Irish Folk and Fairy Tales

by Gordon Jarvie

  He hung his cloak from the first twig he met in the green, green grass, and it rose to be a pillar, and the cloak spread to be a tent. He threw his fine-spun napkin upon the flowers, and it was covered with food and drinks. He ate his supper, and he took his rest.

  But the people of the first mansion had put a sleeping-potion in the drink, and it was long that Kian remained in slumber. All the morning he slept; and the noonday sun saw him sleeping, and the rising moon that night. But just before the midnight he awoke, for he seemed to hear his young sister calling upon him to haste, haste, haste. He ran out in the moonlight, and saw the Well shining, and the magic cluster swaying from the bough.

  ‘It is my time now,’ said he.

  He stood beside the water, and there was the shimmering salmon, with upturned eye, below. But while he waited, all of a sudden, from the tent behind him came the most woeful crying he had ever heard. He thought it was the voice of his mother, and he turned his head. And then, he heard a splash in the water of the Well of Enchantment. The crying ceased as soon as it began. It was a high, wild cry of laughter he caught, like the wind at night when the tempest is out. And the waters of the Well began to rise in a rosy surge, and there was no cluster hanging to its own shadow, but a fruitless bough.

  ‘Now, ill-luck is upon me!’ said Kian, the boy.

  The water sank, and the Salmon of Knowledge swam through the seas of the round, rolling world. The boy sat down by the brink, and covered his head with his mantle, lest any eye might discern his tears. And as he was thus, a deep sleep fell upon him, like to death itself. Then the people of the coloured mansion, and the sea-folks of the palace of Manannan came round him, and they put a grey flagstone over him, and left him by the Well.

  November eve came and went, and the mother of Kian was looking for his return, but he never came. ‘I had a bad dream concerning him,’ said the little sister, Fedelm.

  The mother sent for the wise woman on the hill.

  ‘Some mishap has befallen,’ said Dechtera. ‘I do not know what you had best do now, except you send the third brother to help him. But you must wait for next May-eve.’

  The woman of the house made lament and moan. ‘All for a fool has this trouble fallen,’ said she. She drove the eldest boy from her presence, and made him sit with the servants. But little Fedelm wept until, for peace sake, the mother had to let him back to his own place. The poor boy that could not learn was filled with shame.

  In due season, came again the time of Beltaine, the eve of witchery. Lugaid, the third of the brothers, went forth, in his loneness. He heard the fairy talk in the wind, and saw, among the dew, the silver track of the feet of Queens from the Raths. He stepped upon the lough shore, and the gates of glass stood open, and he went through. Not gleefully he went, but against his will, for he cared for no person in the world but himself – neither for the shame of the fool, nor for the lost, bright boy, nor for the sorrow of his mother. But he said to himself, ‘Bad is it that I must go upon this search. But worse it will be if I stay at home, for our house is full of weeping and misery, and there is no comfort to be had in it.’

  He was walking crystal streets and roads until he came to the Country-under-Wave, in like manner to his brother. He beheld the bowers and the flowers, the mist of light upon the mountains. He saw the coloured house, and the noble people in their beauty.

  They came to him. ‘A hundred welcomes before you!’ said they. He was too fond of his own comfort to doff his head-dress to them.

  ‘In a strange country, no stranger goes without supper,’ he said.

  The people whispered among themselves. They said then, ‘If you had not asked it, it would have been given to you.’ They brought him within the palace, and gave him his supper, full and plenty of all kinds. They kept him there that night.

  When morning was come, and the crowing of cocks, and a red sun rising, he said to them, ‘Is it far to the Well of Enchantment?’

  ‘It will take you nigh a season to find it,’ said they to him. He sighed at that, and the lord of the mansion took pity upon him. He gave him a fine-spun napkin, and told him it would be spread with breakfast, dinner and supper for him, as long as he remained in that place. The lad bade them joy, and went off whistling. He did not doff his head-dress to the women, and he going.

  The noble people were angry. ‘A churl this is, no lie,’ they said. ‘Well, he is not in our power today, but that will be mended another day.’

