Padraic Colum

“ If the Fox came to see you, and if he was in good humor for talking, you would stay up all night to listen to him. I know I should. It was the Fox who told Gilly what the Crow of Achill did to Laheen the Eagle. She had stolen the Crystal Egg that Laheen was about to hatch—the Crystal Egg that the Crane had left on a bare rock. It was the Fox who told Gilly how the first cat came into the world. And it was the Fox who told Gilly about the generations of the eel. All I say is that it is a pity the Fox cannot be trusted, for a better one to talk and tell a story it would be hard to find. ”

“ When they heard that announcement the cats lamented, and the noise of their lamentation was so dreadful that horses broke their harnesses where they were yoked; men and women lost the color of their faces thinking some dreadful visitation was coming on the land; every bag of oats and rye turned five times to the right and five times to the left with the fright it got; dishes were broken, knives were hurled round, and the King’s Castle was shaken to the bottom stone.
“It is not the time to seek the tracks of the Eagle-Emperor,” said Quick-to-Grab. “Stay for a while longer in men’s houses.” ”

“ What should a goat do but ramble down laneways, wander across fields, stray along hedges and stay to rest under shady trees? All this the Hag’s goat did. But at last he brought the King of the Cats to the foot of the Hill of Horns.
And what was the Hill of Horns like, asks my kind foster-child. It was hills of stones on the top of a hill of stones. Only a goat could foot it from pebble to stone, from stone to boulder, from boulder Ko crag, and from crag to mountain-shoulder. It was well and not ill what the Hag’s goat did. ”

“ But her seven brothers are still seven wild geese, and the Queen has found no trace of her first-born son. But the Spae-Woman has had a dream, and the dream has revealed this to her: the Son that Sheen lost is in the world, and if the maiden who will come to love him, will give seven drops of her heart’s blood, the Queen’s seven brothers will regain their human forms. ”

“ Hundreds of birds were on the ground eating plentifully and calling to one another. Sheen could hardly keep from her mouth the song that was in her mind. She would sing and laugh and talk when the last thread was spun and woven, when the last stitch was sewn, and when the shirts of bog-down she had made in silence would have brought back her brothers to their own human forms. ”

“ The young cuckoo struggled at the opening and screamed again.
“Don’t be drawing too much attention to yourself,” advised the woodpecker when he came to the opening again. “They might take you for a young hawk, you know.”
“Who might?” said the cuckoo. “The neighbors. They would pull a young hawk to pieces.”
“What am I to do?” said the young cuckoo.
“What’s in your nature to do?”
“My nature?” said the young cuckoo. “It’s my nature to swing myself on branches high up in a tree. It’s my nature to spread out my wings and fly over pleasant places. It is my nature to be alone. ”

“ Then Gilly pushed the door open wide and stepped into the house.
“Don’t stay in the house,” said the crooked old woman. “I’ll tell you the truth now. My masters are robbers, and they’ll skin you alive if they find you here when they come back in the morning.”
“It’s more likely I’ll skin them alive,” said Gilly, and he looked so fierce that he fairly frightened the old woman. “And if you don’t satisfy me with supper and a bed I’ll leave you to meet them hanging from the door.”
The crooked old woman was so terrified that she gave him a supper of porridge and showed him a bed to sleep in. ”

“ There is myself, Laheen the Eagle; there is Blackfoot the Elk of Ben Gulban, there is the Crow of Achill, the Salmon of Assaroe and the Old Woman of Beare. We do not know ourselves which of us is the oldest, but we know that we five are the most ancient of living things. ”

“ He dreamt that the Egg had been hatched and that out of it had come the most toothsome bird that a Fox had ever taken by the neck. He snapped his teeth in his sleep when he dreamt of it. The Fox told his youngsters about the bird he had dreamt of—a bird as big as a goose and so fat on the neck and the breast that it could hardly stir from sitting. The youngsters had smacked their lips and snapped their teeth. Every time he came home now they used to say to him—“Father, have you brought us the Boobrie Bird?” No wonder that his eyes used to turn to the Crystal Egg when he sat in Gilly’s house. ”

“ A thousand Fields and her own fields small, small! “What a fine and wide place is Eirinn,” said she, “I am Mor, but not great after all.” Then a herdsman came, and he told her That her sons had stolen away: They had left the calves in the hollow, With the goose-flock they would not stay: They had seen three ships on the sea And nothing would do them but go: Mor wept and wept when she heard it, And her tears made runnels below. ”

