history, and the mansion in which the first Duke of Or- | the eastern world-our oriental descent. Although " the monde often entertained at his table two hundred gen- good people" still retain a most respectable footing, a peatlemen." sant may now travel from Cape Clear to Cunnemara without encountering that once dreaded personage, a ghost. Even the Pooka, or Irish goblin, has not for the last forty years, as far as our recollection serves, been known to shake the dripping ooze from his hairy hide, to approach the haunts of men, or to practise by the conscious light of the moon, like the fairies and satyrs of heathen mythology, any of those unlucky tricks upon his mortal neighbours, for which he was at one period so much dreaded in many portions of our island.

The collection of paintings at this castle has long constituted one of its principal attractions; and, as regards portraits, is still entitled to attentive examination; but many of the best pictures, on subjects of more general interest, have been removed. The Gallery is about 180 feet in length, but, like many similar apartments, designed in a past age for parade and the dance, rather than the judicious display of pictures, is greatly disproportionate in

width.

The windows of the gallery, and of several other prin- The Pooka is described as a frisky mischievous being, cipal apartments, admit noble and captivating views over having such a turn for roguish fun, as to induce him to be the city and a great extent of landscape. Kilkenny, from all night in wait for the carough returning over the moor these windows, stands displayed with peculiar felicity; all from the pleasures of the card-table, or for the frequenter its attractive buildings being exhibited in fine combina- of wakes. His usual appearance was that of a sturdy tions, whilst the meaner parts are shut from observation. pony, with a shaggy hide. He generally lay couched like Here, in 1399, was King Richard II. entertained for a cat in the pathway of the unfortunate pedestrian, then fourteen days. On the 23d of March, 1650, Oliver Crom- starting between his legs, he hoisted the unlucky wretch well invested Kilkenny with a considerable army. The aloft on his crupper, from which no shin-breaking rushings garrison was much reduced by the ravages of the plague; by stone walls, no furious driving through white-thorn but, however thin their numbers, a gallant spirit animated hedges, or life-shaking plunges down cliff and quagmire, the defendants. On the following day the assailants en- could unseat him. The first crowing of the March cock deavoured to gain possession of Irishtown, but were respited the sorrowful rider, who generally ended this dearrepulsed, and, early on the morning of the 25th, their can bought tour by a tremendous fling from the pooka's back non opened on the castle. A breach was effected about into some deep bog-hole, or thorny-brake, where ten thoumid-day, but the besiegers were twice beaten off, on at-sand prickles reared their points to drink the blood of his tempting to profit by that opportunity, and the breach was bruised and broken flesh. On the other hand, he is requickly repaired. It is said that Cromwell, apprehending ported to commisserate the lot of the benighted traveller; a longer resistance than suited the expedition necessary in and there are some instances on record of his having gently his military plans, was on the point of quitting the place, trotted beneath the way-faring cottager for many a mile when he received overtures from the mayor and towns- to the neighbourhood of the well-remembered cabin on the men, who offered to admit him into the city. A parley heath. was beaten, and a cessation agreed on at twelve o'clock next day, when the town and castle were delivered up. The articles of capitulation were highly creditable to the garrison; and it is recorded, that Sir Walter Butler and his officers, when they marched out, were complimented by Cromwell, who said, "that they were gallant fellows; that he had lost more men in storming that place than he had in taking Drogheda; and that he should have gone without it, had it not been for the treachery of the townsmen." The first of Cromwell's high courts of justice met at Kilkenny, on the 4th of October, 1652; and it is a curious fact, that this court occupied the identical chambers used by the supreme Catholic council in 1642.

The fabric, viewed as a whole, impresses ideas of dignity and baronial splendour; for which it may be, perhaps, in some measure indebted to the renown it has obtained in history, as the former residence of noble persons greatly distinguished in the annals of their country, and as the scene of many important transactions at various periods.

THE POOKA.

"Goblins haunt from fire or fen,

Or mine, or flood, to the walks of men."- - Collins. Now that "the schoolmaster is abroad," there can be no question that the warm sun of education will, in the course of a very few ycars, dissipate those vapours of superstition, whose wild and shadowy forms have from time immemorial thrown a mysterious mantle around our mountain summits, shed a darker horror through our deepest glens, traced some legendary tale on each unchiselled column of stone that rises on our bleakest hills, and peopled the green border of the wizard stream and sainted well with beings of a spiritual world. While, however, the friends of Ireland cannot but be pleased in thinking that our peasantry should, from being better informed, renounce their belief in these idle tales of superstition, to which they, unfortunately, have for centuries been taught to listen with delight, to the exclusion of matters more rational and more important; it is to be hoped that the two prominent features of our antiquity as a nation, will not be altogether lost sight of namely, our vernacular language, and those extraordinary legends, which are esteemed by many as going a great length to prove from their remarkable analogy with the tales of

