He says
that Diarmid was killed by the druids, who put a burning shirt on
him, - a fragment of mythology that may connect Diarmid with the
legend of Hercules, if it is not due to the 'learning' in some
hedge-school master's ballad.
Then we talked about Inishmaan.
'You'll have an old man to talk with you over there,' he said, 'and
tell you stories of the fairies, but he's walking about with two
sticks under him this ten year. Did ever you hear what it is goes on
four legs when it is young, and on two legs after that, and on three
legs when it does be old?'
I gave him the answer.
'Ah, master,' he said, 'you're a cute one, and the blessing of God
be on you. Well, I'm on three legs this minute, but the old man
beyond is back on four; I don't know if I'm better than the way he
is; he's got his sight and I'm only an old dark man.'
I am settled at last on Inishmaan in a small cottage with a
continual drone of Gaelic coming from the kitchen that opens into my
room.
Early this morning the man of the house came over for me with a
four-oared curagh - that is, a curagh with four rowers and four oars
on either side, as each man uses two - and we set off a little before
noon.
It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving
away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has
served primitive races since men first went to sea.
We had to stop for a moment at a hulk that is anchored in the bay,
to make some arrangement for the fish-curing of the middle island,
and my crew called out as soon as we were within earshot that they
had a man with them who had been in France a month from this day.
When we started again, a small sail was run up in the bow, and we
set off across the sound with a leaping oscillation that had no
resemblance to the heavy movement of a boat.
The sail is only used as an aid, so the men continued to row after
it had gone up, and as they occupied the four cross-seats I lay on
the canvas at the stern and the frame of slender laths, which bent
and quivered as the waves passed under them.
When we set off it was a brilliant morning of April, and the green,
glittering waves seemed to toss the canoe among themselves, yet as
we drew nearer this island a sudden thunderstorm broke out behind
the rocks we were approaching, and lent a momentary tumult to this
still vein of the Atlantic.
We landed at a small pier, from which a rude track leads up to the
village between small fields and bare sheets of rock like those in
Aranmor. The youngest son of my boatman, a boy of about seventeen,
who is to be my teacher and guide, was waiting for me at the pier
and guided me to his house, while the men settled the curagh and
followed slowly with my baggage.
My room is at one end of the cottage, with a boarded floor and
ceiling, and two windows opposite each other. Then there is the
kitchen with earth floor and open rafters, and two doors opposite
each other opening into the open air, but no windows. Beyond it
there are two small rooms of half the width of the kitchen with one
window apiece.
The kitchen itself, where I will spend most of my time, is full of
beauty and distinction. The red dresses of the women who cluster
round the fire on their stools give a glow of almost Eastern
richness, and the walls have been toned by the turf-smoke to a soft
brown that blends with the grey earth-colour of the floor. Many
sorts of fishing-tackle, and the nets and oil-skins of the men, are
hung upon the walls or among the open rafters; and right overhead,
under the thatch, there is a whole cowskin from which they make
pampooties.
Every article on these islands has an almost personal character,
which gives this simple life, where all art is unknown, something of
the artistic beauty of medieval life. The curaghs and
spinning-wheels, the tiny wooden barrels that are still much used in
the place of earthenware, the home-made cradles, churns, and
baskets, are all full of individuality, and being made from
materials that are common here, yet to some extent peculiar to the
island, they seem to exist as a natural link between the people and
the world that is about them.
The simplicity and unity of the dress increases in another way the
local air of beauty. The women wear red petticoats and jackets of
the island wool stained with madder, to which they usually add a
plaid shawl twisted round their chests and tied at their back. When
it rains they throw another petticoat over their heads with the
waistband round their faces, or, if they are young, they use a heavy
shawl like those worn in Galway. Occasionally other wraps are worn,
and during the thunderstorm I arrived in I saw several girls with
men's waistcoats buttoned round their bodies. Their skirts do not
come much below the knee, and show their powerful legs in the heavy
indigo stockings with which they are all provided.
The men wear three colours: the natural wool, indigo, and a grey
flannel that is woven of alternate threads of indigo and the natural
wool.
