in'
more than what he promised the waiver in his first promise; for, by
all accounts, the king's daughther was the greatest dhraggin ever was
seen, and had the divil's own tongue, and a beard a yard long, which
she _purtended_ was put an her by way of a penance by Father Mulcahy,
her confissor; but it was well known it was in the family for ages,
and no wondher it was so long, by rayson of that same.

APPENDIX

CLASSIFICATION OF IRISH FAIRIES

Irish Fairies divide themselves into two great classes: the sociable
and the solitary. The first are in the main kindly, and the second
full of all uncharitableness.

THE SOCIABLE FAIRIES

These creatures, who go about in troops, and quarrel, and make love,
much as men and women do, are divided into land fairies or Sheoques
(Ir. _Sidheog_, 'a little fairy,') and water fairies or Merrows (Ir.
_Moruadh_, 'a sea maid'; the masculine is unknown). At the same time I
am inclined to think that the term Sheoque may be applied to both
upon occasion, for I have heard of a whole village turning out to hear
two red-capped water fairies, who were very 'little fairies' indeed,
play upon the bagpipes.

1. _The Sheoques._--The Sheoques proper, however, are the spirits that
haunt the sacred thorn bushes and the green raths. All over Ireland
are little fields circled by ditches, and supposed to be ancient
fortifications and sheep-folds. These are the raths, or forts, or
'royalties,' as they are variously called. Here, marrying and giving
in marriage, live the land fairies. Many a mortal they are said to
have enticed down into their dim world. Many more have listened to
their fairy music, till all human cares and joys drifted from their
hearts and they became great peasant seers or 'Fairy Doctors,' or
great peasant musicians or poets like Carolan, who gathered his tunes
while sleeping on a fairy rath; or else they died in a year and a day,
to live ever after among the fairies. These Sheoques are on the whole
good; but one most malicious habit have they--a habit worthy of a
witch. They steal children and leave a withered fairy, a thousand or
maybe two thousand years old, instead. Three or four years ago a man
wrote to one of the Irish papers, telling of a case in his own
village, and how the parish priest made the fairies deliver the stolen
child up again. At times full-grown men and women have been taken.
Near the village of Coloney, Sligo, I have been told, lives an old
wom