Feah-a-Pooka, in the county of Kerry, was, as its name imports, the haunt of one of those imaginary monsters. This feah, or marsh, belonged to Tim Dorney, a snug farmer, whose ancestors for many years occupied the adjacent farm, and who, honest men, in that golden age, never found it necessary to disturb the goblin in the favourite haunt, by reclaiming his dreary abode. But when the farm which his grandfather tilled came into Tim Dorney's occupation, a taste for improvement, and the necessary expenditure of a large and increasing family, induced him to cross-cut Feah-a-Pooka by drains and ditches; and two summers had hardly passed, when this haunt of the wild goose and the dark mischievous goblin, afforded a heavy sward of hay, and firm footing for man and beast. The pooka, thus beaten up and driven from the marsh, naturally turned his thoughts to the meditation of revenge on him who, with profane hand, rent asunder that sacred veil which the superstition of ages had woven round the dreaded spot.

Tim was a painstaking, industrious peasant, and accustomed to traverse his farm every night, to ascertain that no neighbouring cattle trespassed on his ground. One night, as he returned along the border of the marsh, he saw something shaped like a dark-coloured, long-tailed pony lie in the narrow way, directly across his path; and before he could slip aside, to shun the lurking apparition, the pooka (for it was he) suddenly started between the legs of the terrified farmer, and bore him off the ground. The goblin rushed along with the speed of the whirlwind, and Tim's first moment of reflection was employed in a fruitless attempt to fling himself to the ground; but he found that some invisible hand had bound him to the back of his supernatural enemy. It would be tedious to recount the hard rubbings against stone walls, and the wild rushings through quickset hedges, that Tim Dorney endured, while the rapidity of his flight completely deprived him of breath and utterance. At last they rushed towards a tall cliff, which frowned in horrid gloom above the deep river, and intercepted, by its giant bulk, the yellow light of the moon that gilt the mountain tops, quivered in the rustling foliage of the trees, and, brightening in its advance, burnished the trembling waters with liquid fire. pooka pushed with unabated speed to the edge of the rock -then suddenly stopped, as if to add to the death-pang of his agonised victim, by a previous view of the fearful height and the dark waves that curled among the pointed

The

pangs

rocks below. Tim Dorney now concluding that all of "The night flew on with songs an' clatter, this life would be ended for him in the next plunge, yelled And aye the ale was growing better." a shriek of unutterable dismay. The tall cliff returned But Tim being retained that night to form one of a party the piercing sound, which with the scream of the startled that had engaged to play at cards for two hundred of herwild-fowl, and the demon voice of the pooka, that com- rings, and as he was a famous carough, he could not disbined the mockery of human laughter with a wild, inde- appoint his friends, who mainly depended on Tim's adscribable howl, blended in horrid unison along the lonely dress to carry off the wager. The rain had now ceased, glen. Whether the pooka was satisfied with thus inflict- and after grasping the sailor's hand, and requesting his ing the of a frightful death by anticipation, or that company on a given night at Feah-a-Pooka, he departed. he possessed no power over human life, does not appear; The moon, yet obscured by heavy clouds, cast a sad and but in the next moment he started from the fearful cliff, sickly gleam along his path, which winding round a preciand returning through the deep ravines and tangled under-pitous descent, led into the bosom of a deep glen, where wood, to a furze brake that skirted the border of a stand-the turbid mountain torrents had swelled into muddy ing pool, plunged his unfortunate rider among the sharp bushes. Happy in his deliverance, he heard the troubled waters of the dark pool resound to the plunge of the returning pooka-beheld his uncouth figure glance darkly along the moor, till the lessening form grew dimly faint in the moonshine-and the hurried splashing of his rapid hoof broke the silence of the night no more. Tim, as may naturally be supposed, made the best of his way to the cottage; and being of true Milesian origin, determined on having his revenge upon his fiendish enemy.

It was a fine night in the month of August, when Tim Dorney, having sufficiently recruited himself after his adventure of wild horsemanship, walked forth, like him " that hath his quarrel just," doubly armed. His heels were furnished with a pair of long-necked spurs, that bore rowels contrived at the next forge, which could goad a rhinoceros to death. His hand wielded a loaden whip, so called from the handle being set with lead, and in the grasp of a strong man was capable of felling an ox. "He whistled as he went," not "for want of thought," for his mind was brooding over a plan of revenge against the pooka, who, according to his usual habit, started between the farmer's legs, and bore him off. Tim, nothing loth at the abduction, just when the pooka was commencing his antics, twisted the lash of the whip round his hand, and levelled such blows about the goblin's ears, as would have crushed any skull made of mortal, penetrable stuff, while the sharp-roweled spurs gave ample revenge for the pointed insults of the preceding night. "Dire were the tossings, deep the groans," of the pooka during this unmerciful ride; but Tim Dorney clung to him like a monkey, until the pooka lay down, outmastered by his mortal antagonist. Next night, Tim walked abroad in quest of his acquaintance. He whistled his favourite air of "Tham-ahulla," to lull the suspicions of the latter, who held aloof, quite on his guard, eying the other from his lurking-place, and breaking his usual taciturnity by asking, in an uncouth voice, the well-remembered question, "A will na gerane urth?”*

