will be telling of those days, and singing those songs. Come and listen. ’Tis a Feis (pronounced faysh) they’re having, and prizes given for the best tale told, or the best song sung.”
The old woman and the Twins made their way to the platform and sat down on a bench near the edge of it. Many other people were sitting or standing about. An old man stood up on the platform. He told the story of Cuchulain (pronounced Koohoolin)—the “Hound of Culain”—and how he fought all the greatest warriors of the world on the day he first took arms.
When he had finished, another man took his place and told the story of Deirdre and Naisi, and another told the fate of the four children of Lir that were turned into four beautiful swans by their cruel stepmother.
And when the stories were finished a prize was given for the best one, and the Twins were glad that it was for the story of Deirdre, for that tale was like an old friend to them.
After that there was music, and the dances of old Ireland—the reel and the lilt. And when last of all came the Irish jig, the old woman put her basket down on the ground.
“Sure, the music is like the springtime in my bones,” she said to the Twins. “Be-dad, I’d the foot of the world on me when
I was a girl and I can still shake one with the best of them, if I do say it myself.”
She put her hands on her hips and began to dance! The music got into everybody else’s bones, too, and soon everybody around the platform, and on it, too,—old and young, large and small,—was dancing gayly to the sound of it.