me, and
says to him, "You have two things now that you never had before--you
have sense and music." The Piper went home, and he knocked at his
mother's door, saying, "Let me in, I'm as rich as a lord, and I'm the
best Piper in Ireland."

"You're drunk," says the mother.

"No, indeed," says the Piper, "I haven't drunk a drop."

The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, "Wait now,"
says he, "till you hear the music I'll play."

He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music there came a sound as if
all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He
wakened the neighbours, and they were all mocking him, until he put on
the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after
that he told them all he had gone through that night.

The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there
was nothing there but the leaves of a plant.

The piper went to the priest and told him his story, but the priest
would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and
then the screeching of the ganders and the geese began.

"Leave my sight, you thief," says the priest.

But nothing would do the Piper till he put the old pipes on him to show
the priest that his story was true.

He buckled on the old pipes, and he played melodious music, and from
that day till the day of his death there was never a Piper in the county
Galway was as good as he was.

DOUGLAS HYDE.

The Fairy Changeling

Dermod O'Byrne of Omah town
In his garden strode up and down;
He pulled his beard, and he beat his breast;
And this is his trouble and woe confessed:

"The good-folk came in the night, and they
Have stolen my bonny wean away;
Have put in his place a changeling,
A weashy, weakly, wizen thing!

"From the speckled hen nine eggs I stole,
And lighting a fire of a glowing coal,
I fried the shells, and I spilt the yolk;
But never a word the stranger spoke.

"A bar of metal I heated red
To frighten the fairy from its bed,
To put in the place of this fretting wean
My own bright beautiful boy again.

"But my wife had hidden it in her arms,
And cried, 'For shame!' on my fairy charms;
She sobs, with the strange child on her breast,
'I love the weak, wee babe the best!'"

To Dermod O'Byrne's, the tale to hear,
The neighbours came from far and near;
Outside his gate, in the long boreen,
They crossed themselves, and