LEGENDS OF THE LAKES; OR, SAYINGS AND DOINGS AT KILLARNEY.

By T. Crofton Croker, Esq.

Two volumes of “tickling” legendary tales are almost too much for our laughter-holding sides, but more especially at this merry season—­fraught with humour—­and when reminiscences of the past make up for lack of realities of the present.  To “notice” such a work is ten times more (we had almost said) trouble than to despatch half a dozen dull books, or a dozen harmless, well-meaning satires on human nature.  But we will do our best to detach some of the good things from Mr. Croker’s volumes, although the humour of the sketches which adorn them, is of too subtle a quality for our pen or sheet to hold.

Mr. Croker takes for granted that when people go to see the Lakes of Killarney, they do not intend making a very serious business of the excursion; but rather desire, while their eyes are pleased with romantic scenery, that their ears should be tickled by legendary tales; and accordingly he thinks it extraordinary that no guide-book should exist for the local traditions of Killarney.  This accounts for our finding Mr. Croker on the box of the Killarney mail coach, beside Mat.  Crowley, the driver, at page 2, of his first volume.  Here is no preamble about “friends pressing the author to print—­not intended for the public eye—­a mere note-book,” &c.—­but he begins his journey with the first crack of the whip, and a “righte merrie” journey it is.

Our facetious friend soon reaches Killarney, and is introduced to the lord high-admiral of the lakes, and then, as the newspapers say of a pantomime, the “fun begins.”  Our first extract is

O’SULLIVAN’S PUNCH BOWL.

“What are we to land here for?” said I to the coxswain.

“Only just to show your honour O’Sullivan’s cascade,” was the reply.  “Here, Doolan, show the gentleman the way.”  Ascending a rugged path through the wood, we soon reached the foot of the fall.

“Isn’t that as fine a sight as you’d meet with in a month of Sundays,” said Doolan.  “Only see how the white water comes biling like a pot of praties over the big, black rocks, down it comes, one tumble over the other, the green trees all the while stretching out their arms as if they wanted to stop it.  And then it makes such a dickins of a nise as it pounces into that black pool at the bottom, that it’s enough to bother the brains of a man entirely.  Why, then, isn’t it a wonder how all that water sprung up out of the mountain? for sure, isn’t there a bit of a lake above there, in the hollow of the hill that the waterfall comes out of,—­they calls it O’Sullivan’s Punch Bowl?”

“And, pray, who was this O’Sullivan that had such a capacious Punch Bowl?”

“Och, then, ’tis he’s the fine, portly looking jantleman, and has a vice (voice) as big as twenty; ’twould do your heart good to hear the cry of him on a stag hunt day, making the mountain ring again.”