Irish Folk and Fairy Tales

by Gordon Jarvie

  He was never left quite alone until the day after a great storm had been raging overhead for many hours. He thought they would have had a great expedition round the pools seeing what damage had been done, but instead they told him he must play by himself for a while, as they must all go away and could not take him where they were going.

  He did as he was told and tried to amuse himself playing with the shells that lay about the sand, but it was dull work all alone, and presently he strayed out of the cave on to the stretch of sand outside. Something dark shot through the water overhead, and presently the big conger landed beside him. Eonín had no recollection of anything that had happened before the mermaid kissed him, so he only looked at the conger wondering who he was and what had brought him.

  ‘Well, and how do you get on with them?’ said the conger, who as we know had no manners.

  Eonín only looked at him in a puzzled way. ‘Do you mean the mermaids?’ he said. ‘They are all away somewhere.’

  ‘There is a big wreck off the Hag’s Head,’ said the conger, ‘and they have all gone off to look after the drowned sailors. I have not often a good word for them, but I like to be just, and I will say this, they show every respect and care for the drowned. It is only when you are alive that they torment you. But are you content to be here, and do you never think of going back to your home?’

  ‘What is home?’ asked Eonín. ‘I live here, and I play with the fishes and the shells and I help the mermaids to settle the pools after a storm. I do not know of any other kind of life.’

  ‘I see they have been playing their tricks with you,’ said the conger, ‘but I know a cure for that, and I will fetch it straight away, for indeed I have come to talk to you on a matter of some importance. Now do not stir from this till I come back.’

  And he shot up through the water, leaving the boy staring after him. He was gone some little time, and Eonín wondered if he was really coming back.

  By and by he saw the conger shooting swiftly downwards. He carried something in his mouth.

  ‘Take this bit of seaweed out of my mouth and eat it,’ he told Eonín.

  It was reddish-brown with notched edges and had a salt taste. As Eonín chewed it he suddenly knew it was ‘Dulsk’ or dry seaweed he was eating, and the memory of the life he used to lead on land came back to him. He could see his home standing back a little from the road, and the fields covered with grey slabs of stone, and the little white cabins of Kilronan in the distance. He remembered his mother and father and little sister, and his granny who sat always in her corner near the fire, the boat lying beside the quay and the sunlight shining on the water. An immense grief and a longing to be back again came over him.

  ‘Do you remember where you came from?’ asked the conger, eyeing him curiously. But Eonín could not speak, his heart was so full.

  ‘It is what I came to talk to you about,’ said the conger, ‘for there is no peace or rest for the dwellers among the rocks of Aran. Day and night men are searching with poles and grappling-irons till the congers are driven from their homes and dare not return. And so it came into my mind that it is you they are seeking, and you must go back if we are to have any life at all.’

  ‘How will I go back?’ said Eonín. ‘Now that I remember, I have a terrible wish to go home.’

  ‘I will carry you on my back,’ said the conger, ‘and leave you on the very rock you fell in off, if you will put your arms round my neck and hold on tight.’

  But a sudden fear came over Eonín. ‘I said I would stay here instead of my father,’ he cried, ‘and so I cannot go. He would come back himself if he knew I had gone back on my word, and my mother could not do without him. So I must stay with the mermaids.’

  He cried bitterly, for the more he remembered, the harder it was not to go.

  ‘You have very inconvenient notions,’ said the conger. ‘And if this is your decision, the congers may leave Aran, for there will be no end to this searching. When they call out to your father that it is useless to go on, and to give up, he cries out he will search all his life. There is but one thing now that I can think of doing, and I do not think it can be any harm. We must go out to Skerdmore and consult the Great Grey Seal who lives there. He says he is a cousin of the mermaids and is sometimes taken for them. He may be able to tell us some way of getting over the difficulty.’

