Fairy Tales of Ireland

by W. B. Yeats

  “Well, we had everything of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen – a lovely young couple they were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can’t remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place; only I did leave it, that’s certain.

  “Well, I thought, for all that, in myself, I’d just step to Molly Cronohan’s, the fairy woman, to speak a word about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyashenogh, and was looking up at the stars and blessing myself – for why? it was Lady-day – I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water. ‘Death alive!’ thought I, ‘I’ll be drowned now!’ However, I began swimming, swimming away for the dear life, till I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon a dissolute island.

  “I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as day, or your fair lady’s eyes, sir (with your pardon for mentioning her), and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog – I could never find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I was that it would be my berrin place.

  “So I sat down upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to scratch my head, and sing the Ullagone – when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of Kerry.

  “So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, ‘Daniel O’Rourke,’ says he, ‘how do you do?’

  “‘Very well, I thank you, sir,’ says I; ‘I hope you’re well;’ wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian.

  “‘What brings you here, Dan?’ says he.

  “‘Nothing at all, sir,’ says I; ‘only I wish I was safe home again.’

  “‘Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?’ says he.

  “‘’Tis, sir,’ says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog and did not know my way out of it.

  “‘Dan,’ says he, after a minute’s thought, ‘though it is very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, yet as you are a decent man sober, who ’tends mass well, and never fling stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields – my life for yours,’ says he; ‘so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you’d fall off, an I’ll fly you out of the bog.’

  “‘I am afraid,’ says I, ‘your honour’s making game of me; for who ever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?’

  “‘’Pon the honour of a gentleman,’ says he, putting his right foot on his breast, ‘I am quite in earnest: and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog – besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.’

  “It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute going from under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and this is fair persuadance.

  “‘I thank your honour,’ says I ‘for the loan of your civility; and I’ll take your kind offer.’ I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up – up – up, God knows how far up he flew.

  “‘Why then,’ said I to him – thinking he did not know the right road home – very civilly, because why? I was in his power entirely – ‘sir,’ says I, ‘please your honour’s glory, and with humble submission to your better judgement, if you’d fly down a bit, you’re now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your worship.’

  “‘Arrah, Dan,’ said he, ‘do you think me a fool? Look down in the next field, and don’t you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up off of a could stone in a bog.’

  “‘Bother you,’ said I to myself, but I did not speak out, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use.

  “‘Where in the world are you going, sir?’ says I to him.

  “‘Hold your tongue, Dan,’ says he: ‘mind your own business, and don’t be interfering with the business of other people.’

  “‘Faith, this is my business I think,’ says I.

  “‘Be quiet, Dan,’ says he: so I said no more.

  “At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you can’t see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon, this way (drawing the figure thus on the ground with the end of his stick).

  “‘Dan,’ said the eagle, ‘I’m tired with this long fly; I had no notion ’twas so far.’

  “‘And my lord, sir,’ said I, ‘who in the world axed you to fly so far – was it I? did not I beg and pray and beseech you to stop half an hour ago?’

  “‘There’s no use talking, Dan,’ said he; ‘I’m tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest myself.’

  “‘Is it sit down on the moon?’ said I; ‘is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I’d fall off in a minute, and be kilt and spilt, and smashed all to bits; you are a vile deceiver – so you are.’

  “‘Not at all, Dan,’ said he; ‘you can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that’s sticking out of the side of the moon, and ’twill keep you up.’

  “‘I won’t then,’ said I.

  “‘Maybe not,’ said he, quite quiet. ‘If you don’t, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage in the morning.’

  “‘Why, then, I’m in a fine way,’ said I to myself, ‘ever to have come along with the likes of you,’ and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he’d know what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon the moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that.

  “When he had me there fairly landed, he turned about on me, and said, ‘Good morning to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he; ‘I think I’ve nicked you fairly now. You robbed my nest last year’ (’twas true enough for him, but how he found out is hard to say), ‘and in return you are freely welcome to cool your heels dangling upon the moon like a cockthrow.’

  “‘Is that all, and is this the way you leave me, you brute, you?’ says I. ‘You ugly unnatural baste, and is this the way you serve me at last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook’d nose, and to all your breed, you blackguard.’

  “’Twas all to no manner of use; he spread out his great big wings, burst out a laughing, and flew away like lightning. I bawled after him to stop; but I might have called and bawled for ever, without his minding me. Away he went, and I never saw him from that day to this – sorrow fly away with him!

  “You may be sure I was in a disconsolate condition, and kept roaring out for the bare grief, when all at once a door opened right in the middle of the moon, creaking on its hinges as if it had not been opened for a month before, I suppose they never thought of greasing ’em, and out there walks – who do you think but the man in the moon himself? I knew him by his bush.

  “‘Good morrow to you, Daniel O’Rourke,’ said he; ‘how do you do?’

  “‘Very well, thank your honour,’ said I. ‘I hope your honour’s well.’

