f the dead,
loved him; and that if he would come into the country of the gods, where
there was wine and gold and silver, Fand, and Laban her sister, would
heal him of his magical weakness. Cuchullain went to the country of the
gods, and, after being for a month the lover of Fand, made her a
promise to meet her at a place called 'the Yew at the Strand's End,' and
came back to the earth. Emer, his mortal wife, won his love again, and
Mannannan came to 'the Yew at the Strand's End,' and carried Fand away.
When Cuchullain saw her going, his love for her fell upon him again, and
he went mad, and wandered among the mountains without food or drink,
until he was at last cured by a Druid drink of forgetfulness.

I have founded the man 'who drove the gods out of their Liss,' or fort,
upon something I have read about Caolte after the battle of Gabra, when
almost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their
Liss, either at Osraighe, now Ossory, or at Eas Ruaidh, now Asseroe, a
waterfall at Ballyshannon, where Ilbreac, one of the children of the
goddess Danu, had a Liss. I am writing away from most of my books, and
have not been able to find the passage; but I certainly read it
somewhere.

I have founded 'the proud dreaming king' upon Fergus, the son of Roigh,
the legendary poet of 'the quest of the bull of Cualge,' as he is in the
ancient story of Deirdre, and in modern poems by Ferguson. He married
Nessa, and Ferguson makes him tell how she took him 'captive in a single
look.'

'I am but an empty shade,
Far from life and passion laid;
Yet does sweet remembrance thrill
All my shadowy being still.'

Presently, because of his great love, he gave up his throne to
Conchobar, her son by another, and lived out his days feasting, and
fighting, and hunting. His promise never to refuse a feast from a
certain comrade, and the mischief that came by his promise, and the
vengeance he took afterwards, are a principal theme of the poets. I
have explained my imagination of him in 'Fergus and the Druid,' and in a
little song in the second act of 'The Countess Kathleen.'

* * * * *

I have founded him 'who sold tillage, and house, and goods,' upon
something in 'The Red Pony,' a folk tale in Mr. Larminie's 'West Irish
Folk Tales.' A young man 'saw a light before him on the high road. When
he came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming up
out of it. He t