Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (35 page)
Read Irish Fairy and Folk Tales Online
Authors: Edited and with an Introduction by William Butler Yeats
Then despair came on him, and he rushed from the house, and began to ask every one he met if they believed. But the same answer came from one and all: “We believe only what
you have taught us,” for his doctrine had spread far and wide through the country.
Then he grew half mad with fear, for the hours were passing, and he flung himself down on the ground in a lonesome spot, and wept and groaned in terror, for the time was coming fast when he must die.
Just then a little child came by. “God save you kindly,” said the child to him.
The priest started up.
“Do you believe in God?” he asked.
“I have come from a far country to learn about him,” said the child. “Will your honor direct me to the best school they have in these parts?”
“The best school and the best teacher is close by,” said the priest, and he named himself.
“Oh, not to that man,” answered the child, “for I am told he denies God, and Heaven, and Hell, and even that man has a soul, because he cannot see it; but I would soon put him down.”
The priest looked at him earnestly. “How?” he inquired.
“Why,” said the child, “I would ask him if he believed he had life to show me his life.”
“But he could not do that, my child,” said the priest. “Life cannot be seen; we have it, but it is invisible.”
“Then if we have life, though we cannot see it, we may also have a soul, though it is invisible,” answered the child.
When the priest heard him speak these words, he fell down on his knees before him, weeping for joy, for now he knew his soul was safe; he had met one at last that believed. And he told the child his whole story—all his wickedness, and pride, and blasphemy against the great God; and how the angel had come to him, and told him of the only way in which he could be saved, through the faith and prayers of someone that believed.
“Now, then,” he said to the child, “take this penknife and strike it into my breast, and go on stabbing the flesh until you see the paleness of death on my face. Then watch—for a living thing will soar up from my body as I die, and you will then know that my soul has ascended to the presence of God. And when you see this thing, make haste and run to my school, and call on all my scholars to come and see that the soul of their master has left the body, and that all he taught them was a lie, for that there is a God who punishes sin, and a Heaven, and a Hell, and that man has an immortal soul destined for eternal happiness or misery.”
“I will pray,” said the child, “to have courage to do this work.” And he kneeled down and prayed. Then he rose and took the penknife and struck it into the priest’s heart, and struck and struck again till all the flesh was lacerated; but still the priest lived, though the agony was horrible, for he could not die until the twenty-four hours had expired.
At last the agony seemed to cease, and the stillness of death settled on his face. Then the child, who was watching, saw a beautiful living creature, with four snow-white wings, mount from the dead man’s body into the air and go fluttering round his head.
So he ran to bring the scholars; and when they saw it, they all knew it was the soul of their master; and they watched with wonder and awe until it passed from sight into the clouds.
And this was the first butterfly that was ever seen in Ireland; and now all men know that the butterflies are the souls of the dead, waiting for the moment when they may enter Purgatory, and so pass through torture to purification and peace.
But the schools of Ireland were quite deserted after that time, for people said, What is the use of going so far to learn, when the wisest man in all Ireland did not know if he had a
soul till he was near losing it, and was only saved at last through the simple belief of a little child?
W. B. Y
EATS
Good Father John O’Hart
In penal days rode out
To a
shoneen
*
in his freelands,
With his snipe marsh and his trout.
In trust took he John’s lands,
—
Sleiveens
†
were all his race—
And he gave them as dowers to his daughters,
And they married beyond their place.
But Father John went up,
And Father John went down;
And he wore small holes in his shoes,
And he wore large holes in his gown.
All loved him, only the
shoneen,
Whom the devils have by the hair,
From their wives and their cats and their children
To the birds in the white of the air.
The birds, for he opened their cages,
As he went up and down;
And he said with a smile, “Have peace now,”
And went his way with a frown.
But if when anyone died,
Came keeners hoarser than rooks,
He bade them give over their keening,
For he was a man of books.
And these were the works of John,
When weeping score by score,
People came into Coloony,
For he’d died at ninety-four.
