The Queen and the Fool - Page 2

gives his stroke!' They say he looks
like any other man, but he's leathan (wide), and not smart. I knew a
boy one time got a great fright, for a lamb looked over the wall at him
with a beard on it, and he knew it was the Amadan, for it was the month
of June. And they brought him to that man I was telling about, that had
the tape, and when he saw him he said, 'Send for the priest, and get a
Mass said over him.' And so they did, and what would you say but he's
living yet and has a family! A certain Regan said, 'They, the other
sort of people, might be passing you close here and they might touch
you. But any that gets the touch of the Amadan-na-Breena is done for.'
It's true enough that it's in the month of June he's most likely to
give the touch. I knew one that got it, and he told me about it
himself. He was a boy I knew well, and he told me that one night a
gentleman came to him, that had been his land-lord, and that was dead.
And he told him to come along with him, for he wanted him to fight
another man. And when he went he found two great troops of them, and
the other troop had a living man with them too, and he was put to fight
him. And they had a great fight, and he got the better of the other
man, and then the troop on his side gave a great shout, and he was left
home again. But about three years after that he was cutting bushes in a
wood and he saw the Amadan coming at him. He had a big vessel in his
arms, and it was shining, so that the boy could see nothing else; but
he put it behind his back then and came running, and the boy said he
looked wild and wide, like the side of the hill. And the boy ran, and
he threw the vessel after him, and it broke with a great noise, and
whatever came out of it, his head was gone there and then. He lived for
a while after, and used to tell us many things, but his wits were gone.
He thought they mightn't have liked him to beat the other man, and he
used to be afraid something would come on him." And an old woman in a
Galway workhouse, who had some little knowledge of Queen Maive, said
the other day, "The Amadan-na-Breena changes his shape every two days.
Sometimes he comes like a youngster, and then he'll come like the worst
of beasts, trying to give the touch he used to be. I heard it said of
late he was shot, but I think myself it would be hard to shoot him."

I knew a man who was trying to bring before his mind's eye an image of
Aengus, the old Irish god of love and poetry and ecstasy, who changed
four of his kisses into birds, and suddenly the image of a man with a
cap and bells rushed before his mind's eye, and grew vivid and spoke
and called itself "Aengus' messenger." And I knew another man, a truly
great seer, who saw a white fool in a