CHAPTER IV

ERIN’S HARP

March winds blew across the valley and ruffled Mary Ellen’s yellow curls as she sat in the ring of green grass made by the fairies’ dancing feet, and played with some sea-shells and pebbles Danny had found in the seaweed he gathered for Farmer Flynn.

She had been playing contentedly for a long time when she suddenly jumped up, scattering a handful of pebbles from her lap. “Kathleen,” she called, “I hear the peddler’s cart. Sure, he’s comin’ across the bridge this minute.”

Kathleen rushed out of the house, clasped her sister’s hand tightly in her own, and ran up the little path to the top of the hill as fast as she could go.

“Oh, Mary Ellen!” she panted; “I made sure I’d finish the stockings before the peddler came this way again; but here he is now and only one done. The blue dress will be worn out before the other stocking’s finished.”

The peddler drew up his cart before the door of the little cottage, and Grandmother Barry went out to bargain with him for a piece of linen in exchange for her butter and eggs. Great-grandmother Connell hobbled out to see that the bargain was well made, and the three laughed heartily over Kathleen’s hurried flight.

In the winter the peddler had given the child a piece of blue homespun for a dress, and she had promised to knit a pair of stockings for him in payment; but there were so many more interesting things to do every day that the knitting proved slow work, and Kathleen had often wished the blue dress back in the peddler’s cart.

“Faith, Kathleen makes it harder work to keep out of my sight than to do the knitting,” the peddler said, as he opened his cart and took out the linen.

Grandmother Barry laughed as she answered, “I’m thinkin’ it will teach the child a good lesson. It’s best to keep well out of debt, and a dress is better paid for before it is worn. But she shall finish the stockings this day week, or I’ll knit them myself.”

She went into the house to fetch her butter and eggs, and after much weighing and measuring and talking, they were exchanged for a piece of coarse linen and a pound of good honey.

In the meantime the two little girls hid behind the fairy rath and whispered together about the stockings.

The Hills of Donegal

The road over which Danny brought the seaweed for Farmer Flynn. [ Page 21]

“The minute the peddler drives down the road I’ll go and get the knitting, and I’ll keep the needles clickin’ while I’m out of my bed till it’s done,” Kathleen declared.

Mary Ellen held up her hand. “Whist, alanna,” she said softly, “’tis fairy music I hear.”

Kathleen listened eagerly for a moment. “True for you,” she said. “I hear it myself. Belike it’s the sea-gods over at Horn Head. There was a big storm last night, and Grandmother Barry says that after a big storm thousands of the sea-gods ride over the waves on their white-maned steeds winding their battle horns.”

It is ten miles across the country to Horn Head, which is one of the rocky headlands on the north coast of Ireland, where the waves of the Atlantic Ocean beat against the dark cliffs. Highland lakes and mountain rivers lie between, and the road over which Danny brought the seaweed for Farmer Flynn leads across purple hills that would surely deaden the sound of surf miles away.

“It’s nearer than Horn Head,” said Mary Ellen. “There may be fairies in the rath after all.”

“Let’s go and see,” Kathleen suggested, and the two children tiptoed carefully around the circle of rocks, forgetting all about the peddler, and the stockings, and Kathleen’s good resolution.

As they crept softly up to the open door of the grassy mound the sweet notes became a little tune, and a voice began singing the familiar words of an old Irish song.

Kathleen stood still, hardly daring to breathe, but Mary Ellen stepped boldly into the tiny room. “It’s the father himself,” she said, and Kathleen followed her sister, astonished indeed to find her father sitting on his work-bench and gently touching the strings of a small harp.

“I’m glad it wasn’t the fairy music we heard,” she said, after the surprise was over. “Grandma Barry says a spell is cast over him that hears it, and after the spell is taken off he pines away and dies in a year and a day.”

“Is it your own harp, Father?” asked Mary Ellen, thinking he might perhaps have borrowed it from the fairies.

“It was your mother’s,” he answered. “It was in her family from the days of the old Irish chiefs, and she showed me how to pick the strings.”

Mary Ellen touched it softly with her fingers. “It almost seems alive,” she said, as the strings gave out their sweet sounds.

“There was once a god in Ireland who owned a harp that was alive,” her father said with a smile. “He used to be called the ‘Mighty Father of Ireland,’ and his harp could do strange things when it had a mind. Sometimes he would go to the top of the mountain and play the whole procession of the seasons—spring, summer, autumn, winter—out of the strings of the harp.

“Once the god was captured by the giants, and was taken away to their castle, but he called to his harp for help, and it heard and answered. It flew through the air straight to its master, and killed nine of the giants as it flew.”

“Listen to him, telling us tales of the giants,” whispered Kathleen, but Mary Ellen was thinking of the harp and paid no attention to her sister.

“Danny says there is a harp on the green flag of Ireland,” she said.

“Yes,” said her father, “it was an Irish god who made the harp and played upon its strings.”

“Tell us about it,” begged Kathleen, who loved the gods and giants as well as she did the fairies.

“The god’s name was Dagda,” her father told her, “and once when he was walking beside a blue lake he saw a beautiful maiden and wished to have her for his wife. But the maiden feared him and ran away through the forest.

“Dagda followed her and she went on running away; and so at last they came to a beautiful curving beach, with the waves washing the yellow sands.

“As the maiden fled swiftly across the wet sands she heard a strange, mournful sound, and stopped to listen to the music.

“The bones of a fish lay on the sand at her feet, and the dry skin, stretched from rib to rib, made a harp for the wind to play upon.

“When Dagda saw that the sweet sounds pleased the maiden, he took a piece of wood and made a harp after the same pattern, playing upon the strings with his fingers as the wind had taught him to do. After that the maiden followed him gladly for love of the music.

“It was the first music ever heard in all Ireland, but since that day we have had harpers from one end of the land to the other. ’Tis a wonderful country for music, and we put the harp on our green flag to show that we’re proud of the sweet songs of Erin.”

Kathleen sighed when the story was finished. “I wish it were the days of gods and giants and beautiful maidens now,” she said.

“I’d wish for the days of the harpers and story-tellers,” said Mary Ellen wistfully.

“Right you are, Molly jewel,” said her father, putting the harp carefully away in its case. “The giants were just plain men like myself, but with no learning at all, at all. Faith, they could neither read nor write, and but for the harpers we’d know nothing about them.”

“How do we know from the harpers?” asked Kathleen.

“Sure, the harpers and story-tellers made up grand songs and stories about the gods and the giants of old Ireland, and travelled up and down the length and breadth of the land singing their songs and telling their stories wherever they went. It was the only way of learning that people had in the days when there were no books.”

“The people must have been glad to see the harpers coming,” said Mary Ellen, thinking how much she would like to hear their songs.

“That they were,” replied her father. “Even the kings made them welcome, and gave great feasts in their honor. The feasts were held in a long banquet hall with rows of tables up and down the sides, and there were sometimes more than a hundred men at the tables. The king sat at the head of the hall, with a harper on one side and a story-teller on the other, and there was merry-making through half the night.”

“Those old kings of Ireland must have been great men,” said Kathleen.

“That they were,” replied her father, “and Brian Boru was the best of them all.”

“The grandmother is callin’,” interrupted Mary Ellen. “I hear the sound of her bell.”

“She’s always callin’,” Kathleen complained, but she took her sister’s hand and hurried obediently down the hill.