FICTION.

FOLK TALES OF BEEFFNY•i'

Tam wholly delightful volume does not belong to fiction as the term is interpreted by the average novel-reader. The tales of which it is composed deal largely in fairy lore, and the author lays no claim to originality in their presentation. In her brief but suggestive introduction she tells us they were mostly told her by an old man who said "he had more and better learning nor the scholars. The like of them do be filled with conceit out of books, and the most of it only nonsense ; 'tis myself has the real old knowledge was handed down from the ancient times." The spread of education and cheap literature robbed him of an audience

"But it happened that the old man took a contract to break stones for lime, and a child with an insatiable desire for in • Apollonists Rhodius, translated by B. C. Seaton ; Appian's Boman History, translated by Horace White, in 4 vols.. voL ; Cicero's Letters to Atticass, transIntel by E. 0. Winstea. in 3 vols., vol. i. ; The Greek Bucolic Poets, translated by J. M. Edmonds; Sophodes, translated by F. Storr. Being vols. x.-xv. of the "Loeb Classical Library." London; W. Heinemann. [5s. net per vol.] t Polk Tam of Brefriy. By B. Hunt. London Macmillan and Co. L38.13& neta

formation came to watch him at work. 'I promise you will walk the world like a Queen of ancient days renowned for learning and wit,' he assured her, delighted to find a hearer at last. The child was only seven years old, and could not remember all she heard, so most of his lore died with him. . . The Folk Tale is essentially dramatic and loses much when it is written down ; moreover it is often put into a form unsuited to the spirit of naive philosophy from whence it springs. The peasant of ancient race is more akin to the aristocratic type than the bourgeois can ever be—and the story told from generation to generation bears greater resemblance to the work of a poet than to that of the popular novelist, who is the bourgeois of literature. Superstition in a race is merely the proof of imagination; the people lacking fairy lore must also lack intelligence and wit."

Some of these statements are perhaps arguable ; others are amply vindicated by the contents of the volume. These folk tales are rich in the qualities of poetry, wit, and intelligence, and though the part which Miss Hunt has played is not that of a creator, her versions are marked by such unfailing charm, such happy and characteristic turns of phrase, that she deserves to rank with those musicians like Francis Korbay, who have lent fresh lustre to folk tunes by the beauty and picturesque ness of their settings. Breffny, as Miss Hunt tells us in a note at the end of the book, stands roughly for the counties of Cavan and Leitrim, originally part of Connacht, though Cavan is now in Ulster, and it is interesting to note that, while some

of the phrases, like "through other," are, as Dr. Joyce has shown, translations from the Gaelic, words like "wee" and "yon," which are never used in the south, point to the influence

of the Scottish element. Miss Hunt's glossary, we may add, is quite inadequate. Many curious words, e.g.," heth" (? haporth), "coley," and " cor " are omitted from the list, and phrases such as to be "middling great" with a person will prove stumbling..

blocks to the bourgeois Sassenach. But these are trifling drawbacks, and no one, however unfamiliar with the Anglo Irish dialect, can fail to appreciate the energy and beauty of the style. Some bookish words, the heritage of the hedge schoolmaster, occur, but they are chosen with a fine instinct for ornament. For the most part the diction is admirably simple. Thus we read that the eyes of the magic eel in

"Fairy Gold" were "the colour of flame and as blinding to the sight as the naked sun at noon of a summer's day." It is

an important element in the art of the narrator to enchain the interest of the hearer at the outset, and here Miss Hunt is

uniformly successful. What, for example could be better than the opening of "The Dark Oath" P— "In the ancient times there was a young lad, and he gifted with a temper was a fright to the world of man. He never controlled his speech, but took delight in letting great oaths and curses out of him, they rising continually in his heart like water in a spring well."

As for the themes of these stories, they are nearly always concerned with the Good People and the various ways in which they are to be propitiated or evaded. Sometimes they are kindly in their influence, but for the most part they are freakish, malicious, or even deadly. The substitution of changelings or the carrying off of children is a frequent theme,

and there is a strangely pathetic story in which the intervention of the fairies is used to account for the death of a poor

little dumb child who had been neglected by the servants in the absence of the parents. That at least is the rationalized version of the story, which ends in this striking passage :—

" In the darkness of the black midnight, a powerful great storm shook the place. It was like as if the four winds of Heaven were striving together, and they horrid vexed with one another. There were strange noises in it too, music and shouting, the way it was easy knowing the Good People were out playing themselves, or maybe disputing in a war. Thinking the child might be scared at the commotion, herself took a light in her hand and went over to his bed. Is all well with you, sonny ? ' says she, for she had a fashion of speaking with him, even if it was no answers he'd give. But the little fellow was not in it at all, he was away travelling the world with the Fairy horsemen were after coming for him. The whole disturbance died out as speedy and sudden as it came. The music dwined in the far distance and the wind was still as the dawn of a summer's day. Sure it was no right tempest at all but an old furl blast the Good People had out for their diversion. The child was never restored to Nallagh and the wife. The fairies left them in peace from that out ; they never heard the music on the distant hills, nor the regiments of horsemen passing by. The whole time it was lonesome they'd be, and they looking on the empty chair where the strange child delighted to sit silent, watching the turf was glowing red."

