Douglas Hyde

“ I won't stir till I go and get the pardon of my parish priest."
"Guleesh, is it out of your senses you are? You can't go; and there's your answer for you now. I tell you, you can't go."
"Can't ye go on, and to leave me here after ye," said Guleesh, "and when ye come back can't ye hoist the girl up behind me?"
"But we want you at the palace of the king of France," said the sheehogue, "and you must come with us now."
"The devil a foot," said Guleesh, "till I get the priest's pardon; the honestest and the pleasantest man that's in Ireland." ”

“ What good have we now out of our journey to Rome and to France? Never mind yet, you clown, but you'll pay us another time for this. Believe us you'll repent it."
"He'll have no good to get out of the young girl," said the little man that was talking to him in the palace before that, and as he said the word he moved over to her and struck her a slap on the side of the head. "Now," says he, "she'll be without talk any more; now, Guleesh, what good will she be to you when she'll be dumb? It's time for us to go—but you'll remember us, Guleesh na Guss Dhu!" ”

“ About a week after that the priest was one day by himself in his chamber alone. The day was very fine and the window was open. The robin of the red breast came in and a little herb in its mouth. The priest stretched out his hand, and she laid the herb down on it. "Perhaps it was God sent me this herb," said the priest to himself, and he ate it. He had not eaten it one moment till he was as well as ever he was, and he said: "A thousand thanks to Him who has power stronger than the power of enchantment." ”

“ The priest would not wait for him, but made off home as fast as his feet could carry him, and when he got into the house, he shut the door. Leeam was knocking at the door till he was tired, but the priest would not let him in. At last, he put his head out of a window in the top of the house, and said: "William O'Rooney, go back to your grave."
"You're mad, Father Patrick! I'm not dead, and never was in a grave since I was born," said Leeam. ”

“ The giant came out, and he said: "I feel the smell of a melodious lying Irishman under my sod of country."
"No melodious lying Irishman am I," said the short green man; "but my master is standing at the head of the avenue, and if he comes he shall strike the head off you."
And with that the short green man began swelling until he was the size of the castle at last. There came fear on the giant, and he said: "Is your master as big as yourself?" ”

“ On the morning of the next day Paudyeen went to the hut and he found the hag dead. He put a coal under the hut and burned it. He came home and told the little man that the hut was burnt. The little man gave him a purse and said to him; "This purse will never be empty as long as you are alive. Now, you will never see me more; but have a loving remembrance of the weasel. She was the beginning and the prime cause of your riches." Then he went away and Paudyeen never saw him again. ”

“ Before she was able to rise again he threw something that was in his hand upon her, said a couple of words, and upon the moment the maiden was gone from amongst them. Nobody could see her, for that word made her invisible. The little maneen seized her and raised her up behind Guleesh, and the king nor no one else saw them, but out with them through the hall till they came to the door.
Oro! dear Mary! it's there the pity was, and the trouble, and the crying, and the wonder, and the searching, and the rookawn, when that lady disappeared from their eyes, and without their seeing what did it. ”

“ We have as yet had no folk-lorist in Ireland who could compare for a moment with such a man as Iain Campbell, of Islay, in investigative powers, thoroughness of treatment, and acquaintance with the people, combined with a powerful national sentiment, and, above all, a knowledge of Gaelic. It is on this last rock that all our workers-up of Irish folk-lore split. In most circles in Ireland it is a disgrace to be known to talk Irish ”

“ All the world knows that bi-linguists are superior to men who know only one language, yet in Ireland everyone pretends to believe the contrary. A few words from the influential leaders of the race when next they visit Achill, for instance, would help to keep Irish alive there in sæcula sæculorum, and with the Irish language, the old Aryan folk-lore, the Ossianic poems, numberless ballads, folk-songs, and proverbs, and a thousand and one other interesting things that survive when Irish is spoken, and die when it dies. ”

“ The gentleman got him his clothes, gave him his wages, and off for ever with him.
Donal went to the gentleman's house, and when he ate and drank his enough, he said: "I have a story to tell you." Then he told him everything that happened to him the night before, until he came as far as the part about the gold. "Come with me till I see the gold," said the gentleman. He went to the castle, he lifted the flag, and when he saw the gold, he said: "I know now that the story is true." ”

“ I'll go bail you won't play on us again. It was a good trick you played on us last year!"
"It was," said another man, "he won't do it again."
"Isn't he a prime lad, the same lad! to take a woman with him that never said as much to him as, 'how do you do?' since this time last year!" says the third man.
"Perhaps he likes to be looking at her," said another voice.
"And if the omadawn only knew that there's an herb growing up by his own door, and to boil it and give it to her and she'd be well," said another voice.
"That's true for you."
"He is an omadawn." ”

