[443] A kind of spade with but one step, used in Leinster.
[444] All that is said in this legend about the beer is a pure fiction, for we never heard of a Leprechaun drinking or smoking. It is, however, a tradition of the peasantry, that the Danes used to make beer of the heath. It was a Protestant farmer in the county of Cavan, that showed such knowledge of the siege of Derry; the Catholic gardener who told us this story, knew far better. It is also the popular belief that the Danes keep up their claim on Ireland, and that a Danish father, when marrying his daughter, gives her a portion in Ireland.
[445] i. e. Felix. On account of the Romish custom of naming after Saints, Felix, Thaddæus, Terence, Augustine, etc., are common names among the peasantry.
[446] In our Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 16, we noticed the coincidence between this and a passage in an Arabic author. We did not then recollect the following verses of Milton,
The willows and the hazle copses green
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
Lycidas, 42.
The simile of the moon among the stars in the same place, we have since found in the Nibelungen Lied (st. 285), and in some of our old poets, and Hammer says (Sehirin i. note 7), that it occurs even to satiety in Oriental poetry. In like manner Camoens' simile of the mirror, mentioned in the same place, occurs in Poliziano's Stanze i. 64.
[447] Account of the Highlands, etc. iv. 358.
[448] Men of Peace, perhaps the Stille-folk, Still-people, or rather, merely Fairy- or Spirit-people. See above p. [364].
[449] See Stewart, The Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders. Edinburgh, 1823. As Mr. Stewart's mode of narrating is not the very best, we have taken the liberty of re-writing and abridging the legends.
[450] "The goats are supposed to be upon a very good understanding with the fairies, and possessed of more cunning and knowledge than their appearance bespeaks."—Stewart: see [Wales].