I have not come to Ireland to scoff, and whatever we do we shall not

go to the length of doubting the fairies; for, as Barney O'Mara
says, 'they stand to raison.'

Glen Ailna is a 'gentle' place near Carrig-a-fooka Inn--that is, one
beloved by the sheehogues; and though you may be never so much

interested, I may not tell you its exact whereabouts, since no one
can ever find it unless he is himself under the glamour. Perhaps

you might be a doubter, with no eyes for the 'dim kingdom'; perhaps
you might gaze for ever, and never be able to see a red-capped

fiddler, fiddling under a blossoming sloe bush. You might even see
him, and then indulge yourself in a fit of common-sense or doubt of

your own eyes, in which case the wee dancers would never flock to
the sound of the fiddle or gather on the fairy ring. This is the

reason that I shall never take you to Knockma, to Glen Ailna, or
especially to the hyacinth wood, which is a little plantation near

the ruin of a fort. Just why the fairies are so fond of an old rath
or lis I cannot imagine, for you would never suppose that

antiquaries, archaeologists, and wee folk would care for the same
places.

I have no intention of interviewing the grander personages among the
Irish fairies, for they are known to be haughty, unapproachable, and

severe, as befits the descendants of the great Nature Gods and the
under-deities of flood and fell and angry sea. It is the lesser

folk, the gay, gracious, little men that I wish to meet; those who
pipe and dance on the fairy ring. The 'ring' is made, you know, by

the tiny feet that have tripped for ages and ages, flying, dancing,
circling, over the tender young grass. Rain cannot wash it away;

you may walk over it; you may even plough up the soil, and replant
it ever so many times; the next season the fairy ring shines in the

grass just the same. It seems strange that I am blind to it, when
an ignorant, dirty spalpeen who lives near the foot of Knockma has

seen it and heard the fairy music again and again. He took me to
the very place where, last Lammas Eve, he saw plainly--for there was

a beautiful, white moon overhead--the arch king and queen of the
fairies, who appear only on state occasions, together with a crowd

of dancers, and more than a dozen pipers piping melodious music.
Not only that, but (lucky little beggar!) he heard distinctly the

fulparnee and the folpornee, the rap-lay-hoota and the roolya-
boolya--noises indicative of the very jolliest and wildest and most

uncommon form of fairy conviviality. Failing a glimpse of these
midsummer revels, my next choice would be to see the Elf Horseman

galloping round the shores of the Fairy Lough in the cool of the
morn.

'Loughareema, Loughareema,
Stars come out and stars are hidin';

The wather whispers on the stones,
The flittherin' moths are free.

Onest before the mornin' light
The Horseman will come ridin'

Roun' an' roun' the Fairy Lough,
An' no one there to see.'

But there will be some one there, and that is the aforesaid Jamesy
Flanigan! Sometimes I think he is fibbing, but a glance at his

soft, dark, far-seeing eyes under their fringe of thick lashes
convinces me to the contrary. His field of vision is different from

mine, that is all, and he fears that if I accompany him to the
shores of the Fairy Lough the Horseman will not ride for him; so I

am even taunted with undue common-sense by a little Irish gossoon.
I tried to coax Benella to go with me to the hyacinth wood by

moonlight. Fairies detest a crowd, and I ought to have gone alone;
but, to tell the truth, I hardly dared, for they have a way of

kidnapping attractive ladies and keeping them for years in the dim
kingdom. I would not trust Himself at Glen Ailna for worlds, for

gentlemen are not exempt from danger. Connla of the Golden Hair was
lured away by a fairy maiden, and taken, in a 'gleaming, straight-

gliding, strong, crystal canoe,' to her domain in the hills; and
Oisin, you remember, was transported to the Land of the Ever

Youthful by the beautiful Niam. If one could only be sure of coming
back! but Oisin, for instance, was detained three hundred years, so

one might not be allowed to return, and still worse, one might not
wish to; three hundred years of youth would tempt--a woman! My

opinion, after reading the Elf Errant, is that one of us has been
there--Moira O'Neill. I should suspect her of being able to wear a

fairy cap herself, were it not for the human heart-throb in her
verses; but I am sure she has the glamour whenever she desires it,

and hears the fairy pipes at will.
Benella is of different stuff; she not only distrusts fairies, but,

like the Scotch Presbyterians, she fears that they are wicked.
"Still, you say they haven't got immortal souls to save, and I don't

suppose they're responsible for their actions," she allows; "but as
for traipsing up to those heathenish, haunted woods when all

Christian folks are in bed, I don't believe in it, and neither would
Mr. Beresford; but if you're set on it, I shall go with you!"

"You wouldn't be of the slightest use," I answered severely;
"indeed, you'd be worse than nobody. The fairies cannot endure

doubters; it makes them fold their wings over their heads and shrink
away into their flowercups. I should be mortified beyond words if a

fairy should meet me in your company."
Benella seemed hurt and a trifle resentful as she replied: "That

about doubters is just what Mrs. Kimberly used to say." (Mrs.
Kimberly is the Salem priestess, the originator of the 'science.')

"She couldn't talk a mite if there was doubters in the hall; and
it's so with spiritualists and clairvoyants, too--they're all of 'em

scare-cats. I guess likely that those that's so afraid of being
doubted has some good reason for it!"

Well, I never went to the hyacinth wood by moonlight, since so many
objections were raised, but I did go once at noonday, the very most

unlikely hour of all the twenty-four, and yet-
As I sat there beneath a gnarled thorn, weary and warm with my

climb, I looked into the heart of a bluebell forest growing under a
circle of gleaming silver birches, and suddenly I heard fairy music-

-at least it was not mortal--and many sounds were mingled in it:
the sighing of birches, the carol of a lark, the leap and laugh of a

silvery runnel tumbling down the hillside, the soft whir of
butterflies' wings, and a sweet little over or under tone, from the

over or under world, that I took to be the opening of a million
hyacinth buds in the sunshine. Then I heard the delicious sound of

a fairy laugh, and, looking under a swaying branch of meadowsweet, I
saw--yes, I really saw-

You must know that first a wee green door swung open in the stem of
the meadowsweet, and out of that land where you can buy joy for a

penny came a fairy in the usual red and green. I had the Elf Errant
in my lap, and I think that in itself made him feel more at home

with me, as well as the fact, perhaps, that for the moment I wasn't
a bit sensible and had no money about me. I was all ready with an

Irish salutation, for the purposes of further disarming his
aversion. I intended to say, as prettily as possible, though, alas!

I cannot manage the brogue, "And what way do I see you now?" or
"Good-mornin' to yer honour's honour!" But I was struck dumb by my

good fortune at seeing him at all. He looked at me once, and then,
flinging up his arms, he gave a weeny, weeny yawn! This was

disconcerting, for people almost never yawn in my company; and to
make it worse, he kept on yawning, until, for very sympathy, and not

at all in the way of revenge, I yawned too. Then the green door
swung open again, and a gay rabble of wide-awake fairies came

trooping out: and some of them kissed the hyacinth bells to open
them, and some of them flew to the thorn-tree, until every little