“ Do they not build their habitations with music? Do they not draw the moon out of the sea and set it for a light in their houses? And is it not known that the fairest daughters of the sea have loved men? ”

“ The Queen asked the Hen-wife to ask me to leave it with you. She thinks there’s no bird in the world but yourself that is worthy to hatch it and to rear the gosling that comes out of it.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Mother Hatchie. “Put it here, put it here.” She lifted her wing and the Fox put the Crystal Egg into the brood-nest.
He went out of the barn, crossed the field again, and went amongst the dark, dark trees. He went along slowly now for he began to think that Gilly might find out who stole the Crystal Egg and be vexed with him. ”

“ A King’s daughter should have it.”
Flame-of-Wine held the rose in her hand, and smiled on Flann. “What is your name, King’s Son?” said she, with bright and friendly eyes.
“Flann,” he said.
“Walk with me, Flann,” said she. They walked along the orchard paths, and the youths and maidens turned towards the fragrance that the Rose of Sweet Smells gave. Flame-of-Wine laughed, and said, “They all wonder at the treasure you have brought me, Flann. If you could hear what I shall tell them about you! I shall tell them that you are the son of a King of Arabia—no less. ”

“ I was a Druid and the Son of a Druid, and I had learned the language of the birds. And one morning, as I walked abroad, I heard a blackbird and a robin talking, and when I heard what they said I smiled to myself.
“Now the woman I had just married noticed that I kept smiling, and she questioned me. ‘Why do you keep smiling to yourself?’ I would not tell her. ‘Is that not the truth? ‘” said the Enchanter to a woman who sat beside him. “It is the truth,” said she. ”

“ But the woman looking on the man saw one who had full wisdom to plan and full strength to build, whose wisdom and whose strength could neither grow nor diminish. And the man looking on the woman saw one whose brow had all quiet, whose heart had all benignity. ”

“ No one had seen the King who lived in the Red Castle, Dermott and Downal told the other two. He was called the Wry-faced King, and, on account of his disfigurement, he let no one but his Councilors see him.
“We are to go to his Castle to-day,” said Dermott and Downal. “You come too, brother,” said he to the King’s Son.
“And you too, comrade,” said Downal to Flann. “Why should we not all go? By Ogma! Are we not all sons of Kings?” ”

“ The Bull that is called the Bull of the Mound is on guard near by, and twenty-four fierce yellow cats watch the tree night and day.
The Queen of Senlabor and many another woman besides desires a berry from the Fairy Rowan Tree that stands in Crom Duv’s courtyard. For the woman who is old and who eats a berry from that tree becomes young again, and the maid who is young and who eats a berry gets all the beauty that should be hers of right. ”

“ He is the young man who is counting the horns.”
“What young man is he and what horns is he counting?”
“He is no King’s Son, but a gilly—Gilly of the Goat-skin he is called. He is counting the horns that are in two pits outside. When the horns are counted I will know the number of my half-years.” ”

“ Gilly guessed that the honest men whose business kept them out until two and three in the morning were the robbers he had heard about. And he thought they might be the very men who had carried off the Spae-Woman’s goose and the Crystal Egg along with it. “Would you tell me, good woman,” said Gilly, “did your six honest men ever bring to this house an old hatching goose?”
“They did indeed,” said the crooked woman, “and a heart-scald the same old hatching goose is. ”

“ The Spae-Woman lived by telling people their fortunes and reading them their dreams. That is why she was called the Spae-Woman. The people gave her goods for telling them their dreams and fortunes and she left her land and stock to whatever chanced. The fences of her fields were broken and rotted. Her hens had been carried off by the Fox. Her goat had gone wild. She had neither ox nor ass nor sheep nor pig. The Fox went through her fence now as lightning would go through a gooseberry bush and he came out before her barn. There was a hole in the barn-door and he went through that. ”

“ An old woman was seated on the ground before the fire basting a goose. A rabbit-skin cap was on her hairless head and there were no eye-brows on her face. Three strange birds were eating out of the pot—a cuckoo, a corncrake and a swallow. “Come to the fire, gilly,” said the old woman when she looked round.
“I am not a gilly, but the King of Ireland’s Son,” said he. ”