“Oh Hughie,” says he, “is that your spirit travelling the earth?”
“It’s myself is walking the world, and I not buried at all,” says the voice. “The Good People have me away, and the corpse was an old image cut from bog stick that they left in my bed to deceive you.”
“Then it’s yourself is using the food from this house, my poor boy?” says Shan.
“Aye, indeed,” says the voice, “and sometimes it’s little I find. It does be hard on me to refuse the noble refreshment the fairies set out, but if I’d eat of the like I could never escape from their power. Do you tell herself to leave me a mug of sweet milk and a morsel of bread on the sill of the window, to keep me from hungering more.”
“You’ll have the best in the house left ready against you come,” says Shan. “But will you tell me what way am I to contrive a rescue?”
“It’s easy enough,” says the voice. “But I’m diverting myself with the fairies, and I’ll not be coming home for a while. They took me out oversea to America and showed me the wonders are there. Sure maybe it’s in France I’ll be at the dawning of day!”
“I’d liefer sit by our own fireside than travel the realms of the world with their like,” says Shan. “Let you give them the slip and come home.”
“I seen the King’s daughter of Spain, and a Queen of the East,” says the voice. “For let me be telling you there’s few like myself with the fairies, the way they are showing me great respect.”
Shan gets vexed at the words and he says: “Is it boasting forenenst your own brother you are? Sure we come of a poor stock of people, and I have heard tell there are lords of the fairies.”
“It’s my singing has them crazed about me,” says the voice, “for they have right understanding for music and songs.”