waves the clear and beautiful brook, that erewhile had bubbled with soothing murmurs along the yellow pebbles. There was no sound on the hill, save the plaintive howl of the watch-dog, baying the broad round moon. The night wind slightly shook the thin foliage of the decaying wood that surmounted the steep sides of the glen, and the hoarse, hollow sound of the roaring river, that would seem to a fanciful ear the boding voice of the water fairy, echoed along the distant banks. Though Tim Dorney's education had taught him to people the loneliest scenes with beings of another life, yet he passed unappalled to the brink of the torrent, and sighed to behold that the force of the stream left him little chance of crossing over with safety. While he loitered along the bank, he was agreeably surprised to behold in a little cove, which led into a ford, a small horse, resembling a Kerry pony. He was tied by a halter, had a pilleen susa, or straw saddle, on his back, and into one of the foldings of the straw saddle was stuck a white-thorn plant.* Tim, grateful for this favourable opportunity of moving homeward, had already his leg raised to mount, when the titter of suppressed laughter behind a crag, shook his heart with terror, and excited his suspicion of the pony. He had not meddled with the whitethorn stick, for he rarely went abroad by day or night unprovided with a choice hazel sapling.† This miraculous plant, against which nothing evil can contend, well served this time of need; for retiring a little, Tim Dorney bestowed so hearty a salute on the guileful pooka, (for it was he,) that the laughter sounds were changed into a wild howl, and as the pooka disappeared along the troubled stream, the dashing waters deluged the sounding banks.

But a time arrived when the persevering goblin wreaked cruel revenge on his hitherto fortunate adversary. It was approaching the 25th of March, when the farmers usually pay the rent; and Tim, who was extremely punctual in the payment of the half-year's gale, prepared to send a quantity of the last season's butter to Cork for that purpose. Wheel carriages were then totally unknown in Some years had now rolled their seasons round, and the that part of the country-"the sliding car, indebted to pooka seemed to have entirely forgotten bis antagonist, no wheels," glided in the vicinity of the farms, while burand his ancient dwelling of the marsh, when Tim Dorney dens were conveyed to more remote places on the backs had occasion to visit a gossip's sister's cousin's brother-in- of horses. Five or six neighbours at this time were setting law, who had lately come home after an absence of twen-off to transmit the produce of the dairy to Cork, and Tim, ty-five years on board a man of war. The credit side of the account-sheet of this seaman's life was fraught with a copious list of wonders-" all his travels' history"-and a pension of nine-pence a day. On the debtor side stood the loss of the right arm, the closing of his starboard eye, and sundry minor details, received in the duty of boarding and cutting out, with occasional tavern scuffles. Tim was highly delighted at the "tough yarn" of his old acquaintance-heard with "gaping wonderment" the recital of battle with a French seventy-four off the island of Elbow (Elba), where the relater lost his precious arm; an encounter with a Salee rover, which they sent down to Old Davy; and a dreadful storm near the island of Moll Tow (Malta); of voyages along the coast of Tunis, where the people are all musicianers; by Tripoli, famous for its wrestlers; and a journey through the desert of Barka, where the inhabitants, men and women, have dog's heads! The ale of a neighbouring shebeen greatly improved the sailor's turn for narration; and though the rain poured in torrents through the grass-grown roof of the cabin, yet

Have you the sharp things on.

a

with four stunted nags that usually ran wild and free on the mountains, fell into their company. Each little horse was generally laden with two fullbounds of butter; but one or two, whose owners were unable to furnish the even number of firkins, carried a large stone placed on the opposite side to balance the single one. After journeying all night, on the next morning an accident happened to Tim Dorney in his way through Millstreet, that seemed the type and forerunner of the evening's misfortune. As the Kerry dragoons marched in long procession through the single street that composes this little town, the drummer of a company of soldiers stationed in the barrack," beat the doubling drum," with such "furious heat" as set all the ponies prancing beneath their riders and butter fir

The whitethorn is said to be an unlucky tree, and the peasantry are particularly careful that none of it forms any part of the roof or doorways of their houses, as such habitations would be liable to fairy visits.

+ Tradition says, that the staff with which St. Patrick ba nished serpents and evil spirits from Ireland, was hazel-that the touch of hazel is instant death to venomous reptiles-and that unholy spirits fly at its approach.