the well-known words 'the keys of Heaven,' 'penance, fasts, and alms,'
to whom it was an old tale to hear of hell as a furnace, and the grave
as a dish for worms. When he gets away from the formulas, he has often a
fine line on death or on judgment; the cheeks of the dead are 'cold as
the snow that is at the back of the sun;' the careless--those who 'go
out looking at their sheep on Sunday instead of going to Mass'--are
warned that 'on the side of the hill of the tears there will be Ochone!'

His love songs are many; and they were not always thought to bring ill
luck; for I am told of a girl 'that was not handsome at all, but ugly,
that he made a song about her for civility; for she used to be in a
house where he used to lodge, and the song got her a husband; and there
is a son of hers living now down in Clare-Galway.' And an old woman
tells me, with a sigh of regret for what might have been, that she saw
Raftery one time at a dance, and he spoke to her and said: 'Well planed
you are; the carpenter that planed you knew his trade.' 'And I said:
"Better than you know yours;" for there were two or three of the strings
of his fiddle broke. And then he said something about O'Meara, that
lived near us; and my father got vexed at what he said, and would let
him speak no more with me. And if it wasn't for him speaking about
O'Meara, and my father getting vexed, he might have made words about me
like he did for Mary Hynes and for Mary Brown.'

'Bridget Vesach,' which I have heard in many cottages, as well as from
the old woman in Gort Workhouse, begins: 'I would wed courteous Bridget
without coat, shoe, or shirt. Treasure of my heart, if it were possible
for me, I would fast for you nine meals, without food, without drink,
without any share of anything, on an island of Lough Erne, with desire
for you and me to be together till we should settle our case.... My
heart started with trouble, and I was frightened nine times that morning