“It is a bad thing for the heart to be cast down, so we took another cabin, and looked out with great desire for the Fir Darrig to come to us. But ten o’clock came and no arm, although we cut a hole in the door just the moral (model) of the other. Eleven o’clock!—twelve o’clock!—no, not a sign of him: and every night we watched, but all would not do. We then travelled to the other house, and we rooted up the hearth, for the landlord asked so great a rent for it from the poor people that no one could take it; and we carried away the very door off the hinges, and we brought every thing with us that we thought the little man was in any respect partial to, but he did not come, and we never saw him again.
“My father and my mother, and my young sister, are since dead, and my two brothers, who could tell all about this better than myself, are both of them gone out with Ingram in his last voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, leaving me behind without kith or kin.”
Here young Ellen’s voice became choked with sorrow, and bursting into tears, she hid her face in her apron.
Fir Darrig means the red man, and is a member of the fairy community of Ireland, who bears a strong resemblance to the Shakspearian Puck, or Robin Goodfellow. Like that merry goblin his delight is in mischief and mockery; and this Irish spirit is doubtless the same as the Scottish Red Cap; which a writer in the Quarterly Review (No. XLIV. p. 358,) tracing national analogies, asserts, is the Robin Hood of England, and the Saxon spirit Hudkin or Hodekin, so called from the hoodakin or little hood wherein he appeared, a spirit similar to the Spanish Duende. The Fir Darrig has also some traits of resemblance in common with the Scotch Brownie, the German Kobold (particularly the celebrated one, Hinzelman,) the English Hobgoblin (Milton’s “Lubber Fiend”) and the Follet of Gervase of Tilbury, who says of the Folletos, “Verba utique humano more audiunter et effigies non comparent. De istis pleraque miracula memini me in vita abbreviata et miraculis beatissimi Antonii reperisse.”—Otia Imperialia.
The red dress and strange flexibility of voice possessed by the Fir Darrig form his peculiar characteristics; the latter, according to Irish tale-tellers, is like the sound of the waves; and again it is compared to the music of angels; the warbling of birds, &c.; and the usual address to this fairy is, Do not mock us. His entire dress, when he is seen, is invariably described as crimson: whereas, Irish fairies generally appear in a black hat, a green suit, white stockings, and red shoes.
TREASURE LEGENDS.