  “‘What brought you here, Dan?’ said he.

  “So I told him how I was a little overtaken i
n liquor at the master’s, and how I was cast on a dissolute island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle promised to fly me out of it, and how, instead of that, he had fled me up to the moon.

  “‘Dan,’ said the man in the moon, taking a pinch of snuff when I was done, ‘you must not stay here.’

  “‘Indeed, sir,’ says I, ‘’tis much against my will I’m here at all; but how am I to go back?’

  “‘That’s your business,’ said he; ‘Dan, mine is to tell you that here you must not stay; so be off in less than no time.’

  “‘I’m doing no harm,’ says I, ‘only holding on hard by the reaping-hook, lest I fall off.’

  “‘That’s what you must not do, Dan,’ says he.

  “‘Pray, sir,’ says I, ‘may I ask how many you are in family, that you would not give a poor traveller lodging: I’m sure ’tis not often you’re troubled with strangers coming to see you, for ’tis a long way.’

  “‘I’m by myself, Dan,’ says he; ‘but you’d better let go the reaping-hook.’

  “‘Faith, and with your leave,’ says I, ‘I’ll not let go the grip, and the more you bids me, the more I won’t let go; – so I will.’

  “‘You had better, Dan,’ says he again.

  “‘Why, then, my little fellow,’ says I, taking the whole weight of him with my eye from head to foot, ‘there are two words to that bargain; and I’ll not budge, but you may if you like.’

  “‘We’ll see how that is to be,’ says he; and back he went, giving the door such a great bang after him (for it was plain he was huffed) that I thought the moon and all would fall down with it.

  “Well, I was preparing myself to try strength with him, when back again he comes, with the kitchen cleaver in his hand, and, without saying a word, he gives two bangs to the handle of the reaping-hook that was keeping me up, and whap! it came in two.

  “‘Good morning to you, Dan,’ says the spiteful little old blackguard, when he saw me cleanly falling down with a bit of the handle in my hand; ‘I thank you for your visit, and fair weather after you, Daniel.’

  “I had not time to make any answer to him, for I was tumbling over and over, and rolling and rolling, at the rate of a fox-hunt. ‘God help me!’ says I, ‘but this is a pretty pickle for a decent man to be seen in at this time of night: I am now sold fairly.’

  “The word was not out of my mouth when whiz! what should fly by close to my ear but a flock of wild geese, all the way from my own bog of Ballyasheenogh, else how should they know me? The ould gander, who was their general, turning about his head, cried out to me, ‘Is that you, Dan?’

  “‘The same,’ said I, not a bit daunted now at what he said, for I was by this time used to all kinds of bedevilment, and, besides, I knew him of ould.

  “‘Good morrow to you,’ says he, ‘Daniel O’Rourke; how are you in health this morning?’

  “‘Very well, sir,’ says I, ‘I thank you kindly,’ drawing my breath, for I was mightily in want of some. ‘I hope your honour’s the same.’

  “‘I think ’tis falling you are, Daniel,’ says he.

  “‘You may say that, sir,’ says I.

  “‘And where are you going all the way so fast?’ said the gander.

  “So I told him how I had taken the drop, and how I came on the island, and how I lost my way in the bog, and how the thief of an eagle flew me up to the moon, and how the man in the moon turned me out.

  “‘Dan,’ said he, ‘I’ll save you: put out your hand and catch me by the leg, and I’ll fly you home.’

  “‘Sweet is your hand in a pitcher of honey, my jewel,’ says I, though all the time I thought within myself that I don’t much trust you; but there was no help, so I caught the gander by the leg, and away I and the other geese flew after him as fast as hops.

  “We flew, and we flew, and we flew, until we came right over the wide ocean. I knew it well, for I saw Cape Clear to my right hand, sticking up out of the water.

  “‘Ah, my lord,’ said I to the goose, for I thought it best to keep a civil tongue on my head anyway, ‘fly to land if you please.’

  “‘It is impossible, you see, Dan,’ said he, ‘for a while, because you see we are going to Arabia.’

  “‘To Arabia!’ said I; ‘that’s surely some place in foreign parts, far away. Oh! Mr Goose: why then, to be sure, I’m a man to be pitied among you.’

  “‘Whist, whist, you fool,’ said he, ‘hold your tongue; I tell you Arabia is a very decent sort of place, as like West Carbery as one egg is like another, only there is a little more sand there.’

  “Just as we were talking, a ship hove in sight, scudding so beautiful before the wind.

  “‘Ah! then, sir,’ said I, ‘will you drop me on the ship, if you please?’

  “‘We are not fair over it,’ said he; ‘if I dropped you now you would go splash into the sea.’

  “‘I would not,’ says I; ‘I know better than that, for it is just clean under us, so let me drop now at once.’

