An’ raisin’ his handstone while the strength was fresh again in his arm, Keth Mac Maragh hurled it so swift and so straight that the idol’s face—barrin’ only wan fine ear—was shattered into a thousand pieces. An’ Lochru, seeing that Wurra-Wurra was no more—a headless god havin’ no further virtue in the Druid philosophy—Lochru ran shriekin’ up the valley, to remain until his death the craziest loonatic in Ireland.

“’Tis a fine job well done,” raymarked Keth to himsilf as he wint and raycovered his handstone in the grotto from among the fragmints that were wance the head of Wurra-Wurra. “An’ now for a bit of sup an’ drink, an’ a fine long slape.”

But ’twas nayther food nor drink nor slape Keth Mac Maragh was to get that day. For he had returned on his way up Glanngalt no more than the distance of nine ridges whin he was stopped by a runner comin’ down the valley with the speed of the wind. The boy bein’ breathless, Keth was the first to spake:

“If ’tis to the King of Connaught ye bear your message,” he said, “sure ye’re off your road.”

“Keth Mac Maragh,” panted the runner—who was lithe an’ slender, with round cheeks an’ a white chin—“has the day come so soon whin ye forgit the face of your own Finola?”

“What!” said Keth in astonishment, “will ye tell me that your haythin heresies have so strong a howld on ye that ye’ve lift the household an’ spiritual guidance of the good Patrick of Armagh?”

“Nay,” said Finola. “’Tis for Patrick sure I’m runnin’, an’ the message is to yoursilf.”

“So! ’Twas the likes of Finola that gave me away!” And Keth glowered darkly at the maid.

“Tell me, Keth,” she said in anxious tones, “ye’ve not done it? Ye’ve not bashed the great idol, Wurra-Wurra?”

Somethin’ towld Keth that ’twould be as well for him to dissimble. So he answered cunningly:

“Sure the pot-bellied stone haythin sits as firm on his sate as iver he did.”

“O Wurra-Wurra!” said Finola, with hands clasped in gratitude.

“Lave off your heretical supplications,” said Keth harshly, “an’ hand over me missage from Patrick.”

“’Tis this,” said Finola, givin’ him a tinder look from her eyes. “Another bunch of poor loonatics have started down Glanngalt to lave their troubles with Wurra-Wurra. Patrick follows with his household, but too late to heal thim with the spirit of the Four Gospils before they feel the spell of the sacred grotto. So ye’re to let thim, for this wance, resayve their easemint from Wurra-Wurra, as of old—for sure, Patrick says, the great idol is an instrumint of God, not yet to be destroyed.”

“So be it,” said Keth, dissimbling again. “Go you back to Patrick an’ I will wait for ye beside the grotto.”

Finola flung hersilf upon his neck. “’Tis like the owld swate Keth,” she said. “Ah, Keth, why are ye not always true to the gintleness an’ hilpfulness that shines in your face so like Wurra-Wurra’s own?”

Thin she kissed him and lift him, an’ Keth wint slowly back to the grotto, with his chin on his brist, wonderin’ how he was to restore the idol’s broken head on his shoulders. He gathered up the pieces an’ mixed some clay an’ tried to patch thim together, but ’twas no use—too well had the handstone done its work!

An’ now Keth could hear the fresh bunch of loonatics comin’ shriekin’ an’ moanin’ down the valley. ’Twas even a worse predicamint he was in, for, crowdin’ the loonatics on all sides were scores an’ hundreds of maids weepin’ for their gallivantin’ swatehearts, an’ old dames lamintin’ sheep with the foot rot, cows with calves miscast an’ such like troubles which ’twas in the minds of thim to shoulder off on Wurra-Wurra.

“Sure, ’tis a tight place I’m in,” thought Keth Mac Maragh. “The loonatics, an’ the maids, an’ the old women will be after bashin’ the head of me as I bashed their haythin idol. True, I have me handstone, but what is wan handstone for all that crazy bunch?”