  Lugaid went up and down that country. He came to the shore, and the ribbed, yellow sands, and the waves that made music in their plash and fall. The steeds of Manannan Mac Lir raced upon the sea. His chariots glistened; his people were there, in glinting, sheeny garments, all changing from green to blue, and from blue to green again.

  It was nightfall when the lad beheld them, and no light was abroad but the light from the star on the brow of every one of these strange sea-people. One of them came to him. ‘You will be in want of shelter tonight?’ she said. The boy had been sleeping in dry places under hedges and southern banks. He felt he would like better the comfort of a bed.

  ‘Shelter is a good thing to a tired person, and the night to be at hand,’ he answered. She brought him with her into the palace among the rocks. He sat on a couch made of the down of sea swans; he drank out of a cup that was speckled with great emeralds as the grass of a May morning with beads of dew.

  There was reciting of hero-tales, and harping and piping, after the banquet. The lad, Lugaid, was heavy with sleep. He let his head fall down, and snored.

  ‘O, ’tis a churl we have here!’ cried the people of Manannan. ‘Throw him out with the calves in the byre!’

  The fair woman who had spoken first with the boy, took his part. ‘Long travel he has put behind him,’ said she, ‘and in the shelter of a house he has not slept for nights upon nights.’ They let him be, then, until it was morning.

  When the morn of the morrow came, the sea-folks gave him the little cloak. ‘A tent it will be for you when you need it,’ said they.

  It was a little grey thing, mean to look at. The lad did not believe in the power of the sea-people. He took the cloak and threw it upon his back, and went away, swaggering, and making faces at them over his shoulder. But as he went, he heard them all begin to talk together, and their voices were like the rising of the far tide. ‘It is not in our power to harm him, now,’ they were saying, ‘but that will be amended another day.’

  The young lad abode in that Country-under-Wave until Samhain. Everywhere he went, he kept his eyes open for a sight of his brother. But he asked no questions of anybody. In due time he found the deep forest, and the dark Well, the hazels and the ruddy fruit, leaning to its own shadow.

  It was sunset on the eve of Samhain. The boy sat down on the ground, near an old grey flagstone. He spread the napkin out, and there was an abundance both of food and drink upon it, at that. He ate and drank.

  But the people of the coloured house had put a sleeping-potion into the drink, for on this eve they had power to work spells and charms against mortals. The boy drank then, and a heavy slumber fell upon him, and he was there lying in the dew until midnight drew nigh.

  He heard in his sleep the voice of his sister, Fedelm. ‘O, haste, haste, haste!’ said the voice. He rose and ran to the Well of Enchantment. The rosy cluster was loosening from the bough. Lugaid, the boy, stretched his hand, and his eye caught the silver gleam of the Salmon of Knowledge below in the water of the Well. But a gust of hollow wind sprang up, all at once, and blew the leaves of the magic hazels into his eyes. Then he heard the fall of the fruit upon the water, and the crimson surge swelled up with little dim noises, and the Salmon ate the nuts, and swam away through the seas of the round, rolling world.

  The deep death-trance fell upon Lugaid. He dropped down beside the Well. The sea-folks, and the people of the coloured mansion came, and put a grey flagstone over him and left him by his brother.

  The mother waited for her boy’s return, but he did not ret
urn.

  ‘I saw him in my dream,’ said Fedelm, the girl. ‘I saw him, and he was in a trance of sleep.’

  The mother sent for Dechtera, the wise woman.

  ‘Lugaid has gone the way of Kian,’ said the poor mother. ‘What will I be doing now, with no son left me but a fool?’

  ‘Send the daughter after them,’ said Dechtera.

  ‘I will not send the daughter,’ said the woman of the house. She kissed and embraced the child, and said that she would not part with her. The boy that could not learn said he would not part with her. The mother blessed him for that, and put him into his own proper place at the head of his father’s table. There was peace and sorrow among them until it was May-eve again.

  ‘I will go to my rest early tonight,’ said Fedelm, the girl.