“ The descent of our hero into hell, and his frightening the spirits with his club, the impossible tasks which the king gives him to perform in the hopes of slaying him, and his successful accomplishment of them, seem to identify him with the classic Hercules. ”

“ There's not a doctor or a medicine-man in Ireland now that'll do you any good, but only one man, and that's Mac Dermott the Prince of Coolavin, on the brink of Lough Gara, the best doctor in Connacht or the five provinces."
"Where is Lough Gara?" said the poor man.
"Down in the County Sligo," says he; "it's a big lake, and the prince is living on the brink of it; and if you'll take my advice you'll go there, for it's the last hope you have; and you, Mistress," said he, turning to the woman of the house, "ought to make him go, if you wish your man to be alive." ”

“ Finvara is the well-known king of the fairy host of Connacht. In Lady Wilde's "Ethna, the Bride," Finvara is said to have carried off a beautiful girl into his hill, whom her lover recovers with the greatest difficulty. When he gets her back at last, she lies on her bed for a year and a day as if dead. At the end of that time he hears voices saying that he may recover her by unloosing her girdle, burning it, and burying in the earth the enchanted pin that fastened it. This was, probably, the slumber-pin which we have met so often in the "King of Ireland's Son." ”

“ Go back to your grave, and I'll have a mass read for your poor soul to-morrow."
"Wait till daylight comes," said Leeam, "and I'll give you the price of your joking!"
Then he went into the stable, where his horse and the pig were, stretched himself in the straw, and fell asleep. ”

“ This is scarcely agreeable to the character of Oscar, but the wiles which Finn employs to make the great man relate to him his whole history, and so keep him from sleeping, are very much in keeping with the shrewdness which all these stories attribute to the Fenian king. The great man remains awake all night, sorely against his will, telling Finn his extraordinary adventures; and whenever he tries to stop, Finn incites him to begin again, and at last tells him not to be afraid, because the Fenians never ask combat of any man until he ask it of them first. ”

“ The night was calm as is a lake when there is not a breath of wind to move a wave on it, and there was no sound to be heard but the cronawn (hum) of the insects that would go by from time to time, or the hoarse sudden scream of the wild-geese, as they passed from lake to lake, half a mile up in the air over his head; or the sharp whistle of the fadogues and flibeens (golden and green plover) , rising and lying, lying and rising, as they do on a calm night. ”

“ Under the other head of stories that were never consciously invented on Irish ground, we may place all such simple stories as bear a trace of nature myths, and those which appear to belong to our old Aryan heritage, from the fact of their having parallels amongst other Aryan-speaking races, such as the story of the man who wanted to learn to shake with fear, stories of animals and talking birds, of giants and wizards, and others whose directness and simplicity show them to have had an unconscious and popular origin, though some of these may, of course, have arisen on Irish soil. ”

“ There was a law in Ireland at that time that any man who had a debt upon another person (i.e., to whom another person owed a debt) that person's people could not bury him, should he be dead, without paying his debts, or without the leave of the person to whom the dead man owed the debts. When the king of Ireland's son saw the sons and daughters of the dead crying, and they without money to give the man, he said to himself: "It's a great pity that these poor people have not the money," and he put his hand in his pocket and paid the five pounds himself for the corpse. ”

“ IRISH and Scotch Gaelic folk-stories are, as a living form of literature, by this time pretty nearly a thing of the past. They have been trampled in the common ruin under the feet of the Zeitgeist, happily not before a large harvest has been reaped in Scotland, but, unfortunately, before anything worth mentioning has been done in Ireland to gather in the crop which grew luxuriantly a few years ago. ”

“ To punish her the Virgin banishes her from heaven into a thorny wood. Once, as she is sitting, clothed in her long hair solely, a king passes, sees her, loves and weds her, in spite of her being dumb. ”

“ It would be exceedingly interesting to know whether any traces of these modern stories that had their rise in written manuscripts, are to be found amongst the peasantry as folk-lore. I, certainly, have found no remnant of any such; but this proves nothing. If Ireland had a few individual workers scattered over the provinces we would know more on the subject; but, unfortunately, we have hardly any such people, and what is worse, the present current of political thought, and the tone of our Irish educational establishments are not likely to produce them. ”

“ But ships do not sail on land, nor grow large and small, nor go straight to their mark; consequently, it is plain that we have here another nature myth, vastly old, invented by pre-historic man, for these ships can be nothing but the clouds which sail over land and sea, are large enough to hold the largest armies, and small enough to fold into the hand, and which go straight to their mark. The meaning of this has been forgotten for countless ages, but the story has survived. ”