come you will never go back alive.”

His talk came to the bishop, and he said: “I cannot break my word.”

“We have only a year and a day to be in the wood,” said the hag, “and you can put off the people until then.”

“Why are ye in the woods as ye are?” says the bishop.

“Our brother killed us,” said the hag, “and when we went before the arch-judge, there was judgment passed on us, we to be as we are two hundred years. We have a castle under the lake, and be in it every night. We are suffering for the crime our father did.” Then she told him the crime the father did.

“Hard is your case,” said the bishop, “but we must put up with the will of the arch-judge, and I shall not trouble ye.”

“You will get an account, when we are gone from the wood,” said the hag. Then she went from him.

In the morning, the day on the morrow, the bishop came to Loch Glynn. He sent out notice and gathered the people. Then he said to them: “It is the will of the arch-king that the power of enchantment be not banished for another year and a day, and ye must keep out of the wood until then. It is a great wonder to me that ye never saw the hags of enchantment till the hunters came from Dublin.—It’s a pity they did not remain at home.”

About a week after that the priest was one day by himself in his chamber alone. The day was very fine and the window was open. The robin of the red breast came in and a little herb in its mouth. The priest stretched out his hand, and she laid the herb down on it. “Perhaps it was God sent me this herb,” said the priest to himself, and he ate it. He had not eaten it one moment till he was as well as ever he was, and he said: “A thousand thanks to Him who has power stronger than the power of enchantment.”

Then said the robin: “Do you remember the robin of the broken foot you had, two years this last winter.”

“I remember her, indeed,” said the priest, “but she went from me when the summer came.”

“I am the same robin, and but for the good you did me I would not be alive now, and you would be deaf and dumb throughout your life. Take my advice now, and do not go near the hags of the long tooth any more, and do not tell to any person living that I gave you the herb.” Then she flew from him.

When the house-keeper came she wondered to find that he had both his talk and his hearing. He sent word to the bishop and he came to Loch Glynn. He asked the priest how it was that he got better so suddenly. “It is a secret,” said the priest, “but a certain friend gave me a little herb and it cured me.”

Nothing else happened worth telling, till the year was gone. One night after that the bishop was in his chamber when the door opened, and the hag of the long tooth walked in, and said: “I come to give you notice that we will be leaving the wood a week from to-day. I have one thing to ask of you if you will do it for me.”

“If it is in my power, and it not to be against the faith,” said the bishop.

“A week from to-day,” said the hag, “there will be seven vultures dead at the door of our house in the wood. Give orders to bury them in the quarry that is between the wood and Ballyglas; that is all I am asking of you.”

“I shall do that if I am alive,” said the bishop. Then she left him, and he was not sorry she to go from him.

A week after that day, the bishop came to Loch Glynn, and the day after he took men with him and went to the hags’ house in the wood of Driminuch.

The big black dog was at the door, and when he saw the bishop he began running and never stopped until he went into the lake.

He saw the seven vultures dead at the door, and he said to the men: “Take them with you and follow me.”

They took up the vultures and followed him to the brink of the quarry. Then he said to them: “Throw them into the quarry: There is an end to the hags of the enchantment.”

As soon as the men threw them down to the bottom of the quarry, there rose from it seven swans as white as snow, and flew out of their sight. It was the opinion of the bishop and of every person who heard the story that it was up to heaven they flew, and that the big black dog went to the castle under the lake.

At any rate, nobody saw the hags of the long tooth or the big black dog from that out, any more.

WILLIAM OF THE TREE.

In the time long ago there was a king in Erin. He was married to a beautiful queen, and they had but one only daughter. The queen was struck with sickness, and she knew that she would not be long alive. She put the king under _gassa_ (mystical injunctions) that he should not marry again until the grass should be a foot high over her tomb. The daughter was cunning, and she used to go out every night with a scissors, and she used to cut the grass down to the ground.

The king had a great desire to have another wife, and he did not know why the grass was not growing over the grave of the queen. He said to himself: “There is somebody deceiving me.”

