'There sings a bonnie linnet
Up the heather glen;
The voice has magic in it
Too sweet for mortal men!
Sing O, the blooming heather,
O, the heather glen!
Where fairest fairies gather
To lure in mortal men.'
Carrig-a-fooka Inn, near Knockma,
On the shores of Lough Corrib.
A modern Irish poet [*] says something that Francesca has quoted to Ronald
in her letter to-day, and we await from Scotland his confirmation or
denial. He accuses the Scots of having discovered the fairies to be
pagan and wicked, and of denouncing them from the pulpits, whereas Irish
priests discuss with them the state of their souls; or at least they
did, until it was decided that they had none, but would dry up like so
much bright vapour at the last day. It was more in sadness than in anger
that the priests announced this fiat; for Irish sprites and goblins do
gay, graceful, and humorous things, for the most part, tricksy sins,
not deserving annihilation, whereas Scottish fays are sometimes
malevolent,--or so says the Irish poet.
* W. B. Yeats.
This is very sad, no doubt, but it does not begin to be as sad as
having no fairies at all. There must have been a few in England in
Shakespeare's time, or he could never have written The Tempest or the
Midsummer Night's Dream; but where have they vanished?
As for us in America, I fear that we never have had any 'wee folk.' The
Indians had their woodland spirits, spirits of rocks, trees, mountains,
star and moon maidens; the negroes had their enchanted animals and
conjure men; but as for real wee folk, either they were not indigenous
to the soil or else we unconsciously drove them away. Yet we had
facilities to offer! The columbines, harebells, and fringed gentians
would have been just as cosy and secluded places to live in as the Irish
foxgloves, which are simply running over with fairies. Perhaps they
wouldn't have liked our cold winters; still it must have been something
more than climate, and I am afraid I know the reason well--we are too
sensible; and if there is anything a fairy detests, it is common-sense.
We are too rich, also; and a second thing that a fairy abhors is the
chink of dollars. Perhaps, when I am again enjoying the advantages
brought about by sound money, commercial prosperity, and a magnificent
system of public education, I shall feel differently about it; but for
the moment I am just a bit embarrassed and crestfallen to belong to a
nation absolutely shunned by the fairies. If they had only settled among
us like other colonists, shaped us to their ends as far as they could,
and, when they couldn't, conformed themselves to ours, there might have
been, by this time, fairy trusts stretching out benign arms all over the
continent.
Of course it is an age of incredulity, but Salemina, Francesca, and I
have not come to Ireland to scoff, and whatever we do we shall not go
to the length of doubting the fairies; for, as Barney O'Mara says, 'they
stand to raison.'
Glen Ailna is a 'gentle' place near Carrig-a-fooka Inn--that is,
one beloved by the sheehogues; and though you may be never so much
interested, I may not tell you its exact whereabouts, since no one can
ever find it unless he is himself under the glamour. Perhaps you might
be a doubter, with no eyes for the 'dim kingdom'; perhaps you might gaze
for ever, and never be able to see a red-capped fiddler, fiddling
under a blossoming sloe bush. You might even see him, and then indulge
yourself in a fit of common-sense or doubt of your own eyes, in which
case the wee dancers would never flock to the sound of the fiddle or
gather on the fairy ring. This is the reason that I shall never take you
to Knockma, to Glen Ailna, or especially to the hyacinth wood, which is
a little plantation near the ruin of a fort. Just why the fairies are so
fond of an old rath or lis I cannot imagine, for you would never suppose
that antiquaries, archaeologists, and wee folk would care for the same
places.
I have no intention of interviewing the grander personages among the
Irish fairies, for they are known to be haughty, unapproachable, and
severe, as befits the descendants of the great Nature Gods and the
under-deities of flood and fell and angry sea. It is the lesser folk,
the gay, gracious, little men that I wish to meet; those who pipe and
dance on the fairy ring. The 'ring' is made, you know, by the tiny feet
that have tripped for ages and ages, flying, dancing, circling, over the
tender young grass. Rain cannot wash it away; you may walk over it; you
may even plough up the soil, and replant it ever so many times; the
next season the fairy ring shines in the grass just the same. It seems
strange that I am blind to it, when an ignorant, dirty spalpeen who
lives near the foot of Knockma has seen it and heard the fairy music
again and again. He took me to the very place where, last Lammas Eve,
he saw plainly--for there was a beautiful, white moon overhead--the
arch king and queen of the fairies, who appear only on state occasions,
together with a crowd of dancers, and more than a dozen pipers piping
melodious music. Not only that, but (lucky little beggar!) he heard
distinctly the fulparnee and the folpornee, the rap-lay-hoota and the
roolya-boolya--noises indicative of the very jolliest and wildest and
most uncommon form of fairy conviviality. Failing a glimpse of these
midsummer revels, my next choice would be to see the Elf Horseman
galloping round the shores of the Fairy Lough in the cool of the morn.
'Loughareema, Loughareema,
Stars come out and stars are hidin';
The wather whispers on the stones,
The flittherin' moths are free.
Onest before the mornin' light
The Horseman will come ridin'
Roun' an' roun' the Fairy Lough,
An' no one there to see.'
