said between

Their muttered prayers, "He has no luck!
For sure the woman is fairy-struck,
To leave her child a fairy guest,
And love the weak, wee wean the best!"

DORA SIGERSON.

The Talking Head of Donn-bo

There is an old tale told in Erin of a lovable and bright and handsome
youth named Donn-bo, who was the best singer of "Songs of Idleness" and
the best teller of "King Stories" in the world. He could tell a tale of
each king who reigned in Erin, from the "Tale of the Destruction of Dind
Righ," when Cova Coelbre was killed, down to the kings who reigned in
his own time.

On a night before a battle, the warriors said, "Make minstrelsy to-night
for us, Donn-bo." But Donn-bo answered, "No word at all will come on my
lips to-night; therefore, for this night let the King-buffoon of Ireland
amuse you. But to-morrow, at this hour, in whatsoever place they and I
shall be, I will make minstrelsy for the fighting men." For the warriors
had said that unless Donn-bo would go with them on that hosting, not one
of them would go.

The battle was past, and on the evening of the morrow at that same hour
Donn-bo lay dead, his fair young body stretched across the body of the
King of Ireland, for he had died in defending his chief. But his head
had rolled away among a wisp of growing rushes by the waterside.

At the feasting of the army on that night a warrior said, "Where is
Donn-bo, that he may make minstrelsy for us, as he promised us at this
hour yesternight, and that he may tell us the 'King Stories of Erin'?"

A valiant champion of the men of Munster answered, "I will go over the
battle-field and seek for him." He enquired among the living for
Donn-bo, but he found him not, and then he searched hither and thither
among the dead.

At last he came where the body of the King of Erin lay, and a young,
fair corpse beside it. In all the air about there was the sound of
minstrelsy, low and very sweet; dead bards and poets reciting in faint
whispers old tales and poems to dead chiefs.

The wild, clear note of the battle-march, the _dord fiansa_, played by
the drooping hands of slain warriors upon the points of broken spears,
low like the echo of an echo, sounded in the clump of rushes hard by;
and, above them all, a voice, faint and very still, that sang a song
that was sweeter than the tunes of the whole world beside.

The voice that sang was the voice of the head of Donn-bo. The warrior
stooped to pick