That night he went to the churchyard, and he saw the daughter cutting the grass that was on the grave. There came great anger on him then, and he said: “I will marry the first woman I see, let she be old or young.” When he went out on the road he saw an old hag. He brought her home and married her, as he would not break his word.

After marrying her, the daughter of the king was under bitter misery at (the hands of) the hag, and the hag put her under an oath not to tell anything at all to the king, and not to tell to any person anything she should see being done, except only to three who were never baptised.

The next morning on the morrow, the king went out a hunting, and when he was gone, the hag killed a fine hound the king had. When the king came home he asked the old hag “who killed my hound?”

“Your daughter killed it,” says the old woman.

“Why did you kill my hound?” said the king.

“I did not kill your hound,” says the daughter, “and I cannot tell you who killed him.”

“I will make you tell me,” says the king.

He took the daughter with him to a great wood, and he hanged her on a tree, and then he cut off the two hands and the two feet off her, and left her in a state of death. When he was going out of the wood there went a thorn into his foot, and the daughter said: “That you may never get better until I have hands and feet to cure you.”

The king went home, and there grew a tree out of his foot, and it was necessary for him to open the window, to let the top of the tree out.

There was a gentleman going by near the wood, and he heard the king’s daughter a-screeching. He went to the tree, and when he saw the state she was in, he took pity on her, brought her home, and when she got better, married her.

At the end of three quarters (of a year), the king’s daughter had three sons at one birth, and when they were born, Granya Öi came and put hands and feet on the king’s daughter, and told her, “Don’t let your children be baptised until they are able to walk. There is a tree growing out of your father’s foot; it was cut often, but it grows again, and it is with you lies his healing. You are under an oath not to tell the things you saw your stepmother doing to anyone but to three who were never baptised, and God has sent you those three. When they will be a year old bring them to your father’s house, and tell your story before your three sons, and rub your hand on the stump of the tree, and your father will be as well as he was the first day.”

There was great wonderment on the gentleman when he saw hands and feet on the king’s daughter. She told him then every word that Granya Oi said to her.

When the children were a year old, the mother took them with her, and went to the king’s house.

There were doctors from every place in Erin attending on the king, but they were not able to do him any good.

When the daughter came in, the king did not recognise her. She sat down, and the three sons round her, and she told her story to them from top to bottom, and the king was listening to her telling it. Then she left her hand on the sole of the king’s foot and the tree fell off it.

The day on the morrow he hanged the old hag, and he gave his estate to his daughter and to the gentleman.

THE OLD CROW & THE YOUNG CROW.

There was an old crow teaching a young crow one day, and he said to him, “Now my son,” says he, “listen to the advice I’m going to give you. If you see a person coming near you and stooping, mind yourself, and be on your keeping; he’s stooping for a stone to throw at you.”

“But tell me,” says the young crow, “what should I do if he had a stone already down in his pocket?”

“Musha, go ’long out of that,” says the old crow, “you’ve learned enough; the devil another learning I’m able to give you.”

RIDDLES.

A great great house it is,
A golden candlestick it is,
Guess it rightly,
Let it not go by thee.

Heaven.

There’s a garden that I ken,
Full of little gentlemen,
Little caps of blue they wear,
And green ribbons very fair.

Flax.

I went up the boreen, I went down the boreen,
I brought the boreen with myself on my back.

A Ladder.

He comes to ye amidst the brine
The butterfly of the sun,
The man of the coat so blue and fine,
With red thread his shirt is done.

Lobster.

I threw it up as white as snow,
Like gold on a flag it fell below.

Egg.

I ran and I got,
I sat and I searched,
If could get it I would not bring it with me,
And as I got it not I brought it.

Thorn in the foot.

You see it come in on the shoulders of men,
Like a thread of the silk it will leave us again.

Smoke.

He comes through the _lis_[32] to me over the sward,
The man of the foot that is narrow and hard,
I would he were running the opposite way,
For o’er all that are living ’tis he who bears sway.

The Death.

In the garden’s a castle with hundreds within,
Yet though stripped to my shirt I would never fit in.

Ant-hill.

From house to house he goes,
A messenger small and slight,
And whether it rains or snows,
He sleeps outside in the night.

