The Washer of the Ford: Legendary moralities and barbaric tales

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Sharp William. The Washer of the Ford: Legendary moralities and barbaric tales

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

THE WASHER OF THE FORD

II

III

MUIME CHRIOSD

ST. BRIDE OF THE ISLES

I

II

III

IV

THE FISHER OF MEN

THE LAST SUPPER

THE DARK NAMELESS ONE

THE THREE MARVELS OF HY

I

II

III

THE ANNIR-CHOILLE

II

III

IV

THE SHADOW-SEERS

I

II

III

IV

SEANACHAS14

THE SONG OF THE SWORD

THE FLIGHT OF THE CULDEES

MIRCATH

THE LAUGHTER OF SCATHACH THE QUEEN

ULA AND URLA16

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TO you, in your far-away home in Provence, I send these tales out of the remote North you love so well, and so well understand. The same blood is in our veins, a deep current somewhere beneath the tide that sustains us. We have meeting-places that none knows of; we understand what few can understand; and we share in common a strange and inexplicable heritage. It is because you, who are called Kathia of the Sunway, are also Kathia nan Ciar, Kathia of the Shadow, it is because you are what you are that I inscribe this book to you. In it you will find much that is familiar to you, though you may never have read or heard anything of the kind; for there is a reality, beneath the unfamiliar accident, which may be recognised in a moment as native to the secret life that lives behind the brain and the wise nerves with their dim ancestral knowledge.

The greater portion of this book deals with the remote life of a remote past. “The Shadow-Seers,” however, though of to-day, may equally be of yesterday or to-morrow; and as for “The Last Supper” or “The Fisher of Men,” they are of no time or date, for they are founded upon elemental facts which are modified but not transformed by the changing years.

.....

But only the scream of a sea-mew, as it hovered over that boat filled with dead men, made answer.

All day the Blind Harper steered the galley of the dead. There was a faint wind moving out of the west. The boat went before it, slow, and with a low, sighing wash.

.....