i or overking. Mr. Colquhoun is really called Dermod, but he would
have been far too modest to choose Dermot O'Dyna for his Celtic
name, had we not insisted; for this historic personage was not only
noble-minded, generous, of untarnished honour, and the bravest of the
brave, but he was as handsome as he was gallant, and so much the idol of
the ladies that he was sometimes called Dermat-na-man, or Dermot of the
women.

Of course we have a corps of shanachies, or story-tellers, gleemen,
gossipreds, leeches, druids, gallowglasses, bards, ollaves, urraghts,
and brehons; but the children can always be shifted from one role to
another, and Benella and the Button Boy, although they are quite unaware
of the honours conferred upon them, are often alluded to in our romances
and theatrical productions.

Aunt David's garden is not a half bad substitute for the old Moy-Mell,
the plain of pleasure of the ancient Irish, when once you have the key
to its treasures. We have made a new and authoritative survey of its
geographical features and compiled a list of its legendary landmarks,
which, strangely enough, seem to have been absolutely unknown to Miss
Llewellyn-Joyce.

In the very centre is the Forradh, or Place of Meeting, and on it is our
own Lia Fail, Stone of Destiny. The one in Westminster Abbey, carried
away from Scotland by Edward I., is thought by many scholars to be
unauthentic, and we hope that ours may prove to have some historical
value. The only test of a Stone of Destiny, as I understand it, is that
it shall 'roar' when an Irish monarch is inaugurated; and that our Lia
Fail was silent when we celebrated this impressive ceremony reflects
less upon its own powers, perhaps, than upon the pedigree of our chosen
Ard-ri.

The arbour under the mountain ash is the Fairy Palace of the Quicken
Tree, and on its walls is suspended the Horn of Foreknowledge, which if
any one looks on it in the morning, fasting, he will know in a moment
all things that are to happen during that day.

The clump of willows is the Wood of the Many Sallows (a willow-tree is
familiarly known as a 'sally' in Ireland). Do you know Yeats's song, put
to a quaint old Irish air?

'Down by the sally gardens my love and I did meet,
She passed the sally gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree,
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.'

The summer-house is the Green