t terrible thing in
the world. In 1807 two of the sentries stationed outside St. James's
Park saw one climbing the railings, and died of fright. Mr. Yeats
suggests that they are possibly 'descended from that Irish giant who swam
across the Channel with his head in his teeth.'

Then come the stories of ghosts, of saints and priests, and of giants.
The ghosts live in a state intermediary between this world and the next.
They are held there by some earthly longing or affection, or some duty
unfulfilled, or anger against the living; they are those who are too good
for hell, and too bad for heaven. Sometimes they 'take the forms of
insects, especially of butterflies.' The author of the Parochial Survey
of Ireland 'heard a woman say to a child who was chasing a butterfly,
"How do you know it is not the soul of your grandfather?" On November
eve they are abroad, and dance with the fairies.' As for the saints and
priests, 'there are no martyrs in the stories.' That ancient chronicler
Giraldus Cambrensis 'taunted the Archbishop of Cashel, because no one in
Ireland had received the crown of martyrdom. "Our people may be
barbarous," the prelate answered, "but they have never lifted their hands
against God's saints; but now that a people have come amongst us who know
how to make them (it was just after the English invasion), we shall have
martyrs plentifully."' The giants were the old pagan heroes of Ireland,
who grew bigger and bigger, just as the gods grew smaller and smaller.
The fact is they did not wait for offerings; they took them vi et armis.

Some of the prettiest stories are those that cluster round Tir-na-n-Og.
This is the Country of the Young, 'for age and death have not found it;
neither tears nor loud laughter have gone near it.' 'One man has gone
there and returned. The bard, Oisen, who wandered away on a white horse,
moving on the surface of the foam with his fairy Niamh lived there three
hundred years, and then returned looking for his comrades. The moment
his foot touched the earth his three hundred years fell on him, and he
was bowed double, and his beard swept the ground. He described his
sojourn in the Land of Youth to Patrick before he died.' Since then,
according to Mr. Yeats, 'many have seen it in many places; some in the
depths of lakes, and have heard rising therefrom a vague sound of bells;
more have seen it far off on the horizon, as they peered out from the
western cliffs. Not three years