an; that is, grianan, a bright, sunny
place. On the arm of a tree in the Greenan hangs something you might (if
you are dull) mistake for a plaited garland of rushes hung with pierced
pennies; but it really is our Chain of Silence, a useful article
of bygone ages, which the lord of a mansion shook when he wished
an attentive hearing, and which deserved a better fate and a longer
survival than it has met. Jackeen's Irish terrier is Bran,--though
he does not closely resemble the great Finn's sweet-voiced,
gracefully-shaped, long-snouted hound; the coracle lying on the shore of
the little lough--the coracle made of skin, like the old Irish boats--is
the Wave-Sweeper; and the faithful mare that we hire by the day is, by
your leave, Enbarr of the Flowing Mane. No warrior was ever killed on
the back of this famous steed, for she was as swift as the clear, cold
wind of spring, travelling with equal ease and speed on land and sea,
an' may the divil fly away wid me if that same's not true.

We no longer find any difficulty in remembering all this nomenclature,
for we are 'under gesa' to use no other. When you are put under gesa to
reveal or to conceal, to defend or to avenge, it is a sort of charm or
spell; also an obligation of honour. Finola is under gesa not to write
to Alba more than six times a week and twice on Sundays; Sheela is bound
by the same charm to give us muffins for afternoon tea; I am vowed to
forget my husband when I am relating romances, and allude to myself, for
dramatic purposes, as a maiden princess, or a maiden of enchanting and
all-conquering beauty. And if we fail to abide by all these laws of the
modern Dedannans of Devorgilla, which are written in the Speckled Book
of Salemina, we are to pay eric-fine. These fines are collected with all
possible solemnity, and the children delight in them to such an extent
that occasionally they break the law for the joy of the penalty. If you
have ever read the Fate of the Children of Turenn, you remember that
they were to pay to Luga the following eric-fine for the slaying of
their father, Kian: two steeds and a chariot, seven pigs, a hound whelp,
a cooking-spit, and three shouts on a hill. This does not at first seem
excessive, if Kian were a good father, and sincerely mourned; but when
Luga began to explain the hidden snares that lay in the pathway, it is
small wonder that the sons of Turenn felt doubt of ever being able to
pay it, and that when, after surmounting al