Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/253

Rh mentioned this incident of making people see a man going up a ladder. The MS., of which I may as well give the original, runs thus:—

, i.e., after that the kerne took out a bag from under his arm-pit and he brought out a ball of silk from the bag, and he threw it up into the expanse(?) of the firmament, and it became a ladder; and again he took out a hare and let it up the ladder. Again he took out a red-eared hound and let it up after the hare. Again he took out a timid frisking dog, and he let her up after the hare and the hound, and said, "I am afraid," said he, "the hound and the dog will eat the hare, and I think I ought to send some relief to the hare." Then he took out of the bag a handsome youth in excellent apparel, and he let him up after the hare and the hound and the dog. He took out of the bag a lovely girl in beautiful attire, and he let her up after the hare, the hound, the youth, and the dog.

"It's badly it happened to me now," says the kerne, "for the youth is going kissing my woman, and the dog gnawing the hare." The kerne drew down the ladder again and he found the youth "going along with the woman, and the dog gnawing the hare," as he said.

The English "Jack and the Beanstalk" is about the best-known ladder story.

Page 141. This story was not invented to explain the existence of the twelve tribes of Galway, as the absence of any allusion to them in all the