in it, and I couldn't be telling
you all the bad names he put on me and the things he said about me.
And he said: 'Leave a pair of bagpipes near him, and maybe he'll play
them. You know well Rickard never could play at all, and so if he
plays them we'll know that it's not Rickard, but a fairy changeling,
and then we'll know what to do.'"

Just here I must stop Naggeneen in his story for a minute, to tell you
that when people in Ireland speak of a "fairy-man" they do not mean a
man fairy. They mean a man who knows all about fairies. The fairy-men
know all that the fairies can do, and they know the charms against
them and the ways to cure a sickness that the fairies have brought
upon anyone, and the ways to keep them from stealing the cream from
the milk and the milk from the cow. So the people have great respect
for a fairy-man or a fairy-woman, and they often send to one of them
for help, when they think that the fairies may have done them a
mischief.

"They left the pipes beside me," Naggeneen went on, "and then they
went away. Oh, it was then I had the terrible time all out. Oh, may I
never long for anything again as I longed to play them pipes! But I
knew that they'ld be listening and watching, and if they caught me at
it, I'ld have to pay for it, if they could make me. So I kept my hands
off them and only groaned and took on as if the dart in my hip was
killing me entirely.

"Then there was one hot afternoon, and everything was still about the
house, and it was the harvest time, and they all had a right to be in
the fields at work. And sure I thought it was there they were. And
then the wish to play the pipes came on me worse than ever before. And
it was then that it was like there was a charm on me, as I was telling
you. I had to do what I did. I could no more help doing it than a girl
can help dancing with us, when we get her in our ring on May Eve. But
first I opened the door a crack and looked out into the kitchen, to
see was there anybody there, and there was nobody. But they were all
in another room, as I found out after, waiting and listening. There
was the fairy-man and a fairy-woman and all the people of the house,
and some of the neighbors.

"But if I'd seen them all I dunno if I could have done other than I
did, the power, whatever it was, was on me that strong. And I took the
pipes and played. It was soft I played at first, and then the music
got the better of me and I went on more and louder, and