Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry - Various

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I'll go away to Sleamish hill,

       I'll pluck the fairy hawthorn-tree,

       And let the spirits work their will;

       I care not if for good or ill,

       So they but lay the memory

       Which all my heart is haunting still!

       (Mournfully, sing mournfully)—

       The Fairies are a silent race,

       And pale as lily flowers to see;

       I care not for a blanched face,

       For wandering in a dreaming place,

       So I but banish memory:—

       I wish I were with Anna Grace!"

       Mournfully, sing mournfully!

      Hearken to my tale of woe—

       'Twas thus to weeping Ellen Con,

       Her sister said in accents low,

       Her only sister, Una bawn:

       'Twas in their bed before the dawn,

       And Ellen answered sad and slow—

       "Oh Una, Una, be not drawn

       (Hearken to my tale of woe)—

       To this unholy grief I pray,

       Which makes me sick at heart to know,

       And I will help you if I may:

       —The Fairy Well of Lagnanay—

       Lie nearer me, I tremble so—

       Una, I've heard wise women say

       (Hearken to my tale of woe)—

       That if before the dews arise,

       True maiden in its icy flow

       With pure hand bathe her bosom thrice,

       Three lady-brackens pluck likewise,

       And three times round the fountain go,

       She straight forgets her tears and sighs."

       Hearken to my tale of woe!

      All, alas! and well-away!

       "Oh, sister Ellen, sister sweet,

       Come with me to the hill I pray,

       And I will prove that blessed freet!"

       They rose with soft and silent feet,

       They left their mother where she lay,

       Their mother and her care discreet,

       (All, alas! and well-away!)

       And soon they reached the Fairy Well,

       The mountain's eye, clear, cold, and grey,

       Wide open in the dreary fell:

       How long they stood 'twere vain to tell,

       At last upon the point of day,

       Bawn Una bares her bosom's swell,

       (All, alas! and well-away!)

       Thrice o'er her shrinking breasts she laves

       The gliding glance that will not stay

       Of subtly-streaming fairy waves:—

       And now the charm three brackens craves,

       She plucks them in their fring'd array:—

       Now round the well her fate she braves,

       All, alas! and well-away!

      Save us all from Fairy thrall!

       Ellen sees her face the rim

       Twice and thrice, and that is all—

       Fount and hill and maiden swim

       All together melting dim!

       "Una! Una!" thou may'st call,

       Sister sad! but lith or limb

       (Save us all from Fairy thrall!)

       Never again of Una bawn,

       Where now she walks in dreamy hall,

       Shall eye of mortal look upon!

       Oh! can it be the guard was gone,

       The better guard than shield or wall?

       Who knows on earth save Jurlagh Daune?

       (Save us all from Fairy thrall!)

       Behold the banks are green and bare,

       No pit is here wherein to fall:

       Aye—at the fount you well may stare,

       But nought save pebbles smooth is there,

       And small straws twirling one and all.

       Hie thee home, and be thy pray'r,

       Save us all from Fairy thrall.

       CORPSE.[4]

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      [I found it hard to place Mr. Douglas Hyde's magnificent story. Among the ghosts or the fairies? It is among the fairies on the grounds that all these ghosts and bodies were in no manner ghosts and bodies, but pishogues—fairy spells. One often hears of these visions in Ireland. I have met a man who had lived a wild life like the man in the story, till a vision came to him in County—— one dark night—in no way so terrible a vision as this, but sufficient to change his whole character. He will not go out at night. If you speak to him suddenly he trembles. He has grown timid and strange. He went to the bishop and was sprinkled with holy water. "It may have come as a warning," said the bishop; "yet great theologians are of opinion that no man ever saw an apparition, for no man would survive it."—Ed.]

       There was once a grown-up lad in the County Leitrim, and he was strong and lively, and the son of a rich farmer. His father had plenty of money, and he did not spare it on the son. Accordingly, when the boy grew up he liked sport better than work, and, as his father had no other children, he loved this one so much that he allowed him to do in everything just as it pleased himself. He was very extravagant, and he used to scatter the gold money as another person would scatter the white. He was seldom to be found at home, but if there was a fair, or a race, or a gathering within ten miles of him, you were dead certain to find him there. And he seldom spent a night in his father's house, but he used to be always out rambling, and, like Shawn Bwee long ago, there was

      "grádh gach cailin i mbrollach a léine,"

      "the love of every girl in the breast of his shirt," and it's many's the kiss he got and he gave, for he was very handsome, and there wasn't a girl in the country but would fall in love with him, only for him to fasten his two eyes on her, and it was for that someone made this rann on him—

      "Feuch an rógaire 'g iarraidh póige,

       Ni h-iongantas mór é a bheith mar atá

       Ag leanamhaint a gcómhnuidhe d'árnán na gráineóige

       Anuas 's anios 's nna chodladh 'sa' lá."

      i.e.—"Look at the rogue, its for kisses he's rambling, It isn't much wonder, for that was his way; He's like an old hedgehog, at night he'll be scrambling From this place to that, but he'll sleep in the day."

      At last he became very wild and unruly. He wasn't to be seen day nor night in his father's house, but always rambling or going on his kailee

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