  They did not know what she had in her mind to do. They let her away to her little bower, to her rest. But she wound a silken curtain about the bedpost, and let herself down through the window. She went over the bawn-wall in the light of the moon, and heard the fairy-women singing in the wind, and saw the glimmer of fairy feet dancing over the honey-dew.

  She went in her loneness to the lough shore, and the gates of glass stood open. She took a quick breath, and leaped through, and travelled the crystal highways and glassy roads until she came to the Country-under-Wave.

  She found the lovely meads, thick-set with blossoms and the embowering trees. She saw the mountain mist, like silver fleeces spread far and thin. She fared to the coloured mansion with its golden pillars, and met the wise people of that house.

  ‘A hundred welcomes before you, fair maid!’ said they to her.

  ‘A hundred tears are falling after me,’ said Fedelm.

  They brought her within, and laid choice foods before her. She ate a little honey and bread, and no more. She asked them to tell her the road to the Well of Enchantment.

  ‘It is more than a month’s journey from here,’ said they.

  She rose up then, and said she must be on her way though the night was falling. But they begged her, and craved of her to remain in their company that night, since there was now nothing to be seen by the Well but hazels with rosy buds upon them. She waited, then, that night.

  In the morning they said to her, ‘Here is a napkin. Whenever you are hungry or thirsty spread it on the ground, and it shall hold itself full of food and drink.’

  Fedelm took it, and made them a curtsy. ‘Is there anything I may do for ye, in return for this gift,’ said she.

  ‘Teach a boy to speak truth,’ said the lord of the mansion. ‘You will not see us again.’

  The girl went her way. She fared north and south. She fared east and west. She came to the green-billowed, foam-ridged, hollow sea. The waves were making a melodious, wandering music. The seahorses pawed the floor of the ocean, and tossed the surf of the high, towering tide.

  Manannan and his people were in their chariots, racing and riding on the watery meads. Little Fedelm stood watching them, and the evening fell, and she was so entranced that she forgot to eat or drink.

  Then a fair radiant woman came to her, over the seas. She was more lustrous than the evening star when it hangs over the new moon in a twilight blue sky.

  ‘I saw a face like this before,’ said she. ‘And I saw such clear bright eyes. Who will this little mortal maiden be?’ And she stood before Fedelm, and looked her up and down.

  ‘A maiden on a sad quest,’ said the girl. ‘The dauther of a sad mother; the sister of a sad brother.’ Her tears fell, and left her eyes more clear and bright again. The majestic women brought her into the sea palace. They made her remain with them for that night. There was music and singing, and they asked her if the same was pleasing. She answered, ‘If one were in mournful mood that harping and those singing voices would be enough to make him forget his sadness, though it were the whole world’s burden should be upon him.’

  ‘A well-spoken maiden,’ said the sea-folks among themselves.

  On the morn of the morrow, they gave her the small grey cloak, and knowledge of the use of it.

  ‘What shall I do to repay you for this gift?’ said Fedelm, curtsying before them.

  ‘Teach a churl fine manners,’ said the sea-folks. ‘This is our first and last meeting.’

  The girl was in the Country-under-Wave until November eve. She found the dim ever-murmuring wood, and the dark deep Well of Enchantment, and the Magic Hazels. The cluster was scarlet-red, swaying above its shadow in the water. The two grey flagstones were beside. The girl looked at the first of them. It had a streak of moss down the middle of the top.

  ‘That puts me in mind of the curl on the white forehead of Kian, my brother,’ said the maid. ‘But it was hair brighter than gold, and this is the old green moss on the old grey flagstone.’

  She went wandering about the lone place, and stood by the second flagstone. There was a score down the middle of the top.

  ‘That, moreover, puts me in mind of my brother, Lugaid, and the frown he used to have on his brow, a furrow of discontent,’ said she, musing. ‘But what is this but an old grey stone, and he had a brow fairer than snow.’

  After that, the evening fell, and all the murmuring, whispering wind of the woods went into a strange silence. And soon the moon rose, round as an apple, and the stars came out, twinkling and beaming over the dew.