Boreen.

Two feet on the ground,
And three feet overhead,
And the head of the living
In the mouth of the dead.

Girl with (three-legged) pot on her head.

On the top of the tree
See the little man red,
A stone in his belly,
A cap on his head.

Haw.

There’s a poor man at rest,
With a stick beneath his breast,
And he breaking his heart a-crying.

Lintel on a wet day.

As white as flour and it is not flour,
As green as grass and it is not grass,
As red as blood and it is not blood,
As black as ink and it is not ink.

Blackberry, from bud to fruit.

A bottomless barrel,
It’s shaped like a hive,
It is filled full of flesh,
And the flesh is alive.

Tailor’s thimble.

WHERE THE STORIES CAME FROM.

The first three stories, namely, “The Tailor and the Three Beasts,” “Bran,” and “The King of Ireland’s Son,” I took down verbatim, without the alteration or addition of more than a word or two, from Seáġan O Cuinneaġáin (John Cunningham), who lives in the village of Baile-an-ṗuil (Ballinphuil), in the county of Roscommon, some half mile from Mayo. He is between seventy and eighty years old, and is, I think, illiterate.

The story of “The Alp-luachra” is written down from notes made at the time I first heard the story. It was told me by Seamus o h-Airt (James Hart), a game-keeper, in the barony of Frenchpark, between sixty and seventy years old, and illiterate. The notes were not full ones, and I had to eke them out in writing down the story, the reciter, one of the best I ever met, having unfortunately died in the interval.

The stories of “Paudyeen O’Kelly,” and of “Leeam O’Rooney’s Burial,” I got from Mr. Lynch Blake, near Ballinrobe, county Mayo, who took the trouble of writing them down for me in nearly phonetic Irish, for which I beg to return him my best thanks. I do not think that these particular stories underwent any additions at his hands while writing them down. I do not know from whom he heard the first, and cannot now find out, as he has left the locality. The second he told me he got from a man, eighty years old, named William Grady, who lived near Clare-Galway, but who for the last few years has been “carrying a bag.”

The long story of “Guleesh na Guss dhu,” was told by the same Shamus O’Hart, from whom I got the “Alp-luachra,” but, as in the case of the “Alp-luachra” story, I had only taken notes of it, and not written down the whole as it fell from his lips. I have only met one other man since, Martin Brennan, in the barony of Frenchpark, Roscommon, who knew the same story, and he told it to me—but in an abridged form—incident for incident up to the point where my translation leaves off.

There is a great deal more in the Irish version in the Leaḃar Sgeuluiġeaċta, which I did not translate, not having been able to get it from Brennan, and having doctored it too much myself to give it as genuine folk-lore.

The rest of the stories in this volume are literally translated from my Leaḃar Sgeuluiġeaċta. Neil O’Carree was taken down phonetically, by Mr. Larminie, from the recitation of a South Donegal peasant.

The Hags of the Long Teeth come from Ballinrobe, as also William of the Tree, the Court of Crinnawn, and the Well of D’Yerree-in-Dowan. See pages 239-240 of the L. S.

NOTES.

[_Notes in brackets signed A.N., by Alfred Nutt. The references to Arg. Tales are to “Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition; Argyllshire Series II.; Folk and Hero Tales from Argyllshire” collected, edited, and translated by the Rev. D. MacInnes, with Notes by the editor and Alfred Nutt. London, 1889._]

“THE TAILOR AND THE THREE BEASTS.”

Page 1. In another variant of this tale, which I got from one Martin Brennan—more usually pronounced Brannan; in Irish, O’Braonáin—in Roscommon, the thing which the tailor kills is a swallow, which flew past him. He flung his needle at the bird, and it went through its eye and killed it. This success excites the tailor to further deeds of prowess. In this variant occurred also the widely-spread incident of the tailor’s tricking the giant by pretending to squeeze water out of a stone.

