Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ... THE MOTHER There was a company of women sitting up one night in the house of Barbara of the Bridge, spinning frieze. It would be music to you to be listening to them, and their voices making harmony with the drone of the wheels, like the sound of the wind with the shaking of the bushes. They heard a cry. The child, it was, talking in its sleep. "Some evil thing that crossed the door," says Barbara. "Rise, Maire, and stir the cradle." The woman spoken-to got up. She was sitting on the floor till that, carding. She went over to the cradle. The chi-ld was wide awake before her, and he crying pitifully. Maire knelt down beside the cradle. As soon as the child saw her face he ceased from crying. A long, beautiful face she had; a brow, broad and smooth, black hair and it twisted in clusters about her head, and two grey eye& that would look on you slow, serious, and troubled-like. It was a gift Maire had, the way she would quieten a cross child or put a sick child to sleep, looking on that smooth, pleasant face and those grey, loving eyes of hers. Maire began singing the "Crondn na Banaltra" (The Nurse's Lullaby) in a low voice. The other women ceased from their talk to listen to her. It wasn't long till the child was in a dead sleep. Maire rose and went back to where she was sitting before. She fell to her carding again. "May you have good, Maire," says Barbara. "There's no wonder in life but the way you're able to put children asleep. Though that's my own heir, I would be hours of the clock with him before he would go off on me." "Maire has magic," says another woman. "She's like the harpers of Meave that would put a host of men asleep when they would play their sleep-tunes," says old Una ni Greelis. "Isn't it fine she can sing the Crondn na...
