“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.