Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. Various
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Название: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

Автор: Various

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 4057664102690

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СКАЧАТЬ reg'lar, and now," says she, "take me back and put me into the river again, where you found me."

      "Oh, my lady," says the sojer, "how could I have the heart to drownd a beautiful lady like you?"

      Well, sir, from that day out the sojer was an altered man, and reformed his ways, and went to his duty reg'lar, and fasted three times a-week—though it was never fish he tuk an fastin' days, for afther the fright he got, fish id never rest an his stomach—savin' your presence.

      But anyhow, he was an altered man, as I said before, and in coorse o' time he left the army, and turned hermit at last; and they say he used to pray evermore for the soul of the White Throut.

       [These trout stories are common all over Ireland. Many holy wells are haunted by such blessed trout. There is a trout in a well on the border of Lough Gill, Sligo, that some paganish person put once on the gridiron. It carries the marks to this day. Long ago, the saint who sanctified the well put that trout there. Nowadays it is only visible to the pious, who have done due penance.]

      Footnotes

       [5] The Irish peasant calls his attendance at the confessional "going to his duty."

       [6] The fish has really a red spot on its side.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      "Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning-wheel;

       For your father's on the hill, and your mother is asleep;

       Come up above the crags, and we'll dance a highland-reel

       Around the fairy thorn on the steep."

      At Anna Grace's door 'twas thus the maidens cried,

       Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;

       And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside,

       The fairest of the four, I ween.

      They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,

       Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;

       The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,

       And the crags in the ghostly air:

      And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go,

       The maids along the hill-side have ta'en their fearless way,

       Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow

       Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey.

       The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,

       Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;

       The rowan berries cluster o'er her low head grey and dim

       In ruddy kisses sweet to see.

      The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,

       Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem,

       And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go,

       Oh, never caroll'd bird like them!

      But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze

       That drinks away their voices in echoless repose,

       And dreamily the evening has still'd the haunted braes,

       And dreamier the gloaming grows.

      And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky

       When the falcon's shadow saileth across the open shaw,

       Are hush'd the maiden's voices, as cowering down they lie

       In the flutter of their sudden awe.

      For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath,

       And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between,

       A Power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,

       And they sink down together on the green.

      They sink together silent, and stealing side by side,

       They fling their lovely arms o'er their drooping necks so fair,

       Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,

       For their shrinking necks again are bare.

      Thus clasp'd and prostrate all, with their heads together bow'd,

       Soft o'er their bosom's beating—the only human sound—

       They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,

       Like a river in the air, gliding round.

       No scream can any raise, no prayer can any say, But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three— For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away, By whom they dare not look to see.

      They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold,

       And the curls elastic falling as her head withdraws;

       They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,

       But they may not look to see the cause:

      For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies

       Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;

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