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of them, threw a stone amongst them, which broke the wing of one of the birds; the others took to flight. MacCoisi secured his disabled prize; but great was his amazement at seeing it change into a young and handsome woman, whose arm hung broken by her side. In reply to his questions, she told him that she was the wife of a person living in the vicinity; that some time before she had been afflicted with a severe illness, and, while lying in a state of insensibility, had been conveyed away by the fairies, who left behind a figure exactly resembling her (by fairy delusion), which was buried in her stead as her body, and that she had ever since remained transfigured and spell-bound among the "good people," till the touch of a mortal hand broke the enchantment, and restored her to her original form. MacCoisi took her to his house, where she was kindly tended till her arm had entirely recovered from the injury it had sustained, then he brought her home to her husband, by whom she was recognized with great surprise, and received with joy and affection. The disguised truth of the legend would seem to be, that the wife had quitted her home privily on some jealousy, the delusive fairy figure typifying her supposed rival; and that during her wanderings she became known, in some state of pain or sorrow, to MacCoisi, who, as a good and charitable man, first relieved her in her distress, and then effected a reconciliation between herself and her husband.

The island and castle (now in ruins) of Inchiquin, in the lake of the same name, in the County Clare, was, up to the latter part of the 13th century, the property of the O'Quins, as the appellation indicates, "Inis-i-Quin," the Isle of O'Quin. The last proprietor of that race, when a young man, observed (says tradition) a number of very fine swans that frequented the shores of the lake. He admired them so much, as they were disporting themselves, that he wished to catch one in order to domesticate it; and he concealed himself among the rocks till he was able to surprise a bird that had strayed a little from the rest, and he immediately carried his feathered captive to his castle. But, on his arrival within his gates, the beautiful swan changed at once into a still more beautiful woman, whose charms were so transcendent that the Chief, deeply enamoured, wooed her to become his wife, to which she consented on his pledging himself to observe three conditions-to keep their marriage secret; never to gamble; never to invite guests to his residence, but especially none of the O'Briens. O'Quin and his fairywife lived happily for some years, and had two children; but at length, in an evil hour, he went to the Races of Cood (in the vicinity), where he met the O'Briens, who paid him great attention, and brought him to the dwelling of their Chief. At supper he was induced to drink too much wine, and, forgetful of his promises to his wife, he invited his entertainers to become his guests on the following day. When he informed his wife, on his return home, of the invitation he had given, she looked deeply grieved, but gave no reply. She made the arrangements for the feast, and as soon as the guests had arrived and sat down to table, she went to the apartment of her children, folded them in her arms, embraced them, and wept over them long and bitterly; then, resuming the shape of a swan, she flew to the lake, plunged in, and was never seen more. Meanwhile O'Quin was again induced to indulge too freely

in wine, was persuaded to gamble, and in the course of the night lost his whole property to the Chief of the O'Briens. That the latte family became possessed at an early era of the lands of O'Quin, in Clare, is an historical fact. The mysterious part of the story, the swanwife, has been supposed to signify a long-concealed mesalliance of the O'Quin with a beautiful female of inferior rank, but superior prudence, who endeavoured to win him from dangerous predilections to the dicebox and the wine-cup.

Among the Egyptians the GOOSE was sacrificed to Isis. The month November, when personified, was represented as a Priest of Isis, bald, robed, leaning on an altar, on which was a goat's head (emblematic of the Solstice of Capricorn) and at his feet a goose, in allusion to the warmth afforded by the soft downy plumage of that bird.

The origin of the general goose-feast in Great Britain at Michaelmas is uncertain, but it is thought to have arisen from the abundance of geese at that season, when tenants made presents to their landlords of geese well fattened for the occasion.

The story of the saving of the Roman Capitol from the Gauls by the vigilance of geese is trite, and needs no more than an allusion. Since that time the cottagers in the Roman dominious kept geese to perform the office of watch-dogs. The yokes of horses and draught oxen were decorated with representations of the heads of geese, and the figureheads of Roman galleys were formed of the long necks and heads of these birds, more or less elaborately carved. Goslings were dedicated to Venus.

