Sullivans, if
they're as stupid as them. But mortals can be cleverer than we ever
can when they are clever, and they can beat us every time if they know
how. And do you know why? Because they have what we have not--because
they have souls. I heard a school-master say once that the word
'mortal' was made from a word that meant death. And they call mortals
that, I'm thinkin', because they never die. But you will die, King,
and all your people, and I. We live on and on for thousands of years,
and men come and change and pass away, but at the last day we shall be
gone, as a bit of cloud up in the sky is gone when the sun shines on
it. That's why men will always be greater and finer and stronger than
us, with all our magic."

The fairies were all so terrified that they shrank away from Naggeneen
and clung together and shook, in their fright, for this fear of living
for a long time and then going out like a candle is their greatest
fear. There was not a bit of color left in the King's face now. It was
almost with a sob that he spoke again, and there was a kind of
beseeching in his tone as he said: "Naggeneen, don't talk like that to
us! We don't know it! It may be so, but we don't know it! We've tried
many a time to find out, but no one that knew would ever tell us! We
may have souls! We don't know that we've not! We may be saved!"

"You do know it!" Naggeneen cried. "Why will you try to deceive
yourselves? You've no soul and I've no soul, and there's no way that
we can have them. If there'd been any way, I'ld have had one long ago.
But we'll never have them, and mortals will always outwit us, if they
half know how. Shall I tell you how one of them outwitted me--a big,
lazy, stupid gommoch, with not enough brains to keep his neck safe?"

The fairies were far past caring whether they heard a story or not,
but they listened as Naggeneen went on. "I'm after tellin' you," he
said, "that if there was any way that one of us could be gettin' a
soul, I'ld have had one long ago. This was the way I tried it, and a
silly mortal outwitted me. Guleesh na Guss Dhu was the name that was
on him. I had heard--and I believed it--that if I could get a mortal
woman married to me--a woman with a soul--that I would get a soul,
too, that way. Well, I was never over-modest in my tastes, you know,
and I thought that the daughter of the King of France was about right
for me. A beautiful girl she was, with the rose and the lily fighting
in her cheek