Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts

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O n ÛMrCiyi^ yUcfce^^^0^ ^JrÂMiô<^ ^Xey CLyfjt- OVf-^^ty err ^/^jt-^ e>c>^c^^LJt-- <jJtxy/ ^'^ ^^ ^yt^cf. of ^ZL^X^ l2lzto^ ^Ct/y^ -e^/^^^cf a-fîôîâ' ^^ZT ^^/ /îWc ^^^ /^Jû^ ^/J^ 4u/ ^^l^^^^^.**^ ^=^^^ ' ^ViLôO^t'Tî' ?V(rt5cru^ ^ A^'^^^>-^Z— /Act/ w. -^ ^CA^l^ MXl A'^^-- , ^2%^ iiaJpC a^cC ^^ê^rTt/^^f^^-^*^ ^ ^^-^Jif€^^^ A^ Zcâ^ y^^ /%^ f ^fT'Ô ''Tyit^c/^ IdA^- Û^H^C^^ Aue.^-t4a^ oat? /9h^d.e^^ e^^^ ^'/y- ^^ ^^ ^^^t^jLe^yt;^__. rJ^^dn^ ^ uCc /Jtcoy iÛY ^ <w ^ ^^ ^.^_ 5l^_^ '^-^ ^«_ ^^ ^ ^^^^^^ ^ <yui.cC a/" a^^ ^<jtû)if t^/i.^*^ c3<«-fc-c ^(x^ •*^ LEGENDARY FICTIONS THE IRISH CELTS. • ECrtl) AND NAKRA'liai PATRICK KENNEDY. M A C M I L L A N AND CO. i866. \The Ki^^ht of Translation and Rcpioduclion is fcscrvcJ.'l JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU, Esq, AUTHOR OF " UNCLE SILAS," ETC. Dear Sir, I beg to offer this collection of Irish Legends to your acceptance, from respect for your high position among English writers, in consideration of your being a truly good man, and in gratitude for your kind encouragement of my own literary attempts. Without that encouragement I should probably never have an opportunity of penning a dedication to an)- one. I am, dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, PATRICK KENNEDY. Lough na Piastha Cottage. PREFACE. Though the subject of this volume seems Hght and frivolous enough, it might be preceded, and accom panied, and concluded by grave and tiresome disserta- tions ; and if our hopes were limited to its perusal by readers of an archaeological turn, we would freely ex- haust all the philosophy of fiction in our possession upon them. But from our early 5fouth we have felt the deepest interest in the stories and legends which are peculiar to the Irish, or which they possess in common with all the Indo-European races, and our dearest wish is that their memory should not fade from the minds of the people. They have existed in one form or other from long before the Christian era, and have been mainly pre- served by oral tradition among the unlettered. Taking into consideration the diminishing of our population by want and emigration, and the general diffusion of book-learning, such as it is, and the growing taste for the rubbishy tales of the penny and halfpenny journals, we have in these latter times been haunted with the horrid thought that the memory of the tales heard in boyhood would be irrecoverably lost. To prevent an viii Preface. evil of such magnitude {in our judgment to wit), we submitted some of the treasured lore to the editor of the Dublin University Magazine in the year 1862. Though his favourite walk in fiction, in which he is excelled by no living writer, admits only of the flesh and blood beings of our own times, he was not without sympathy for story tellers and story listeners who could be inter- ested by the naive and broadly-defined personages of the household story. So the " Leinster Folk Lore " was allowed an appearance in that national magazine, and now, through the liberality of our present publishers, we look to the preservation of a portion of our light litera- ture which would otherwise be probably lost. If the large-souled man cannot look upon anything human as foreign to his sympathies, he cannot but feel interest in inventions which, however artless in structure, improbable in circumstance, and apparently destitute of purpose, have engrossed the attention of fireside audi- ences probably since the days of Homer. This leads us to hope for the approbation of thoughtful and compre- hensive minds as well as of that of the young, and as yet unvitiated by the exciting and demoralizing pictures of unmitigated wickedness abounding in modern fiction. The, greater part of the stories and legends in this volume are given as they were received from the story tellers with whom our youth was familiar. A few of them thus heard we read at a later period, and in an im- Preface. ix proved form, in the Bardic historians and in MSS., some