THE DANES
I will tell you about the Danes, said the Poet’s son; and it was my father that broke down Raftery in the latter end.
There was a man one time set out from Ireland to go to America or some place; a common man looking for work he was. And something happened to the ship on the way, and they had to put to land to mend it. And in the country where they landed he saw a forth, and he went into it, and there he saw the smallest people he ever saw; and they were the Danes that went out of Ireland, and it is foxes they had for dogs, and weasels were their cats.
Then he went back to get into the ship, but it was gone away, and he left behind. So he went back into the forth, and a young man came to meet him, and he told him what had happened. And the young man said: ‘Come into the room within, where my father is in bed; for he is out of his health, and you might be able to serve him.’ So they went in, and the father was lying in the bed, and when he heard it was a man from Ireland was in it he said: ‘I will give you a great reward if you will go back and bring me a thing I want out of Castle Hacket Hill; for if I had what is there,’ he said, ‘I would be as young as my own son.’ So the man consented to go, and they got a sailing ship ready, and it is what the old man told him, to go back to Ireland. ‘And buy a small pig in Galway,’ he said, ‘and bring it to the mouth of the forth at Castle Hacket and roast it there. And inside the forth there is an enchanted cat that is keeping guard there, and it will come out. And here is a shot-gun and some cross-money,’ he said, ‘that will kill any fairy or any enchanted thing. And within in the forth,’ he said, ‘you will find a bottle and a rack-comb, and bring them here to me,’ he said.
So the man did as he was told, and he bought the pig and roasted it at the mouth of the forth, and out came the enchanted cat, and it having hair seven inches long. And he fired the cross-money out of the shot-gun, and the cat went away and he saw it no more. And he got the bottle and the rack, and brought them back to the old man. And he drank what was in the bottle, and racked his hair with the rack, and he got young again, a young as his own son.
And when there is a marriage among the Danes, they put down the land they have in Ireland with whatever else they have, for they expect to come back and to own the country again some day. But whether they will or not, I don’t know.
The Danes were surely small men, or how could they live in those little rooms and passages in the raths? I’d have to stoop myself down when I’d go into them. They had the whole country once, and they used to make beer out of the tops of the heather the same way the bees draw honey out of it. And it was on St. John’s Night the people lighted wisps and turned them out of Ireland, and that’s the reason the wisps are burned ever since.