THE DAGDA'S HARP[1]
[1] The facts from which this story was constructed are found
in the legend as given in Ireland's Story, Johnston and Spencer
(Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.).
You know, dears, in the old countries
there are many fine stories about things
which happened so very long ago that
nobody knows exactly how much of them is
true. Ireland is like that. It is so old that
even as long ago as four thousand years
it had people who dug in the mines, and
knew how to weave cloth and to make
beautiful ornaments out of gold, and who
could fight and make laws; but we do
not know just where they came from, nor
exactly how they lived. These people left
us some splendid stories about their kings,
their fights, and their beautiful women;
but it all happened such a long time ago
that the stories are mixtures of things that
really happened and what people said about
them, and we don't know just which is
which. The stories are called LEGENDS. One
of the prettiest legends is the story I am
going to tell you about the Dagda's harp.
It is said that there were two quite
different kinds of people in Ireland: one set
of people with long dark hair and dark
eyes, called Fomorians--they carried long
slender spears made of golden bronze
when they fought--and another race of
people who were golden-haired and blue-
eyed, and who carried short, blunt, heavy
spears of dull metal.
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