  Fedelm ate her supper off the magic napkin, and rested a while beneath the enchanted cloak. She was weary. A sleep fell upon her. But in the slumber she seemed to hear faint voices crying and calling. It went to her heart to hear them, for she knew them as the voices of her two lost brothers. She came to herself at the sound. It was the people of the coloured house made her hear the voices. She walked out upon the brink of the Well of Enchantment.

  ‘I discern a creaking in that bough,’ she said. If it had not been that the forest was full of silence, she would not have heard it; but this was the work of the sea-folks, to lay a spell of silence on the leaves, that the girl might know the hour was at hand.

  It drew near the midnight, and Fedelm stood upon the brink of the Well, and watched the swaying of the bough, and the magic cluster, crimson-red. She saw below her in the wave a great silver salmon, waiting, with upturned eye. And then, the bough creaked, the stalk snapped, and the nuts, shining like fiery rubies, came dropping down upon the water. But the magic cluster never reached the wave, for Fedelm’s little fingers seized it as it fell.

  The moment the nuts were in her hand she knew all things. She knew the flagstone with the streak of moss upon it was her dear brother, Kian, who had told a lie to the people of the coloured mansion. She knew the flagstone with the furrow was Lugaid, the churlish, selfish brother. And she knew how to break the spell upon the one and the other by shaking the water of the Well of Enchantment over them from her little kind hand.

  She did that, and they came into their right shapes, and embraced her, and laughed and cried. She led them out by the crystal waterways and roadways, and the gates of glass. They all went back to their mother’s house, and great was the welcome they got there.

  And the boy that could not learn, he ate the Nuts of Knowledge. From that day, he knew all things, the talking of the wind and the whisper of the reeds and rushes, the call of birds, and the cry of beasts, and there was nothing in the whole wide world hidden from him after that day.

  ‘Edain the Queen’ by Lady Wilde

  Now it happened that the King of Munster one day saw a beautiful girl bathing, and he loved her and made her his queen. And in all the land was no woman so lovely to look upon as the fair Edain. And the fame of her beauty came to the ears of the great and powerful chief and king of the Tuatha-de-Danann, Midar by name. So he disguised himself and went to the court of the King of Munster as a wandering bard that he might look on the beauty of Edain. And he challenged the king to a game of chess.

  ‘Who is this man that I should play chess with him?’ said the king.

  ‘Try me,’ said the stranger. ‘You will find me a
worthy foe.’

  Then the king said, ‘But the chessboard is in the queen’s apartment, and I cannot disturb her.’

  However, when the queen heard that a stranger had challenged the king to chess, she sent her page in with the chessboard and then came herself to greet the stranger. And Midar was so dazzled with her beauty that he could not speak, he could only gaze on her. And the queen also seemed troubled, and after a time she left them alone.

  ‘Now, what shall we play for?’ asked the king.

  ‘Let the conquerer name the reward,’ answered the stranger, ‘and whatever he desires let it be granted to him.’

  ‘Agreed,’ replied the monarch.

  Then they played the game and the stranger won.

  ‘What is your demand now?’ cried the king. ‘I have given my word that whatever you name shall be yours.’

  ‘I demand the Lady Edain, the queen, as my reward,’ replied the stranger. ‘But I shall not ask you to give her up to me till this day year.’ And the stranger departed.

  Now the king was utterly perplexed and confounded, but he took good note of the time and, on that night just a twelvemonth after, he made a great feast at Tara for all the princes, and he placed three lines of his chosen warriors all round the palace, and forbade any stranger to enter on pain of death. So all being secure, as he thought, he took his place at the feast with the beautiful Edain beside him, all glittering with jewels and a golden crown on her head, and the revelry went on till midnight. Just then, to his horror, the king looked up, and there stood the stranger in the middle of the hall, but no one seemed to perceive him save only the king. He fixed his eyes on the queen, and coming towards her, he struck the golden harp he had in his hand and sang in a low sweet voice:

  ‘O Edain, will you come with me