"Listen to him, telling us tales of the giants," whispered Kathleen, but Mary Ellen was thinking of the harp and paid no attention to her sister. "Danny says there is a harp on the green flag of Ireland," she said. "Yes," said her father, "it was an Irish god who made the harp and played upon its strings." "Tell us about it," begged Kathleen, who loved the gods and giants as well as she did the fairies. "The god's name was Dagda," her father told her, "and once when he was walking beside a blue lake he saw a beautiful maiden and wished to have her for his wife. But the maiden feared him and ran away through the forest. "Dagda followed her and she went on running away; and so at last they came to a beautiful curving beach, with the waves washing the yellow sands. "As the maiden fled swiftly across the wet sands she heard a strange, mournful sound, and stopped to listen to the music. "The bones of a fish lay on the sand at her feet, and the dry skin, stretched from rib to rib, made a harp for the wind to play upon. "When Dagda saw that the sweet sounds pleased the maiden, he took a piece of wood and made a harp after the same pattern, playing upon the strings with his fingers as the wind had taught him to do. After that the maiden followed him gladly for love of the music. "It was the first music ever heard in all Ireland, but since that day we have had harpers from one end of the land to the other. 'Tis a wonderful country for music, and we put the harp on our green flag to show that we're proud of the sweet songs of Erin." Kathleen sighed when the story was finished. "I wish it were the days of gods and giants and beautiful maidens now," she said. "I'd wish for the days of the harpers and story-tellers," said Mary Ellen wistfully. "Right you are, Molly jewel," said her father, putting the harp carefully away in its case. "The giants were just plain men like myself, but with no learning at all, at all. Faith, they could neither read nor write, and but for the harpers we'd know nothing about them." "How do we know from the harpers?" asked Kathleen. "Sure, the harpers and story-tellers made up grand songs and stories about the gods and the giants of old Ireland, and travelled up and down the length and breadth of the land singing their songs and telling their stories wherever they went. It was the only way of learning that people had in the days when there were no books." "The people must have been glad to see the harpers coming," said Mary Ellen, thinking how much she would like to hear their songs. "That they were," replied her father. "Even the kings made them welcome, and gave great feasts in their honor. The feasts were held in a long banquet hall with rows of tables up and down the sides, and there were sometimes more than a hundred men at the tables. The king sat at the head of the hall, with a harper on one side and a story-teller on the other, and there was merry-making through half the night."