Bits of Blarney

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Mackenzie Robert Shelton. Bits of Blarney

LEGENDS

BITS OF BLARNEY

LEGEND OF THE LAKE

THE LEGEND OF CORRIG-NA-CAT

LEGEND OF THE ROCK CLOSE

CON O'KEEFE AND THE GOLDEN CUP

LEGENDS OF FINN MAC COUL

FINN AND THE FISH

THE BREAKS OF BALLYNASCORNEY

FINN MAC COUL'S FINGER-STONE

IRISH STORIES

THE PETRIFIED PIPER

CHAPTER I. – WHO THE PIPER WAS

CHAPTER II. – WHAT THE PIPER DID

CHAPTER III. – HOW THE PIPER GOT ON WITH MARY MAHONY

CHAPTER IV. – HOW THE PIPER BECAME A PETRIFACTION

CHAPTER V. – HOW IT ALL ENDED

THE GERALDINE

CAPTAIN ROCK

CHAPTER I. – THE WAKE

CHAPTER II. – THE LEADER

CHAPTER III. – THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

CHAPTER IV. – THE ATTACK ON CHURCHTOWN BARRACKS

CHAPTER V. – THE ATTACK ON ROSSMORE

CHAPTER VI. – THE TRIAL

A NIGHT WITH THE WHITEBOYS

BUCK ENGLISH

ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS

THE BARD O'KELLY

FATHER PROUT

FATHER PROUT'S SERMON

IRISH DANCING-MASTERS

CHARLEY CROFTS

IRISH PUBLICISTS

HENRY GRATTAN

DANIEL O'CONNELL

Отрывок из книги

How many have heard of "Blarney," and how few know how and why this appropriate term has originated! How could they, indeed, unless they had made a pilgrimage to the Castle, as I did, in order to manœuvre Tim Cronin into a narration of its legends? – They may go to Blarney, whenever they please, but the genius loci has vanished. Tim Cronin has been gathered to his fathers. By no lingering or vulgar disease did he perish; he died – of a sudden.

Immortal poesie has already celebrated the locality of Blarney. The far-famed chanson, written by Richard Alfred Milliken,1 and called "The Groves of Blarney," has been heard or read by every one: – in these later days the polyglot edition, by him who has assumed the name of Father Prout, is well known to the public. There is an interpolated verse, which may be adopted (as it sometimes is) into the original chanson, on account of the earnestness with which it declares that

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"Con O'Keefe was not worth his keep, for any good he did; but, truth to say, he had the name of being hand and glove with the fairies; and, at that time, Corran Thierna swarmed with them. They changed their quarters when the regiments from Fermoy barracks took to firing against targets stuck up at the foot of the mountain. Not that a ball could ever hit a fairy (except a silver one cast by a girl in her teens, who has never wished for a lover, or a widow under forty who has not sighed for a second husband – so there's little chance that it ever will be cast), but they hate the noise of the firing and the smell of gunpowder, quite as much as the Devil hates holy water.

"'Tis reckoned lucky in these parts to have a friend of the fairies in the house with you, and that was partly the reason why Con O'Keefe was kept at Barry's-fort. Many and many a one could swear to hearing him and 'the good folk' talk together at twilight on his return from Rathcormac with the letter-bag. My own notion is, that if he had anything to say to them, he had more sense than to hold conversation with them on the high road, for that might have led to a general discovery. Con was fond of a drop, and, when he took it (which was in an algebraic way, that is, 'any given quantity'), he had such famous spirits, and his tongue went so glibly, that, in the absence of other company, he was sometimes forced to talk to himself, as he trotted home.

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