[Page 112.] “The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face.” This is a very common expression of the Irish bards. In one of Carolan’s unpublished poems he says of Bridget Cruise, with whom he was in love in his youth:—“In her countenance there is the lily, the whitest and the brightest—a combat of the world—madly wrestling with the rose. Behold the conflict of the pair; the goal—the rose will not lose it of her will; victory—the lily cannot gain it; oh, God! is it not a hard struggle!” etc.
[Page 115.] “I call and cross (or consecrate) you to myself,” says Gulleesh. This is a phrase in constant use with Irish speakers, and proceeds from an underlying idea that certain phenomena are caused by fairy agency. If a child falls, if a cow kicks when being milked, if an animal is restless, I have often heard a woman cry, goirim a’s castraicim ṫu, “I call and cross you,” often abbreviated into goirim, goirim, merely, i.e., “I call, I call.”
The Well of D’Yerree-in-Dowan.
[Page 129.] There are two other versions of this story, one a rather evaporated one, filtered through English, told by Kennedy, in which the Dall Glic is a wise old hermit; and another, and much better one, by Curtin. The Dall Glic, wise blind man, figures in several stories which I have got, as the king’s counsellor. I do not remember ever meeting him in our literature. Bwee-sownee, the name of the king’s castle, is, I think, a place in Mayo, and probably would be better written Buiḋe-ṫaṁnaiġ.
[Page 131.] This beautiful lady in red silk, who thus appears to the prince, and who comes again to him at the end of the story, is a curious creation of folk fancy. She may personify good fortune. There is nothing about her in the two parallel stories from Curtin and Kennedy.
[Page 133.] This “tight-loop” (lúb teann) can hardly be a bow, since the ordinary word for that is bógha; but it may, perhaps, be a name for a cross-bow.
[Page 136.] The story is thus invested with a moral, for it is the prince’s piety in giving what was asked of him in the honour of God which enabled the queen to find him out, and eventually marry him.
[Page 137.] In the story of Cailleaċ na fiacaile fada, in my Leabhar Sgeuluigheachta, not translated in this book, an old hag makes a boat out of a thimble, which she throws into the water, as the handsome lady does here.
[Page 141.] This incident of the ladder is not in Curtin’s story, which makes the brothers mount the queen’s horse and get thrown. There is a very curious account of a similar ladder in the story of the “Slender Grey Kerne,” of which I possess a good MS., made by a northern scribe in 1763. The passage is of interest, because it represents a trick something almost identical with which I have heard Colonel Olcott, the celebrated American theosophist lecturer, say he saw Indian jugglers frequently performing. Colonel Olcott, who came over to examine Irish fairy lore in the light of theosophic science, was of opinion that these men could bring a person under their power so as to make him imagine that he saw whatever the juggler wished him to see. He especially mentioned this incident of making people see a man going up a ladder. The MS., of which I may as well give the original, runs thus:—
Iar sin ṫug an ceiṫearnaċ mála amaċ ó na asgoill, agus ṫug ceirtle ṡíoda amaċ as a ṁála, agus do ṫeilg suas i ḃfriṫing na fiormamuinte í, agas do rinne drémire ḋí, agus ṫug gearrḟiaḋ amaċ arís agus do leig suas annsa dréimire é. Ṫug gaḋar cluais-dearg amaċ arís agus do leig suas anḋiaiġ an ġearrḟiaḋ é. Tug cu faiteaċ foluaimneaċ amaċ agus do leig suas anḋiaiġ an ġearrḟiaḋ agus an ġaḋair í, agus a duḃairt, is ḃao(ġ)laċ liom, air sé, go n-íosfaiḋ an gaḋar agus an cú an gearrḟiaḋ, agus ni mór liom anacal do ċur air an gearrḟiaḋ. Ṫug ann sin ógánaċ deas a n-eideaḋ ró ṁaiṫ amaċ as an mála agus do leig suas anḋiaiġ an ġearrfiaḋ agus an ġaḋair agus na con é. Ṫug cailín áluind a n-éidead ró ḋeas amaċ as an mála agus do leig suas anḋiaiġ an ġearrḟaiḋ an ġaḋair an ógánaiġ agus na con í.