Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland Part 25

The next day Bill proceeded to the agent's; not sneakingly, with his hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his knees bending under him; but bold and upright, like a man conscious of his independence.

"Why don't you take off your hat, fellow; don't you know you are speaking to a magistrate?" said the agent.

"I know I'm not speaking to the king, sir," said Bill; "and I never takes off my hat but to them I can respect and love. The Eye that sees all knows I've no right either to respect or love an agent!"

"You scoundrel!" retorted the man in office, biting his lips with rage at such an unusual and unexpected opposition, "I'll teach you how to be insolent again--I have the power, remember."

"To the cost of the country, I know you have," said Bill, who still remained with his head as firmly covered as if he was the lord Kingsale himself.

"But come," said the magistrate; "have you got the money for me?--this is rent-day. If there's one penny of it wanting, or the running gale that's due, prepare to turn out before night, for you shall not remain another hour in possession."

"There is your rent," said Bill, with an unmoved expression of tone and countenance; "you'd better count it, and give me a receipt in full for the running gale and all."

The agent gave a look of amazement at the gold; for it was gold--real guineas! and not bits of dirty ragged small notes, that are only fit to light one's pipe with. However willing the agent may have been to ruin, as he thought, the unfortunate tenant, he took up the gold, and handed the receipt to Bill, who strutted off with it as proud as a cat of her whiskers.

The agent going to his desk shortly after, was confounded at beholding a heap of gingerbread cakes instead of the money he had deposited there. He raved and swore, but all to no purpose; the gold had become gingerbread cakes, just marked like the guineas, with the king's head, and Bill had the receipt in his pocket; so he saw there was no use in saying any thing about the affair, as he would only get laughed at for his pains.

From that hour Bill Doody grew rich; all his undertakings prospered; and he often blesses the day that he met with O'Donoghue, the great prince that lives down under the lake of Killarney.

Like the b.u.t.terfly, the spirit of O'Donoghue closely hovers over the perfume of the hills and flowers it loves; while, as the reflection of a star in the waters of a pure lake, to those who look not above, that glorious spirit is believed to dwell beneath.

LINN-NA-PAYSHTHA.

x.x.xVI.

Travellers go to Leinster to see Dublin and the Dargle; to Ulster, to see the Giant's Causeway, and, perhaps, to do penance at Lough Dearg; to Munster, to see Killarney, the beautiful city of Cork, and half a dozen other fine things; but who ever thinks of the fourth province?--who ever thinks of going--

--"westward, where d.i.c.k Martin _ruled_ The houseless wilds of Cunnemara?"

The Ulster-man's ancient denunciation "to h.e.l.l or to Connaught," has possibly led to the supposition that this is a sort of infernal place above ground--a kind of terrestrial Pandemonium--in short, that Connaught is little better than h.e.l.l, or h.e.l.l little worse than Connaught; but let any one only go there for a month, and, as the natives say, "I'll warrant he'll soon see the differ, and learn to understand that it is mighty like the rest o' green Erin, only something poorer;" and yet it might be thought that in this particular "worse would be needless;" but so it is.

"My gracious me," said the landlady of the Inn at Sligo, "I wonder a gentleman of your _teeste_ and _curosity_ would think of leaving Ireland without making a _tower_ (tour) of Connaught, if it was nothing more than spending a day at Hazlewood, and up the lake, and on to the _ould_ abbey at Friarstown, and the castle at Dromahair."

Polly M'Bride, my kind hostess, might not in this remonstrance have been altogether disinterested; but her advice prevailed, and the dawn of the following morning found me in a boat on the unruffled surface of Lough Gill. Arrived at the head of that splendid sheet of water, covered with rich and wooded islands with their ruined buildings, and bounded by towering mountains, n.o.ble plantations, gra.s.sy slopes, and precipitous rocks, which give beauty, and, in some places, sublimity to its sh.o.r.es, I proceeded at once up the wide river which forms its princ.i.p.al tributary. The "old abbey" is chiefly remarkable for having been built at a period nearer to the Reformation than any other ecclesiastical edifice of the same cla.s.s. Full within view of it, and at the distance of half a mile, stands the shattered remnant of Breffni's princely hall. I strode forward with the enthusiasm of an antiquary, and the high-beating heart of a patriotic Irishman. I felt myself on cla.s.sic ground, immortalized by the lays of Swift and of Moore. I pushed my way into the hallowed precincts of the grand and venerable edifice. I entered its chambers, and, oh my countrymen, I found them converted into the domicile of pigs, cows, and poultry! But the exterior of "O'Rourke's old hall," gray, frowning, and ivy-covered, is well enough; it stands on a beetling precipice, round which a n.o.ble river wheels its course. The opposite bank is a very steep ascent, thickly wooded, and rising to a height of at least seventy feet; and, for a quarter of a mile, this beautiful copse follows the course of the river.