The STORK, traditionally said to carry on its back the parent bird when old and helpless, has been, therefore, adopted as the emblem of filial piety. Its Hebrew name, Chasidah, signifies mercy. Its English appellation comes from the Greek word storgé (Top), natural affection. It is held in great reverence by the Dutch, who will not suffer it to be injured, or its nest molested.

Filial Piety was personified as a woman seated and veiled, holding a censer and a cornucopia, and having a stork at her feet,

In Egypt it was sacrificed to Mercury (or Thoth), and the Egyptian kings sometimes bore sceptres having a stork on the top, and a hippopotamus below.

The origin of the wars of the Pigmies and the CRANES, So often mentioned by classic authors, and represented in ancient sculpture and on gems, was, that the Pechinians, a diminutive race in Ethiopia, were assiduous in driving away from their country the cranes that used to destroy their crops. The Pigmies are supposed to be the prototypes of the Fairies, and are represented like the latter, with caps; their houses were fabled to be made of egg-shells, and their chariots drawn by partridges. A Queen of the Pigmies is said by Ovid to have been so vain as to boast that she surpassed Juno in beauty, and the indignant Goddess turned her into a crane, so hated by her subjects, as being the shape most disagreeable to her feelings. Perhaps this Pigmy Queen was the original of Queen Mab, or Titania. vid* re"Altera Pygmææ fatum miserabile matris,

Pars habet. Hanc Juno victam certamine jussit,

Esse

gruem, populisque suis indicere bellum.”—Metam lib. vi.

presents Minerva as embroidering this metamorphosis on her celebrated web. Dean Swift seems to have derived his account of Gulliver being taken prisoner by the Liliputians, from a story told by Philostratus, the Sophist, of the Pigmies. These mannikins finding Hercules asleep one day set out to attack him, in martial array, with all their forces. Two wings of their army attacked his right hand, their main body his left hand, and the archers his feet; while the King, with the élite of his troops, assaulted the head. But, unlike the captured Gulliver, Hercules awoke, smiled on his assailants, rolled them all up in his lion's skin, and carried them as a gift to Eurysthenes; a scene that affords an amusing picture to the imagination.

Ibycus, the Greek poet, having been robbed and mortally wounded by outlaws, appealed, in the agonies of death, to a flight of cranes then passing over his head, and prayed that those birds might become his avengers. The corpse was found, but no clue to the murderers could be discovered. At length, at a public festival in Corinth, a group of cranes was seen to shoot across the sky, and one of the spectators was heard to say to another, in a significant tone, "Look! these are the cranes of ĺbycus." The name of "Ibycus" flew from mouth to mouth in the amphitheatre; suspicion was awakened, the strangers were seized and interrogated by the magistrates. Confounded at a circumstance which they deemed directed by the gods, they confessed the murder, and were executed.

The crane was one of "the Almanack Birds" for the ancients, announcing times and seasons. Aristophanes in his "Birds" says― "When the crane takes his flight across the Mediterranean it is seedtime; it is time for the pilot to season his timber; it is time to spin cloth." Hesiod says, "When thou hearest the voice of the crane clamouring annually from the clouds on high, recollect that this is the signal for the season of ploughing." Compare with Jeremiah, viii. 7"The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the judgment of the Lord."

"The word "pedigree" was originally written pettygrew, and petigrewe, and pee-de-grue-wherefore it has been supposed to be derived from the long leg of a crane, pied-de-grue. Dr. Johnson, however, derives it from gres (i.e., degrès) de pere, "degrees from the father."

A crane holding a stone in his claw is the crest of the noble family of Cranston, and furnishes a specimen of what is called " Canting Heraldry," a kind of heraldic punning, as Crane-stone, Cranston. The motto of the arms is less high-minded in tone than the generality of mottos in British heraldry; e.g., "Thou shalt want ere I want."

M. E. M.

LIFE'S FORESHADOWING S.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "OLD TIMES. '

CHAPTER LIV.

FROM the date of this resolution, Roach watched his poor young friend very carefully, when he was apparently otherwise concerned, for he determined that she should never be pained by a suspicion that she was discovered.

Sometimes, when she was sure she was unobserved, her gaze would fasten upon him with an interest and sympathy she never fathomed. Then the lashes would suddenly drop if he looked towards her, and sometimes a slight blush flit to her cheek.