  Then the conger flattened the fin on his back and Eonín lay along it and put his arms round the conger’s neck and away they shot through the water. They went very fast, but it was a long way to Skerdmore, and Eonín’s arms began to ache from holding on so tightly, when they rose suddenly to the surface of the sea. Then he saw they had reached a tiny island with a great many rocks showing on one side of it, and on one of these was lying a great grey seal.

  The conger hooked his tail round a point of the rock, and Eonín scrambled up on to it.

  ‘We have come to consult your Honour on a difficult point,’ said the conger very politely, for he knew the Grey Seal could have bitten him in two, ‘and we hope that you will give us the benefit of your great wisdom and learning. Here is a little boy who has been living with the mermaids in order to release his father, and now he would like to go home himself if he could do so without breaking his promise.’

  ‘The mermaids are distant relations of mine,’ said the Grey Seal, raising himself on his two front flippers. ‘We are both musical and you may have heard me singing. I should not care to annoy them at the request of a mere conger. Why should this little boy want to go home?’

  ‘It is because I have remembered my home and my mother and my father,’ said Eonín, ‘and all the things I used to do on land. My mother will have no one to get in the water for the house, or to be running in when my father is away at the fishing. But I would not vex the mermaids or go unless they would let me.’

  ‘We all know,’ said the conger, ‘that there are a great deal too many boys in this world, and that they are good for very little except to throw stones at the seals and disturb them by splashing round the rocks, but there is more at stake in this matter than you might think. The fate of all the congers of Aran depends on his going home. We have no rest or peace while they are searching for him, and if we are driven away we shall no longer be able to listen to the lovely music which you make on the summer nights.’

  ‘I see, I see,’ said the Grey Seal, greatly pleased. ‘Since you like my voice I should be sorry if you had no opportunity of hearing it. But it will not be easy for him to win his release. There is a rule of life under the sea as well as on land, and they may not let him go for the asking.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ asked Eonín.

  ‘You will have to find out what they want most in the world,’ said the Grey Seal, ‘and then you will have to give it to them.’

  Eonín’s heart sank, for he could not think how he could accomplish such a task, but the conger thanked the seal profusely and asked Eonín to get on his back again.

  ‘I am always pleased to help anyone who appreciates music,’ said the Grey Seal.

  They left the seal on his rock bellowing most dismally and made all speed back to the mermaids’ cave. The night had fallen and with all their haste the mermaids were there before them, so that when they reached the entrance they heard them singing softly inside.

  ‘Now go in,’ said the conger, ‘and keep your wits about you and do not fail me, for it would break my heart to live even as far off as Inishbofin. I will wait behind the rocks here to see what happens.’

  Eonín slowly went in, wondering what he should say and how he would get them what they wanted most in the world even if he could find it out. They were all seated round the cave and none of them playing, but singing so sad an air that it brought the tears to his eyes. The mermaid who always sat at the end on the rock beckoned to him, and when he reached her she lifted him up on to her lap.

  ‘Now, Eonín,’ she said, ‘tell me all that is in your heart.’

  Eonín laid his head against her breast a
nd told her all that had happened since they left him alone.

  ‘I have a sore longing to get home,’ he said, when he had finished his story, ‘and so will you please tell me what you want most in the world, and I will try and get it for you.’

  The mermaid looked very thoughtful and then she signed to the others, who all stopped singing and gathered round her.

  ‘Now I will tell you, Eonín,’ she said, ‘when there is a wreck on the coast we go to look after those that may be drowned, and we sing to them that they may rest peacefully until they are called from our care. We know a great many songs, both gay and sad, but tonight we need one that we have never heard or learned. Can you sing us a song that we do not know?’

  Then Eonín thought of all the songs he had ever heard and he sang them the songs the fishermen sing when the boats are coming in, or when they are raising the nets or hauling at the ropes, but the mermaids shook their heads and looked sorrowful and said they knew all those.

  ‘It will be some English song you are wanting,’ he cried, ‘and I have no English.’

