"_Phædrus._ I do not recollect; but I beseech you to tell me, Socrates, do you believe this tale? "_Socrates._ The wise are doubtful, and I should not be singular if, like them, I also doubted. I might have a rational explanation that Orithyia was playing with Pharmacia, when a northern gust carried her over the neighbouring rocks; and this being the manner of her death, she was said to have been carried away by Boreas. There is a discrepancy, however, about the locality. According to another version of the story, she was taken from the Areopagus, and not from this place. Now I quite acknowledge that these allegories are very nice, but he is not to be envied who has to invent them; much labour and ingenuity will be required of him; and when he has once begun, he must go on and rehabilitate centaurs and chimeras dire. Gorgons and winged steeds flow in apace, and numberless other inconceivable and portentous monsters. And if he is sceptical about them, and would fain reduce them one after another to the rules of probability, this sort of crude philosophy will take up all his time. Now, I have certainly not time for such inquiries. Shall I tell you why? I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my business, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And, therefore, I say farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself. Am I, indeed, a wonder more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of gentler and simpler sort, to whom nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?" * * * * * I have to thank Messrs Macmillan, and the editors of _Belgravia_, _All the Year Round_, and _Monthly Packet_, for leave to quote from Patrick Kennedy's _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts_, and Miss Maclintock's articles respectively; Lady Wilde, for leave to give what I would from her _Ancient Legends of Ireland_ (Ward & Downey); and Mr. Douglas Hyde, for his three unpublished stories, and for valuable and valued assistance in several ways; and also Mr. Allingham, and other copyright holders, for their poems. Mr. Allingham's poems are from _Irish Songs and Poems_ (Reeves and Turner); Fergusson's, from Sealey, Bryers, & Walker's shilling reprint; my own and Miss O'Leary's from _Ballads and Poems of Young Ireland_, 1888, a little anthology published by Gill & Sons, Dublin. W. B. YEATS. [Footnote 1: He lived some time in Dublin, and heard it then.] [Footnote 2: _Phædrus._ Jowett's translation. (Clarendon Press.)] FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. THE TROOPING FAIRIES. The Irish word for fairy is _sheehogue_ [_sidheóg_], a diminutive of "shee" in _banshee_. Fairies are _deenee shee_ [_daoine sidhe_] (fairy people).