The Lady Of Gollerus

: EVIL SPIRITS
: Irish Fairy Tales

BY CROFTON CROKER





On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at

daybreak, stood Dick Fitzgerald 'shoghing the dudeen,' which may be

translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the

lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the

mists clearing away out of the valleys went rolling and curling like

the smoke from the corner of Dic 's mouth.



''Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning,' said Dick, taking the

pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean,

which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. 'Well,

to be sure,' continued he, after a pause, ''tis mighty lonesome to be

talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul

to answer one--nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I

know this, that if I had the luck, or may be the misfortune,' said

Dick, with a melancholy smile, 'to have the woman, it would not be

this way with me! and what in the wide world is a man without a wife?

He's no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or

dancing without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a

fishing-line without a hook, or any other matter that is no ways

complete. Is it not so?' said Dick Fitzgerald, casting his eyes

towards a rock upon the strand, which, though it could not speak,

stood up as firm and looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did.



But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that

rock, a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a

sea-green colour; and now the salt water shining on it appeared, in

the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.



Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow,[5] although he had never

seen one before, for he spied the cohuleen driuth, or little

enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the

ocean, lying upon the strand near her; and he had heard that, if once

he could possess himself of the cap she would lose the power of going

away into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing

the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.



[Footnote 5: Sea fairy.]



When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt

tears--doubly salt, no doubt, from her--came trickling down her

cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice

of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was

crying for, determined to keep the cohuleen driuth, let her cry

never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not

help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, with

her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel,

let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen,

a mighty tender heart of his own.



'Don't cry, my darling,' said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like

any bold child, only cried the more for that.



Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of

comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a

small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas

as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.



'What's your name, my darling?' says Dick, thinking to make her

conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure

now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him: he

therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking

to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the

world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.



The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation;

and making an end of her whining all at once, 'Man,' says she, looking

up in Dick Fitzgerald's face; 'man, will you eat me?'



'By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and

Tralee,' cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, 'I'd as soon eat myself,

my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet? Now, 'twas some ugly ill-looking

thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the

nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this

morning!'



'Man,' said the Merrow, 'what will you do with me if you won't eat

me?'



Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse,

that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any

real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she

called him man that settled the matter entirely.



'Fish,' says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion;

'fish,' says he, 'here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this

blessed morning, that I'll make you Mistress Fitzgerald before all the

world, and that's what I'll do.'



'Never say the word twice,' says she; 'I'm ready and willing to be

yours, Mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, till I twist up my

hair.' It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her

liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among

strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done, the

Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and

whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the

rock.



Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out

towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along,

and, says he, in the greatest wonder, 'Is it speaking you are, my

darling, to the salt water?'



'It's nothing else,' says she, quite carelessly; 'I'm just sending

word home to my father not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to

keep him from being uneasy in his mind.'



'And who's your father, my duck?' said Dick.



'What!' said the Merrow, 'did you never hear of my father? he's the

king of the waves to be sure!'



'And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?' said Dick, opening

his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to

be. 'Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your

father; to be sure he has all the money that's down at the bottom of

the sea!'



'Money,' repeated the Merrow, 'what's money?'



''Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it,' replied Dick; 'and may

be now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid

them?'



'Oh yes,' said the Merrow, 'they bring me what I want.'



'To speak the truth then,' said Dick, ''tis a straw bed I have at home

before you, and that, I'm thinking, is no ways fitting for a king's

daughter; so if 'twould not be displeasing to you, just to mention a

nice feather bed, with a pair of new blankets--but what am I talking

about? may be you have not such things as beds down under the water?'



'By all means,' said she, 'Mr. Fitzgerald--plenty of beds at your

service. I've fourteen oyster-beds of my own, not to mention one just

planting for the rearing of young ones.'



'You have?' says Dick, scratching his head and looking a little

puzzled. ''Tis a feather bed I was speaking of; but, clearly, yours is

the very cut of a decent plan to have bed and supper so handy to each

other, that a person when they'd have the one need never ask for the

other.'



However, bed or no bed, money or no money, Dick Fitzgerald determined

to marry the Merrow, and the Merrow had given her consent. Away they

went, therefore, across the strand, from Gollerus to Ballinrunnig,

where Father Fitzgibbon happened to be that morning.



