frieze coat collar behind.

“Begor yer ’an’r I’ll tell ye all I iver heerd. Sure there’s a laygend, and there’s a shtory—musha! but there’s a wheen o’ both laygends and shtories—but there’s wan laygend beyant all—Here! Mother Kelligan, fill up me glass, fur sorra one o’ me is a good dhry shpaker—Tell me, now, sor, do they allow punch to the Mimbers iv Parlymint whin they’re spakin’?” I shook my head.

“Musha! thin, but its meself they’ll niver git as a mimber till they alther that law. Thank ye, Mrs. Kelligan, this is just my shtyle. But now for the laygend that they tell of Shleenanaher:—”

[Pg 15]

[Pg 15]

CHAPTER II. THE LOST CROWN OF GOLD.

“Well, in the ould ancient times, before St. Patrick banished the shnakes from out iv Ireland, the hill beyant was a mighty important place intirely. For more betoken, none other lived in it than the King iv the Shnakes himself. In thim times there was up at the top iv the hill a wee bit iv a lake wid threes and sedges and the like growin’ round it; and ’twas there that the King iv the Shnakes made his nist—or whativer it is that shnakes calls their home. Glory be to God! but none of us knows anythin’ of them at all, at all, since Saint Patrick tuk them in hand.”

Here an old man in the chimney corner struck in:—

“Thrue for ye, Acushla; sure the bit lake is there still, though more belike it’s dhry now it is, and the threes is all gone.”

“Well,” went on Jerry, not ill-pleased with this corroboration of his story, “the King iv the Shnakes was mighty important intirely. He was more nor tin times as big as any shnake as any man’s eyes had iver saw; an’ he had a goolden crown on to the top of his head, wid a big[Pg 16] jool in it that tuk the colour iv the light, whether that same was from the sun or the moon; an’ all the shnakes had to take it in turns to bring food, and lave it for him in the cool iv the evenin’, whin he would come out and ate it up and go back to his own place. An’ they do say that whiniver two shnakes had a quarr’ll they had to come to the King, an’ he decided betune them; an’ he tould aich iv them where he was to live, and what he was to do. An’ wanst in ivery year there had to be brought to him a live baby; and they do say that he would wait until the moon was at the full, an’ thin would be heerd one wild wail that made every sowl widin miles shuddher, an’ thin there would be black silence, and clouds would 

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