  ‘No, no,’ they cried, ‘it is not that we want at all.’

  Then Eonín suddenly bethought him of a song they could never have heard, for when his mother sang it she shut the door tight to keep out the sound of the sea. She sang it always to put Una to sleep and he knew it well. He lifted up his voice and sang, ‘Oh, little head of gold. Oh, candle of the house –’ and they listened without a word till he came to the very end.

  ‘That is the song we want!’ they all cried when he had finished, ‘and now we will show you why we want it.’

  They swam with him to another part of the cave, and there, lying asleep on a bed made of the softest sea-moss, he saw a tiny child, not much bigger than Una and with golden curls shining against the dark green weed.

  ‘We knew no song that she would have cared to hear,’ they said; ‘but now you have taught us one. You have earned your release, though we are sorry to lose you.’

  The tallest mermaid lifted him on to her lap again and she placed her hand on his heart and kissed him on the lips, but this time her lips and her hands were so warm that he felt the warmth right through his body, and when she had done that she looked him in the eyes and smiling, said: ‘Now all that has happened shall be as though it has never happened, and the conger shall take you to the very rock you fell in off.’

  They called the conger in, and when he knew that he was to take Eonín home his delight knew no bounds, and he span round and round to show how pleased he was till they all felt quite giddy and told him he should not have as much as a sprat to eat if he did not stop. Then he calmed down, and they placed Eonín on his back when they had all said goodbye, and stood waving their hands and singing while he shot up out of sight with his burden.

  ‘I too will say goodbye,’ said the conger when Eonín had scrambled off his back on to the rock. ‘I must now go and tell the other congers the great news that you are back and that there will be no more searching of the rocks. And mind you tell your father I am ten feet long and can bite through a man’s hand. I think he will be proud to hear of me again.’

  ‘We will go fishing for you together,’ cried Eonín, and the conger waved his side fin and sank down through the water.

  Eonín found himself alone lying on the rock, and as he looked round and saw the familiar scene his life under the sea faded out of his mind and he could not quite tell why he was on the rock or what had brought him there. The sun had risen and the storm had passed over. The sky was quite clear and the sun shining, and except that the sea was still rather rough, there was no trace of a gale. He stood up and saw a boat running into the harbour and knew it for his father’s boat. By running quickly he reached the quay as it came alongside, and in it was his father safe and sound and another man in the stern wrapped in a dark overcoat.

  ‘What brings you out here at this hour, Eonín?’ said his father, for it was still very early. ‘But since you are here, run home with a message from me, for I must show this gentleman the way to the Rectory. Tell your mother we could not get out of Cashla the way the wind was, and that that was the delay, for I am sure she was uneasy.’

  Eonín ran back hard and met his mother on the pathway, for she too had seen the boat.

  ‘How did you get out without my seeing you?’ she asked, bewildered, when he had given the message; but she was too happy to scold, and he ran on in, not quite sure of how it had happened himself.

  Sometimes when he is making up a story for Una it all comes back to him, and he tells it to her, while she listens with great attention, sucking her thumb the while. But he can get no one else to believe him when he says he has talked with the Great Grey Seal at Skerdmore.

  PART FOUR: THE LEPREHAUN

  ‘The Leprehaun’ by Lady Wilde

  The Leprehauns are merry, industrious, tricksy little sprites, who do all the shoemaker’s work and the tailor’s and the cobbler’s for the fairy gentry, and are often seen at sunset under the hedge singing and stitching. They know all the secrets of hidden treasure, and if they take a fancy to a person will guide him to the spot in the fairy rath where the pot of gold lies buried. It is believed that a family now living near Castlerea came by their riches in a strange way, all through the good offices of a friendly Leprehaun. And the legend has been handed down through many generations as an established fact.

