Chapter I: Introduction

Many of the stories in this volume were told by an old man who said he had more and better learning nor the scholars. "The like of them," he declared, "do be filled with conceit out of books, and the most of it only nonsense; 'tis myself has the real old knowledge was handed down from the ancient times." The spread of education and cheap literature robbed him of audience: the boys read of adventure by land and sea, the girls interested themselves in the fate of heroes with marble-white complexion and coal-black moustache. But it happened that the old man took a contract to break stones for lime, and a child with an insatiable desire for information came to watch him at work. "I promise you will walk the world, like a Queen of ancient days, renowned for learning and wit," he assured her, delighted to find a listener at last. The child was only seven years old, and could not remember all she heard, so most of his lore died with him.

"The King's Daughter of France," "The Dark Oath," and "Nallagh's Child" were told by other friends.

The Folk Tale is essentially dramatic and loses much when it is written down; moreover it is often put into a form unsuited to the spirit of naïve philosophy from whence it springs. The peasant of ancient race is more akin to the aristocratic type than the bourgeois can ever be--and the story told from generation to generation bears greater resemblance to the work of a poet than to that of the popular novelist, who is the bourgeois of literature. Superstition in a race is merely the proof of imagination, the people lacking fairy lore must also lack intelligence and wit.

B. HUNT.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. The King's Daughter of France 1
II. The Cow of a Widow of Breffny 13
III. Kate Ellen's Wake 21
IV. The Dark Oath 29
V. Fairy Gold 37
VI. M'Carthy of Connacht 45
VII. Nallagh's Child 65
VIII. The Enchanted Hare 73
IX. The Bridge of the Kist 81
X. The Child and the Fiddle 89
XI. The Cutting of the Tree 97
XII. The Little Settlement 105
XIII. The Tillage in the Fort 115
XIV. The New Deck of Cards 121
XV. The Lifting of a Child 127
XVI. The Voice at the Door 135
XVII. The Earl's Son of the Sea 143
XVIII. The Girl and the Fairies 153
XIX. Good-night, my Brave Michael 159
XX. The Lad and the Old Lassie's Song 165
XXI. The Basket of Eggs 169
XXII. The Broken Branch 175
XXIII. Digging for Gold 179
XXIV. Story of a Churn 183
XXV. The Gankeynogue in the Oak Chest 187
XXVI. The Maker of Brogues 193

Glossary 197