ne time they were camping near the railway bridge that in the
night-time she saw the whole wall beside her falling down and shattered;
but in the morning it was standing as it did before. "And we'll get out
of this place as fast as we can," she said.'

'They are a class of themselves,' says another man, 'and they have been
there ever since the world began. I often heard it said that our Lord
asked a tinker one time to make Him some vessel He wanted, and he
refused Him. He went then to a smith, and he did what was wanted. And
from that time the tinkers have been wandering on the roads; but they
wouldn't have refused Him if they had known He was God. I never saw them
at Mass; but I am sure they believe in God. It was here in Ireland they
refused our Lord, the time He walked the whole world after the
Crucifixion.'

'To be sure they are under a curse,' said another, 'like the Jews, to be
wandering always; and they have some religion of their own, but it's a
bad one. It's likely St. Patrick put the curse on them; for a fleet of
children of tinkers went after him one time, mocking at him, and he
turned one of them into a pillar of stone.'

And that is their story as I have heard it so far.

WORKHOUSE DREAMS

Last June I had a few free days, and I chose to spend them among the
imaginative class, the holders of the traditions of Ireland, country
people in thatched houses, workers in fields and bogs.

I was looking for legends of those shadow-heroes, Finn and his men, to
help me in writing their story; and I heard many tales and long poems
about fair-haired Finn, who 'had all the wisdom of a little child'; and
Conan of the sharp tongue, who was 'some way cross in himself,' and who
had a briar on his shield; and their adventures beyond sea, and their
hunting after deer that were 'as joyful as the leaves of a tree in
summer time.' But some of the people repeated verses by Raftery and
Callinan and Sweeny, and some told stories of the kingdom of the Sidhe.

I spent three happy afternoons in a workhouse in my own county, but not
in my own parish; and after we had spoken of the Fianna for a while, the
old men began to tell me these long, rambling stories I am about to
repeat.

We sat in a gravelled yard, where only the leaves of a few young
sycamores told that spring had come. Some of the old men sat on a bench
against the whitewashed wall of a shed, in their rough frieze clothes
and round grey caps, and others stood