Page 2. Garraun (gearrán), is a common Anglicised Irish word in many parts of Ireland. It means properly a gelding or hack-horse; but in Donegal, strangely enough, it means a horse, and coppul capáll, the ordinary word for a horse elsewhere, means there a mare. The old English seem to have borrowed this word capal from the Irish, _cf._ Percy’s version of “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne,” where the latter is thus represented—

“A sword and a dagger he wore by his side,
Of manye a man the bane;
And he was clad in his capull hyde,
Topp and tayle and mayne.”

Page 7, line 4. The modder-alla (madra-allta, wild dog), is properly a wolf, not a lion; but the reciter explained it thus, “madar alla, sin leó ṁan,” “modder álla, that’s a l’yone,” _i.e._, “a lion,” which I have accordingly translated it.

Page 9, line 18. The giant’s shouting at night, or at dawn of day, is a common incident in these tales. In the story of “The Speckled Bull,” not here given, there are three giants who each utter a shout every morning, “that the whole country hears them.” The Irish for giant, in all these stories, is faṫaċ (pronounced fahuch), while the Scotch Gaelic word is _famhair_, a word which we have not got, but which is evidently the same as the Fomhor, or sea pirate of Irish mythical history, in whom Professor Rhys sees a kind of water god. The only place in Campbell’s four volumes in which the word _fathach_ occurs is in the “Lay of the Great Omadawn,” which is a distinctly Irish piece, and of which MacLean remarks, “some of the phraseology is considered Irish.”

Page 11. This incident appears to be a version of that in “Jack the Giant-Killer.” It seems quite impossible to say whether it was always told in Ireland, or whether it may not have been borrowed from some English source. If it does come from an English source it is probably the only thing in these stories that does.

Page 13, line 6. “To take his wife off (pronounced _ov_) him again.” The preposition “from” is not often used with take, etc., in Connacht English.

Page 15, line 12. These nonsense-endings are very common in Irish stories It is remarkable that there seems little trace of them in Campbell. The only story in his volumes which ends with a piece of nonsense is the “Slender Grey Kerne,” and it, as I tried to show in my Preface, is Irish. It ends thus: “I parted with them, and they gave me butter on a coal, and kail brose in a creel, and paper shoes, and they sent me away with a cannon-ball on a highroad of glass, till they left me sitting here.” Why such endings seem to be stereotyped with some stories, and not used at all with others, I cannot guess. It seems to be the same amongst Slavonic Märchen, of which perhaps one in twenty has a nonsense-ending; but the proportion is much larger in Ireland. Why the Highland tales, so excellent in themselves, and so closely related to the Irish ones, have lost this distinctive feature I cannot even conjecture, but certain it is that this is so.

[The incident of the king’s court being destroyed at night is in the fourteenth-fifteenth century _Agallamh na Senorach_, where it is Finn who guards Tara against the wizard enemies.

I know nothing like the way in which the hero deals with the animals he meets, and cannot help thinking that the narrator forgot or mistold his story. Folk-tales are, as a rule, perfectly logical and sensible if their conditions be once accepted; but here the conduct of the hero is inexplicable, or at all events unexplained.—A.N.]

BRAN’S COLOUR.

Page 15. This stanza on Bran’s colour is given by O’Flaherty, in 1808, in the “Gaelic Miscellany.” The first two lines correspond with those of my shanachie, and the last two correspond _in sound_, if not in sense. O’Flaherty gave them thus—

“Speckled back over the loins,
Two ears scarlet, equal-red.”

How the change came about is obvious. The old Irish suaiṫne, “speckled,” is not understood now in Connacht; so the word uaiṫne, “green,” which exactly rhymes with it, took its place. Though uaiṫne generally means greenish, it evidently did not do so to the mind of my reciter, for, pointing to a mangy-looking cub of nondescript greyish colour in a corner of his cabin, he said, sin uaiṫne, “that’s the colour oonya.” The words os cionn na leirge, “over the loins,” have, for the same reason—namely, that learg, “a loin,” is obselete now—been changed to words of the same sound. airḋaṫ na seilge, “of the colour of hunting,” _i.e._, the colour of the deer hunted. This, too, the reciter explained briefly by saying, seilg sin fiaḋ, “hunting, that’s a deer.” From the vivid colouring of Bran it would appear that she could have borne no resemblance whatever to the modern so-called Irish wolf-hound, and that she must in all probability have been short-haired, and not shaggy like them. Most of the Fenian poems contain words not in general use. I remember an old woman reciting me two lines of one of these old poems, and having to explain in current Irish the meaning of no less than five words in the two lines which were

Aiṫris dam agus ná can go
Cionnas rinneaḋ leó an trealg,

which she thus explained conversationally, innis dam agus ná deun breug, cia an ċaoi a ndearnaḋ siad an fiaḋaċ.