  “‘If you must, you must,’ said he; ‘there, take your own way;’ and he opened his claw, and faith he was right – sure enough I came down plump into the very bottom of the salt sea! Down to the very bottom I went, and I gave myself up then for ever, when a whale walked up to me, scratching himself after his night’s sleep, and he looked me full in the face, and never the word did he say, but lifting up his tail, he splashed me all over again with the cold salt water till there wasn’t a dry stitch upon my whole carcass! and I heard somebody saying – ’twas a voice I knew, too – ‘Get up you drunken brute, off o’ that;’ and with that I woke up, and there was Judy with a tub full of water, which she was splashing all over me – for, rest her soul! though she was a good wife, she never could bear to see me in drink, and had a bitter hand of her own.

  “‘Get up,’ said she again: ‘and of all places in the parish would no place sarve your turn to lie down upon but under the ould walls of Carrigapooka? an uneasy resting I am sure you had of it.’

  “And sure enough I had: for I was fairly bothered out of my senses with eagles, and men of the moons, and flying ganders, and whales, driving me through bogs, and up to the moon, and down to the bottom of the green ocean. If I was in drink ten times over, long would it be before I’d lie down in the same spot again, I know that.”

  Jack Dogherty lived on the coast of the county Clare. Jack was a fisherman, as his father and grandfather before him had been. Like them, too, he lived all alone (but for the wife), and just in the same spot. People used to wonder why the Dogherty family were so fond of that wild situation, so far away from all human kind, and in the midst of huge shattered rocks, with nothing but the wide ocean to look upon. But they had their own good reasons for it.

  The place was just the only spot on that part of the coast where anybody could well live. There was a neat little creek, where a boat might lie as snug as a puffin in her nest, and out from this creek a ledge of sunken rocks ran into the sea. Now when the Atlantic, according to custom, was raging with a storm, and a good westerly wind was blowing strong on the coast, many a richly-laden ship went to pieces on these rocks; and then the fine bales of cotton and tobacco, and such like things, and the pipes of wine and the puncheons of rum, and the casks of brandy, and the kegs of Hollands that used to come ashore! Dunbeg Bay was just like a little estate to the Doghertys.

  Not but they were kind and humane to a distressed sailor, if ever one had the good luck to get to land; and many a time indeed did Jack put out in his little corragh (which, though not quite equal to honest Andrew Hennessy’s canvas lifeboat would breast the billows like any gannet), to lend a hand towards bringing off the crew from a wreck. But when the ship had gone to pieces, and the crew were all lost, who would blame Jack for picking up all he could find?

  “And who is the worse of it?” said he. “For as to the king, God bless him! everybody knows he’s rich enough already without getting what’s floating in the sea.”

  Jack, though such a
hermit, was a good-natured, jolly fellow. No other, sure, could ever have coaxed Biddy Mahony to quit her father’s snug and warm house in the middle of the town of Ennis, and to go so many miles off to live among the rocks, with the seals and seagulls for next-door neighbours. But Biddy knew that Jack was the man for a woman who wished to be comfortable and happy; for to say nothing of the fish, Jack had the supplying of half the gentlemen’s houses of the country with the Godsends that came into the bay. And she was right in her choice; for no woman ate, drank, or slept better, or made a prouder appearance at chapel on Sundays, than Mrs Dogherty.

  Many a strange sight, it may well be supposed, did Jack see, and many a strange sound did he hear, but nothing daunted him. So far was he from being afraid of Merrows, or such beings, that the very first wish of his heart was to fairly meet with one. Jack had heard that they were mighty like Christians, and that luck had always come out of an acquaintance with them. Never, therefore, did he dimly discern the Merrows moving along the face of the waters in their robes of mist, but he made direct for them; and many a scolding did Biddy, in her own quiet way, bestow upon Jack for spending his whole day out at sea, and bringing home no fish. Little did poor Biddy know the fish Jack was after!

  It was rather annoying to Jack that, though living in a place where the Merrows were as plenty as lobsters, he never could get a right view of one. What vexed him more was that both his father and grandfather had often and often seen them; and he even remembered hearing, when a child, how his grandfather, who was the first of the family that had settled down at the creek, had been so intimate with a Merrow that, only for fear of vexing the priest, he would have had him stand for one of his children. This, however, Jack did not well know how to believe.

  Fortune at length began to think that it was only right that Jack should know as much as his father and grandfather did. Accordingly, one day when he had strolled a little farther than usual along the coast to the northward, just as he turned a point, he saw something, like to nothing he had ever seen before, perched upon a rock at a little distance out to sea. It looked green in the body, as well as he could discern at that distance, and he would have sworn, only the thing was impossible, that it had a cocked hat in its hand. Jack stood for a good half-hour straining his eyes, and wondering at it, and all the time the thing did not stir hand or foot. At last Jack’s patience was quite worn out, and he gave a loud whistle and a hail, when the Merrow (for such it was) started up, put the cocked hat on its head, and dived down, head foremost, from the rock.