CON O'KEEFE AND THE GOLDEN CUP

In Ireland, as in Scotland, among the lower orders, there is a prevalent belief in the existence and supernatural powers of the gentry commonly called "fairies." Many and strange are the stories told of this mysterious and much dreaded race of beings. Loud and frequent have been the exclamations of surprise, and even of anger, at the hard incredulity which made me refuse, when I was young, to credit all that was narrated of the wonderful feats of Irish fairies – the most frolicksome of the entire genus. The more my disbelief was manifested, the more wonderful were the legends which were launched at me, to overthrow my unlucky and matter-of-fact obstinacy.

I have forgotten many of the traditions which were thus made familiar to me in my boyhood, but my memory retains sufficient to convince me to what improbabilities Superstition clung – and the more wonderful the story, the more implicit the belief. But in such cases the fanaticism was harmless, – it was of the head rather than of the heart – of the imagination rather than the reason. It would be fortunate if all superstitions did as little mischief as this.

It is deeply to be lamented that the matter-of-factedness of the Americans is not subdued or modified by any – even the slightest – belief in the old-world superstitions of which I speak. Of fairy-lore they cannot, and they do not, possess the slightest item. They read of it, as if it were legendary, but nothing more. They feel it not – they know it – they are, therefore, dreadfully actual. So much the worse for them!

Having imbibed a sovereign contempt for the wild and wonderful traditions which had been duly accredited in the neighborhood, time out of mind, I never was particularly chary in expressing such contempt at every opportunity. When the mind of a boy soars above the ignorance which besets his elders in an inferior station, who have had neither the chance nor the desire of being enlightened, he is apt to pride himself, as I did, on the "march of intellect" which has placed him superior to their vulgar credulity.

Many years have passed since I happened to be a temporary visitor beneath the hospitable roof of one of the better sort of farmers, in the county of Cork, during the Midsummer holidays. As usual, I there indulged in sarcasm against the credulity of the country. One evening, in particular, I was not a little tenacious in laughing at the very existence of "the fairy folk;" and, as sometimes happens, ridicule accomplished more than argument could have effected. My hosts could bear anything in the way of argument – at least of argument such as mine – they could even suffer their favorite legends and theories about the fairies to be abused; but to laugh at them – that was an act of unkindness which quite passed their comprehension, and grievously taxed their patience.

My host was quite in despair, and almost in anger at my boyish jokes upon his fairy-legends, when the village schoolmaster came in, an uninvited but most welcome guest. A chair was soon provided for him in the warmest corner – whiskey was immediately on the table, and the schoolmaster, who was a pretty constant votary to Bacchus, lost no time in making himself acquainted with its flavor.

I had often seen him before. He combined in his character a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity; was a most excellent mathematician and a good classical scholar – but of the world he knew next to nothing. From youth to age had been spent within the limits of the parish over which, cane in hand, he had presided for more than a quarter of a century, – at once a teacher and an oracle! He was deeply imbued with a belief in the superstitions of the district, but was more especially familiar with the wild legends of that rocky glen (the defile near Kilworth, commonly called Araglin, once famous for the extent of illicit distillation carried on there), in which he had passed away his life, usefully, but humbly employed.

To this eccentric character my host triumphantly appealed for proof respecting the existence and vagaries of the fairies. He wasted no time in argument, but, glancing triumphantly around, declared that he would convert me by a particularly well-attested story. Draining his tumbler, and incontinently mixing another, Mr. Patrick McCann plunged at once into the heart of his narration, as follows:

"You know the high hill that overlooks the town of Fermoy? Handsome and thriving place as it now is, I remember the time when there were only two houses in that same town, and one of them was then only in course of building! Well, there lived on the other side of Corran Thierna (the mountain in question, though Corrig is the true name) one of the Barrys, a gentleman who was both rich and good. I wish we had more of the stamp among us now – 'tis little of the Whiteboys or Ribbonmen would trouble the country then. He had a fine fortune, kept up a fine house, and lived at a dashing rate. It does not matter, here nor there, how many servants he had; but I mention them, because one of them was a very remarkable fellow. His equal was not to be had, far or near, for love nor money.

"This servant was called Con O'Keefe. He was a crabbed little man, with a face the very color and texture of old parchment, and he had lived in the family time out of mind. He was such a small, dwarfish, deeny creature, that no one ever thought of putting him to hard work. All that they did was, now and again, from the want of a better messenger at the moment, or to humor the old man, to send him to Rathcormac post-office for letters. But he was too weak and feeble to walk so far – though it was only a matter of three or four miles; so they got him a little ass, and he rode upon it, quite as proud as a general at the head of an army of conquerors. 'Twas as good as a play to see Con mounted upon his donkey – you could scarcely make out which had the most stupid look. But neither man nor beast can help his looks.

