Sacred Texts Sagas and Legends Celtic Index Previous Next
"I was sitting on the brow of that hill, the other day, and it was so calm you could hear the buzzing of--a fly's wing. I was half asleep with the heat and with having nothing to do, when I was aroused by a noise coming down from the mountain along the stream. The road crosses it just above the glen; and at the bridge the sound divided itself, and I heard the beat of wings on one side of the stream and on the other, but I could see nothing. I then seemed to hear the blowing of weak-voiced bugles, and faint shouts, and the sound of blows, as if two winged armies were fighting in the air; and even the firing of shots; but it was as if I was hearing all through a skreen or in a dream. It seemed to me even as if light bodies fell in the water. At last there was greater shouting and work on one side, and hurraing, and then all the noise and rout rose in the air, and everything fell into quiet again. Fairies don't cross streams, you say! How then could the Leinster fairies cross over the Suir and Barrow to have a hurling match with the Munster fairies, or the fairies of Ireland have a battle with the Scotch fairies? "
Mrs. K. was as certain that the following adventure had befallen her father as that she ruled her husband without appeal, and was in turn despotically ruled by his children.