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  Foreword

  This history sets forth the only true account of the adventures of a daring Tipperary man named Darby O’Gill among the Fairies of Sleive-na-mon.

  These adventures were first related to me by Mr. Jerry Murtaugh, a reliable car-driver, who goes between Kilcuny and Ballinderg. He is a first cousin of Darby O’Gill’s own mother.

  The Fairies

  “Up the airy mountain,

  Down the rushy glen,

  We daren’t go a-hunting

  For fear of little men.

  Wee folk, good folk,

  Trooping altogether;

  Green jacket, red cap,

  And white owl’s feather.

  They stole little Bridget

  For seven years long;

  When she came down again

  Her friends were all gone.

  They took her lightly back

  Between the day and morrow;

  They thought that she was fast asleep,

  But she was dead with sorrow.”

  William Allingham

  Darby O’Gill and the Good People

  Darby O’Gill and the Good People

  Although only one living man of his own free will ever went among them there, still, any well-learned person in Ireland can tell you that the abode of the Good People is in the hollow heart of the great mountain Sleive-na-mon. That same one man was Darby O’Gill, a cousin of my own mother.

  Right and left, generation after generation, the fairies had stolen pigs, young childher, old women, young men, cows, churnings of butter from other people, but had never bothered any of our kith or kin until, for some mysterious rayson, they soured on Darby, and took the eldest of his three foine pigs.

  The next week a second pig went the same way. The third week not a thing had Darby left for the Balinrobe fair. You may aisly think how sore and sorry the poor man was, an’ how Bridget his wife an’ the childher carried on. The rent was due, and all left was to sell his cow Rosie to pay it. Rosie was the apple of his eye; he admired and rayspected the pigs, but he loved Rosie.

  Worst luck of all was yet to come. On the morning when Darby went for the cow to bring her into market, bad scrans to the hoof was there; but in her place only a wisp of dirty straw to mock him. Millia murther! What a howlin’ and screechin’ and cursin’ did Darby bring back to the house!

  Now Darby was a bould man, and a desperate man in his anger, as you soon will see. He shoved his feet into a pair of brogues, clapped his hat on his head, and gripped his stick in his hand.

  “Fairy or no fairy, ghost or goblin, livin’ or dead, who took Rosie’ll rue this day,” he says.

  With those wild words he bolted in the direction of Sleive-na-mon.

  All day long he climbed like an ant over the hill, looking for a hole or cave through which he could get at the prison of Rosie. At times he struck the rocks with his blackthorn, cryin’ out challenge.

  “Come out, you that took her,” he called. “If ye have the courage of a mouse, ye murtherin’ thieves, come out!”

  No one made answer—at laste, not just then. But at night, as he turned, hungry and footsore, toward home, who should he meet up with on the crossroads but the ould fairy doctor, Sheela Maguire. Well known she was as a spy for the Good People. She spoke up:

  “Oh, then, you’re the foolish, blundherin’-headed man to be saying what you’ve said, and doing what you’ve done this day, Darby O’Gill,” says she.

  “What do I care!” says he fiercely. “I’d fight the divil tonight for my beautiful cow.”

  “Then go into Mrs. Hagan’s meadow beyant,” says Sheela, “and wait till the moon is up. By-an’-by ye’ll see a herd of cows come down from the mountain, and yer own’ll be among them.”

  “What’ll I do then?” asked Darby, his voice thrembling with excitement.

  “Sorra a hair I care what ye do! But there’ll be lads there, and hundreds you won’t see, that’ll stand no ill words, Darby O’Gill.”

  “One question more, ma’am,” says Darby, as Sheelah was moving away. “How late in the night will they stay without?”

  Sheelah caught him by the collar and, pulling his head close, whuspered:

  “When the cock crows the Good People must be safe at home. After cockcrow they have no power to help or to hurt, and every mortal eye can see them plain.”

  “I thank you kindly,” says Darby, “and I bid you good evening, ma’am.” He turned away, leaving her standing there alone, looking after him; but he was sure he heard voices talkin’ to her, and laughin’ and tittherin’ behind him.

  It was dark night when Darby stretched himself on the ground in Hagan’s meadow; the yellow rim of the moon just tipped the edge of the hills.

  As he lay there in the long grass amidst the silence there came a cowld shudder in the air, an’ afther it had passed the deep cracked voice of a nearby bullfrog called loudly an’ ballyraggin’:

  “The Omadhaun! Omadhaun! Omadhaun!” it said.

  From a sloe three over near the hedge an owl cried, surprised and thrembling:

  “Who‑o‑o? who‑o‑o?” it axed.

  At that every frog in the meadow—an’ there must have been tin thousand of them—took up the answer, an’ shrieked shrill an’ high together. “Darby O’Gill! Darby O’Gill! Darby O’Gill!” sang they.

