Free Irish Fairy and Folk Tales by Edited and with an Introduction by William Butler Yeats Page A

maiden’s voices, as cowering down they lie
    In the flutter of their sudden awe.
    For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath,
    And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between,
    A Power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,
    And they sink down together on the green.
    They sink together silent, and stealing side by side,
    They fling their lovely arms o’er their drooping necks so fair,
    Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,
    For their shrinking necks again are bare.
    Thus clasp’d and prostrate all, with their heads together bow’d,
    Soft o’er their bosom’s beating—the only human sound—
    They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,
    Like a river in the air, gliding round.
    No scream can any raise, no prayer can any say,
    But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three—
    For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away,
    By whom they dare not look to see.
    They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold,
    And the curls elastic falling as her head withdraws;
    They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,
    But they may not look to see the cause:
    For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies
    Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;
    And neither fear nor wonder can open their quivering eyes,
    Or their limbs from the cold ground raise,
    Till out of night the earth has roll’d her dewy side,
    With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;
    When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide,
    The maidens’ trance dissolveth so.
    Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
    And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain—
    They pined away and died within the year and day,
    And ne’er was Anna Grace seen again.

THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON
T. C ROFTON C ROKER
    There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and hehad a great hump on his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so much that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great that he scarcely appeared to be a human creature, and some ill-minded persons had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty skilful hand in plaiting straws and rushes into hats and baskets, which was the way he made his livelihood.
    Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore (the foxglove), in his little straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy, had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of Cahir toward Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right-hand side of his road.
    Tired and weary was he, and noways comfortable in his own mind at thinking how much farther he had to travel, and that he should be walking all the night; so he sat down under the moat to rest himself, and began looking mournfully enough upon the moon, which
    “Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent Queen, unveil’d her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.”
    Presently there rose a wild strain of unearthly melody upon the ear of little Lusmore; he listened, and he thought that he had never heard such ravishing music before. It was like the sound of many voices, each mingling and blending with the