"At that time Rathcormac, though 'tis but a village now, was a borough, and sent two members to the Irish Parliament. Was not the great Curran, the orator and patriot, member for Rathcormac, when he was a young man? Did not Colonel Tonson get made an Irish peer, out of this very borough, which his son William is, to this very day, by the title of Baron Riversdale of Rathcormac? Does not his shield bear an open hand between two castles, and is not the motto, 'Manus hæc inimica tyrannis' – which means that it was the enemy of tyrants? Did not the Ulster King of Arms make the Tonsons a grant of these arms, in the time of Cromwell? But here I have left poor little Con mounted on his donkey all this time.

"Con O'Keefe was not worth his keep, for any good he did; but, truth to say, he had the name of being hand and glove with the fairies; and, at that time, Corran Thierna swarmed with them. They changed their quarters when the regiments from Fermoy barracks took to firing against targets stuck up at the foot of the mountain. Not that a ball could ever hit a fairy (except a silver one cast by a girl in her teens, who has never wished for a lover, or a widow under forty who has not sighed for a second husband – so there's little chance that it ever will be cast), but they hate the noise of the firing and the smell of gunpowder, quite as much as the Devil hates holy water.

"'Tis reckoned lucky in these parts to have a friend of the fairies in the house with you, and that was partly the reason why Con O'Keefe was kept at Barry's-fort. Many and many a one could swear to hearing him and 'the good folk' talk together at twilight on his return from Rathcormac with the letter-bag. My own notion is, that if he had anything to say to them, he had more sense than to hold conversation with them on the high road, for that might have led to a general discovery. Con was fond of a drop, and, when he took it (which was in an algebraic way, that is, 'any given quantity'), he had such famous spirits, and his tongue went so glibly, that, in the absence of other company, he was sometimes forced to talk to himself, as he trotted home.

"One night, as he was going along, rather the worse for liquor, he thought he heard a confused sound of voices in the air, directly over his head. He stopped, and, sure enough, it was the fairies, who were chattering away, like a bevy of magpies; but he did not know this at the time.

"At first he thought it might be some of the neighbors wanting to play him a trick. So, to show that he was not afraid (for the drink had made him bold as a lion), when the voices above and around him kept calling out 'High up! high up!' he put in his spoke, and shouted, as loud as any of them, 'High up! high up with ye, my lads!' No sooner said than done. He was whisked off his donkey in a twinkling, and was 'high up' in the air, in the very middle of a crowd of 'good people' – for it happened to be one of their festival nights, and the cry that poor little Con heard was the summons for gathering them all together. There they were, mighty small, moving about as quickly as motes in the sunshine. Although Con had the reputation at Barry's-fort of being well acquainted with them all, you may well believe that there was not a single face among the lot that he knew.

"In less than no time, off they went, when their leader – a little morsel of a fellow, not bigger than Hop-o'-my Thumb – bawled out, 'High for France! high for France! high over!' Off they went, through the air – quick as if they were on a steeplechase. Moss and moor – mountain and valley – green field and brown bog – land and water were all left behind, and they never once halted until they reached the coast of France.

"They immediately made for the house (there it is called the château) of a great lord – one of the Seigneurs of the Court – and bolted through the key-hole into his wine-cellar, without leave or license. How little Con was squeezed through, I never could understand, but it is as sure as fate that he went into the cellar along with them. They soon got astride the casks, and commenced drinking the best wines, without waiting to be invited. Con, you may be sure, was not behind any of them, as far as the drinking went. The more he drank, the better relish he had for their tipple. The 'good people,' somehow or other, did not appear at all surprised at Con's being among them, but they did wonder at his great thirst, and pressed him to take enough – and Con was not the man who'd wait to be asked twice. So they drank on till night slipped away, when the sun – like a proper gentleman as he is – sent in one of his earliest beams, as a sort of gentle hint that it was full time for them to return. They had a parting-glass, and, in half an hour or so, had crossed the wide sea, and dropped little Con ('pretty well, I thank you,' by this time) on the precise spot he had left on the evening before. He had been drinking out of a beautiful golden cup in the cellar, and, by some mistake or other, it had slipped up the sleeve of the large loose coat he wore, and so he brought it home with him. Not that Con was not honest enough, but surely a man may be excused for taking 'a cup too much' in a wine-cellar.

