Bits of Blarney

by R. Shelton Mackenzie

"Con remained in France for a month, and was perfectly in clover, for, from the lord to the lackey, every one liked him. When he returned, he had a heavy purse of gold for himself, and many fine presents for his master. Indeed, while the French lord lived, which was for fifteen good years longer, a couple of hogsheads of excellent claret were annually received at Barry's-fort, as a present from him, and there was no wine in the country to equal it. As for Con O'Keefe, he never had the luck to meet the fairies again, a misfortune he very sincerely lamented. And that's the whole story."

I asked Mr. McCann, whether he really believed all of it? That worthy replied in these words:—

"Why, in truth, I must say, some parts of it require rather an elastic mind to take in; but there's no doubt that Con was sent over to France, where, it is said, there was a great to-do about a golden cup. I am positive that Mr. Barry used to receive a present of claret, every year, from a French lord, for I've drank some of the best claret in Ireland from Mr. Barry's cellar. If the tale be true—and I have told it as I have heard Con O'Keefe tell it, especially when overcome by liquor, at which time, the truth is sure to come out—it is proof positive, that there have been fairies in this neighborhood, and that within the memory of man!"

Such a logical conclusion was incontrovertible, especially when enforced by a facetious wink from the schoolmaster; so, I even left matters as they were, and listened with all proper attention to other stories in the same vein, and to the same effect. If the narrator did not credit them, most of his auditors did, which amounts to much the same in the end. Some other time, perhaps, I may be tempted to relate them.

LEGENDS OF FINN MAC COUL.

There is a similarity, all over the world, between the popular legends and traditions of different nations. They are reproduced, with slight differences of circumstance and costume, to suit each new locality. For example, the Maiden Tower at Constantinople, actually built by the Emperor Manuel, centuries ago, for the purpose of a double communication—with Scutari, on the Asian side, and with the point of coast occupied by the Serai Bournou on the Asian. Whenever the hostile visit of a Venetian fleet was anticipated, a strong iron chain used to be drawn on both sides, across the entire breadth of the strait. Respecting this are several legends, all of which have their prototypes in the West.

The generally received account has appropriated it as the place in which, for safety, a damsel was held in close retirement until the fatal time named in a prediction should have passed away; but a serpent, accidentally brought up in a basket of fruit, caused the maiden's death. Here is a striking illustration of the similarity between the legends of the East and those of the West. In the Third Calendar's Story, in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments (which have charmed all of us in youth, and rarely fail to delight us when we return to them in maturer years), the whole interest turns on an incident of the same character. Both stories appear deeply imbued with that fatality which forms the distinguishing feature in Eastern belief and practice. Near Bristol, also, are the remains of a tower, called Cook's Folly, erected to be the dwelling-place of a youth of whom it had been predicted that (like the heroine of the Turkish legend) his life would be in peril from a serpent until the completion of his eighteenth year. The dangerous time had nearly expired, when the youth died from the venomous bite of an adder, which had been accidentally conveyed to his isolated abode in a bundle of fagots.

In the south of Ireland, on the summit of a mountain called Corrig Thierna (Athe Chieftain's Rock), is a heap of stones which, if there be truth in tradition, was brought there to build a castle in which was to dwell a son of Roche, Prince of Fermoy, of whom it had been predicted that he would be drowned before his twentieth year. The child, when only five years old, fell into a pool of water which had been collected, on the top of the mountain, to make mortar for the erection of the tower, in which it was intended he should be kept "out of harm's way," until the perilous period had elapsed. The child was drowned. In each case, the prophecy appears to have brought about its own fulfilment. There is a moral in these old traditions, did we but know how to seize and apply it.

Washington Irving has localized several legends as American, but his Rip Van Winkle has been traced to a German origin, and many of his other legends appear to be old friends in a new attire. Who can say whence any traditional stories are derived? Some years ago, a supplement to the Thousand-and-One Nights, containing an Arabian tale called the Sage Heycar, was published at Paris, and the translator noted the curious fact that this Oriental story contained many incidents exactly similar to passages in the life of Æsop: such as sixteen pages of details of a visit made by Heycar to the court of Pharaoh, which are the same, word for word, with the account of the like visit made by Æsop. So, too, the challenge which Pharaoh sent to the King of Abyssinia, demanding him to build a palace in the air, and the ingenious means to which Æsop had recourse, are transferred to Heycar. Even the fables of Æsop, the Phrygian, have been claimed for Lokman, the Arabian philosopher, and now the very incidents of his life are taken from him by Heycar.

The Coventry legend of Lady Godiva is claimed by the Arabians. In Von Hammer's new Arabian Nights is the story called Camaralzeman and the Jeweller's Wife, founded on an incident precisely similar to that in which the English heroine appears.