An’ then suddenly it flashed across his mind about what Finola had said of his face raysimblin’ that of Wurra-Wurra. “Sure, ’tis only the fondness of her foolish little haythin heart,” thought Keth. But as ’twas the only chance, an’ the first of the loonatics bein’ now close to the grotto, Keth Mac Maragh wint behind the headless idol an’ leaned over with his neck in the hollow between the shoulders which the handstone had cut as though through a bog-cured cheese. He brought his chin down near to the idol’s navel, prissed the cheek of him against the opin ear that remained so providentially, hid his arms an’ body behind the great bulk of the image—an’ thin upon the face of him he spread the gintlest and tinderest smile that was in him.

Sure it was all the same to the loonatics. Indade, it seemed an improvement. For, no sooner did a daft wan catch the twinkle in Keth’s eye than the twisted brains of him were all straightened out an’ he passed on rejoicin’. As the last of the crazy wans were droppin’ their troubles on Wurra-Wurra, Keth saw that Patrick an’ his followers had rached the bottom of the valley, where the blissed saint that was to be, surrounded by his bishops and his priests and his psalmists, all in their vestmints, was prachin’ the Gospil an’ making converts of iverybody.

All the while Keth grew bolder with his smile an’ the twinkle in his eye. Whin it came to the turn of the old dames with their cow-yard troubles, siveral times he forgot himsilf so far as to smile aloud. Indade, more than wan full-stomached guffaw did he give in the face of thim, an’ got away with it, so rayjoiced they were with the lightness of heart that Wurra-Wurra gave thim.

Whin it came to the sorrowin’ maids with their sad tales on their swatehearts, beyond a wink or two at the prettiest Keth was moved to restrain himsilf. For sure, many were the pitiful tales of loving maids’ troubles they poured in his ear! Tales they were that made his heart sore, an’ disturbed his mind with recollictions of strange words lately dropped by Finola of the White Shoulder. ’Twas this new light on those same words that now caused Keth Mac Maragh to forget for a momint the smile of Wurra-Wurra, an’ to close his eyes with the pain of the thought that came to him.

An’ whin Keth opened his eyes the last of the maids was prostrated before him—an’ she was Finola! Quickly—though his soul quaked—he raycalled the smile of Wurra-Wurra to his face. ’Twas none too soon, for Finola, risen to her feet an’ leanin’ over, was pourin’ into the idol’s ear all the grafe an’ dread that clutched her heart. From Finola’s lips the tale was like a white-hot iron in Keth’s vitals. Yet it made his heart swell an’ rache out to her so that he could not restrain himsilf, but turned his head an’ put his lips to hers in a kiss that dropped her like wan dead at the idol’s feet.

Now Keth Mac Maragh knew what it was for him to do, an’ he rayjoiced to do it quickly. He came out from behind the shattered idol, an’ lifted the limp form of Finola in his arms, an’ bore her swiftly through the press of people up to Patrick himsilf, an’ said:

“Good Patrick of Armagh, this maid gave her swate silf to me more suns gone by than it pleases me to raymimber. As thy faithful follower, an’ for the honor of thy household, I pray you now give her to me in the name of our Holy Church an’ in the sight of all min.”

An’ Patrick, seein’ how the matter lay—Finola bein’ raycovered from her swoon an’ clingin’ tight to Keth—thin an’ there married an’ blissed thim.

’Tis towld in the books how Keth became a bishop, though niver would he altogether lay aside the handstone which had lain low the last idol in Ireland, an’ how all the four fine sons that Finola bore him were sure death to snakes an’ Druid wizards till not wan of ayther was lift in the land.

Concernin’ the grotto, an’ the headless idol in it, all there prisint bein’ now convertid Christians, by their own free will they prisintly destroyed ivery vistige of both. Yet to this day there remains on the lips of all the Irish race in time of trouble or worry that same ancient invocation: “O Wurra-Wurra!”

An’ the ixplanation is Patrick’s own desire that it should be so. For, as he raymarked upon that occasion, Wurra-Wurra, as spoken in the Gaelic, is the same as wan calling upon the blissid Virgin, “O Mary!” in that tongue.

FINIS.

“Ye’ve only to whisper your worries into the blissed ear of Wurra-Wurra an’ they’ll all fall from ye, lavin’ ye clane an’ paceful an’ in your right mind.”—Legend of Wurra-Wurra.