Irish Fairy Tales | Page 7

it, and the barque did not cease to go down until it
crashed and sank in the sand at the bottom of the sea.
"The night came, and with it a thousand darknesses fell from the
screeching sky. Not a round-eyed creature of the night might pierce an
inch of that multiplied gloom. Not a creature dared creep or stand. For a
great wind strode the world lashing its league-long whips in cracks of
thunder, and singing to itself, now in a world-wide yell, now in an ear-
dizzying hum and buzz; or with a long snarl and whine it hovered over
the world searching for life to destroy.
"And at times, from the moaning and yelping blackness of the sea,

there came a sound-- thin-drawn as from millions of miles away,
distinct as though uttered in the ear like a whisper of confidence--and I
knew that a drowning man was calling on his God as he thrashed and
was battered into silence, and that a blue-lipped woman was calling on
her man as her hair whipped round her brows and she whirled about
like a top.
"Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; they
leaped into the air and flew like birds. Great waves whizzed from the
sea: spinning across the cliffs and hurtling to the earth in monstrous
clots of foam; the very rocks came trundling and sidling and grinding
among the trees; and in that rage, and in that horror of blackness I fell
asleep, or I was beaten into slumber."


CHAPTER VI
"THERE I dreamed, and I saw myself changing into a stag in dream,
and I felt in dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream I
arched my neck and braced my powerful limbs.
"I awoke from the dream, and I was that which I had dreamed.
"I stood a while stamping upon a rock, with my bristling head swung
high, breathing through wide nostrils all the savour of the world. For I
had come marvellously from de-
crepitude to strength. I had writhed from the bonds of age and was
young again. I smelled the turf and knew for the first time how sweet
that smelled. And like lightning my moving nose sniffed all things to
my heart and separated them into knowledge.
"Long I stood there, ringing my iron hoof on stone, and learning all
things through my nose. Each breeze that came from the right hand or
the left brought me a tale. A wind carried me the tang of wolf, and

against that smell I stared and stamped. And on a wind there came the
scent of my own kind, and at that I belled. Oh, loud and clear and sweet
was the voice of the great stag. With what ease my lovely note went
lilting. With what joy I heard the answering call. With what delight I
bounded, bounded, bounded; light as a bird's plume, powerful as a
storm, untiring as the sea.
"Here now was ease in ten-yard springings, with a swinging head, with
the rise and fall of a swallow, with the curve and flow and urge of an
otter of the sea. What a tingle dwelt about my heart! What a thrill spun
to the lofty points of my antlers! How the world was new! How the sun
was new! How the wind caressed me!
"With unswerving forehead and steady eye I met all that came. The old,
lone wolf leaped sideways, snarling, and slunk away. The lumbering
bear swung his head of hesitations and thought again; he trotted his
small red eye away with him to a near-by brake. The stags of my race
fled from my rocky forehead, or were pushed back and back until their
legs broke under them and I trampled them to death. I was the beloved,
the well known, the leader of the herds of Ireland.
"And at times I came back from my boundings about Eire', for the
strings of my heart were drawn to Ulster; and, standing away, my wide
nose took the air, while I knew with joy, with terror, that men were
blown on the wind. A proud head hung to the turf then, and the tears of
memory rolled from a large, bright eye.
"At times I drew near, delicately, standing among thick leaves or
crouched in long grown grasses, and I stared and mourned as I looked
on men. For Nemed and four couples had been saved from that fierce
storm, and I saw them increase and multiply until four thousand
couples lived and laughed and were riotous in the sun, for the people of
Nemed had small minds but great activity. They were savage fighters
and hunters.
"But one time I came, drawn by that