come over the moon, and for three days it would never be seen agin.”

[Pg 16]

“Oh, Glory be to God!” murmured one of the women, “but it was a terrible thing!” and she rocked herself to and fro, moaning, all the motherhood in her awake.

“But did none of the min do nothin’?” said a powerful-looking young fellow in the orange and green jersey of the Gaelic Athletic Club, with his eyes flashing; and he clenched his teeth.

“Musha! how could they? Sure, no man ever seen the King iv the Shnakes!”

“Thin how did they know about him?” he queried doubtfully.

“Sure, wasn’t one of their childher tuk away iv’ry year? But, anyhow, it’s all over now! an’ so it was that none iv the min iver wint. They do say that one woman what lost her child, run up to the top of the[Pg 17] hill; but what she seen, none could tell, for, whin they found her she was a ravin’ lunatic, wid white hair an eyes like a corpse—an’ the mornin’ afther they found her dead in her bed wid a black mark round her neck as if she had been choked, an’ the mark was in the shape iv a shnake. Well! there was much sorra and much fear, and whin St. Pathrick tuk the shnakes in hand the bonfires was lit all over the counthry. Never was such a flittin’ seen as whin the shnakes came from all parts wrigglin’ and crawlin’ an shkwirmin’.”

[Pg 17]

Here the narrator dramatically threw himself into an attitude, and with the skill of a true improvisatore, suggested in every pose and with every limb and in every motion the serpentine movements.

“They all came away to the West, and seemed to come to this wan mountain. From the North and the South and the East they came be millions an’ thousands an’ hundhreds—for whin St. Patrick ordhered them out he only tould them to go, but he didn’t name the place—an there was he up on top of Brandon mountain wid his vistments on to him an’ his crozier in his hand, and the shnakes movein’ below him, all goin up North, an’, sez he to himself:—

“‘I must see about this.’ An’ he got down from aff iv the mountain, and he folly’d the shnakes, and he see them move along to the hill beyant that they call Knockcalltecrore. An’ be this time they wor all come from all over Ireland, and they wor all round the[Pg 18] mountain—exceptin’ on the say side—an’ they all had their heads pointed up the hill, and their tails pointed to the Saint, so that they didn’t 

 Prev. P 13/226 next