Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/305

 Some Characteristics of Irish Folklore. 277

middle of the Bog of Allen, the country people will point the Gobawn Seer's grave, and say "a tarrible big man" was buried there, and "nothing he didn't know" — but beyond that their knowledge is nil — and the country folk are not alone in this limited acquaintance with the great architect. The friend who told me of it knew nothing more, and I'm afraid before she told me I knew even less !

Customs, in Ireland as elsewhere, lingered while the grandparents handed on the tales and traditions they had learnt from their own aged progenitors. But Rebellion and Famine made ghastly breaks in Irish home life ; subsequent immigration bit deep, and, so far as folklore is concerned^ brought in the potent action of ridicule. The emigrant found his cherished notions ignored in more progressive lands, " And scorn and laughter together are the sire and dam of change." He, or she, laughed at there, returned to Ireland — what exile from Erin is without that dream of eventual homecoming .' — to ridicule what was once a treasured tradition. It is not to them we must look for records.

Yet the Irish have long memories, unlike the English^ who are good forgetters. William III. to Ulster folk is as much of an actual entity as George V. Rather more than less, for William has always been a vivid presence to them, George Rex is a recent addition. Fields and farms are called by the names, and considered the rightful property of, men who left them forty, fifty, even eighty years ago. The people talk of friends and events seemingly of to-day, and you find on investigation they are talking of thirty years ago.

The grave is no final repository for those who have passed from us — it is not even a matter of importance, as all too many unkempt cemeteries bear witness. At mid- night at the full of the moon the dead of one parish may visit a neighbouring churchyard for a hurling match with those who lie there, and come to play visibly, for they force