  “The Omadhaun! The Omadhaun!” cried the wheezy masther frog again. “Who-o? Who-o?” axed the owl. “Darby O’Gill! Darby O’Gill!” screamed the rollicking chorus; an’ that way they were goin’ over an’ over agin until the bould man was just about to creep off to another spot whin, sudden, a hundred slow shadows, stirring up the mists, crept from the mountain way toward him. First he must find was Rosie among the herd. To creep quiet as a cat through the hedge and raich the first cow was only a minute’s work. Then his plan, to wait till cockcrow, with all other sober, sensible thoughts, went clane out of the lad’s head before his rage; for cropping eagerly the long, sweet grass, the first baste he met, was Rosie.

  With a leap Darby was behind her, his stick falling sharply on her flanks. The ingratitude of that cow almost broke Darby’s heart. Rosie turned fiercely on him, with a vicious lunge, her two horns aimed at his breast. There was no suppler boy in the parish than Darby, and well for him it was so, for the mad rush the cow
gave would have caught any man the laste thrifle heavy on his legs, and ended his days right there.

  As it was, our hayro sprang to one side. As Rosie passed, his left hand gripped her tail. When one of the O’Gills takes hould of a thing, he hangs on like a bull terrier. Away he went, rushing with her.

  Now began a race the like of which was never heard of before or since. Ten jumps to the second, and a hundred feet to the jump. Rosie’s tail standing straight up in the air, firm as an iron bar, and Darby floating straight out behind; a thousand furious fairies flying a short distance after, filling the air with wild commands and threatenings.

  Suddenly the sky opened for a crash of lightning that shivered the hills, and a roar of thunder that turned out of their beds every man, woman, and child in four counties. Flash after flash came the lightning, hitting on every side of Darby. If it wasn’t for fear of hurting Rosie, the fairies would sartenly have killed Darby. As it was, he was stiff with fear, afraid to hould on and afraid to lave go, but flew, waving in the air at Rosie’s tail like a flag.

  As the cow turned into the long, narrow valley which cuts into the east side of the mountain, the Good People caught up with the pair, and what they didn’t do to Darby, in the line of sticking pins, pulling whiskers, and pinching wouldn’t take long to tell. In troth, he was just about to let go his hould, and take the chances of a fall, when the hillside opened and—whisk! the cow turned into the mountain. Darby found himself flying down a wide, high passage which grew lighter as he went along. He heard the opening behind shut like a trap, and his heart almost stopped beating, for this was the fairies’ home in the heart of Sleive-na-mon. He was captured by them!

  When Rosie stopped, so stiff were all Darby’s joints, that he had great trouble loosening himself to come down. He landed among a lot of angry-faced little people, each no higher than your hand, everyone wearing a green velvet cloak and a red cap.

  “We’ll take him to the king,” says a red-whiskered wee chap. “What he’ll do to the murtherin’ spalpeen’ll be good and plenty!”

  With that they marched our bould Darby, a prisoner, down the long passage, which every second grew wider and lighter, and fuller of little people.

  Sometimes, though, he met with human beings like himself, only the black charm was on them, they having been stolen at some time by the Good People. He saw lost people there from every parish in Ireland, both commoners and gentry. Each was laughing, talking, and divarting himself with another. Off to the sides he could see small cobblers making brogues, tinkers mending pans, tailors sewing cloth, smiths hammering horseshoes, everyone merrily to his trade, making a divarsion out of work.

  To this day Darby can’t tell where the beautiful red light he now saw came from. It was like a soft glow, only it filled the place, making things brighter than day.

  Down near the centre of the mountain, was a room twenty times higher and broader than the biggest church in the world. As they drew near this room, there arose the sound of a reel played on bagpipes. The music was so bewitching that Darby, who was the gracefullest reel dancer in all Ireland, could hardly make his feet behave themselves.

  At the room’s edge Darby stopped short and caught his breath, the sight was so entrancing. Set over the broad floor were thousands and thousands of the Good People, facing this way and that, and dancing to a reel; while on a throne in the middle of the room sat ould Brian Conners, King of the Fairies, blowing on the bagpipes. The little King, with a goold crown on his head, wearing a beautiful green velvet coat and red knee-breeches, sat with his legs crossed, beating time with his foot to the music.

  There were many from Darby’s own parish; and what was his surprise to see there Maureen McGibney, his own wife’s sister, whom he had supposed resting dacintly in her grave in holy ground these three years. She had flowers in her brown hair, a fine colour in her cheeks, a gown of white silk and goold, and her green mantle raiched to the heels of her purty red slippers.

  There she was, gliding back and forth, ferninst a little gray-whuskered, round-stomached fairy man, as though there was never a care nor a sorrow in the world.