She loved to see him and her father in talk, for then she was more at ease; and being of few words herself, would sit in the shadow of the piano or chimney-piece, turning alternately from one to the other; laughing when they laughed, and serious when they looked grave. She used to make little excuses in the evening to put him off his goodnight-she had some print to show him, or some piece of music to play for him, to beguile him to remain.

There was a trifling incident that touched him and increased the pain of what he felt it his duty to do.

Jay, supported by the presence and connivance of her father, asked Roach mysteriously to come into a small back room like a workshop, that she had something to show him. Mr. Henderson took his arm and led him after her. On a table was some large round object, umbrella-shaped, and covered with gauze.

"Come, Jay, lift the clouds," said Mr. Henderson, and she snatched off the filmy covering.

"Hem! that's your friend, the solar system, Roach," continued her father, acting as showman.

It was a rude orrery constructed by Jay. The sun was represented by a ball of yellow worsted, from which radiated many wires, terminating in other blue and red balls, the whole resembling a huge cobweb with a big yellow spider in the midst, surrounded by butterflies and blue-bottles. Farthest of all, and surpassing the Sun himself in splendour and size, was a gilt ball, to which Jay pointed proudly.

"There-that's your planet, Mr. Roach-I have paid it the compliment of two ounces of gold-leaf, and papa and I hope it will bring you heaps of gold."

How the planet was to be convertible into gold Jay did not say, but this was her show, and this her little speech, which she had planned during many busy hours over her heavenly bodies.

Mr. Henderson laughed heartily-rallied her for making such a short speech, and called on Roach for a reply; but after some short, cold praise, he went out, and poor Jay's countenance fell. She pushed her orrery hastily aside, and grew unhappy, disappointed, and thoughtful. She was so sad she did not appear again that evening.

The next morning she heard him come in; she knew his he random step as he went into the study and closed the door. looked in to bid him good morning, but he seemed not to see her. was bent over a slip of paper that was pasted to the cover of his poc book. She stole softly behind him, expecting surely to see some of old acquaintances, Cos. A, Sin. B, Tan. D.; instead of these she sa few lines of writing in a hand she recognized at once.

"It was Annie who wrote that." The words slipped from her. Roach turned slowly round without any sign of surprise; he w paler and graver, she thought, than usual.

"You are right, Jay; that is Mrs. Henderson's handwriting-yo may read it :

"Mrs. Henderson wishes to thank Mr. Roach for his disinterested conduct in leaving Moorlands. She also wishes to express her entire forgiveness, believing sincerely that he was more to be pitied than blamed. He has her best wishes for success and happiness."

"Her forgiveness, Mr. Roach!-you, too?"

"Sit down with me, Jay; I am going to speak to you in strict confidence. I have something to tell you. You must have seen how interested I was when you told me of your repentance, and how zealous I have been to perform her last wishes."

"I did, Mr. Roach," said Jay, with downcast eyes.

"We both of us needed her forgiveness, and desired it above everything. We have received it. I hope I shall obtain pardon as freely from God. I am going to speak to you in strict confidence about a matter to which I have never alluded to anyone. You remember the day your father suddenly left home, shortly after his return. The affairs of the place were in a very critical state at that time, and in his absence he begged of Miss Brandon, as she then was, to instruct me as to his plans, and, in fact, to influence me to lend myself to them. The poor girl acted as she thought best in a very trying moment, and, without understanding the commission fully, or its possible consequences, she persuaded me to take measures against the tenantry which nearly cost me my life, and from the effects of which I have never recovered.

"And now, Jay, do you know how it was that Miss Brandon had such influence over me as to make me act so recklessly and wrongly, though, poor thing! she never saw the wrong?"

"No, Mr. Roach," said Jay.

"I loved her. I dare say you have read stories of love and broken hearts, and letter-press lovers. That is not love, Jay, nor like it. My only excuse rests in what I felt for her, and fine language won't tell that. I believe it was not far from madness. Scenes come back on me, and words, which could have been no less. Don't you remember? Think of her gentle, engaging manner-of the way she could comfort and amuse-how all the rest of the world left your memory when you were beside her. No matter; all this can't tell you what I felt for her. Let God judge, who fits the burden to the shoulder, how far I was responsible.'

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