"Con was soon awakened by the warm sunbeams playing upon his face. At first, he thought he had been dreaming, and he might have thought so to his dying day, but that, when he got on his feet, the golden cup rolled on the road before him, and was proof positive that all was a reality.

"He said his prayers directly, between him and harm. Then he put up the cup and walked home, where, as his little donkey had returned on the previous night without him, the family had given him up as lost or drowned. Indeed, some of them had sagaciously suggested the probability of his having gone off for good with the fairies.

"Now, does not my story convince you that there must be such things as fairies? It is not more than twenty years since I heard Con O'Keefe tell the whole story from beginning to end; and he'd say or swear with any man that the whole of it was as true as gospel. And, as sure as my name is Patrick McCann, I do believe that Con was in strange company that night."

I ventured to say to Mr. McCann that, being yet incredulous, I must have better evidence than little Con's own declaration.

"To be sure you shall," said he. "Was not the golden cup taken up to Barry's-fort, and to be seen – as seen it was – by the whole country?"

I answered that, "Certainly, if the cup is to be seen there, the case is materially altered."

"I did not say that the cup is at Barry's-fort," said McCann, "only that it was. The end of the story, indeed, is nearly as strange as the beginning. – When Con O'Keefe came back from his wonderful excursion, no one believed a word of what he said; for though it was whispered that he was great with the fairies, yet, when the matter came tangibly before them, they did not credit it. But Con soon settled their doubts; he brought forward the cup, and there was no gainsaying that evidence.

"Mr. Barry took the cup into his own keeping, and, the name and residence of the French lord being engraved upon it, determined (as in honor bound) to send it home again. So he went off to Cove, without any delay, taking Con with him; and, as there luckily was a vessel going off to France that very day, he sent off little Con with the cup and his very best compliments.

Now, the cup was a great favorite with the French lord (being a piece of family plate, given to one of his ancestors by one of the old kings of France, whose life he had saved in battle), and nothing could equal the hubbub and confusion that arose when it was missing. His lordship called for some wine at dinner, and great was his anger when the lackey handed it to him in a glass, declaring that they could not find the golden goblet. He threw glass, and wine, and all, at the servant's head – flew into a terrible passion – and swore, by all that was good and bad, that he would not take anything stronger than water until the cup was on the table again; and that, if it was not forthcoming in a week, he'd turn off every servant he had, without paying them their wages, or giving them a character.

"The cup was well searched for, but all to no purpose, as you may suppose. At last, the week came to an end – all the servants had their clothes packed up, to be off in the morning. His lordship was getting dreadfully tired of drinking cold water, and the whole house was, as one may say, turned topsy-turvy, when, to the delight and admiration of all, in came Con O'Keefe, from Ireland, with a letter from Mr. Barry and the cup in his fist.

"I rather think they welcomed him. His lordship made it a point to get 'glorious' that night, and, as in duty bound, the entire household followed his example, with all the pleasure in life. You may be certain that Con played away finely at the wine – you know the fairies had made him free of the cellar – so he knew the taste of the liquor, and relished it too. There can be no doubt that there was a regular jollification in the château that night.

"Con remained in France for a month, and was perfectly in clover, for, from the lord to the lackey, every one liked him. When he returned, he had a heavy purse of gold for himself, and many fine presents for his master. Indeed, while the French lord lived, which was for fifteen good years longer, a couple of hogsheads of excellent claret were annually received at Barry's-fort, as a present from him, and there was no wine in the country to equal it. As for Con O'Keefe, he never had the luck to meet the fairies again, a misfortune he very sincerely lamented. And that's the whole story."

I asked Mr. McCann, whether he really believed all of it? That worthy replied in these words: —

"Why, in truth, I must say, some parts of it require rather an elastic mind to take in; but there's no doubt that Con was sent over to France, where, it is said, there was a great to-do about a golden cup. I am positive that Mr. Barry used to receive a present of claret, every year, from a French lord, for I've drank some of the best claret in Ireland from Mr. Barry's cellar. If the tale be true – and I have told it as I have heard Con O'Keefe tell it, especially when overcome by liquor, at which time, the truth is sure to come out – it is proof positive, that there have been fairies in this neighborhood, and that within the memory of man!"

Such a logical conclusion was incontrovertible, especially when enforced by a facetious wink from the schoolmaster; so, I even left matters as they were, and listened with all proper attention to other stories in the same vein, and to the same effect. If the narrator did not credit them, most of his auditors did, which amounts to much the same in the end. Some other time, perhaps, I may be tempted to relate them.