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'And you shall have, said he, 'of the barony which I took from you all that you can ride round on the first day of your return. So De Courcy betook himself to Ireland and to his barony, but he was anything but a lucky man, this De Courcy, for his friends and relations and tenantry, hearing of his coming, prepared a grand festival for him, with all kinds of illigant viands and powerful liquors, and when he arrived there it was waiting for him, and down to it he sat, and ate, and drank, and for joy of seeing himself once more amongst his friends and tenantry in the hall of his forefathers, and for love of the drop, which he always had, he drank of the powerful liquors more than he ought, and the upshot was that he became drunk, agus do bhi an duine maith sin misgeadh do ceather o glog; the good gentleman was drunk till four o'clock, and when he awoke he found that he had but two hours of day remaining to win back his brave barony.
And they knew not whence they came, or in what form, or from what people, or from what country; but they supposed them to be Duine Sidh, or gods of the earth, or a phantasm."
All this time the battle was raging furiously on our right, and occasionally a cannon ball, flying high, went screaming over our heads. Walter Scott, in "The Lady of the Lake," in describing an incident of the battle of Beal' an Duine, speaks of the unearthly screaming and yelling that occurred, sounding "As if all the fiends from heaven that fell Had pealed the banner-cry of hell."
But as he hurried, the ten broken men who had been fascinated by his too ostentatious fob and the extravagance of his embroidery, and inspired furthermore by a natural detestation of any foreign duine uasail apparently bound for the seat of MacCailen Mor, gathered boldness, and soon he heard the thicket break again behind him. He paused, turned sharply with the pistols in his hands.
Colgan explains the term Duine Sidh thus: "Fantastical spirits," he writes, "are by the Irish called men of the Sidh, because they are seen, as it were, to come out of the beautiful hills to infest men, and hence the vulgar belief that they reside in certain subterranean habitations: and sometimes the hills themselves are called, by the Irish, Sidhe or Siodha."
If I had done badly I think I should have had to leave the islands. The people would have despised me. A 'duine uasal' who cannot shoot seems to these descendants of hunters a fallen type who is worse than an apostate. The women of this island are before conventionality, and share some of the liberal features that are thought peculiar to the women of Paris and New York.
"And they knew not whence they were, or in what form, or from what people, or from what country; but they supposed them to be fairies duine sidhe that is to say, gods of the earth, or a phantasm. "And the virgins said unto them: 'Who are ye, and whence are ye? "And Patrick said unto them: 'It were better for you to confess to our true God, than to inquire concerning our race.
But Crawford, like the best that have humour, had pity and pathos too. "Slow march!" he cried to his men, and the pipers played "Lochaber No More." "He's punctilious in his forms," said the Paymaster, "but it's thoughtful of him too." "There was never but true duine uasail put on the tartan of Argyll," said the Cornal.
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