neighbours. Our way led through a steep boreen for a quarter of a
mile to the edge of the sea, and then along a pathway between the
cliffs and a straight grassy hill. When we had gone some distance
the old man pointed out a slope in front of us, where, he said,
Diarmuid had done his tricks of rolling the barrel and jumping over
his spear, and had killed many of his enemies. He told me the whole
story, slightly familiarized in detail, but not very different from
the version everyone knows. A little further on he pointed across
the sea to our left--just beyond the strand where the races were to
be run--to a neck of sand where, he said, Oisin was called away to
the Tir-na-nOg.

'The Tir-na-nOg itself,' he said, 'is below that sea, and a while
since there were two men out in a boat in the night-time, and they
got stuck outside some way or another. They went to sleep then, and
when one of them wakened up he looked down into the sea, and he saw
the Tir-na-nOg and people walking about, and side-cars driving in
the squares.'

Then he began telling me stories of mermaids--a common subject in
this neighbourhood.

'There was one time a man beyond of the name of Shee,' he said, 'and
his master seen a mermaid on the sand beyond combing her hair, and
he told Shee to get her. "I will," said Shee, "if you'll give me the
best horse you have in your stable." "I'll do that," said the
master. Then Shee got the horse, and when he saw the mermaid on the
sand combing her hair, with her covering laid away from her, he
galloped up, when she wasn't looking, and he picked up the covering
and away he went with it. Then the waves rose up behind him and he