'O wind, O mighty, melancholy wind, Blow through me, blow!
Thou blowest forgotten things into my mind From long ago.'
John Todhunter.
No one ever had a better opportunity than we, of breathing in, so far as a stranger and a foreigner may, the old Celtic atmosphere, and of reliving the misty years of legend before the dawn of history; when 'Long, long ago, beyond the space Of twice two hundred years, In Erin old there lived a race Taller than Roman spears.'
Mr. Colquhoun is one of the best Gaelic scholars in Ireland, and Dr.
Gerald, though not his equal in knowledge of the language, has 'the full of a sack of stories' in his head. According to the Book of Leinster, a professional story-teller was required to know seven times fifty tales, and I believe the doctor could easily pass this test. It is not easy to make a good translation from Irish to English, for they tell us there are no two Aryan languages more opposed to each other in spirit and idiom. We have heard little of the marvellous old tongue until now, but we are reading it a bit under the tutelage of these two inspiring masters, and I fancy it has helped me as much in my understanding of Ireland as my tedious and perplexing worriments over political problems.
After all, how can we know anything of a nation's present or future without some attempt to revivify its past? Just as, without some slender knowledge of its former culture, we must be for ever ignorant of its inherited powers and aptitudes. The harp that once through Tara's halls the soul of music shed, now indeed hangs mute on Tara's walls, but for all that its echoes still reverberate in the listening ear.
When we sit together by the river brink on sunny days, or on the greensward under the yews in our old garden, we are always telling ancient Celtic romances, and planning, even acting, new ones.
Francesca's mind and mine are poorly furnished with facts of any sort; but when the kind scholars in our immediate neighbourhood furnish necessary information and inspiration, we promptly turn it into dramatic form, and serve it up before their wondering and admiring gaze. It is ever our habit to 'make believe' with the children; and just as we played ballads in Scotland and plotted revels in the Glen at Rowardennan, so we instinctively fall into the habit of thought and speech that surrounds us here.
This delights our grave and reverend signiors, and they give themselves up to our whimsicalities with the most whole-hearted zeal. It is days since we have spoken of one another by those names which were given to us in baptism. Francesca is Finola the Festive.
Eveleen Colquhoun is Ethnea. I am the harper, Pearla the Melodious.
Miss Peabody is Sheela the Skilful Scribe, who keeps for posterity a record of all our antics, in the Speckled Book of Salemina. Dr.
Gerald is Borba the Proud, the Ard-ri or overking. Mr. Colquhoun is really called Dermod, but he would have been far too modest to choose Dermot O'Dyna for his Celtic name, had we not insisted; for this historic personage was not only noble-minded, generous, of untarnished honour, and the bravest of the brave, but he was as handsome as he was gallant, and so much the idol of the ladies that he was sometimes called Dermat-na-man, or Dermot of the women.
Of course we have a corps of shanachies, or story-tellers, gleemen, gossipreds, leeches, druids, gallowglasses, bards, ollaves, urraghts, and brehons; but the children can always be shifted from one role to another, and Benella and the Button Boy, although they are quite unaware of the honours conferred upon them, are often alluded to in our romances and theatrical productions.
Aunt David's garden is not a half bad substitute for the old Moy--Mell, the plain of pleasure of the ancient Irish, when once you have the key to its treasures. We have made a new and authoritative survey of its geographical features and compiled a list of its legendary landmarks, which, strangely enough, seem to have been absolutely unknown to Miss Llewellyn-Joyce.