So now do the only thing you was ever good
for and give us a tune out of the fiddle."
It was the only thing that Naggeneen was good for, and the only thing
that was not mischief that he liked to do. He took a fiddle from one
of the fairies who had been playing for the dancing before all the
confusion began. He held the fiddle under his chin for a moment, while
everybody waited, and then he began to play.
He played first some old tunes that every fairy in Ireland knows well.
But not every fairy in Ireland can play them as Naggeneen did. They
were tunes which everybody listening in that rath had known for
hundreds of years. There were wild and strange airs that made them
remember days when Ireland was a strange country, even to them; then
the music was full of wonder and mystery, like the spells of the old
Druids; then it was strong and free and fierce, and they thought of
Finn McCool and the Fenians, and the days when Erin had heroes to
guard her from her foes. The fiddle was telling them the story of
their own lives and of all that they had ever seen and known.
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