and it not worth three halfpence. There was no beating the Goban.
Wherever he got it, he had got the gift."


THE DANES

"The reason of the wisps and the fires on Saint John's Eve is that one
time long ago the Danes came and took the country and conquered it, and
they put a soldier to mind every house through the whole country. And at
last the people made up their mind that on one night they would kill its
soldiers. So they did as they said, and there wasn't one left, and that
is why they light the wisps ever since. It was Brian Boroihme was the
first to light them. There was not much of an army left to the Danes
that time, for he made a great scatter of them. A great man he was, and
his own son was as good, that is Murrough. It was the wife brought him
to his end, Gormleith. She was for war, and he was all for peace. And he
got to be very pious, too pious, and old and she got tired of that."


THE BATTLE OF CLONTARF

"Clontarf was on the head of a game of chess. The generals of the Danes
were beaten at it, and they were vexed; and Cennedigh was killed on a
hill near Fermoy. He put the Holy Gospels in his breast as a protection,
but he was struck through them with a reeking dagger. It was Brodar,
that the Brodericks are descended from, that put a dagger through
Brian's heart, and he attending to his prayers. What the Danes left in
Ireland were hens and weasels. And when the cock crows in the morning
the country people will always say 'It is for Denmark they are crowing.
Crowing they are to be back in Denmark.'"