  There was a poor boy once, one of their forefathers, who used to drive his cart of turf daily back and forward, and make what money he could by the sale; but he was a strange boy, very silent and moody, and the people said he was a fairy changeling, for he joined in no sports and scarcely ever spoke to any one, but spent the nights reading all the old bits of books he picked up in his rambles. The one thing he longed for above all others was to get rich, and to be able to give up the old weary turf cart, and live in peace and quietness all alone, with nothing but books round him, in a beautiful house and garden all by himself.

  Now he had read in the old books how the Leprehauns knew all the secret places where gold lay hid, and day by day he watched for a sight of the little cobbler, and listened for the click, click of his hammer as he sat under the hedge mending the shoes.

  At last, one evening just as the sun set, he saw a little fellow under a dock leaf, working away, dressed all in green, with a cocked hat on his head. So the boy jumped down from the cart and seized him by the neck.

  ‘Now you don’t stir from this,’ he cried, ‘till you tell me where to find the hidden gold.’

  ‘Easy now,’ said the Leprehaun, ‘don’t hurt me, and I will tell you all about it. But mind you, I could hurt you if I chose, for I have the power; but I won’t do it, for we are cousins once removed. So as we are near relations I’ll just be good, and show you the place of the secret gold that none can have or keep except those of fairy blood and race. Come along with me, then, to the old fort of Lipenshaw, for there it lies. But make haste, for when the last red glow of the sun vanishes the gold will disappear also, and you will never find it again.’

  ‘Come away, then,’ said the boy, and he carried the Leprehaun into the turf cart, and drove off. And in a second they were at the old fort, and went in through a door made in the stone wall.

  ‘Now look round,’ said the Leprehaun, and the boy saw the whole ground covered with gold pieces, and there were vessels of silver lying about in such plenty that all the riches of all the world seemed gathered there.

  ‘Now take what you want,’ said the Leprehaun; ‘but hasten, for if that door shuts you will never leave this place as long as you live.’

  So the boy gathered up his arms full of gold and silver, and flung them into the cart; and was on his way back for more when the door of the fort shut with a clap like thunder, and all the place became dark as night. And he saw no more of the Leprehaun, and had not time even to thank him.

  So he thought it best to drive home at once with his treasure, and when he arrived and was all alone by himself he counted his riche
s, and all the bright yellow gold pieces, enough for a king’s ransom.

  And he was very wise and told no one; but went off next day to Dublin and put all his treasures into the bank, and found that he was now indeed as rich as a lord.

  So he ordered a fine house to be built with spacious gardens, and he had servants and carriages and books to his heart’s content. And he gathered all the wise men round him to give him the learning of a gentleman; and he became a great and powerful man in the country, where his memory is still held in high honour, and his descendants are living to this day rich and prosperous; for their wealth has never decreased though they have ever given largely to the poor, and are noted above all things for the friendly heart and the liberal hand.

  But the Leprehauns can be bitterly malicious if they are offended, and one should be very cautious in dealing with them, and always treat them with great civility, or they will take revenge and never reveal the secret of the hidden gold.

  One day a young lad was out in the fields at work when he saw a little fellow, not the height of his hand, mending shoes under a dock leaf. And he went over, never taking his eyes off him for fear he would vanish away; and when he got quite close he made a grab at the creature, and lifted him up and put him in his pocket.

  Then he ran away home as fast as he could, and when he had the Leprehaun safe in the house, he tied him by an iron chain to the hob.

  ‘Now tell me,’ he said, ‘where am I to find a pot of gold? Let me know the place or I’ll punish you.’

  ‘I know of no pot of gold,’ said the Leprehaun; ‘but let me go that I may finish mending the shoes.’

  ‘Then I’ll make you tell me,’ said the lad.

  And with that he made up a great fire, and put the little fellow on it and scorched him.

  ‘Oh, take me off, take me off!’ cried the Leprehaun, ‘and I’ll tell you. Just there, under the dock leaf where you found me there is a pot of gold. Go; dig and find.’