THE LAND OF FAERY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1577, 22 October 1912, Page 2

THE LAND OF FAERY.

There aTc many quaint pieces' of information about Irish customs, habits and popular beliefs scattered over the pages of "My Irish Year," written by Jtmlrnio Colum, and it must not ho imagined that it is only tho serious side of social and Ijoliticnl *coiiditio.ns that Mr. Colum presents to his readers.

Speaking, for example, of the Irish midlands, ho nolt'S that it is not the custom there for women to sit down to a meal with (ho priest. At a peasant house where he attended a "sjatiou"—that is to say, a visitation, at which tlie priest celebrated Mass and heard confessions—the women waited in tho kitchen while h». the priest, and the peasant proprietor sitduwn to breakfast. Theirs oaino afterwords.

In Olivor Goldsmith's country the rural folk still have a firm belief hi fairies, and Mr. Colum tells of an answer given, to the question, "What iiro the fairies?" by n. blind wayfarer ho met on tiie road. With an- intensity of conviction tho man replied: "The fnirifs? I wil! tell yon iviuit tho fairies are. God moved from His pent, mui .when he turned round Lucifer was in it. Then Hell was made in a minute. God moved Hie hand, and swept away thousands of angels. And it was in Jlis mirtd to away thousands more. 'O God, Almighty, stop!' said the angel Gabriel, 'Heaven will be swept clean out. 'I'll 6top,' said God Almighty. 'Them that aro in Heaven, lot them remain in Heaven; them that aro in Hell, let them remain in Hell; and them that are between Tleaven and Hell, let them remain in the air.' And th-> angels that remained between Heaven nnd llell are the fairies."