Page 17, line 9. Pistrogue, or pishogue, is a common Anglo-Irish word for a charm or spell. Archbishop MacHale derived it from two words, fios siṫeóg, “knowledge of fairies,” which seems hardly probable.

Page 19. “A fiery cloud out of her neck.” Thus, in Dr. Atkinson’s Páis Partoloin, from the “Leabhar Breac,” the devil appears in the form of an Ethiopian, and according to the Irish translator, ticed lassar borb ar a bragait ocus as a shróin amal lassair shuirun tened. “There used to come a fierce flame out of his _neck_ and nose, like the flame of a furnace of fire.”

Page 19. According to another version of this story, the blind man was Ossian (whose name is in Ireland usually pronounced Essheen or Ussheen) himself, and he got Bran’s pups hung up by their teeth to the skin of a newly-killed horse, and all the pups let go their hold except this black one, which clung to the skin and hung out of it. Then Ossian ordered the others to be drowned and kept this. In this other version, the coal which he throws at the infuriated pup was tuaġ no rud icéint, “a hatchet or something.” There must be some confusion in this story, since Ossian was not blind during Bran’s lifetime, nor during the sway of the Fenians. The whole thing appears to be a bad version of Campbell’s story, No. XXXI., Vol. II., p. 103. The story may, however, have some relation to the incident in that marvellous tale called “The Fort of the little Red Yeoha” (Bruiġion Eoċaiḋ ḃig ḋeirg), in which we are told how Conan looked out of the fort, go ḃfacaiḋ sé aon óglaċ ag teaċt ċuige, agus cu ġearr ḋuḃ air slaḃra iarainn aige, ’na láiṁ, agus is ionga naċ loirġeaḋ si an bruioġion re gaċ caor teine d’á g-cuirfeaḋ si ṫar a craos agus ṫar a cúḃan-ḃeul amaċ, _i.e._, “he saw one youth coming to him, and he having a short black hound on an iron chain in his hand, and it is a wonder that it would not burn the fort with every ball of fire it would shoot out of its gullet, and out of its foam-mouth.” This hound is eventually killed by Bran, but only after Conan had taken off “the shoe of refined silver that was on Bran’s right paw” (An ḃróg airgid Aiṫ-leigṫhe to ḃí air croiḃ ḋeis Brain). Bran figures largely in Fenian literature.

[I believe this is the only place in which Finn’s _mother_ is described as a fawn, though in the prose sequel to the “Lay of the Black Dog” (Leab. na Feinne, p. 91) it is stated that Bran, by glamour of the Lochlanners, is made to slay the Fenian women and children in the seeming of deer. That Finn enjoyed the favours of a princess bespelled as a fawn is well known; also that Oisin’s mother was a fawn (see the reference in Arg. Tales, p. 470). The narrator may have jumbled these stories together in his memory.

The slaying of Bran’s pup seems a variant of Oisin’s “Blackbird Hunt” (_cf._ Kennedy, Fictions, 240), whilst the story, as a whole, seems to be mixed up with that of the “Fight of Bran with the Black Dog,”of which there is a version translated by the Rev. D. Mac Innes—“Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition,” Vol. I., p. 7, _et seq._

It would seem from our text that the Black Dog was Bran’s child, so that the fight is an animal variant of the father and son combat, as found in the Cuchullain saga. A good version of “Finn’s Visit to Lochlann” (to be printed in Vol. III. of “Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition”) tells how Finn took with him Bran’s leash; and how the Lochlanners sentenced him to be exposed in a desolate valley, where he was attacked by a savage dog whom he tamed by showing the leash. Vol. XII. of Campbell’s “MSS. of Gaelic Stories” contains a poem entitled, “Bran’s Colour.” This should be compared with our text.—A.N.]

