the charms of Ireland as a tourist resort.
Coupled with the charms of Glengarriff’s bay is its sister attraction – no less winsome – of the monarch mountain of these parts, Sliabhna-goil (i. e., “the Mountain of the Wild People”), more commonly called “Sugar Loaf.” Why it is so named is, of course, obvious to all who see it; but it is a rank departure from its original appellation.
This mountain’s taller brother Dhade (now Hungry Hill) rears itself in grim severity a little to the westward. Both are conspicuously coast-line elevations of the first rank.
Time will allow but a glance at the many beauties of this region; but the leaves of memory will press the fragments of romance, in an all-enduring fashion, to all who come immediately beneath their spell.
One legend, repeated here from a source well known, must suffice. It refers to the mountain pass of Keim-an-eigh, “the path of the deer,” through which, according to M’Carthy’s “Bridal of the Year,” and in reality, too:
“Streams go bounding in their gladness
With a Bacchanalian madness.”
M’Carthy has put the legend into elegant verse, known of all lovers of Irish song as “Alice and Una.”
Briefly the tale runs thus: A young huntsman, Maurice by name, had all day pursued a fawn, which at evening fled for refuge —
“To a little grassy lawn —
It is safe, for gentle Alice to her saving breast hath drawn
Her almost sister fawn.”
A romantic affection then sprang up between the two humans, the hunter and the maid; and this magnet drew the youth often hither, in spite of the fact that Una, a fairy queen, was passionately enamoured of the gallant deer-chaser. One evening, as he was wending his way to see his lady fair, the moon grew dark, a great storm arose, and the lovelorn Maurice lost himself in the wood. All this was of course due to the jealous fairy in true legendary fashion. At length he falls in with a noble jet-black steed, which he mounts. This grim shape proves to be a certain dreaded Phooka (the same symbol is renowned throughout Ireland, and has been traced even to the legends of the Northmen), a genii of Una’s, who immediately rushes off with the youth through glen and valley, stream and forest, up and down the mountain sides:
“Now he rises o’er Bearhaven, where he hangeth like a raven —
Ah! Maurice, though no craven, how terrible for thee!
To see the misty shading of the mighty mountains fading,
And thy winged fire-steed wading through the clouds as through a sea!
Now he feels the earth beneath him – he is loosened – he is free,
And asleep in Keim-an-eigh.”
In his trance-dream he hears the rumble of crashing thunder. The rock opens and displays within a scene of revelry and joy, to which a page bids him welcome, and ushers him through a brilliant assemblage to the very throne of the Queen-fairy Una. She smiles graciously upon him; urges him to leave the world and all its woes to become one of her happy subjects; and promises him that, if he will but take the oath of allegiance, she herself will deign to be his bride. Spellbound by such an appeal, his lips are all but ready to utter the irrevocable vow.
“While the word is there abiding, lo! the crowd is now dividing,
And, with sweet and gentle gliding, in before him came a fawn;
It was the same that fled him, and that seemed so much to dread him,
When it down in triumph led him to Glengarriff’s grassy lawn,
When from rock to rock descending, to sweet Alice he was drawn,
As through Keim-an-eigh he hunted from the dawn.”
“The magic chain is broken – no fairy vow is spoken —
From his trance he hath awoken, and once again is free;
And gone is Una’s palace, and vain the wild steed’s malice,
And again to gentle Alice down he wends through Keim-an-eigh.
The moon is calmly shining over mountain, stream, and tree,
And the yellow sea-plants glisten through the sea.
“The sun his gold is flinging, the happy birds are singing,
And bells are gaily ringing along Glengarriff’s sea;
And crowds in many a galley to the happy marriage rally
Of the maiden of the valley and the youth of Keim-an-eigh;
Old eyes with joy are weeping, as all ask, on bended knee,
A blessing, gentle Alice, upon thee.”
CHAPTER III
KILLARNEY AND ABOUT THERE
KILLARNEY is a considerable town, rather prim and staid and too offensively well kept to be wholly appealing. It is by no means handsome of itself, nor are its public buildings.
The chief industry is catering, in one form or another, to the largely increasing number of tourists who are constantly flocking thither.
The value of Killarney, as a name of sentimental and romantic interest, lies in its association with its lakes and the abounding wealth of natural beauties around about it.
Torc Mountain and waterfall, Muckross, Cloghereen, the Gap of Dunloe and its castle, the upper, middle, and lower lakes, Purple Mountain, Black Valley, Eagle’s Nest, and Innisfallen are all names with which to call up ever living memories of the fairies of legend and folk-lore, and of the more real personages of history and romance.
To recount them all, or even to categorically enumerate them, would be impossible here.
There is but one way to encompass them in a manner at all satisfactory, and that is to make Killarney a centre, and radiate one’s journeys therefrom for as extended a period as circumstances will allow. The guide-books set forth the attractions and the ways and means in the usual conventional manner, but it is useless to expect any real help from them.
The true gem of Killarney’s many charms is without question Lough Leane and Innisfallen (Monk’s Robe Island), which lies embosomed in the lower lake.
Yeats, the Irish poet, spent the full force of his lyric genius in the verses which he wrote with this entrancing isle for their motive.
Robert Louis Stevenson is reported to have said that, of all modern poets, none has struck the responsive chord of imagination as did this sweet singer with the following lines:
“And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
To where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer
And noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
“I will arise and go now,
For always, night or day,
I hear lake water lapping,
With low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway,
Or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
Moore’s description