kindly furnished us by the late estimable archcsologist, John Windele, of Cork. No story in the present collection is copied either in substance or form from any writer of the present or past generation. The subjects of some have of course been already used by other col- lectors, but they and the present compiler had a common source to draw from. But to occupy the reader's attention with a long preface to a volume of light reading, would be worse than keeping a hungry company from a simple and scanty meal by a prolonged grace. If a fastidious reader fails to take pleasure or interest in the mere tales, and expe- riences contempt for the taste of those ancestors of ours who could have relished them so much as they evidently did, perhaps he may be induced to search into the his- tory, and the polity, and the social usages of those easily-pleased folk, and discover the cause of their want of critical acumen. In this case the acquisition of archaeological knowledge, more or less, will recompense the time lost in the perusal of a mere Folk's Book. ^WY/ CONTENTS, FACE Dedication v Preface vii PART I.—HOUSEHOLD STORIES. Jack and his Comrades 5 The Bad Stepmother 17 Adventures of "Gilla na Chreck an Gour" 23 Jack the Master and Jack the Servant 32 t> " I'll be Wiser the next Time " 39 O The Three Crowns 43 ^ The Corpse Watchers 54 '^ The Brown Bear of Norway 57 '^ The Goban Saor 67 j^ The Three Advices which the King with the Red Soles gave to his Son „ v • • /• • c > > • • • 73 'vuu*^ y t'c ^(:oU.iu, -rib: (nA.t-U^^ y V , yy PART II.—LEGENDS OF THE "GOOD PEOPLE." The Fairy Child 84 The Changeling and his Bagpipes 90 The Tobinstown Sheeoge 94 The Belated Priest 97 The Palace in the Rath 100 The Breton Version of the Palace in the Rath 104 The Fairy Nurse 106 The Recovered Bride Ill A Fairy Faction Fight .115 Jemmy Doyle in the Fairy Palace Ii6 The Fairy Cure 117 xii Contents. PAGE The Sea Fairies 121 The Black Cattle of Duizy Island 122 The Silkie Wife 122 The Pooka of Murroe 124 The Kildare Pooka 126 The Kildare Lurikeen 130 The Adventures of the " Son of 15ad Counsel " 132 PART III.—WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY, GHOSTS, AND FETCHES. The Long Spoon 147 The Prophet before his Time 149 The Bewitched Chum 151 The Ghosts and the Game of Football 154 The Cat of the Carman's Stage 157 Cauth Morrisy looking for .Service 15S Black Stairs on Fire 164 The Witches' Excursion 166 The Crock found in the Rath i69 The Enchantment of Garrett the Earl 1 72 Ulan Eachthach and the Lianaii 1 74 The Misfortunes of Barrett the Piper 177 The Woman in White 180 The Queen's County Ghost 182 The Ghost in Graigue 1 84 Droochan's Ghost 185 The Kilranelagh Spirit 187 The Doctor's Fetch 189 The Apparition in Old Ross 191 PART IV.—OSSIANIC AND OTHER EARLY LEGENDS. Fann Mac Cuil and the Scotch Giant 203 How Fann Mac Cuil and his Men were bewitched .... 206 QuaLfications and Duties of the Fianna Eirionn 209 The Battle of Ventry Harbour 212 / i \^^cftr? fUrviiôiyw 3 /4 Contents. xiii PAGE The Fight of Castle Knoc 216 Fion's Youth 219 Fion's First Marriage 220 How Fion selected a Wife 222 Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne 223 The Fhght of the Sluggard 225 Beanriogain na Sciana Breaca 227 Conan's Delusions in Ceash 232 The Youth of Oisin 235 The Old Age of Oisin 240 Legend of Loch na Piasta 244 The King with the Horse's Ears 248 The Story of the Sculloge's Son from Muskeny 255 An Braon Suan Or 271 The Children of Lir 277 Lough Neagh 280 Killarney 281 Legend of the Lake of Lichiquin 282 How the Shannon acquired its Name 284 The Origin of the Lake of Tiis 285 The Building of Ardfert Cathedral 286 How Donaghadee got its Name 287 The Borrowed Lake 288 Kilstoheen in the Shannon 290 The Isle of the Living 291 Fionntuin Mac Bochna 294 The Firbolgs and the Danaans 300 Inis na Muic 302 The Bath of the White Cows 304 The Quest for the " Tain-Bo-Cuailgne " 309 The Progress of the Wicked Bard 311 PART v.—LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC SAINTS.

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