There was no human keening;
The birds from Knocknarea,
And the world round Knocknashee,
Came keening in that day,—
Keening from Innismurry,
Nor stayed for bit or sup;
This way were all reproved
Who dig old customs up.
[Coloony is a few miles south of the town of Sligo. Father O’Hart lived there in the last century, and was greatly beloved. These lines accurately record the tradition. No one who has held the stolen land has prospered. It has changed owners many times.]
*
T. C
ROFTON
C
ROKER
Many years ago there was a very religious and holy man, one of the monks of a convent, and he was one day kneeling at his
prayers in the garden of his monastery, when he heard a little bird singing in one of the rose trees of the garden, and there never was anything that he had heard in the world so sweet as the song of that little bird.
And the holy man rose up from his knees where he was kneeling at his prayers to listen to its song; for he thought he never in all his life heard anything so heavenly.
And the little bird, after singing for some time longer on the rose tree, flew away to a grove at some distance from the monastery, and the holy man followed it to listen to its singing, for he felt as if he would never be tired of listening to the sweet song it was singing out of its throat.
And the little bird after that went away to another distant tree, and sang there for a while, and then to another tree, and so on in the same manner, but ever further and further away from the monastery, and the holy man still following it farther and farther and farther, still listening delighted to its enchanting song.
But at last he was obliged to give up, as it was growing late in the day, and he returned to the convent; and as he approached it in the evening, the sun was setting in the west with all the most heavenly colors that were ever seen in the world, and when he came into the convent, it was nightfall.
And he was quite surprised at everything he saw, for they were all strange faces about him in the monastery that he had never seen before, and the very place itself, and everything about it, seemed to be strangely altered; and, altogether, it seemed entirely different from what it was when he had left in the morning; and the garden was not like the garden where he had been kneeling at his devotion when he first heard the singing of the little bird.
And while he was wondering at all he saw, one of the monks of the convent came up to him, and the holy man questioned him, “Brother, what is the cause of all these strange changes that have taken place here since the morning?”
And the monk that he spoke to seemed to wonder greatly at his question, and asked him what he meant by the change since morning; for, sure, there was no change; that all was just as before. And then he said, “Brother, why do you ask these strange questions, and what is your name? For you wear the habit of our order, though we have never seen you before.”
So upon this the holy man told his name, and said that he had been at mass in the chapel in the morning before he had wandered away from the garden listening to the song of a little bird that was singing among the rose trees, near where he was kneeling at his prayers.
And the brother, while he was speaking, gazed at him very earnestly, and then told him that there was in the convent a tradition of a brother of his name, who had left it two hundred years before, but that what was become of him was never known.
And while he was speaking, the holy man said, “My hour of death is come; blessed be the name of the Lord for all his mercies to me, through the merits of his only begotten Son.”
And he kneeled down that very moment, and said, “Brother, take my confession, for my soul is departing.”
And he made his confession, and received his absolution, and was anointed, and before midnight he died.
The little bird, you see, was an angel, one of the cherubim or seraphim; and that was the way the Almighty was pleased in His mercy to take to Himself the soul of that holy man.
Once when Patrick and his clerics were sitting beside a well in the Rath of Croghan, with books open on their knees, they saw coming toward them the two only daughters of the King of Connaught. ’Twas early morning, and they were going to the well to bathe.
The young girls said to Patrick, “Whence are ye, and whence come ye?” and Patrick answered, “It were better for you to confess to the true God than to inquire concerning our race.”
“Who is God,” said the young girls, “and where is God, and of what nature is God, and where is His dwelling place? Has your God sons and daughters, gold and silver? Is He everlasting? Is He beautiful? Did Mary foster her son? Are His daughters dear and beauteous to men of the world? Is He in heaven or on earth, in the sea, in rivers, in mountainous places, in valleys?”
Patrick answered them, and made known who God was, and they believed and were baptized, and a white garment put upon their heads; and Patrick asked them would they live on, or would they die and behold the face of Christ? They chose death, and died immediately, and were buried near the well Clebach.