THE KING OF IRELAND’S SON.

Page 19. The king of Ireland’s son. This title should properly be, “The son of a king in Ireland” (Mac riġ i n-Eirinn). As this name for the prince is rather cumbrous, I took advantage of having once heard him called the king of Ireland’s son (Mac riġ Eireann), and have so given it here. In another longer and more humorous version of this story, which I heard from Shamus O’Hart, but which I did not take down in writing, the short green man is the “Thin black man” (fear caol duḃ); the gunman is guinnéar, not gunnaire; the ear-man is cluas-le-h-éisteaċt; (ear for hearing), not cluasaire; and the blowman is not Séidire, but polláire-séidte (blowing nostril). This difference is the more curious, considering that the men lived only a couple of miles apart, and their families had lived in the same place for generations.

Page 27. This description of a house thatched with feathers is very common in Irish stories. On the present occasion the house is thatched with one single feather, so smooth that there was no projecting point or quill either above or below the feather-roof. For another instance, see the “Well of D’yerree in Dowan,” page 131. In a poem from “The Dialogue of the Sages,” the lady Credé’s house is described thus:—

“Of its sunny chamber the corner stones
Are all of silver and precious gold,
In faultless stripes its thatch is spread
Of wings of brown and crimson red.
Its portico is covered, too,
With wings of birds both yellow and blue.”

See O’Curry’s “Man. Materials,” p. 310.

Page 27. “He drew the cooalya-coric,” _coolaya_ in the text, is a misprint. The cooalya-coric means “pole of combat.” How it was “drawn” we have no means of knowing. It was probably a pole meant to be drawn back and let fall upon some sounding substance. The word tarraing, “draw,” has, however, in local, if not in literary use, the sense of drawing back one’s arm to make a blow. A peasant will say, “he drew the blow at me,” or “he drew the stick,” in English; or “ṫarraing sé an buille,” in Irish, by which he means, he made the blow and struck with the stick. This may be the case in the phrase “drawing the cooalya-coric,” which occurs so often in Irish stories, and it may only mean, “he struck a blow with the pole of combat,” either against something resonant, or against the door of the castle. I have come across at least one allusion to it in the Fenian literature. In the story, called Macaoṁ mór mac riġ na h-Earpáine (the great man, the king of Spain’s son), the great man and Oscar fight all day, and when evening comes Oscar grows faint and asks for a truce, and then takes Finn Mac Cool aside privately and desires him to try to keep the great man awake all night, while he himself sleeps; because he feels that if the great man, who had been already three days and nights without rest, were to get some sleep on this night, he himself would not be a match for him next morning. This is scarcely agreeable to the character of Oscar, but the wiles which Finn employs to make the great man relate to him his whole history, and so keep him from sleeping, are very much in keeping with the shrewdness which all these stories attribute to the Fenian king. The great man remains awake all night, sorely against his will, telling Finn his extraordinary adventures; and whenever he tries to stop, Finn incites him to begin again, and at last tells him not to be afraid, because the Fenians never ask combat of any man until he ask it of them first. At last, as the great man finished his adventures do ḃí an lá ag éiriġe agus do ġaḃar Osgar agus do ḃuail an cuaille cóṁpaic. Do ċuala an fear mór sin agus a duḃairt, “A Finn Ṁic Cúṁail,” ar sé, “d’ḟeallair orm,” etc. _i.e._, the day was rising, and Oscar goes and struck (the word is not “drew” here) the pole of combat. The great man heard that, and he said, “Oh, Finn Mac Cool, you have deceived me,” etc. Considering that they were all inside of Finn’s palace at Allan (co. Kildare) at this time, Oscar could hardly have struck the door. It is more probable that the pole of combat stood outside the house, and it seems to have been a regular institution. In Campbell’s tale of “The Rider of Grianag,” there is mention made of a _slabhraidh comhrac_, “Chain of combat,” which answers the same purpose as the pole, only not so conveniently, since the hero has to give it several hauls before he can “take a turn out of it.” We find allusion to the same thing in the tale of Iollan arm Dearg. Illan, the hero, comes to a castle in a solitude, and surprises a woman going to the well, and she points out to him the chain, and says, “Gaċ uair ċroiṫfeas tu an slaḃra sin ar an mbile, do ġeoḃaiḋ tu ceud curaḋ caṫ-armaċ, agus ni iarrfaid ort aċt an cóṁrac is áil leat, mar atá diar no triúr no ceaṫrar, no ceud,” _i.e._, “every time that you will shake yon chain (suspended) out of the tree, you will get (call forth) a hundred champions battle-armed, and they will only ask of thee the combat thou likest thyself, that is (combat with) two, or three, or four, or a hundred.” Chains are continually mentioned in Irish stories. In the “Little Fort of Allan,” a Fenian story, we read, Ann sin d’éiriġ bollsgaire go bioṫ-urlaṁ agus do ċroiṫ slaḃra éisteaċta na bruiġne, agus d’éisteadar uile go foirtineaċ, _i.e._, “then there arose a herald with active readiness, and they shook the fort’s chain of listening, and they all listened attentively;” and in the tale of “Illan, the Red-armed,” there are three chains in the palace, one of gold, one of silver, and one of findrinny (a kind of metal, perhaps bronze), which are shaken to seat the people at the banquet, and to secure their silence; but whoever spake after the gold chain had been shaken did it on pain of his head.

