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Unforgotten Classics
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales
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Dr. Corbett, Bishop of Oxford and Norwich, lamented long ago the departure of the English fairies. "In Queen Mary's time" he wrote—
"When Tom came home from labour,Or Cis to milking rose,Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,And merrily went their toes."
But now, in the times of James, they had all gone, for "they were of the old profession," and "their songs were Ave Maries." In Ireland they are still extant, giving gifts to the kindly, and plaguing the surly. "Have you ever seen a fairy or such like?" I asked an old man in County Sligo. "Amn't I annoyed with them," was the answer. "Do the fishermen along here know anything of the mermaids?" I asked a woman of a village in County Dublin. "Indeed, they don't like to see them at all," she answered, "for they always bring bad weather." "Here is a man who believes in ghosts," said a foreign sea-captain, pointing to a pilot of my acquaintance. "In every house over there," said the pilot, pointing to his native village of Rosses, "there are several." Certainly that now old and much respected dogmatist, the Spirit of the Age, has in no manner made his voice heard down there. In a little while, for he has gotten a consumptive appearance of late, he will be covered over decently in his grave, and another will grow, old and much respected, in his place, and never be heard of down there, and after him another and another and another. Indeed, it is a question whether any of these personages will ever be heard of outside the newspaper offices and lecture-rooms and drawing-rooms and eel-pie houses of the cities, or if the Spirit of the Age is at any time more than a froth. At any rate, whole troops of their like will not change the Celt much. Giraldus Cambrensis found the people of the western islands a trifle paganish. "How many gods are there?" asked a priest, a little while ago, of a man from the Island of Innistor. "There is one on Innistor; but this seems a big place," said the man, and the priest held up his hands in horror, as Giraldus had, just seven centuries before. Remember, I am not blaming the man; it is very much better to believe in a number of gods than in none at all, or to think there is only one, but that he is a little sentimental and impracticable, and not constructed for the nineteenth century. The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much—indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are averse to sitting down to dine thirteen at table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, or seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tail. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, though even a newspaper man, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for every one is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt is a visionary without scratching.
CONTENTS (excerpt):
THE TROOPING FAIRIES
The Fairies
Frank Martin and the Fairies
The Priest's Supper
The Fairy Well of Lagnanay
Teig O'Kane and the Corpse
Paddy Corcoran's Wife
Cusheen Loo
The White Trout; A Legend of Cong
The Fairy Thorn
The Legend of Knockgrafton
A Donegal Fairy
Changelings
The Brewery of Egg-shells
The Fairy Nurse
Jamie Freel and the Young Lady
The Stolen Child
The Merrow
The Soul Cages
Flory Cantillon's Funeral
THE SOLITARY FAIRIES
The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker
Master and Man
Far Darrig in Donegal
The Piper and the Puca
Daniel O'Rourke
The Kildare Pooka
How Thomas Connolly met the Banshee
A Lamentation for the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald
The Banshee of the MacCarthys
GHOSTS
A Dream
Grace Connor
A Legend of Tyrone
The Black Lamb
The Radiant Boy
The Fate of Frank M'Kenna
WITCHES, FAIRY DOCTORS
Bewitched Butter (Donegal)
A Queen's County Witch
The Witch Hare
Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)
The Horned Women
The Witches' Excursion
The Confessions of Tom Bourke
The Pudding Bewitched
T'YEER-NA-N-OGE
The Legend of O'Donoghue
Rent-Day
Loughleagh (Lake of Healing)
Hy-Brasail.—The Isle of the Blest
The Phantom Isle
SAINTS, PRIESTS
The Priest's Soul
The Priest of Coloony
The Story of the Little Bird
Conversion of King Laoghaire's Daughters
King O'Toole and his Goose
THE DEVIL
The Demon Cat
"When Tom came home from labour,Or Cis to milking rose,Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,And merrily went their toes."
But now, in the times of James, they had all gone, for "they were of the old profession," and "their songs were Ave Maries." In Ireland they are still extant, giving gifts to the kindly, and plaguing the surly. "Have you ever seen a fairy or such like?" I asked an old man in County Sligo. "Amn't I annoyed with them," was the answer. "Do the fishermen along here know anything of the mermaids?" I asked a woman of a village in County Dublin. "Indeed, they don't like to see them at all," she answered, "for they always bring bad weather." "Here is a man who believes in ghosts," said a foreign sea-captain, pointing to a pilot of my acquaintance. "In every house over there," said the pilot, pointing to his native village of Rosses, "there are several." Certainly that now old and much respected dogmatist, the Spirit of the Age, has in no manner made his voice heard down there. In a little while, for he has gotten a consumptive appearance of late, he will be covered over decently in his grave, and another will grow, old and much respected, in his place, and never be heard of down there, and after him another and another and another. Indeed, it is a question whether any of these personages will ever be heard of outside the newspaper offices and lecture-rooms and drawing-rooms and eel-pie houses of the cities, or if the Spirit of the Age is at any time more than a froth. At any rate, whole troops of their like will not change the Celt much. Giraldus Cambrensis found the people of the western islands a trifle paganish. "How many gods are there?" asked a priest, a little while ago, of a man from the Island of Innistor. "There is one on Innistor; but this seems a big place," said the man, and the priest held up his hands in horror, as Giraldus had, just seven centuries before. Remember, I am not blaming the man; it is very much better to believe in a number of gods than in none at all, or to think there is only one, but that he is a little sentimental and impracticable, and not constructed for the nineteenth century. The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much—indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are averse to sitting down to dine thirteen at table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, or seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tail. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, though even a newspaper man, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for every one is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt is a visionary without scratching.
CONTENTS (excerpt):
THE TROOPING FAIRIES
The Fairies
Frank Martin and the Fairies
The Priest's Supper
The Fairy Well of Lagnanay
Teig O'Kane and the Corpse
Paddy Corcoran's Wife
Cusheen Loo
The White Trout; A Legend of Cong
The Fairy Thorn
The Legend of Knockgrafton
A Donegal Fairy
Changelings
The Brewery of Egg-shells
The Fairy Nurse
Jamie Freel and the Young Lady
The Stolen Child
The Merrow
The Soul Cages
Flory Cantillon's Funeral
THE SOLITARY FAIRIES
The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker
Master and Man
Far Darrig in Donegal
The Piper and the Puca
Daniel O'Rourke
The Kildare Pooka
How Thomas Connolly met the Banshee
A Lamentation for the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald
The Banshee of the MacCarthys
GHOSTS
A Dream
Grace Connor
A Legend of Tyrone
The Black Lamb
The Radiant Boy
The Fate of Frank M'Kenna
WITCHES, FAIRY DOCTORS
Bewitched Butter (Donegal)
A Queen's County Witch
The Witch Hare
Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)
The Horned Women
The Witches' Excursion
The Confessions of Tom Bourke
The Pudding Bewitched
T'YEER-NA-N-OGE
The Legend of O'Donoghue
Rent-Day
Loughleagh (Lake of Healing)
Hy-Brasail.—The Isle of the Blest
The Phantom Isle
SAINTS, PRIESTS
The Priest's Soul
The Priest of Coloony
The Story of the Little Bird
Conversion of King Laoghaire's Daughters
King O'Toole and his Goose
THE DEVIL
The Demon Cat
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