years she was brought home again for some reason or other, but she had
no toes left. She had danced them off. Many near the white stone door
in Ben Bulben have been stolen away.

It is far easier to be sensible in cities than in many country places
I could tell you of. When one walks on those grey roads at evening by
the scented elder-bushes of the white cottages, watching the faint
mountains gathering the clouds upon their heads, one all too readily
discovers, beyond the thin cobweb veil of the senses, those creatures,
the goblins, hurrying from the white square stone door to the north, or
from the Heart Lake in the south.




THE UNTIRING ONES


It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any
unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like,
and something in our sweetheart that we dislike. It is this
entanglement of moods which makes us old, and puckers our brows and
deepens the furrows about our eyes. If we could love and hate with as
good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them.
But until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be one-
half of their fascination. Love with them never grows weary, nor can
the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet. The Donegal
peasants remember this when they bend over the spade, or sit full of
the heaviness of the fields beside the griddle at nightfall, and they
tell stories about it that it may not be forgotten. A short while ago,