The Harper

...The dinner over, and the gentlemen gathered to wine and discourse, there entered one who whispered something to Mr. Delahide; whereupon, addressing his Excellency, he told him that an old Irish harper stayed without, and would he allow him to come in, and give the company a specimen of his quality.

This his Excellency permitting, they brought in the harper, who was in truth a man very old and venerable to look on; having a long white beard which fell to his breast. His clothes were of green flannel, made after this country's manner, belted in at the waist, and falling below the knee. His legs bare, only for short hose of wool, and his feet shod with shoes or buskins of wolf skin; the hair outside, tied with two thongs across the instep, the toes and heels flat, and the name of them, as I understand, in the Irish tongue "pampooties" or "pampooters”. His head was also bare, the hair on it of a snowy whiteness, falling heavily over his forehead in a "glibbe". For his face it was well writ over with the map of his age, only the eyes still dark and fiery; and the look of them very strange, being both fierce and timorous at once.

His harp was larger than any harp I had yet seen in this country, Standing some four feet from the ground, and painted a lively green colour with sundry devices, and traceries of curious significance; also leaves and other ornaments, but all much bleached and defaced, doubtless by rough weather and the evil usage it had met with.

He -- coming forward in a lull of the discourse -- bowed himself low to the company, especially to his Excellency, who sat at the head of the table. And immediately he began to stray his fingers lightly over the strings, running from one to the other, and looking about him, fearfully yet confidently, as if to ask what was wished. And that strain he played reminded me of the song that I had heard sung by the wild woman in the hollow place of the wood, the morning that I rode forth from Kilkenny with the Butler kerne, and lost my way in the forest. And, having come to an end of it, he paused, and looked round from one to another, as it were from under the pent-house of his brows, which for all his age were black and still very thick.

Then certain airs were commanded, which he played; and afterwards Mr. Delahide said some words to him in the Irish tongue, urging him to play or sing something; at which he shook his head, yet it seemed to me reluctantly, as if he would fain have done that which was required of him, only durst not.

"What asked you of him?" enquired his Excellency, who like myself had observed this commerce between them.

"I desired him" replied Mr. Delahide "to sing a dirge, which he himself had composed, and which in times past I have often heard him sing, in honour of one Rory Oge O'More, whose harper or "Sennachie" -- that being the Irish word -- he formerly was, which of all pieces writ in the Irish tongue seemed ever to me the most moving, both for the words and the air thereof."

"And who or what was this Rory Oge O'More?" asked his Excellency "for meseems his name is familiar to me."

"As vile, dangerous, and pestilent a Rebel as ever this land, which is rich in little else, hath bred!" cried the President of Munster. "And I wonder that Mr. Delahide would even name him in this presence, still less desire songs in his honour to be sung before one who stands as our Queen's Viceregent, and before whom the countenancing of such songs is a clear insolence to her greatness."

"Yet, methinks, as the song in question is in the Irish tongue, and that none here save myself, and possibly you, my lord President, know ought of that language, it were scarce perilous to the loyalty even of the least wary to sit and listen to what they could by no means understand!" Mr. Delahide said mockingly, and with a smile upon his lips.

"Mary, that is true!" cried his Excellency. "Therefore, Mr. Delahide, I charge you to command him to sing this song, about which you have moved my curiosity, and, if danger there be in his singing, I myself will be his surety that no harm shall happen to him for the said cause."

His Lordship having so spoken, Mr. Delahide spake a few words again in Irish to the harper; who thereat straightened himself, flinging suddenly off that bowed and dejected aspect he had hitherto worn, and looking a full score of years younger, so brightly did his eyes flash and his whole face alter. And he looked about him now, no longer scared and timorous, but with a fierce defiant air; and especially I noted that he so looked at the President of Munster, as much as to say that he understood his animosity, yet feared it not, having the sanction of one that was greater than he.

So, having turned his harp about, he lifted it a little, and set it upon a stool or trestle that stood there; and placing himself beside it, struck his hands across the strings with a careless gesture. Then, having played awhile, he suddenly broke out into a sort of singing, which yet was hardly singing, but rather a chant or crooning noise, which swelled and swelled so that at times it seemed to rise to the very rafters, rolling and beating about like thunder within our ears, and again to sink till it was no louder than the whisper of a summer stream over grass and small stones; his harp the while seeming to follow and take part, more like a thing of separate life joining in at its own pleasure, than an instrument played by the hands. Stranger singing and playing I never heard before, nor expect to ever hear again.

It chanced that, being next to the window, I saw what was not, I think, seen of others in the company. For when that strange song or chant first began all the kernes, gallowglasses, and other wild Irish mustered without started and stared, seeming to prick their ears, as a horse does at the sound of the trumpet. Presently, as it went on, they began to draw nearer and nearer; yea the very bearers of burdens and churls -- creatures seemingly scarce human -- gathered, till a score or more were below the window. And I marked that they looked one at the other with eyes wide open, as if asking how such a song came to be heard in such a place and before such company. Then -- that wild singing still continuing, and rising ever louder and louder -- they began to grip at one another with their hands, and to move to and fro with their feet, as if they would fain have broken into wild dancing and leaping. Only, whenever anyone came out of the castle, they all dispersed suddenly; or fell flat upon the ground, hoping to escape notice in the dark, but so soon as that person had passed on, they rose up again, and crept nearer and nearer, as if their very souls fed upon what they heard!

The evening growing late, as soon as this strange song or dirge was over, and my Lord had dismissed the old man with a fair gift of money, the company broke up...

~ Emily Lawless, "With Essex in Ireland (Being extracts from a Journal Kept in Ireland during the year 1599 by Mr. Henry Harvey, Sometime Secretary to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex)”, London, 1902. pps 156-161