For fantastic romance "McCarthy of Connacht" is our favourite; for humour "The Little Settlement," which is not only a delightful story, but an excellent satire on the commercialism of the Irish marriage market. In it we learn how a

strong farmer, "the boastfullest man in all Ireland," decided that it was time, not so much for his daughter to be married as for himself to be taking a son-in-law into the place to save him the cares of management. Bride, the daughter, was "a beautiful white girl with a countenance on her would charm a king from his golden throne to be walking the bogs with herself." But such was her father's sense of his own importance that le drove away all the suitors, including a man who travelled in tea; "himself was disgusted with all; he put out the farmers and dealers very civil and stiff, but the teaman he stoned down the road for a couple of miles." And he would have nothing to say to a beautiful young lad named Shan Alec, though he was "a tasty worker." When he said that he would sooner let the devil have his daughter than see her join the world (i.e., marry) with Shan Alec, his wife observed that the "raving of prosperity" was on him, adding "that is the worst madness of all "—for all the world like the chorus in a Greek play. And her fears were fully justified when her husband became infatuated about a splendid gentleman who declared that he was a king in his Own place.

" When the supper was served didn't the servant girl mil the

mistress out to the kitchen. 'Oh mam,' says she. couldn't get word with you in private before. Let you hunt that lad from the place.' 'And why, might I ask?' says herself. Sure how would he be a right gentleman and he having a foot on him like a horse?' says the girl. With that the mistress began to lament and to groan. 'What'll I do I What'll I do, and I scared useless with dread? "I'll go in and impeach him,' says the servant girl.

In she went to the parlour. Quit off out of this,' says she.

We'll have no horse feet in this place.' The master got up to run her from the room. 'Look under the table at your lovely gentleman's foot !' says she. The farmer done as she bid, but he was that set in his own conceit he just answers: 'What harm is in a reel foot ? It's no ornament surely, but that's all there is to it." Many's the reel foot I've laid eyes on,' she says. But you is the hoof of a horse.' 'It's truth you are speaking,' says the gentleman. am the devil and no person less. Quit off from here,' says the servant. 'A decent girl, like us two, need never be fearing your like. I'd hit you a skelp with the pot stick as soon as I'd stand on a worm.' 'You can't put me out,' says the devil. 'For the man of the house has me promised his daughter.' 'There is no person living,' says Bride, 'might have power on the soul of another. If my sins don't deliver me into.your hand the word of my da is no use.' • Then I'll be taking himself,' says the devil, making ready to go. 'You may wait till he's dead,' cries the woman of the house. 'He made you no offer of his bones and his flesh.' 'The tongues of three women would argue the devil to death,' says he, and away with him in a grey puff of smoke. The man and woman of the house began for to pray. But says Bride to the servant : 'Let you slip off to Shan Alec and bid him come up—for it's maybe an honourable reception is waiting him here.'

We cannot imagine a better antidote to the squalors of gratuitous realism or the fatigues of fuliginous introspection —to borrow Mr. Asquith's latest polysyllabic epithet—than an hour spent in the company of the Good People and gossips of Breffny.

The Upas Tree. By Florence L. Barclay. (G. P. Putnam's Sons. Ss. 6d. net.)—Ronnie was a successful novelist, and he went to Central Africa to collect local colour for his new book among the 11pas trees that grow in that region. While he was away his wife had a baby, and she sent him a note to inform him of the fact. The note ought to have reached him at Leipzig on his way home; but owing to the machinations of his wife's cousin Aubrey Treherne, who was not a good man (page 60), he never received it. So when he got back to the old Grange, instead of referring to his son, he could talk of nothing but a 'cello which he had picked up in Germany, and which, unconsciously tactless, he always referred to as "the Infant of Prague" or "the Infant" tout court. Helen was naturally annoyed, and " Ronald ! " she said, "you are Utterly, Preposterously, Altogether, Selfish !" Ronnie, being a literary man, at once perceived that this phrase formed an acrostic on the word " tipas "; and this discovery, followed by an unpleasant psychical experience which we must not spoil by a description, sent him mad for a time. But all came right in the end. Aubrey Treherne repented and confessed, explanations followed, and tears of unutterable joy—everything, in fact, that could be expected from a hook which is an unusually satisfactory specimen of Mrs. Barclay's art.

The Happy Warrior. By A. S. M. Hutchinson. (Alston Rivers. 6s.)—Here is good reading. The secret of inheritance which lies at the base of the plot would in real life have been made public at once. But we are grateful to the author for the tenacity with which it is withheld from most of the characters, if that was the condition upon which he wrote the story. Ile takes his readers

into his confidence throughout. There is sadness in the story, for his "happy warrior" dies for the friend who unwittingly supplanted him, and the two women who loved him are left in sorrow with his aunt and his male friends. The simple affection of these men is admirable. There is plenty of humour, too, especially in those characters which are drawn somewhat after Mr. do Morgan's manner, particularly tho good Hannaford, who keeps "a norse farm" for "little norms." Then there is a wholly imaginary Japhra, mystic and gypsy, an unconvincing but delightful creation. The Homeric tale of a fight in the showman's tent is as vivid as the descriptions of the open air, which is the principal background of this clean, high-spirited story.

READABLE NOVELS. The Golden Venture. By J. S. Fletcher. (Eveleigh Nash. Sc. fic.I. net.)—An engineering story in which the secret of an inventor of aeroplanes plays the chief part.-The Lady Married. By the author of "The Lady of the Decora, tion." (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s.).—This story is a sequel to "The Lady of the Decoration." It contains charming descriptions of Japan, and a well-realized, though brief, picture of the revolution in Peking last February.