  As I told you before, I tell you again, Darby was the finest reel dancer in all Ireland; and he came from a family of dancers, though I say it who shouldn’t, as he was my mother’s own cousin. Three things in the world banish sorrow—love and whisky and music. So, when the surprise of it all melted a little, Darby’s feet led him in to the thick of the throng, right under the throne of the King, where he flung care to the winds, and put his heart and mind into his two nimble feet. Darby’s dancing was such that purty soon those around stood still to admire.

  There’s a saying come down in our family through generations which I still hould to be true, that the better the music the aisier the step. Sure never did mortal men dance to so fine a chune and never so supple a dancer did such a chune meet up with.

  Fair and graceful he began. Backward and forward, sidestep and turn; cross over, then forward; a hand on his hip and his stick twirling free; sidestep and forward; cross over again; bow to his partner, and hammer the floor.

  It wasn’t long till half the dancers crowded around admiring, clapping their hands, and shouting encouragement. The ould King grew so excited that he laid down the pipes, took up his fiddle, came down from the throne, and standing ferninst Darby began a finer chune than the first.

  The dancing lasted a whole hour, no one speaking a word except to cry out, “Foot it, ye divil!” “Aisy now, he’s threading on flowers!” “Hooroo! Hooroo! Hooray!” Then the King stopped and said:

  “Well, that bates Banagher, and Banagher bates the world! Who are you, and how came you here?”

  Then Darby up and tould the whole story.

  When he had finished, the King looked sayrious. “I’m glad you came, an’ I’m sorry you came,” he says. “If we had put our charm on you outside to bring you in, you’d never die till the end of the world, when we here must all go to hell. But,” he added quickly, “there’s no use in worrying about that now. That’s nayther here nor there! Those willing to come with us can’t come at all, at all; and here you are of your own free act and will. Howsomever, you’re here, and we daren’t let you go outside to tell others of what you have seen, and so give us a bad name about—about taking things, you know. We’ll make you as comfortable as we can; and so you won’t worry about Bridget and the childher, I’ll have a goold sovereign left with them every day of their lives. But I wish we had the comeither on you,” he says, with a sigh, “for it’s aisy to see you’re great company. Now come up to my place an’ have a noggin of punch for friendship’s sake,” says he.

  That’s how Darby O’Gill began his six months’ stay with the Good People. Not a thing was left undone to make Darby contented and happy. A civiler people than the Good People he never met. At first he couldn’t get over saying, “God keep all here,” and “God save you kindly,” and things like that, which was like burning them with a hot iron.

  If it weren’t for Maureen McGibney, Darby would be in Sleive-na-mon at this hour. Sure she was always the wise girl, ready with her crafty plans and warnings. On a day when they two were sitting alone together, she says to him:

  “Darby, dear,” says she, “it isn’t right for a dacint man of family to be spending his days cavortin’, and idlin’, and fillin’ the hours with sport and nonsense. We must get you out of here; for what is a sovereign a day to compare with the care and protection of a father?” she says.

  “Thrue for ye!” moaned Darby, “and my heart is just splittin’ for a sight of Bridget an’ the childher. Bad luck to the day I set so much store on a dirty, ongrateful, threacherous cow!”

  “I know well how you feel,” says Maureen, “for I’d give the whole world to say three words to Bob Broderick, that ye tell me that out of grief for me has never kept company with any other girl till this day. But that’ll never be,” she says, “because I must
stop here till the Day of Judgment, and then I must go to ———,” says she, beginning to cry, “but if you get out, you’n bear a message to Bob for me, maybe?” she says.

  “It’s aisy to talk about going out, but how can it be done?” asked Darby.

  “There’s a way,” says Maureen, wiping her big gray eyes, “but it may take years. First, you must know that the Good People can never put their charm on anyone who is willing to come with them. That’s whay you came safe. Then, agin, they can’t work harm in the daylight, and after cockcrow any mortal eye can see them plain; nor can they harm anyone who has a sprig of holly, nor pass over a leaf or twig of holly, because that’s Christmas bloom. Well, there’s a certain evil word for a charm that opens the side of the mountain, and I will try to find it out for you. Without that word, the armies of the world couldn’t get out or in. But you must be patient and wise, and wait.”

  “I will so, with the help of God,” says Darby.

  At these words, Maureen gave a terrible screech.

  “Cruel man!” she cried, “don’t you know that to say pious words to one of the Good People, or to one undher their black charm, is like cutting him with a knife?”

  The next night she came to Darby again.

  “Watch yerself now,” she says, “for tonight they’re goin’ to lave the door of the mountain open, to thry you; and if you stir two steps outside they’ll put the comeither on you,” she says.

  Sure enough, when Darby took his walk down the passage, after supper, as he did every night, there the side of the mountain lay wide open and no one in sight. The temptation to make one rush was great; but he only looked out a minute, and went whistling back down the passage, knowing well that a hundred hidden eyes were on him the while. For a dozen nights after it was the same.

  At another time Maureen said:

  “The King himself is going to thry you hard the day, so beware!” She had no sooner said the words than Darby was called for, and went up to the King.