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From Sligo to the Erne all that land is desolate, and has been so these six years, and the O'Donnells from Lough Swilly have set up a pirate hold near Millhaven. It was to these that the Dark Master sent also. "He has appointed a meeting-place in the hills beyond Drumcliff, at a certain mountain named Clochaun, or the Stone.
However, no ill came of it, for Brian was well used to riding, and the exercise gave him strength, though they made but a short march that day past the round tower of Drumcliff, halting in the hills. As Turlough Wolf knew where the Stone Mountain was they had no use for guides.
All night the gay rabble sweep to and fro across the land, invisible to all, unless perhaps where, in some more than commonly "gentle" place Drumcliff or Drum-a-hair the nightcapped heads of faery-doctors may be thrust from their doors to see what mischief the "gentry" are doing.
There is a bush behind a house in a village that I know well: for excellent reasons I do not say whether in Drumcliff or Rosses or on the slope of Ben Bulben, or even on the plain round Knocknarea. There is a history concerning the house and the bush. A man once lived there who found on the quay of Sligo a package containing three hundred pounds in notes. It was dropped by a foreign sea captain.
As to the strange sounds and voices, they did not cease till a few years ago, when, during some repairs, a snipe flew out of the solid plaster and away; the troubled ghost, say the neighbours, of the note-finder was at last dislodged. My forebears and relations have lived near Rosses and Drumcliff these many years. A few miles northward I am wholly a stranger, and can find nothing.
"Drumcliff" is a great place for omens. Before a prosperous fishing season a herring-barrel appears in the midst of a storm-cloud; and at a place called Columkille's Strand, a place of marsh and mire, an ancient boat, with St. Columba himself, comes floating in from sea on a moonlight night: a portent of a brave harvesting. They have their dread portents too.
In the year 1213, O'Donnell despatched Finn O'Brollaghan, his Aes graidh or Steward, to collect his tribute in Connaught, and Finn, putting up at the house of O'Daly, near Drumcliff, and being a plebeian who knew no better, began to wrangle with the poet.
The Annals of the Four Masters have this verse about a soldier named Denadhach, who died in 871: "A pious soldier of the race of Con lies under hazel crosses at Drumcliff." Not very long ago an old woman, turning to go into the churchyard at night to pray, saw standing before her a man in armour, who asked her where she was going.
He found the shin-bone of a hare lying on the grass. He took it up; there was a hole in it; he looked through the hole, and saw the gold heaped up under the ground. He hurried home to bring a spade, but when he got to the rath again he could not find the spot where he had seen it. Drumcliff and Rosses were, are, and ever shall be, please Heaven! places of unearthly resort.
Some few seasons ago a fisherman saw, far on the horizon, renowned Hy Brazel, where he who touches shall find no more labour or care, nor cynic laughter, but shall go walking about under shadiest boscage, and enjoy the conversation of Cuchullin and his heroes. A vision of Hy Brazel forebodes national troubles. Drumcliff and Rosses are chokeful of ghosts.
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