THE OTTER- HUNTER S HISTORY. 



95 



out when there was a roar of laughter above, below and 

 around me. The lights vanished, and it became at once 

 so dark that I could scarcely make out my way. When 

 I got fairly inside Morteein's kitchen, I fainted dead ; 

 and when I came to, I told them what had happened. 

 Many a time fairy candles are seen at Lough na Mucka ; 

 but sorrow mortal was ever lighted across the quagh 

 by the gentle-people but myself, and that the country 

 knows. Well — ^the master is laughing at me ; but I'll 

 hobble to the cabin, or they'll think thsit the gentle people 

 have carried me off at last, as they did Shamus Bollogh,* 

 from Ballycroy." 



This gentleman's temporary sojourn with the fairies 

 is generally credited in Ballycroy. Why the gentle- 

 folk, who are accounted scrupulous in selecting 

 youth and beauty when they abduct mortals, should 

 have pitched upon Shamus, is unaccountable. His 

 charms are of the plainest order, and he had long passed 

 his teens before the period of his being carried away. 

 His own account of the transaction is but a confused 

 one — and all I recollect of the particulars is, that he 

 crossed to Tallaghan, over an arm of the sea, on a grey 

 horse, behind a little man dressed in green. Neither 

 good nor evil resulted from this nocturnal gallop of 

 " the Stutterer," if we except a sound horse- whipping 

 which he received from the priest, for attempting to 

 abuse the credulity of the peasantry, by detailing the 

 fairy revels in which he alleged that he participated. 



Presently we returned to the hut : the whisky had 



began to operate on the corps de ballet in the kitchen, 



for the pipes played louder, and the girls danced with 



additional esprit. To think of bed, with such a company 



* James the Stutterer. 



