Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes, That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout, And whispering in their ears; We give them evil dreams, Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Of dew on the young streams. Come! O, human child! To the woods and waters wild, With a fairy hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us, he's going, The solemn-eyed; He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hill-side. Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast; Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the woods and waters wild, With a fairy hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand. THE TROOPING FAIRIES THE MERROW. The _Merrow_, or if you write it in the Irish, _Moruadh_ or _Murrúghach_, from _muir_, sea, and _oigh_, a maid, is not uncommon, they say, on the wilder coasts. The fishermen do not like to see them, for it always means coming gales. The male _Merrows_ (if you can use such a phrase--I have never heard the masculine of _Merrow_) have green teeth, green hair, pig's eyes, and red noses; but their women are beautiful, for all their fish tails and the little duck-like scale between their fingers. Sometimes they prefer, small blame to them, good-looking fishermen to their sea lovers. Near Bantry, in the last century, there is said to have been a woman covered all over with scales like a fish, who was descended from such a marriage. Sometimes they come out of the sea, and wander about the shore in the shape of little hornless cows. They have, when in their own shape, a red cap, called a _cohullen druith_, usually covered with feathers. If this is stolen, they cannot again go down under the waves. Red is the colour of magic in every country, and has been so from the very earliest times. The caps of fairies and magicians are well-nigh always red. THE SOUL CAGES. T. CROFTON CROKER. Jack Dogherty lived on the coast of the county Clare. Jack was a fisherman, as his father and grandfather before him had been. Like them, too, he lived all alone (but for the wife), and just in the same spot. People used to wonder why the Dogherty family were so fond of that wild situation, so far away from all human kind, and in the midst of huge shattered rocks, with nothing but the wide ocean to look upon. But they had their own good reasons for it.