But there will be some one there, and that is the aforesaid Jamesy
Flanigan! Sometimes I think he is fibbing, but a glance at his soft,
dark, far-seeing eyes under their fringe of thick lashes convinces me to
the contrary. His field of vision is different from mine, that is all,
and he fears that if I accompany him to the shores of the Fairy Lough
the Horseman will not ride for him; so I am even taunted with undue
common-sense by a little Irish gossoon.
I tried to coax Benella to go with me to the hyacinth wood by moonlight.
Fairies detest a crowd, and I ought to have gone alone; but, to tell
the truth, I hardly dared, for they have a way of kidnapping attractive
ladies and keeping them for years in the dim kingdom. I would not trust
Himself at Glen Ailna for worlds, for gentlemen are not exempt from
danger. Connla of the Golden Hair was lured away by a fairy maiden, and
taken, in a 'gleaming, straight-gliding, strong, crystal canoe,' to her
domain in the hills; and Oisin, you remember, was transported to the
Land of the Ever Youthful by the beautiful Niam. If one could only be
sure of coming back! but Oisin, for instance, was detained three hundred
years, so one might not be allowed to return, and still worse, one
might not wish to; three hundred years of youth would tempt--a woman!
My opinion, after reading the Elf Errant, is that one of us has been
there--Moira O'Neill. I should suspect her of being able to wear a fairy
cap herself, were it not for the human heart-throb in her verses; but I
am sure she has the glamour whenever she desires it, and hears the fairy
pipes at will.
Benella is of different stuff; she not only distrusts fairies, but, like
the Scotch Presbyterians, she fears that they are wicked. “Still, you
say they haven't got immortal souls to save, and I don't suppose they're
responsible for their actions,” she allows; “but as for traipsing up to
those heathenish, haunted woods when all Christian folks are in bed, I
don't believe in it, and neither would Mr. Beresford; but if you're set
on it, I shall go with you!”
“You wouldn't be of the slightest use,” I answered severely; “indeed,
you'd be worse than nobody. The fairies cannot endure doubters; it
makes them fold their wings over their heads and shrink away into their
flowercups. I should be mortified beyond words if a fairy should meet me
in your company.”
Benella seemed hurt and a trifle resentful as she replied: “That about
doubters is just what Mrs. Kimberly used to say.” (Mrs. Kimberly is the
Salem priestess, the originator of the 'science.') “She couldn't talk a
mite if there was doubters in the hall; and it's so with spiritualists
and clairvoyants, too--they're all of 'em scare-cats. I guess likely
that those that's so afraid of being doubted has some good reason for
it!”
Well, I never went to the hyacinth wood by moonlight, since so many
objections were raised, but I did go once at noonday, the very most
unlikely hour of all the twenty-four, and yet--As I sat there beneath a
gnarled thorn, weary and warm with my climb, I looked into the heart of
a bluebell forest growing under a circle of gleaming silver birches,
and suddenly I heard fairy music--at least it was not mortal--and many
sounds were mingled in it: the sighing of birches, the carol of a lark,
the leap and laugh of a silvery runnel tumbling down the hillside, the
soft whir of butterflies' wings, and a sweet little over or under tone,
from the over or under world, that I took to be the opening of a million
hyacinth buds in the sunshine. Then I heard the delicious sound of
a fairy laugh, and, looking under a swaying branch of meadowsweet, I
saw--yes, I really saw--You must know that first a wee green door swung
open in the stem of the meadowsweet, and out of that land where you can
buy joy for a penny came a fairy in the usual red and green. I had the
Elf Errant in my lap, and I think that in itself made him feel more at
home with me, as well as the fact, perhaps, that for the moment I wasn't
a bit sensible and had no money about me. I was all ready with an
Irish salutation, for the purposes of further disarming his aversion. I
intended to say, as prettily as possible, though, alas! I cannot manage
the brogue, “And what way do I see you now?” or “Good-mornin' to yer
honour's honour!” But I was struck dumb by my good fortune at seeing him
at all. He looked at me once, and then, flinging up his arms, he gave a
weeny, weeny yawn! This was disconcerting, for people almost never yawn
in my company; and to make it worse, he kept on yawning, until, for very
sympathy, and not at all in the way of revenge, I yawned too. Then the
green door swung open again, and a gay rabble of wide-awake fairies came
trooping out: and some of them kissed the hyacinth bells to open them,
and some of them flew to the thorn-tree, until every little brancheen
was white with flowers, where but a moment ago had been tightly-closed
buds. The yawning fairy slept meanwhile under the swaying meadowsweet,
and the butterflies fanned him with their soft wings; but, alas! it
could not have been the hour for dancing on the fairy ring, nor the
proper time for the fairy pipers, and long, long as I looked I saw and
heard nothing more than what I have told you. Indeed, I presently lost
even that, for a bee buzzed, a white petal dropped from the thorn-tree
on my face, there was a scraping of tiny claws and the sound of two
squirrels barking love to each other in the high branches, and in that
moment the glamour that was upon me vanished in a twinkling.
“But I really did see the fairies!” I exclaimed triumphantly to Benella
the doubter, when I returned Carrig-a-fooka Inn, much too late for
luncheon.
“I want to know!” she exclaimed, in her New England vernacular. “I
guess by the looks o' your eyes they didn't turn out to be very lively
comp'ny!”
Part Fifth--Royal Meath.