the mountains—­and meeting with cousins and friends.  Then, in the three-cornered space in the middle of the town, I came on Puck himself a magnificent he-goat (Irish puc), raised on a platform twenty feet high, and held by a chain from each horn, with his face down the road.  He is kept in this position, with a few cabbages to feed on, for three days, so that he may preside over the pig-fair and the horse-fair and the day of winding up.

At the foot of this platform, where the crowd was thickest, a young ballad-singer was howling a ballad in honour of Puck, making one think of the early Greek festivals, since the time of which, it is possible, the goat has been exalted yearly in Killorglin.

The song was printed on a green slip by itself.  It ran: 

A new song on the great puck fair.

By John Purcell.

All young lovers that are fond of sporting, pay attention for a while, I will sing you the praises of Puck Fair, and I’m sure it will make you smile; Where the lads and lassies coming gaily to Killorglin can be seen, To view the Puck upon the stage, as our hero dressed in green.

Chorus.

And hurra for the gallant Puck so gay,
For he is a splendid one
Wind and rain don’t touch his tail,
For his hair is thirty inches long.

Now it is on the square he’s erected with all colours grand and gay; There’s not a fair throughout Ireland, but Puck Fair it takes the sway, Where you see the gamblers in rotation, trick—­o’-the-loop and other games, The ballad-singers and the wheel-of-fortune and the shooting-gallery for to take aim.

Chorus.

Where is the tyrant dare oppose it? 
Our old customs we will hold up still,
And I think we will have another—­
That is, Home Rule and Purchase Bill.

Now, all young men that are not married, next Shrove can take a wife, For before next Puck Fair we will have Home Rule, and then you will be settled down in life.  Now the same advice I give young girls for to get married and have pluck.  Let the landlords see that you defy them when coming to Fair of Puck.

Cead Mile Failte to the Fair of Puck.

When one makes the obvious elisions, the lines are not so irregular as they look, and are always sung to a measure:  yet the whole, in spite of the assonance, rhymes, and the ‘colours grand and gay,’ seems pitifully remote from any good spirit of ballad-making.

Across the square a man and a woman, who had a baby tied on her back, were singing another ballad on the Russian and Japanese War, in the curious method of antiphony that is still sometimes heard in the back streets of Dublin.  These are some of the verses

Man.

Now provisions are rising, ’tis sad for to state,
The flour, tea and sugar, tobacco and meat;
But, God help us I poor Irish, how must we stand the test