_Source_.--From Dr. Douglas Hyde's _Beside the Fire_, 104-28, where it
is a translation from the same author's _Leabhar Sgeulaighteachta_. Dr
Hyde got it from one Shamus O'Hart, a gamekeeper of Frenchpark. One is
curious to know how far the very beautiful landscapes in the story are
due to Dr. Hyde, who confesses to have only taken notes. I have omitted
a journey to Rome, paralleled, as Mr. Nutt has pointed out, by the
similar one of Michael Scott (_Waifs and Strays_, i. 46), and not
bearing on the main lines of the story. I have also dropped a part of
Guleesh's name: in the original he is "Guleesh na guss dhu," Guleesh of
the black feet, because he never washed them; nothing turns on this in
the present form of the story, but one cannot but suspect it was of
importance in the original form.
_Parallels_.--Dr. Hyde refers to two short stories, "Midnight Ride" (to
Rome) and "Stolen Bride," in Lady Wilde's _Ancient Legends_. But the
closest parallel is given by Miss Maclintock's Donegal tale of "Jamie
Freel and the Young Lady," reprinted in Mr. Yeats' _Irish Folk and
Fairy Tales_, 52-9. In the _Hibernian Tales_, "Mann o' Malaghan and the
Fairies," as reported by Thackeray in the _Irish Sketch-Book_, c. xvi.,
begins like "Guleesh."