[THE GLAS GAIBHLINN]
“That’s a very green field,” I said to a man to-day, pointing to a field, about two furrow-lengths away, on which the sun seemed to pour all its light at once. “Is there water near it?” “There’s a stream,” says he. “And the Glas Gaibhlinn sleeps there, anyway.” “And what’s that?” “It’s a magic cow the old people’ll tell you of,” says he, “that could never be milked at one milking, or at seven milkings, for that,” says he. “Any field that’s greener than another field, or any bit of land that’s richer than another bit, they say the Glas Gaibhlinn sleeps in it,” says he. “It’s a freet, but it’s true!”
[A HOUSE IN THE ROAD’S MOUTH]
A house in the road’s mouth—it is no roundabout to visit, but a short cut. Often I go up there of an evening, when my day’s wandering is done, to meet the people and to hear the old Fenian stories told—or, maybe, a tune played on the fiddle, if Donal O’Gallagher, the dark man from Falcarragh, should happen to be present. It is as good as the sight of day to see the dancers, the boys and the girls out on the floor, the old people looking on from the shadow of the walls, and Donal himself, for all his blindness, shaking his head and beating time with his foot, as proud as a quilt of nine hundred threads!
[THE QUEST]
Where am I going? Looking for the dew-snail? No, but going till I find the verge of the sky.
[MUCKISH]
“When you see Muckish with a cap on,” said a man to me one day, “you may lay your hand on your heart and say: ‘We’ll have a wet spell before long.’” This mountain, like Errigal, has a knack of drawing a hood of grey vapour round its head when the rest of the landscape is perfectly cloudless—like the peaks of the Kaatskills in Rip Van Winkle.
[THE MAY-FIRE]
The May-Fire is still kindled in some parts of Donegal. It is a survival of a pagan rite of our forefathers.