e off
their hats and say "God bless them."' When they are gay, they sing. Many
of the most beautiful tunes of Ireland 'are only their music, caught up
by eavesdroppers.' No prudent peasant would hum The Pretty Girl Milking
the Cow near a fairy rath, 'for they are jealous, and do not like to hear
their songs on clumsy mortal lips.' Blake once saw a fairy's funeral.
But this, as Mr. Yeats points out, must have been an English fairy, for
the Irish fairies never die; they are immortal.

Then come The Solitary Fairies, amongst whom we find the little Lepracaun
mentioned above. He has grown very rich, as he possesses all the
treasure-crocks buried in war-time. In the early part of this century,
according to Croker, they used to show in Tipperary a little shoe
forgotten by the fairy shoemaker. Then there are two rather disreputable
little fairies--the Cluricaun, who gets intoxicated in gentlemen's
cellars, and the Red Man, who plays unkind practical jokes. 'The Fear-
Gorta (Man of Hunger) is an emaciated phantom that goes through the land
in famine time, begging an alms and bringing good luck to the giver.' The
Water-sheerie is 'own brother to the English Jack-o'-Lantern.' 'The
Leanhaun Shee (fairy mistress) seeks the love of mortals. If they
refuse, she must be their slave; if they consent, they are hers, and can
only escape by finding another to take their place. The fairy lives on
their life, and they waste away. Death is no escape from her. She is
the Gaelic muse, for she gives inspiration to those she persecutes. The
Gaelic poets die young, for she is restless, and will not let them remain
long on earth.' The Pooka is essentially an animal spirit, and some have
considered him the forefather of Shakespeare's 'Puck.' He lives on
solitary mountains, and among old ruins 'grown monstrous with much
solitude,' and 'is of the race of the nightmare.' 'He has many shapes--is
now a horse, . . . now a goat, now an eagle. Like all spirits, he is
only half in the world of form.' The banshee does not care much for our
democratic levelling tendencies; she loves only old families, and
despises the parvenu or the nouveau riche. When more than one banshee is
present, and they wail and sing in chorus, it is for the death of some
holy or great one. An omen that sometimes accompanies the banshee is '.
. . an immense black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless
horses driven by a Dullahan.' A Dullahan is the mos