Mary Ryan lit the paraffin lamp which hung from the great beam that stretched across the middle of the house. The rushlight was now used no longer; the oil lamp had taken its place in most of the houses in Frosses. Norah finished her meal and turned to her books. For a long while there was silence in the cabin, but outside the wind was rising, whirling round the corners and sweeping in under the door.
“Tell me a story, mother,” Norah said, putting her books aside and curling up like a pretty ball on the earthen floor in front of the fire.
“All right, I will tell you a story, silly baby that you are!” said the old woman, sitting down on the hassock by the hearth. “Will it be about the wee red-headed man with the flock of goats before him, and the flock of goats behind him, and the salmon tied to the laces of his brogues for supper?”
“Not that one, a maghair, I know it myself.”
“Will it be about Kitty the Ashy pet who said ‘Let you be combing there, mother, and I’ll be combing here,’ and who went up the Bay of Baltic, carrying the Rock of Cattegat on her shoulders?”
“I know that one, mother.”
“And the Bonnie Bull of Norway you know as well. Then it will be about the cat that would not dress its whiskers if it wasn’t in front of the biggest looking-glass in all the world. The biggest looking-glass in all the wide world is the broad ocean in a calm.”
“Not that one, mother.”
“You are hard to please this very night. I will tell you the story of the little green-coated boy who wandered on the rainy roads.... There’s the wind rising. Mercy of God be on your father if the sea is out of order!”
Mary Ryan began the story which she knew by heart, having heard it so often from the lips of her own mother. Here, it may be remarked, most of the folk stories of Donegal are of Norwegian or Danish origin and have in many cases been so well preserved that the Scandinavian names of people and places are retained in the stories until the present day.