第76章

'Before the King The bards will sing.

And there recall the stories all That give renown to Ireland.'

Eighteenth Century Song.

Englished by George Sigerson.

*It seems probable that this tale records a real incident which took place in Aunt David's garden. Penelope has apparently listened with such attention to the old Celtic romances as told by the Ard-ri and Dermot O'Dyna that she has, consciously or unconsciously, reproduced something of their atmosphere and phraseology. The delightful surprise at the end must have been contrived by Salemina, when she, in her character of Sheela the Scribe, gazed into the Horn of Foreknowledge and learned the events that were to happen that day.---K.D.W.

PEARLA'S STORY.

Three maidens once dwelt in a castle in that part of the Isle of Weeping known as the cantred of Devorgilla, Devorgilla of the Green Hill Slopes; and they were baptized according to druidical rites as Sheela the Scribe, Finola the Festive, and Pearla the Melodious, though by the dwellers in that land they were called the Fair Strangers, or the Children of Corr the Swift-Footed.

This cantred of Devorgilla they acquired by paying rent and tribute to the Wise Woman of Wales, who granted them to fish in its crystal streams and to hunt over the green-sided hills, to roam through the woods of yew-trees and to pluck the flowers of every hue that were laughing all over the plains.

Thus were they circumstanced: Their palace of abode was never without three shouts in it,--the shout of the maidens brewing tea, the shout of the guests drinking it, and the shout of the assembled multitude playing at their games. The same house was never without three measures,--a measure of magic malt for raising the spirits, a measure of Attic salt for the seasoning of tales, and a measure of poppy leaves to induce sleep when the tales were dull.

And the manner of their lives was this: In the cool of the morning they gathered nuts and arbutus apples and scarlet quicken berries to take back with them to Tir-thar-toinn, the Country beyond the Wave; for this was the land of their birth. When the sun was high in the east they went forth to the chase; sometimes it was to hunt the Ard- ri, and at others it was in pursuit of Dermot of the Bright Face.

Then, after resting awhile on their couches of soft rushes, they would perform champion feats, or play on their harps, or fish in their clear-flowing streams that were swimming with salmon.

The manner of their fishing was this: to cut a long, straight sallow-tree rod, and having fastened a hook and one of Finola's hairs upon it, to put a quicken-tree berry upon the hook, and stand on the brink of the swift-flowing river, whence they drew out the shining-skinned, silver-sided salmon. These they would straightway broil over a little fire of birch boughs; and they needed with them no other food but the magical loaf made by Toma, one of their house- servants. The witch hag that dwelt on that hillside of Rosnaree called Fan-na-carpat, or the Slope of the Chariots, had cast a druidical spell over Toma, by which she was able to knead a loaf that would last twenty days and twenty nights, and one mouthful of which would satisfy hunger for that length of time.**

** Fact.

Not far from the mayden castle was a certain royal palace, with a glittering roof, and the name of the palace was Rosnaree. And upon the level green in front of the regal abode, or in the banqueting- halls, might always be seen noble companies of knights and ladies bright,--some feasting, some playing at the chess, some giving ear to the music of their own harps, some continually shaking the Chain of Silence, and some listening to the poems and tales of heroes of the olden time that were told by the king's bards and shanachies.

Now all went happily with the Fair Strangers until the crimson berries were ripening on the quicken-tree near the Fairy Palace.

For the berries possessed secret virtues known only to a man of the Dedannans, and learned from him by Sheela the Scribe, who put him under gesa not to reveal the charm to any one else. Whosoever ate of the honey-sweet, scarlet-glowing fruit felt a cheerful flow of spirits, as if he had tasted wine or mead, and whosoever ate a sufficient number of them was almost certain to grow younger. These things were written in the Speckled Book of Salemina, but in druidical ink, undecipherable to all eyes but those of the Scribe herself.

So, wishing that none should possess the secret but themselves, the Fair Strangers set the Gilla Dacker+ to watch the fruit (putting him first under gesa to eat none of the berries himself, since he was already too cheerful and too young to be of much service); and thus, in their absence, the magical tree was never left alone.

+Could be freely translated as the Slothful Button Boy.

Nevertheless, when Finola the Festive went forth to the chase one day, she found a quicken berry glowing like a ruby in the highroad, and Sheela plucked a second from under a gnarled thorn on the Slope of the Chariots, and Pearla discovered a third in the curiously- compounded, swiftly-satisfying loaf of Toma. Then the Fair Strangers became very angry, and sent out their trusty fleet-footed couriers to scour the land for the invaders; for they knew that none of the Dedannans would take the berries, being under gesa not to do so. But the couriers returned, and though they were men able to trace the trail of a fox through nine glens and nine rivers, they could discover no proof of the presence of a foreign foe in the mayden cantred of Devorgilla.