The first individual I encountered was an old cowherd; nor was I unfortunate in my cicerone, for he a.s.sured me there were plenty of old stories about strange things that used to be in the place; "but,"

continued he, "for my own share, I never met any thing worse nor myself. If it bees ould stories that your honour's after, the story about Linnna-Payshtha and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is the only thing about this place that's worth one jack-straw. Does your honour see that great big black hole in the river yonder below?" He pointed my attention to a part of the river about fifty yards from the old hall, where a long island occupied the centre of the wide current, the water at one side running shallow, and at the other a.s.suming every appearance of unfathomable depth. The s.p.a.cious pool, dark and still, wore a death-like quietude of surface. It looked as if the speckled trout would shun its murky precincts--as if even the daring pike would shrink from so gloomy a dwelling-place. "That's Linn-na-Payshtha, sir," resumed my guide, "and Poul-maw-Gullyawn is just the very _moral_ of it, only that it's round, and not in a river, but standing out in the middle of a green field, about a short quarter of a mile from this. Well, 'tis as good as fourscore years--I often _hard_ my father, G.o.d be merciful to him! tell the story--since Ma.n.u.s O'Rourke, a great buckeen, a c.o.c.kfighting, drinking blackguard that was long ago, went to sleep one night, and had a dream about Linn-na-Payshtha.

This Ma.n.u.s, the dirty spalpeen, there was no ho with him; he thought to ride rough-shod over his betters through the whole country, though he was not one of the real stock of the O'Rourkes. Well, this fellow had a dream that if he dived in Linn-na-Payshtha at twelve o'clock of a Hollow-eve night, he'd find more gold than would make a man of him and his wife, while gra.s.s grew or water ran. The next night he had the same dream, and sure enough, if he had it the second night, it came to him the third in the same form. Ma.n.u.s, well becomes him, never told mankind or womankind, but swore to himself, by all the books that were ever shut or open, that, any how, he would go to the bottom of the big hole. What did he care for the Payshtha-more that was lying there to keep guard on the gold and silver of the old ancient family that was buried there in the wars, packed up in the brewing-pan? Sure he was as good an O'Rourke as the best of them, taking care to forget that his grandmother's father was a cow-boy to the earl O'Donnel. At long last Hollow-eve comes, and sly and silent master Ma.n.u.s creeps to bed early, and just at midnight steals down to the river-side. When he came to the bank his mind misgave him, and he wheeled up to Frank M'Clure's--the old Frank that was then at that time--and got a bottle of whisky, and took it with him, and 'tis unknown how much of it he drank. He walked across to the island, and down he went gallantly to the bottom like a stone. Sure enough the Payshtha was there afore him, lying like a great big conger eel, seven yards long, and as thick as a bull in the body, with a mane upon his neck like a horse. The Payshtha-more reared himself up; and, looking at the poor man as if he'd eat him, says he, in good English,

"'Arrah, then, Ma.n.u.s,' says he, 'what brought you here? It would have been better for you to have blown your brains out at once with a pistol, and have made a quiet end of yourself, than to have come down here for me to deal with you.'

"'Oh, plase your honour,' says Ma.n.u.s, 'I beg my life:' and there he stood shaking like a dog in a wet sack.

"'Well, as you have some blood of the O'Rourkes in you, I forgive you this once; but, by this and by that, if ever I see you, or any one belonging to you, coming about this place again, I'll hang a quarter of you on every tree in the wood.'

"'Go home,' says the Payshtha--'go home, Ma.n.u.s,' says he; 'and if you can't make better use of your time, get drunk; but don't come here, bothering me. Yet, stop! since you are here, and have ventured to come, I'll show you something that you'll remember till you go to your grave, and ever after, while you live.'

"With that, my dear, he opens an iron door in the bed of the river, and never the drop of water ran into it; and there Ma.n.u.s sees a long dry cave, or under-ground cellar like, and the Payshtha drags him in, and shuts the door. It wasn't long before the baste began to get smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and at last he grew as little as a taughn of twelve years old; and there he was a brownish little man, about four feet high.

