W. B. YEATS.




A TELLER OF TALES


Many of the tales in this book were told me by one Paddy Flynn, a
little bright-eyed old man, who lived in a leaky and one-roomed cabin
in the village of Ballisodare, which is, he was wont to say, "the most
gentle"--whereby he meant faery--"place in the whole of County Sligo."
Others hold it, however, but second to Drumcliff and Drumahair. The
first time I saw him he was cooking mushrooms for himself; the next
time he was asleep under a hedge, smiling in his sleep. He was indeed
always cheerful, though I thought I could see in his eyes (swift as the
eyes of a rabbit, when they peered out of their wrinkled holes) a
melancholy which was well-nigh a portion of their joy; the visionary
melancholy of purely instinctive natures and of all animals.

And yet there was much in his life to depress him, for in the triple
solitude of age, eccentricity, and deafness, he went about much
pestered by children. It was for this very reason perhaps that he ever
recommended mirth and hopefulness. He was fond, for instance, of
telling how Collumcille cheered up his mother. "How are you to-day,
mother?" said the saint. "Worse," replied the mother. "May you be worse
to-morrow," said the saint. The next day Collumcille came again, and
exactly the same conversation took place, but the third day the mother
said, "Better, thank God." And the saint replied, "May you be better