Go it, your
reverence!--turn your partner--heel an' toe, ministher. Good! Well done,
again! Whish! Hurroo! Here's for Ballyboulteen, an' the sky over it!'

"Bad luck to sich a set ever was seen together in this world, or will
again, I suppose. The worst, however, wasn't come yet, for jist as they
were in the very heat an' fury of the dance, what do you think comes
hoppin' in among them but another pudden, as nimble an' merry as the
first! That was enough; they had all heard of it--the ministhers among
the rest--an' most of them had seen the other pudden, an' knew that
there must be a fairy in it, sure enough. Well, as I said, in it comes
to the thick o' them; but the very appearance of it was enough. Off the
three clargy danced, and off the whole weddiners danced afther them,
everyone makin' the best of their way home; but not a sowl of them able
to break out of the step, if they were to be hanged for it. Throth, it
wouldn't lave a laff in you to see the parson dancin' down the road on
his way home, and the ministher and Methodist praycher cuttin' the
buckle as they went along in the opposite direction. To make short work
of it, they all danced home at last wid scarce a puff of wind in them;
the bride an' bridegroom danced away to bed; an' now, boys, come an' let
us dance the _Horo Lheig_ in the barn widout. But, you see, boys, before
we go, and in order to make everything plain, I had as good tell you
that Harry, in crossin' the bridge of Ballyboulteen, a couple o' miles
between Squire Bragshaw's demesne wall, saw the pudden floatin' down the
river--the truth is, he was waitin' for it; but, be this as it may, he
took it out, for the wather had made it as clane as a new pin, an'
tuckin' it up in the tail of his big coat, contrived to bewitch it in
the same manner by gettin' a fairy to get into it, for, indeed, it was
purty well known that the same Harry was hand an' glove wid the _good
people_. Others will tell you that it was half a pound of quicksilver he
put into it, but that doesn't stand to raison. At any rate, boys, I have
tould you the adventures of the Mad Pudden of Ballyboulteen; but I don't
wish to tell you many other things about it that happened--_for 'fraid
I'd tell a lie_!"

WILLIAM CARLETON.

The Voyage of Maeldune

I was the chief of the race--he had stricken my father dead--
But I gathered my fellows together; I swore I would strike off his head.
Each of them looked like a king, and wa