Setting Sail for the New World

servants, the Klabautermannikins, made ready their broad-bottomed boats, and away they sailed, to settle peaceably, at length, among rolling hills by a wide river richly lined with cliffs and trees. Clear, running creeks they found there, and wildcats in abundance, wherefore they named their new home “Kaaterskill” (Wildcat Creek). From Eire (that most distressful country), the con- quered and humbled native gentry, the Sidhe, set forth to follow in Brandan’s path, accompanied on board by such of their lower-class countrymen as the shoe-making Leprechauns and the endlessly joking, drunk, and disorderly Fir Darrigs. Observed a mortal Irish observer:* ”The fairies … are retiring one by one from the habitations of man, to the distant islands where the wild waves of the Atlantic raise their foaming crests …” Lost to the Scottish Highlands then an’ evermair was the Seelie Court: the Fair Folk known as Trows, Fachans, Brownies, an’ People o’ Peace. As the tale is told, “Only two children marked their passing, as the wee creatures rode their shaggy ponies down to the sea. The mortal lad called out to the last rider, ‘What are ye, little mannie? And where are ye go- ing?’ ‘Not of the race of Adam,’ said the creature, turning for a moment in his saddle: ‘the People o’ Peace shall never more be seen in Scotland.’ “** Their rough-hewn barks were piloted West by *Sir William Wilde *

Opposite: Hugh Miller of Edinburgh