There are many yet living at Killarney, who solemnly declare that they have seen the chieftain on his May-morning ride. But these, if honest persons, have doubtless been deceived by singular appearances in the atmosphere, called optical illusions, or mirages. Many other legends are told by the peasants and guides. All are strange and improbable, but some are very amusing, and some, I think, quite poetic and beautiful. One is about a holy man of Muckross, who fell into some great sin, and repenting of it, waded into the lake, and stuck a holly-stick into the bottom, and said he would not leave the spot till it should throw out leaves and branches. So he did penance for seven years, and then the stick suddenly leaved out and blossomed, and became a great tree, by which the good man knew that he was pardoned. We may take a lesson from this. If we do wrong, and try to atone for it, in the best way we know how, it may seem a hopeless work; but if we wait patiently and pray, we shall surely see, at last, God's love and blessing blossoming before us like the holly-stick, and overshadowing us like the great tree. There is another legend about an ancient Abbot of Innisfallen, which is sweet and touching, though I do not see that it has any moral. This good man was at his prayers one morning, very early, when he heard a little bird singing so melodiously out among the trees, that he got up from his knees and followed it. The bird flew from tree to tree, and still he walked after, for its music was so delicious he could not tire of it. He thought in his heart that he could listen to it forever, and he came very near doing that same, for the bird was an enchanted singer, and so bewitched the priest that he had no idea how the time went by. At last, he thought that it was about the hour for vespers--so he gave his blessing to the little bird, and went back into the abbey. But, when he entered, he was astonished to see only strange faces and to hear a strange tongue, which was the English, in place of the Irish. There were monks about, who asked him who he was, and where he came from. He told them his name, and that he was their Abbot. He had gone out, he said, in the morning to hear a little bird sing, and somehow it had kept him following it about the island ever since. Then they told him that no less than _two hundred years_ had passed since he went out to hear that singing, and that he had never been seen since--for being enchanted, he had been invisible. Then the old monk cried out--"Give me absolution, some of you, for my time is come!" They gave him absolution, and he died in peace; but just as he was passing away, there came to the holly-tree, before the window, a little white bird, and sat and sung the sweetest song ever heard; and when the soul left the body of the old Abbot, another white bird appeared, and the two sang together very joyfully for awhile, in the holly tree, and