easant 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 most 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 sug