The dead are often seen among them, and will give help in danger to comrade or brother or friend. Sometimes they have a penance to work out, and will come and ask the living for help, for prayers, for the payment of a debt. They may wander in some strange shape, or be bound in the one place, or go through the air as birds. When the Sidhe pass by in a blast of wind we should say some words of blessing, for there may be among them some of our own dead. The dead are of the nature of the Saints, mortals who have put on immortality, who have known the troubles of the world. The Sidhe have been, like the Angels, from before the making of the earth. In the old times in Ireland they were called gods or the children of gods; now it is laid down they are those Angels who were cast out of heaven, being proud. This is the news I have been given of the people of the Sidhe by many who have seen them and some who have known their power. A. G. COOLE, February, 1916. CONTENTS PAGE I.--SEA-STORIES 3 II.--SEERS AND HEALERS 35 BIDDY EARLY 35 MRS. SHERIDAN 70 MR. SAGGARTON 92 "A GREAT WARRIOR IN THE BUSINESS" 103 OLD DERUANE 112 III.--THE EVIL EYE--THE TOUCH--THE PENALTY 127 IV.--AWAY 169 WITCHES AND WIZARDS AND IRISH FOLK-LORE 247 NOTES 265 I SEA-STORIES I SEA-STORIES _"The Celtic Twilight" was the first book of Mr. Yeats's that I read, and even before I met him, a little time later, I had begun looking for news of the invisible world; for his stories were of Sligo and I felt jealous for Galway. This beginning of knowledge was a great excitement to me, for though I had heard all my life some talk of the faeries and the banshee_ (_having indeed reason to believe in this last_), _I had never thought of giving heed to what I, in common with my class, looked on as fancy or superstition. It was certainly because of this unbelief that I had been told so little about them. Even when I began to gather these stories, I cared less for the evidence given in them than for the beautiful rhythmic sentences in which they were told. I had no theories, no case to prove, I but "held up a clean mirror to tradition."_