"'Plase your honour,' says Ma.n.u.s, 'if I might make so bold, may be you are one of the good people?'

"'May be I am, and may be I am not; but, any how, all you have to understand is this, that I'm bound to look after the Thiernas[34] of Breffni, and take care of them through every generation; and that my present business is to watch this cave, and what's in it, till the old stock is reigning over this country once more.'

[34] _Tighearna_--a lord. Vide O'BRIEN.

"'May be you are a sort of a banshee?'

"'I am not, you fool,' said the little man. 'The banshee is a woman.

My business is to live in the form you first saw me, in guarding this spot. And now hold your tongue, and look about you.'

"Ma.n.u.s rubbed his eyes and looked right and left, before and behind; and there were the vessels of gold and the vessels of silver, the dishes, and the plates, and the cups, and the punch-bowls, and the tankards: there was the golden mether, too, that every Thierna at his wedding used to drink out of to the kerne in real usquebaugh. There was all the money that ever was saved in the family since they got a grant of this manor, in the days of the Firbolgs, down to the time of their outer ruination. He then brought Ma.n.u.s on with him to where there was arms for three hundred men; and the sword set with diamonds, and the golden helmet of the O'Rourke; and he showed him the staff made out of an elephant's tooth, and set with rubies and gold, that the Thierna used to hold while he sat in his great hall, giving justice and the laws of the Brehons to all his clan. The first room in the cave, ye see, had the money and the plate, the second room had the arms, and the third had the books, papers, parchments, t.i.tle-deeds, wills, and every thing else of the sort belonging to the family.

"'And now, Ma.n.u.s,' says the little man, 'ye seen the whole o' this, and go your ways; but never come to this place any more, or allow any one else. I must keep watch and ward till the Sa.s.sanach is druv out of Ireland, and the Thiernas o' Breffni in their glory again.' The little man then stopped for awhile and looked up in Ma.n.u.s's face, and says to him in a great pa.s.sion, 'Arrah! bad luck to ye, Ma.n.u.s, why don't ye go about your business?'

"'How can I?--sure you must show me the way out,' says Ma.n.u.s, making answer. The little man then pointed forward with his finger.

"'Can't we go out the way we came?' says Ma.n.u.s.

"'No, you must go out at the other end--that's the rule o' this place. Ye came in at Linn-na-Payshtha, and you must go out at Poul-maw-Gullyawn: ye came down like a stone to the bottom of one hole, and ye must spring up like a cork to the top of the other.' With that the little man gave him one _hoise_, and all that Ma.n.u.s remembers was the roar of the water in his ears; and sure enough he was found the next morning, high and dry, fast asleep with the empty bottle beside him, but far enough from the place he thought he landed, for it was just below yonder on the island that his wife found him. My father, G.o.d be merciful to him! heard Ma.n.u.s swear to every word of the story."

As there are few things which excite human desire throughout all nations more than wealth, the legends concerning the concealment, discovery and circulation of money, are, as may be expected, widely extended; yet in all the circ.u.mstances, which admit of so much fanciful embellishment, there every where exists a striking similarity.

Like the golden apples of the Hesperides, treasure is guarded by a dragon or serpent. Vide Creuzer, Religions de l'Antiquite, traduction de Guigniaut, i. 248. Paris, 1825. Stories of its discovery in consequence of dreams or spiritual agency are so numerous, that, if collected, they would fill many volumes, yet they vary little in detail beyond the actors and locality. Vide Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, i. 290. Thiele's Danske Folkesagn, i.

112, ii. 24. Kirke's Secret Commonwealth, p. 12, &c.

The circulation of money bestowed by the fairies or supernatural personages, like that of counterfeit coin, is seldom extensive. See story, in the Arabian Nights, of the old rogue whose fine-looking money turned to leaves. When Waldemar, Holgar, and Grn Jette in Danish tradition, bestow money upon the boors whom they meet, their gift sometimes turns to fire, sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes is so hot, that the receiver drops it from his hand, when the gold, or what appeared to be so, sinks into the ground.

In poor Ireland, the wretched peasant contents himself by soliloquizing--"Money is the devil, they say; and G.o.d is good that He keeps it from us."

ROCKS AND STONES.

"Forms in silence frown'd, Shapeless and nameless; and to mine eye Sometimes they rolled off cloudily, Wedding themselves with gloom--or grew Gigantic to my troubled view, And seem'd to gather round me."

BANIM'S _Celt's Paradise_.

THE LEGEND OF CAIRN THIERNA.

x.x.xVII.