s
satisfaction, at prices that reminded one of the time when fresh
meat was sold for threepence a pound. At the further end of the
green there were one or two rough shooting galleries, and a number
of women--not very rigid, one could see--selling, or appearing to
sell, all kinds of trifles: a set that come in, I am told, from
towns not far away. At the end of the green I turned past the
chapel, where a little crowd had just carried in a man who had been
killed or badly wounded by a fall from a horse, and went down to the
bridge of the river, and then back again into the main slope of the
town. Here there were a number of people who had come in for
amusement only, and were walking up and down, looking at each
other--a crowd is as exciting as champagne to these lonely people,
who live in long glens among the mountains--and meeting with cousins
and friends. Then, in the three-cornered space in the middle of the
town, I came on Puck himself a magnificent he-goat (Irish puc),
raised on a platform twenty feet high, and held by a chain from each
horn, with his face down the road. He is kept in this position, with
a few cabbages to feed on, for three days, so that he may preside
over the pig-fair and the horse-fair and the day of winding up.

At the foot of this platform, where the crowd was thickest, a young
ballad-singer was howling a ballad in honour of Puck, making one
think of the early Greek festivals, since the time of which, it is
possible, the goat has been exalted yearly in Killorglin.

The song was printed on a green slip by itself. It ran:

A NEW SONG ON THE GREAT PUCK FAIR.

By JOHN PURCELL.

All young lovers that are fond of sporting,
pay attention for a while,
I will sing you the praises of Puck Fair,
and I'm sure it will make you smile;
Where the lads and lassies coming gaily to Killorglin can be seen,
To view the Puck upon the stage, as our hero dressed in green.

_Chorus._

And hurra for the gallant Puck so gay,
For he is a splendid one
Wind and rain don't touch his tail,
For his hair is thirty inches long.

Now it is on the square he's erected with all colours grand and gay;
There's not a fair throughout Ireland, but Puck Fair it takes the sway,
Where you see the gamblers in rotation, trick--o'-the-loop and
other games,
The ballad-singers and the wheel-of-fortune and the shooting-gallery
for to take aim.

_Chorus._

Where is the tyrant dare o