The Time for Naggeneen's Plan

Though the Sullivans did not find their fortunes so much improved in the new country as the O'Briens did, yet they felt that they had gained, too, and in one way especially. For the King of the fairies had forbidden Naggeneen to trouble them any more. Naggeneen asked what for at all he had come over all the sea, if he was not to trouble the Sullivans. The King was always ready enough to have Naggeneen's help, when he thought that his cleverness would be of use; but there were times when he would be obeyed, and this was one of them, so Naggeneen had to do as he was told.

The King tried all the things that Naggeneen had told him to do, to make his people learn all the wonderful magic that the human people knew so well. Naggeneen had told him at first that it would all be of no use, and so the King found it. The fairies were sent out to watch the men, to see all that they did, and to learn how to do it. It was all in vain.

The King often asked Naggeneen what was the one other way that he had said they might try. Naggeneen would never tell. When the time came to try it, he said, he would tell what it was, but it would be of no more use than the rest that they had done. Naggeneen laughed at all the others when they came home baffled and out of sorts. "You'll never do the things that men do," he said, "any more than they'll ever do the things that you do. And their wonders are more and better than yours."

After a time they ceased to try to learn any more. They began to live much as they had lived in Ireland. They had found a green place where they could dance, near the palace, but it was winter now, and the snow was over everything much of the time. They went to the O'Briens every day for the food that was left outside the window for them, and, for the most part, they spent the rest of the time in the palace. Often Naggeneen played the fiddle or the pipes for them. Then they forgot that it was his fault that they had ever come here, but when he stopped playing they remembered it and hated him again.