LEE 53

THE FAIRY GREYHOUND 69

THE LADY OF GOLLERUS 77

EVIL SPIRITS

THE DEVIL'S MILL 95

FERGUS O'MARA AND THE AIR-DEMONS 112

THE MAN WHO NEVER KNEW FEAR 123

CATS

SEANCHAN THE BARD AND THE KING OF THE CATS 141

OWNEY AND OWNEY-NA-PEAK 151

KINGS AND WARRIORS

THE KNIGHTING OF CUCULAIN 185

THE LITTLE WEAVER OF DULEEK GATE 195

APPENDIX

CLASSIFICATION OF IRISH FAIRIES 223

AUTHORITIES ON IRISH FOLKLORE 234

INTRODUCTION

AN IRISH STORY-TELLER

I am often doubted when I say that the Irish peasantry still believe
in fairies. People think I am merely trying to bring back a little of
the old dead beautiful world of romance into this century of great
engines and spinning-jinnies. Surely the hum of wheels and clatter of
printing presses, to let alone the lecturers with their black coats
and tumblers of water, have driven away the goblin kingdom and made
silent the feet of the little dancers.

Old Biddy Hart at any rate does not think so. Our bran-new opinions
have never been heard of under her brown-thatched roof tufted with
yellow stone-crop. It is not so long since I sat by the turf fire
eating her griddle cake in her cottage on the slope of Benbulben and
asking after her friends, the fairies, who inhabit the green
thorn-covered hill up there behind her house. How firmly she believed
in them! How greatly she feared offending them! For a long time she
would give me no answer but 'I always mind my own affairs and they
always mind theirs.' A little talk about my great-grandfather who
lived all his life in the valley below, and a few words to remind her
how I myself was often under her roof when but seven or eight years
old loosened her tongue, however. It would be less dangerous at any
rate to talk to me of the fairies than it would be to tell some
'Towrow' of them, as she contemptuously called English tourists, for I
had lived under the shadow of their own hillsides. She did not
forget, however, to remind me to say after we had finished, 'God bless
them, Thursday' (that being the