Irish Folk and Fairy Tales by Gordon Jarvie

Author:Gordon Jarvie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd
Published: 2013-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

PART SEVEN: TRADITIONAL STORIES AND CELTIC SAGA STORIES

‘Country-under-wave’ by Alice Furlong

There was once a little child, and he could not learn. It was not his fault. Every summer eve, and every winter night, he stood by the knee of his mother, and she said for him the names of the days of the week, and the seasons of the year, and told him how to call the sun and the moon and the stars. She gave him to know that the wheat was sown in one time, and reaped in another; that the oxen drew the plough, and the swift, nimble steed the chariot; that there were seven degrees of folks in the land, and seven orders among the poets, and seven colours to be distributed among the folks and among the poets, according to rank and station. And many other things the mother taught him, standing by her knee. The child listened, and was of attentive mind.

But in the morning, she asked him what was shining in the heavens, and he made answer, ‘The moon.’ And she asked him when did men take sickles and go a-reaping, and he said, ‘In the season of Beltaine’ (which is the early summer season when birds are on the bough, and blossom on the thorn). And she bade him tell her what animal it was that drew the plough over red, loamy fields, and he answered, ‘The swift, nimble horse.’ And she questioned him of the seven folks, and the seven orders, and the seven colours, and he had no right understanding concerning any of these.

‘Ill-luck is on me, that I am the mother of a fool!’ said the poor woman many a time. Then the child used to steal away to the dim, green orchard, and hide among the mossy trees, and weep.

After a time, the mother gave up trying to teach him, and taught his younger brothers and his sister, instead. The boy then took the lowest place at table, and his fare was given him last, and he was, in that homestead, the person held in least respect by menservants and maids.

There was a wise woman tarrying in the place one day, putting herbs of healing about an ailing cow. She saw the boy, and his fair head hanging, and shame in his eyes. ‘What is wrong with this fair-headed lad?’ said she.

‘The head is wrong with him,’ answered the mother of the boy. ‘He has no utterance nor understanding. A heavy trouble to me, that! For there was none among my kin and people but had the wisdom and the knowledge fitting for his station.’

The wise woman muttered and mumbled to herself.

‘Get him the Nuts of Knowledge,’ said she, after that.

‘I have heard tell of them,’ said the mother, ‘but hard is their getting.’ The brothers and the sister of the child that could not learn stood round about, and listened to the talk between the mother and the wise woman, Dechtera.

‘The Nuts of Knowledge, they grow upon the Hazels of Knowledge, over a Well of Enchantment in the Country-under-Wave,’ said Dechtera.

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