Dreams That Have No Moral

The friend who heard about Maive and the hazel-stick went to the
workhouse another day. She found the old people cold and wretched,
"like flies in winter," she said; but they forgot the cold when they
began to talk. A man had just left them who had played cards in a rath
with the people of faery, who had played "very fair"; and one old man
had seen an enchanted black pig one night, and there were two old
people my friend had heard quarrelling as to whether Raftery or
Callanan was the better poet. One had said of Raftery, "He was a big
man, and his songs have gone through the whole world. I remember him
well. He had a voice like the wind"; but the other was certain "that
you would stand in the snow to listen to Callanan." Presently an old
man began to tell my friend a story, and all listened delightedly,
bursting into laughter now and then. The story, which I am going to
tell just as it was told, was one of those old rambling moralless
tales, which are the delight of the poor and the hard driven, wherever
life is left in its natural simplicity. They tell of a time when
nothing had consequences, when even if you were killed, if only you had
a good heart, somebody would bring you to life again with a touch of a
rod, and when if you were a prince and happened to look exactly like
your brother, you might go to bed with his queen, and have only a
little quarrel afterwards. We too, if we were so weak and poor that
everything threatened us with misfortune, would remember, if foolish
people left us alone, every old dream that has been strong enough to
fling the weight of the world from its shoulders.

There was a king one time who was very much put out because he had no
son, and he went at last to consult his chief adviser. And the chief
adviser said, "It's easy enough managed if you do as I tell you. Let
you send some one," says he, "to such a place to catch a fish. And when
the fish is brought in, give it to the queen, your wife, to eat."

So the king sent as he was told, and the fish was caught and brought
in, and he gave it to the cook, and bade her put it before the fire,
but to be careful with it, and not to let any blob or blister rise on
it. But it is impossible to cook a fish before the fire without the
skin of it rising in some place or other, and so there came a blob on
the skin, and the cook put her finger on it to smooth it down, and then
she put her finger into her mouth to cool it, and so she got a taste of
the fish. And then it was sent up to the queen, and she ate it, and
what was left of it was thrown out into the yard, and there was a mare
in the yard and a greyhound, and they ate the bits that were thrown out.

And before a year was