William Henry Frost

“ We've never been far on the land. Deep down under the sea it's the same way it is under the sea about Ireland. There's the land at the bottom, with the sand all fine and firm, like a floor, and there's the water above, like a green sky, and there are the shells and the sea-flowers, and there are the weeds that wave around you and over you, like red and green and purple curtains to your house, and it's all as cool and as neat as any of the sea-places around Ireland. ”

“ Kathleen said. "You say that the cross will help me against Terence if he is one of the Good People, because they are a kind of spirits. But why wouldn't it help me against him just as much if he wasn't one of the Good People—if he was just a bad man?"
"No, no," said the old woman; "that little bit of iron will keep you against any evil spirit, and never one of them dare come near it; but no poor human creature with a soul to save, no matter how wicked, was ever turned away from the blessed cross, or ever will be. ”

“ I came here when I was a little baby. I have often asked them how I came here, but they never would tell me. I have lived here ever since I can remember. Have you a father and a mother?"
"My mother is dead," Kathleen answered; "I have a father."
"Yes," said Terence, as if he were trying to work out a puzzle. "Nearly all the people outside seem to have fathers and mothers. ”

“ I'll never play for you again. King, did you ever lose what you cared for more than all the world? When you do, you'll know more than you know now, with all your age and with all your power. I told you once how I carried off the Princess of France and how Guleesh na Guss Dhu stole her from me. I cared nothing for her. It was only the soul that I'ld get from her that I wanted. And this time it was only the soul that I wanted, too, at first, but I loved this one in the end. But a soul will always find out another soul, and there's nothing for one like us, that has no soul. ”

“ And when the swans that were the children of Lir shall hear the first sound of these bells, they shall have their human shape again, and then they shall be happy forever. But she—the gray vulture—she shall fly in the sky, where it is stormy and cold. Where there are thick clouds and where the rain is made, there shall be her home. She shall not fly where the heaven is blue and where the sun shines warm. The bells of the good men from over the sea shall bring her no peace. ”

“ But we poor men cannot dig down very deep into the earth. We can only scratch a little dirt off the top, and if we happen to grub up a few pounds of gold we think that we are rich, and the rest of the world thinks so too.
But the fairies laugh at us. They know how to go as deep into the earth as they choose, and so any fairy who chooses can give away gold all his life, and still have more of it in his dust-bin all the time than all the kings in the world have in their treasuries. And the other fairies don't call him rich.
But now we will go back to the rath. ”

“ Our lights are lies themselves and they can no more than lead a silly mortal astray for a time; their lights tell the truth. What else can you do?"
The King had lost the most of his boldness. "They say," he said, "that men can burst open the rock. Can I not do that as well?" [89]
"You can open this rock for us to pass through," said Naggeneen; "and what then? A man can see it open for a moment, if you choose to let him, and the next minute it's all as one as if you had never touched it. And the man thinks that's wonderful, for he doesn't know that you can do it no other way. ”

“ When he and Kathleen sat together in a corner of the room and John sat reading a paper and Mrs. O'Brien knitting and reading a book at the same time, it was as astonishing a sight to him as it would be to you to see a dozen mermaids playing at the bottom of the sea.
"Isn't it beautiful?" he whispered to Kathleen.
"Isn't what beautiful?" Kathleen asked.
"The way you live here," Terence answered. "All these years, you know, I have just come out of the hill to go to school, and then I have gone back again. I have seen the people outside, but I never was in one of their houses before. ”

“ And the greatest bards of all Erin came to sing before him and his guests of the brave deeds of the heroes of old days and of the greatness and the goodness of O'Donoghue himself. At one of these feasts, after a bard had been singing of the noble days of Erin long ago, O'Donoghue began to speak of the years that were to come for Ireland. He told of much good and of much evil. He told how true and brave and noble men would live and work and fight and die for their country, and how cowards would betray her. ”

“ O'Brien said, "when the Good People have more power than on May Eve."
"Oh, mother," said John, "don't talk to me of the Good People; I've heard too much of them. I don't care if there are any Good People or not. I only know that Kathleen has been from us a year. When her mother died I could bear it, because I had Kathleen left, but now she's gone, and how can I bear it?"
"Listen to me, John," his mother went on. "It's on May Eve, as I told you, that the Good People have great power. ”

“ You might suppose that anybody who could play the fiddle as well as Terence need not have any trouble in making his own living. He might have found a place in a theatre, like the man whose fiddle he had played on first. He might have taught others to play. Or he might have played all by himself, and hundreds of people would have paid to hear him. But he would play only when he chose, and he would never do anything useful with his fiddle. And everybody said he played so wonderfully—everybody except Kathleen. ”

“ Look at all the grass and the trees! But it has an iron chain all around it. I don't like the look of that." All fairies hate iron. They more than hate it; they simply cannot endure it. To touch any iron at all would hurt a fairy more than it would hurt you to touch it when it was red hot.
"But it's only a small place, anyway," said Naggeneen. ”

“ In these eighteen years Kathleen O'Brien and Terence Sullivan were growing up. I don't suppose there ever was another such child as Kathleen. And I should hope there never was another such child as Terence. Kathleen's grandmother had the most of the care of her, of course, but it was really no care at all. It would have been a pleasure for anybody to have the care of Kathleen. Even when she was a baby she was a perfect delight, and you know what babies are sometimes. ”

