How To Go Visiting A God.

"Where are you going to, stranger," said the first man.

"I am going to visit Angus Og," replied the Philosopher.

The man gave him a quick look.

"Well," said he, "that's the queerest story I ever heard. Listen here," he called to the others, "this man is looking for Angus Og."

The other man and woman came closer.

"What would you be wanting with Angus Og, Mister Honey?" said the woman.

"Oh," replied the Philosopher, "it's a particular thing, a family matter."

There was silence for a few minutes, and they all stepped onwards behind the ass and cart.

"How do you know where to look for himself?" said the first man again: "maybe you got the place where he lives written down in an old book or on a carved stone?"

"Or did you find the staff of Amergin or of Ossian in a bog and it written from the top to the bottom with signs?" said the second man.

"No," said the Philosopher, "it isn't that way you'd go visiting a god. What you do is, you go out from your house and walk straight away in any direction with your shadow behind you so long as it is towards a mountain, for the gods will not stay in a valley or a level plain, but only in high places; and then, if the god wants you to see him, you will go to his rath as direct as if you knew where it was, for he will be leading you with an airy thread reaching from his own place to wherever you are, and if he doesn't want to see you, you will never find out where he is, not if you were to walk for a year or twenty years."

"How do you know he wants to see you?" said the second man.

"Why wouldn't he want?" said the Philosopher.

"Maybe, Mister Honey," said the woman, "you are a holy sort of a man that a god would like well."

"Why would I be that?" said the Philosopher. "The gods like a man whether he's holy or not if he's only decent."

"Ah, well, there's plenty of that sort," said the first man.


-James Stephens, The Crock of Gold.