The woman thanked him very much, and then went away quite happy and
easy in her own mind. When she came back to her gossip's house, in the
county of Waterford, she told her everything that Lusmore had said,
and they put the little hump-backed man, who was a peevish and cunning
creature from his birth, upon a car, and took him all the way across
the country. It was a long journey, but they did not care for that, so
the hump was taken from off him; and they brought him, just at
nightfall, and left him under the old moat of Knockgrafton.
Jack Madden, for that was the humpy man's name, had not been sitting
there long when he heard the tune going on within the moat much sweeter
than before; for the fairies were singing it the way Lusmore had settled
their music for them, and the song was going on: _Da Luan, Da Mort, Da
Luan, Da Mort, Da Luan, Da Mort, augus Da Dardeen_, without ever
stopping. Jack Madden, who was in a great hurry to get quit of his hump,
never thought of waiting until the fairies had done, or watching for a
fit opportunity to raise the tune higher again than Lusmore had; so
having heard them sing it over seven times without stopping, out he
bawls, never minding the time or the humour of the tune, or how he
could bring his words in properly, _augus Da Dardeen, augus Da Hena_,
thinking that if one day was good, two were better; and that if Lusmore
had one new suit of clothes given him, he should have two.
No sooner had the words passed his lips than he was taken up and
whisked into the moat with prodigious force; and the fairies came
crowding round about him with great anger, screeching and screaming,
and roaring out, "Who spoiled our tune? who spoiled our tune?" and one
stepped up to him above all the rest, and said--
"Jack Madden! Jack Madden!
Your words came so bad in
The tune we felt glad in;--
This castle you're had in,
That your life we may sadden;
Here's two humps for Jack Madden!"
And twenty of the strongest fairies brought Lusmore's hump, and put it
down upon poor Jack's back, over his own, where it became fixed as
firmly as if it was nailed on with twelve-penny nails, by the best
carpenter that ever drove one. Out of their castle they then kicked him;
and in the morning, when Jack Madden's mother and her gossip came to
look after their little man, they found him half dead, lying at the foot
of the moat, with the other hump upon his back. Well to be sure, how
they did look at each other! but they were afraid to say anything, lest
a hump might be put upon their own shoulders. Home they brought the
unlucky Jack Madden with them, as downcast in their hearts and their
looks as ever two gossips were; and what through the weight of his other
hump, and the long journey, he died soon after, leaving, they say, his
heavy curse to any one who would go to listen to fairy tunes again.
A DONEGAL FAIRY.
LETITIA MACLINTOCK.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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