'There are two words to this bargain, Dick Fitzgerald,' said his

Reverence, looking mighty glum. 'And is it a fishy woman you'd marry?

The Lord preserve us! Send the scaly creature home to her own people;

that's my advice to you, wherever she came from.'



Dick had the cohuleen driuth in his hand, and was about to give it

back to the Merrow, who looked covetously at it, but he thought for a

moment, and then says he, 'Please your Reverence, she's a king's

daughter.'



'If she was the daughter of fifty kings,' said Father Fitzgibbon, 'I

tell you, you can't marry her, she being a fish.'



'Please your Reverence,' said Dick again, in an undertone, 'she is as

mild and as beautiful as the moon.'



'If she was as mild and as beautiful as the sun, moon, and stars, all

put together, I tell you, Dick Fitzgerald,' said the Priest, stamping

his right foot, 'you can't marry her, she being a fish.'



'But she has all the gold that's down in the sea only for the asking,

and I'm a made man if I marry her; and,' said Dick, looking up slily,

'I can make it worth any one's while to do the job.'



'Oh! that alters the case entirely,' replied the Priest; 'why there's

some reason now in what you say: why didn't you tell me this before?

marry her by all means, if she was ten times a fish. Money, you know,

is not to be refused in these bad times, and I may as well have the

hansel of it as another, that may be would not take half the pains in

counselling you that I have done.'



So Father Fitzgibbon married Dick Fitzgerald to the Merrow, and like

any loving couple, they returned to Gollerus well pleased with each

other. Everything prospered with Dick--he was at the sunny side of the

world; the Merrow made the best of wives, and they lived together in

the greatest contentment.



It was wonderful to see, considering where she had been brought up,

how she would busy herself about the house, and how well she nursed

the children; for, at the end of three years there were as many young

Fitzgeralds--two boys and a girl.



In short, Dick was a happy man, and so he might have been to the end

of his days if he had only had the sense to take care of what he had

got; many another man, however, beside Dick, has not had wit enough to

do that.



One day, when Dick was obliged to go to Tralee, he left the wife

minding the children at home after him, and thinking she had plenty to

do without disturbing his fishing-tackle.



Dick was no sooner gone than Mrs. Fitzgerald set about cleaning up the

house, and chancing to pull down a fishing-net, what should she find

behind it in a hole in the wall but her own cohuleen driuth. She

took it out and looked at it, and then she thought of her father the

king, and her mother the queen, and her brothers and sisters, and she

felt a longing to go back to them.



She sat down on a little stool and thought over the happy days she had

spent under the sea; then she looked at her children, and thought on

the love and affection of poor Dick, and how it would break his heart

to lose her. 'But,' says she, 'he won't lose me entirely, for I'll

come back to him again, and who can blame me for going to see my

father and my mother after being so long away from them?'



She got up and went towards the door, but came back again to look once

more at the child that was sleeping in the cradle. She kissed it

gently, and as she kissed it a tear trembled for an instant in her eye

and then fell on its rosy cheek. She wiped away the tear, and turning

to the eldest little girl, told her to take good care of her brothers,

and to be a good child herself until she came back. The Merrow then

went down to the strand. The sea was lying calm and smooth, just

heaving and glittering in the sun, and she thought she heard a faint

sweet singing, inviting her to come down. All her old ideas and

feelings came flooding over her mind, Dick and her children were at

the instant forgotten, and placing the cohuleen driuth on her head

she plunged in.



Dick came home in the evening, and missing his wife he asked Kathleen,

his little girl, what had become of her mother, but she could not tell

him. He then inquired of the neighbours, and he learned that she was

seen going towards the strand with a strange-looking thing like a

cocked hat in her hand. He returned to his cabin to search for the

cohuleen driuth. It was gone, and the truth now flashed upon him.



Year after year did Dick Fitzgerald wait expecting the return of his

wife, but he never saw her more. Dick never married again, always

thinking that the Merrow would sooner or later return to him, and

nothing could ever persuade him but that her father the king kept her

below by main force; 'for,' said Dick, 'she surely would not of

herself give up her husband and her children.'



While she was with him she was so good a wife in every respect that to

this day she is spoken of in the tradition of the country as the

pattern for one, under the name of THE LADY OF GOLLERUS.