er on he pointed across
the sea to our left--just beyond the strand where the races were to
be run--to a neck of sand where, he said, Oisin was called away to
the Tir-na-nOg.

'The Tir-na-nOg itself,' he said, 'is below that sea, and a while
since there were two men out in a boat in the night-time, and they
got stuck outside some way or another. They went to sleep then, and
when one of them wakened up he looked down into the sea, and he saw
the Tir-na-nOg and people walking about, and side-cars driving in
the squares.'

Then he began telling me stories of mermaids--a common subject in
this neighbourhood.

'There was one time a man beyond of the name of Shee,' he said, 'and
his master seen a mermaid on the sand beyond combing her hair, and
he told Shee to get her. "I will," said Shee, "if you'll give me the
best horse you have in your stable." "I'll do that," said the
master. Then Shee got the horse, and when he saw the mermaid on the
sand combing her hair, with her covering laid away from her, he
galloped up, when she wasn't looking, and he picked up the covering
and away he went with it. Then the waves rose up behind him and he
galloped his best, and just as he was coming out at the top of the
tide the ninth wave cut off his horse behind his back, and left
himself and the half of his horse and the covering on the dry land.
Then the mermaid came in after her covering, and the master got
married to her, and she lived with him a long time, and had
children--three or four of them. Well, in the wind-up, the master
built a fine new house, and when he was moving into it, and clearing
the things out, he brought down an old hamper out of the loft and
put it in the yard. The woman was going about, and she looked into
the hamper, and she saw her covering hidden away in the bottom of
it. She took it out then and put it upon her and went back into the
sea, and her children used to be on the shore crying after her. I'm
told from that day there isn't one of the Shees can go out in a boat
on that bay and not be drowned.'

We were now near the sandhills, where a crowd was beginning to come
together, and booths were being put up for the sale of apples and
porter and cakes. A train had come in a little before at a station a
mile or so away, and a number of the usual trick characters, with
their stock-in-trade, were hurrying down to the sea. The roulette
man passed us first, unfolding his table and calling out at the top
of his voi