The Cleverness of Mortals

"

"I can't tell you that," the merrow answered. "We've never been far on the land. Deep down under the sea it's the same way it is under the sea about Ireland. There's the land at the bottom, with the sand all fine and firm, like a floor, and there's the water above, like a green sky, and there are the shells and the sea-flowers, and there are the weeds that wave around you and over you, like red and green and purple curtains to your house, and it's all as cool and as neat as any of the sea-places around Ireland. And if you like to go up to get the warmth of the sun or the light of the stars, there's white sand where you can lie at your ease, and there's great rocks where you can sit and look out over the sea and get the fresh breeze. And that's all we know of it; we've not been away from the sea."

And after a week of voyaging through the sea—after going on and on for so long and so far that both fairies and mortals began to think that they must soon fall over the edge of the earth—the ship suddenly stood up straight, instead of rolling and pitching about, and a little later they saw the giant woman before them, holding up her torch, and beyond her they saw the city. And then it was only a bit of a while longer till they came close to the city.

"Look at it!" cried the King to all the fairies, who were crowded at the bow; "it's like the country, after all! Look at all the grass and the trees! But it has an iron chain all around it. I don't like the look of that." All fairies hate iron. They more than hate it; they simply cannot endure it. To touch any iron at all would hurt a fairy more than it would hurt you to touch it when it was red hot.

"But it's only a small place, anyway," said Naggeneen. "Look at the houses beyond there! There was nothing like them in Cork! And do you mind them strings of coaches, running along up in the air?"

"I was takin' note of them," said the King; "sure it's the strange country!"

The fairies all followed the O'Briens and the Sullivans.