Fann agus tuirseach
Go deireadh a shlighe.
[CLOG-SEED]
“What are you sowing?” “Oh, clog-seed, clog-seed. The childer about here is all running barefoot, and I thought I might help them against the winter day!”
[HERBS AND FLOWERS]
Lusmór, lus-na-méarachán, sian sléibhe, foxglove, or fairy-thimble—whatever you like best to call it—it, I think, is the commonest herb of all. One sees it everywhere with its tall carmine spray, growing on ditches in the sun, in dark, shady places by the side of rivers, and under arches. Then the king-fern, the splendid osmunda regalis; the delicate maidenhair and hart’s-tongue, rooted in the crannies of walls; bog-mint and bog-myrtle, deliciously fragrant after rain, and the white tossing ceanabhán; brier-roses and woodbine; the drooping convolvulus; blue-bough; Fairies’ cabbage, or London Pride; pignuts and anemones; amber water-lilies, curiously scented; orchises, purple and white; wild daffodils and marigolds, gilding the wet meadows between hills; crotal, a moss rather than a herb, but beautiful to look at and most serviceable to the dyer; eyebright and purple mountain saxifrage; crested ling; tufts of sea-holly, with their green, fleshy, spiked leaves; and lake-sedge and sand-grass, blown through by soft winds and murmurous with the hum of bees. Donegal, wild though it be in other respects, is surely a paradise of herbs and flowers.
PASS OF GLENGESH.
[A YOUNG GIRL]
A young girl, in the purr and swell of youth. Her shawl is thrown loosely back, showing a neck and breast beautifully modelled. She is barefooted, and jumps from point to point on the wet road. At a stream which crosses the road near the gallán she lifts her dress to her knees and leaps over. She does not see me where I am perched sunning myself, so I can watch her to my heart’s content.