THE FAIRY GRAVE IN CLON MACNOIS.* On a day, as Mac Coisset stayed by the shores of Loch Lein, he perceived a woman in a passion of weeping seated alone beside the lake. She was clad in a mantle of green, and her tresses were unloosed about her head; and in countenance she was loveliest of all women of the world. But great and incommensurable was her stature, beyond that of any woman of her time. Why are you weeping?" asked Mac Coisse. Indeed I have reason," answered she, for my first and only lover and my sweetheart was slain to-day in Sidh Codhail,§ and he has been carried to be laid in his grave to Clonmacnois,|| and there he lies buried." Mac Coisse bade her farewell and set off to Rathconnell¶ where Congalach,** King of Ireland, was staying, and laid the whole story before him. "To Clonmacnois we go to-morrow," quoth Congalach, “to prove if this story be true." On the morrow Congalach and Mac Coisse having journeyed to Clonmacnois, they questioned the clerics whether a man of such appearance had been buried there on that day. But the monks replied that no burial at all had taken place there for the space of three months. Thereat Congalach commenced to *The Irish original has been published by Dr. Kuno Meyer in the Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, vol. viii., p. 559; two slight errors of spelling only were to be discovered in this copy, executed with that scholar's invariable care: page 559, line 12, for arambarach the MS. has arnambarach; page 560, line 25, tecaid for teacaid of the MS. The scribal errors referred to above, page 642, are fuadan, line 2, a miswriting of fuadar, and taitneacha, line 3, for taithmighthe "loosed," or taitnemacha shining," both errors which can have been caused only by careless copying, and not mere misspellings, as collation with the MS. have shown. † Erard Mac Coisse, the poet referred to above. Loch Leibhinn in Irish; it is a lake in the barony of Fore, Co. Westmeath. § Sidh Codhail is probably to be connected with Loch Codhail, unidentified, but probably in Co. Kildare. See Onomasticon Goidelicum, s.v. Codail. | Clonmacnois, the famous monastery and centre of learning on the Shannon between Westmeath and Roscommon; it was founded in 547 by St. Ciaran the younger. Rubha Chonaill in Irish is Raconell (erroneously spelt Rathconell), a village in Westmeath about one and a half miles west of Mullingar. There still stands, in evidence of its former importance, a ruined monastery, perhaps the most extensive in Ireland. **Congalach mac Mailmithigh in the Irish, concerning whom see Introduction. upbraid Mac Coisse with making mock of him; and they went into Clonmacnois to spend the night. Early next morning they heard the death-bell rung. A monk of the community had died. He was carried out to be buried, and a grave was excavated for him, where the Druid's Flagstone stands to-day. After digging for a time they came upon bloodstains and fresh birch-leaves, at which they wondered greatly. The deeper the grave reached the more blood and leafage was discovered. The report was passed to everybody, and all came and stood over the grave to view it. "Dig on as long as you find the leaves and blood," said Congalach to the diggers. The pit was dug deeper, and at the bottom they found a pile of birchen brushwood and a man, face downwards, within it. The news was sent to Congalach and Mac Coisse, as to all in general; and they all came and stood around, as the corpse was lifted out of the grave. It was a man with yellow hair, in form and countenance more splendid than all men in the world. On his body was one terrible wound. Twenty-five feet was his height. For a while they stayed looking at him, and then covered the grave over him again. On the morrow all came to behold him, and to take counsel as to what they should do with him. Once more they dug out the grave, but found no corpse within : and of what became of it no more is known. FINIT. The tale ends thus abruptly; the idea being, I suppose, that the corpse had been carried away by the fairies, because the grave had been desecrated. It will seem a quaint idea altogether this, of burying a fairy man (a sidh-man, as the mention of Sidh Codhail shows) in Christain burial-ground; but one familiar enough, as the well-known tales of Patrick and Ossian exemplify, in Irish stories; "symbolising," as Mr. Yeats once curiously expressed it, "the marriage of heaven and earth." Another point of interest to students of folk-tales is the representation of giants as beings of great beauty and shapeliness of a truth, creatures of the mists and clouds. It occurs Leacc na nDruagh in the Irish; obviously a landmark in Clonmacnois. constantly of both dwarfs and giants in Irish stories: I may instance the pretty story of how St. Brendan and his companions on a voyage found a golden-haired giant mermaid floating dead at sea with a spear-wound through her breast; how the Saint brought her to life in order to baptise her, after which she chose rather to die and go to heaven than to live to return to her country; or the beautiful woman, "tall as a ship's mast," with her shapely hands, whom Finn encountered at Sliabh Mis (Acallamh, 5917 sq.); or the vir beatus seen in a vision by Colum Cille (Adamhnan, p. 14); or the decapitated giant, "white as a swan," said to have been cast up by the sea in Scotland (Anecdota from Irish MSS.). One may recall the charming tales of Finn's dwarf musician and his mating in the Agallamh; or the quaint Iubhdan, king of leprechans (Silva Gadelica, i. 243, ii. 274). This contrasts surely with the burlesque or thick-witted giants of the German imagination, and the malevolent and repulsive monster of the clearer-minded French fairy-tales; although, of course, in the widespread community of such tales parallels can probably be adduced of each characteristic from other races; and the villainous giant" occurs frequently in Irish folk-tales, as unusual size is naturally an added feature in any shape of terror. LUCIUS GWYNN. TO M, A VISITOR FROM the harsh clamour of the crowded street, As song of thrush. Some glad soft cradle-rhyme We repeat, We village folk, the praise of you who came VOL. XLII.-No. 497 T. O'C. 44 THE MAYTIME REMAINS WHEN May has spent its little song And large with promise hope may be, Yet memoried thoughts will yearn to see And you, my loyal, little friend, From May to June you go; What years of loyalty attend Great comradeship we know: Yet joy have we in place of tears For whether east or west the years, Then gladly let your springtime pass Ahead are fields of flower and grass In seasons close to God. MICHAEL EARLS, S.J. ΤΗ THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER HE recent book by Father Gillet on The Education of Character resembles very closely the well-known work by M. Jules Payot on The Education of the Will. Both treatises deal with the question of self-perfection and selfcontrol. In both we find sound views and reflections on the need of aiming high, and of forming good habits by a judicious use of our "psychological" resources. Both authors warn us against depending too much on "thought," to the neglect of "emotion" and "passion." passion." Both authors have many wise things to say on" idleness," "sensuality," and "action." But, it seems to us that neither author suggests a really practical scheme for strengthening or developing the will. Character does not exist without will" (p. 1), writes Father Gillet; and again: "Character is the totality of moral qualities intelligently grouped around the axis of the will" (p. 5). Again and again he recurs to the point that what counts in character is will, and that character training means will training. This, too, is the view and doctrine of M. Payot. But neither author, beyond affording much useful general reading on the glory and advantage of a strong will, and beyond giving some more or less incomplete analyses of the ingredients of voluntary action, suggests any useful plain method of will training. This point they seem to have overlooked or shirked. Or, perhaps, they considered that a general recommendation of mortification, penance, and self-imposed suffering sufficed? Considered from this point of view Father Gillet's book is of little assistance to us. It is not helpful where, we think, it ought to be helpful. It does not tell us how to train the will. No doubt it has, in other regards, many merits. It is wholesome reading, and pays just tribute to the influence of religion in character training, and insists rightly on the necessity of an ideal in life. There are some points, however, in which Father Gillet's *The Education of Character, by Rev. M. S. Gillet, O.P., translated from the French by Benjamin Green. London: R. & T. Washbourne. |