“ If I could only see a child of John's and Kitty's before I go, I'ld go gladly. If I could only say to him: "Before I came to you I held John's and Kitty's child in my arms," then I'ld go gladly.' That was what I said to myself that time. But it was Kitty that the banshee meant. And now, though I felt then the first time that I was an old woman, here I am still, and Kitty is gone and the child is grown up to be a woman and she is lost. But she is not dead, John; she is not dead. Kathleen couldn't die without I'ld hear the banshee." ”

“ The King listened to all this and then he sat and thought. "What is there in it that I can't do?" he asked. "Do you not all know of the coaches in Ireland that are drawn by horses without heads and driven by coachmen without heads?"
All the fairies looked at one another and nodded and said, "Yes, yes, we know."
But Naggeneen came forward and stood before the throne. Nobody had noticed that he had been listening or that he was there. "And what if those coaches were in Ireland?" he said. "They had horses, though the horses had no heads. Can you make iron coaches go without any horses at all?" ”

“ Peter protested. "Nobody but a priest could christen a child."
"I can christen the child as well as a priest," said Mrs. O'Brien; "you take a child to the priest to be christened, when it's easy and convenient, but when there's no priest near, and the child is sick and seems likely to die before one can come, anybody can christen it; and that christening stands, and it never has to be christened after. That's the law of the Church. Bring me the water. I never saw a child that seemed more likely to die than this one, if it's a child at all." ”

“ Ye never saw grass smoother in your life, though it's not quite so green, maybe, as it is at home. And then there's tall trees of all kinds, and there's bushes that'll have flowers on them, belike, in the right time of the year. And there's smooth roads and walks, and there's hills and great rocks, that we could live inside of as easy as in a rath itself. ”

“ Since that time I've always hated all men, because of the one that tricked me; and I've always hated all women, because of the one I lost; and I've always hated all fairies, because they are all as weak and helpless and pitiful as myself. I hate myself and I hate all of you, because there's no good for any of us in all the world forever."
"Naggeneen," said the King, "we've never been too fond of you, it's true, but maybe we'ld have liked you better if you'd told us this before. But you're cleverer than all of us. ”

“ For the King of the fairies had forbidden Naggeneen to trouble them any more. Naggeneen asked what for at all he had come over all the sea, if he was not to trouble the Sullivans. The King was always ready enough to have Naggeneen's help, when he thought that his cleverness would be of use; but there were times when he would be obeyed, and this was one of them, so Naggeneen had to do as he was told.
The King tried all the things that Naggeneen had told him to do, to make his people learn all the wonderful magic that the human people knew so well. ”

“ Terence never liked the stories about the Good People. "Don't be telling us about them fairies all the time," he would say. "Tell us about men; that's what I like better."
"Don't call them by that name," Mrs. O'Brien would answer. "They don't like it, and if you call them by it they may do you harm."
"I'll call them what I like," Terence would say, "and they'll do me no harm. It's a worthless lot they are, and you know that same yourself, Mrs. O'Brien, if you'ld only think so. They can do no harm to you, or to any woman or man that knows how to deal with them. ”

“ We know all about magic; we've known all about it for years—aye, for ages. And we thought that made us better than mortals. We thought they could never do the things we could do; maybe they never can. But oh, Your Majesty, they're doing things as good as we can do, or better. You wouldn't believe what the mortals in this country do, if you wasn't [84] after seein' it. They do things as wonderful as we ourselves, and it's iron, iron, iron everywhere. We can do nothing with iron—we can't touch it—and what will we do at all to be ahead of them, or even up with them? ”

“ When I was a child I used to read about fairies, and the book would say that they were six inches tall, or that they were about as big as a man's thumb, or it would tell about their sitting in flowers. And then I would look at the pictures and they would appear to be as high as a man's knees, or even higher. And I could not understand it. But I made up my mind to find out about it. That is what you must do, when there is anything that you don't understand. There are very few things that you can't do, if you make up your mind to them, except things that are too hard for you. ”

“ Naggeneen cried. "Why will you try to deceive yourselves? You've no soul and I've no soul, and there's no way that we can have them. If there'd been any way, I'ld have had one long ago. But we'll never have them, and mortals will always outwit us, if they half know how. Shall I tell you how one of them outwitted me—a big, lazy, stupid gommoch, with not enough brains to keep his neck safe?"
The fairies were far past caring whether they heard a story or not, but they listened as Naggeneen went on. ”

“ An angry murmur ran around when Naggeneen said this. The King was about to speak, but the Queen spoke first. "Never a one of you shall harm her," she said. "Look what she did for me and the little Prince, at that time when we can do nothing for ourselves. And how good her grandmother has always been to us; and her mother, when she was alive. I don't care if she sees everything we do; no one of us [287] shall ever harm her or anyone that belongs to her." ”

“ We never do more."
"John," the old woman answered, "it's not for us to say why we're here or what for we're living. It's God that put us here, and He'll keep us here till it's our time to go. He has made it the way of all His creatures to provide for themselves and for their own, and to keep themselves alive while they can. When He's ready for us to die, we die. ”