the seven famous springs.  People travelled from far places to see it.  A flight of green marble steps led to a broad door of oak.  On the broad oaken door he had fashioned one of the most remarkable knockers and the most beautiful door knob that were known to Europe.  Both were of beaten gold.  The knocker was wrought in the shape of a key.  The door knob was a group of seven water nymphs.  A sensation was created which agitated all Ireland when this work of art was completed by five of the foremost goldsmiths in the land.  The Keeper of the Key of the Seven Sisters issued a Proclamation declaring that there was a flaw in the rounding of one of the ankles of the group of seven water nymphs.  He had the five goldsmiths suddenly arrested and put on their trial.  “The Gael,” said the Keeper of the Key, “must be pure-blooded in his art.  I am of the Clann Gael, I shall not allow any half-artist to come to my door, there work under false pretence and go unpunished.”  The goldsmiths protested that their work was the work of artists and flawless as the design.  Not another word would they be allowed to speak.  Bards and artists, scholars and men skilled in controversy, flocked from all parts to see the door knob.  A terrible controversy ensued.  Sides were taken, some for, others against, the ankle of the water nymph.  They came to be known as the Ankleites and the anti-Ankleites.  And in that tremendous controversy the Keeper of the Key proved the masterly manner of man he was.  He had the five goldsmiths convicted for failure as supreme artists, and they were sentenced to banishment from the country.  On their way from the shore to the ship that was to bear them away their curragh sprang a sudden leak, and they were all drowned.  That was the melancholy end of the five chief goldsmiths of Eirinn.

Every morning at daybreak trumpets were blown outside the mansion of the Keeper of the Key.  The gates of a courtyard swung open and out marched an armed guard, men in saffron kilts, bearing spears and swords.  They formed up before the flight of marble steps.  A second fanfare of the trumpets, and back swung the great oaken door, disclosing the Keeper of the Key in his bright silks and cocked hat.  Out he would come on the doorstep, no attendants by him, and pulling to the great door by the famous knob he would descend the marble steps, the guard would take up position, and, thus escorted, he would cross the drawbridge of the moat and enter the town of the Seven Sisters, marching through the streets to the great well.  People would have gathered there even at that early hour, women bearing vessels to secure their supply of the water, which, it was said, had an especial virtue when taken at the break of day.  No mortal was allowed nearer than fifty yards to the well while the Keeper proceeded to unlock the lid.  His guard would stand about, and with a haughty air he would approach the well solus.  The people would see him make some movements, and back would slide the