[In the story of Cuchullain’s youthful feats it is related that, on his first expedition, he came to the court of the three Mac Nechtain, and, according to O’Curry’s Summary (“Manners and Customs,” II., p. 366), “sounded a challenge.” The mode of this sounding is thus described by Prof. Zimmer, in his excellent summary of the _Tain bo Cualgne_ (Zeit, f. vgl., Sprachforschung, 1887, p. 448): “On the lawn before the court stood a stone pillar, around which was a closed chain (or ring), upon which was written in Ogham, that every knight who passed thereby was bound, upon his knightly honour, to issue a challenge. Cuchullain took the stone pillar and threw it into a brook hard by.” This is the nearest analogue I have been able to find to our passage in the old Irish literature (the _Tain_, it should be mentioned, goes back in its present form certainly to the tenth, and, probably, to the seventh century). As many of the Fenian romances assumed a fresh and quasi-definite shape in the twelfth-fourteenth centuries, it is natural to turn for a parallel to the mediæval romances of chivalry. In a twelfth century French romance, the Conte de Graal, which is in some way connected with the body of Gaelic Märchen (whether the connection be, as I think, due to the fact that the French poet worked up lays derived from Celtic sources, or, as Professor Zimmer thinks, that the French romances are the origin of much in current Gaelic folk-tales), when Perceval comes to the Castle of Maidens and enters therein, he finds a table of brass, and hanging from it by a chain of silver, a steel hammer. With this he strikes three blows on the table, and forces the inmates to come to him. Had they not done so the castle would have fallen into ruins. Other parallels from the same romances are less close; thus, when Perceval came to the castle of his enemy, Partinal, he defies him by throwing down his shield, which hangs up on a tree outside the castle (v. 44,400, _et seq._). It is well known that the recognised method of challenging in tournaments was for the challenger to touch his adversary’s shield with the lance. This may possibly be the origin of the “shield-clashing” challenge which occurs several times in Conall Gulban; or, on the other hand, the mediæval practice may be a knightly transformation of an earlier custom. In the thirteenth century prose Perceval le Gallois, when the hero comes to the Turning Castle and finds the door shut, he strikes such a blow with his sword that it enters three inches deep into a marble pillar (Potvin’s edition, p. 196). These mediæval instances do not seem sufficient to explain the incident in our text, and I incline to think that our tale has preserved a genuine trait of old Irish knightly life. In Kennedy’s “Jack the Master, and Jack the Servant” (Fictions, p. 32), the hero takes hold of a “club that hangs by the door ”and uses it as a knocker.—A.N.]