Rising out of the Ulster coast, I, the mountain God Slieve Donard, 
greeted you when you returned as a young man, 
saying, ‘Welcome, the faery sentries below warned me of your approach.'

As a child, you laughed when told magical creatures
inhabit the mountains of Mourne, my mountain land.
You came once before from that torn city, Belfast, 
limping along like a wounded warrior, disillusioned with your prowess,
like the Giant McCool who made a pavement to nowhere on Antrim’s coast.

The guardians of the law chose to inspect you, 
suspicious of a stranger at a time of civil unrest
when you visited the little town of Newcastle nestling below, 
with its ice cream parlours and little beach,
just up the road from where 15th century rebel Phelim O’Neill lies, 
contemplating acts of vengeance he committed at nearby Bloody Bridge.

The faery spirits who guard the passes to my kingdom,  
as they did when the vengeful Vikings came by flaming boat, 
boast that no men with a gun will pass, whether in masks or the Queen’s uniform.

But my faery folk saw a kindred spirit when you climbed up here, 
like a messenger from Marathon, so fleet of foot.
But I see you’ve been enjoying the stout, 
and now more resemble a country lavatory, 
than a chap who ran around the shower to get wet.

So come up through the mist, my spirit will guide you to the top.
Ah, there’s a break in the cloud - see out yonder, 
where the waves break on that little islet?

That’s where I said goodbye to my love, Magwen Bagweal, a Saxon princess.
As I was a true Gael, we were forced by our followers to take sides, 
a first example of what the historians call a sectarian divide.

As my pal professor ‘Fungus’ Fergus wrote, 
‘Hot air is often found around the mouth of a fool,
and we have plenty of them in this divided province.’

Alas, his words didn’t go down well among his peers, 
and this worthy academic met historian, Leslie Lovelorn, 
at a soup kitchen outside Dublin’s General Post Office, 
its edifice marked by bullets from a great rebellion.

His new friend talked about Ireland’s relatively recent clan, The Midget Murphys.
Originally from the Languedoc region of France,  
they encountered the wrath of the bishop, after nicking wine from his cellar
and selling it to the peasants, thus gaining their allegiance.

His Holiness ordered them thrown off the battlements,
but they bounced off a trampoline, made from the hides of mountain sheep, 
left by devoted followers who rescued their leader, 
Fiery Fred Franckenbeans, from the castle’s keep.

Fred took his band on a trek across Europe, where they, among other deeds,
saved a princess from the king of Macedonium, escaping his wrath by joining a circus,
their acrobatics upstaging the star, Monsieur ‘Montrosity’,
a fat man whose act involved rolling on the floor to play the euphonium.

Then one night in Vienna, they released the animals and took the takings, 
sailing down the Danube disguised as a reconstruction of Noah’s Ark,
impressing the gullible Venetians.

The Murphs eventually settled in Ireland’s county Down, 
making a fortune out of the famous shamrock
which they turned into a saintly source of food,
their exploits giving rise to the expression, still used today, ‘Small is good’.

This was just one of many legends told by this odd chap, Lovelorn, 
who tearfully described the decline of his professorial career,
which began when he was seen playing in Pontificating Punks, 
an alternative Goth band, by the Dean Of Cambridge, The Rev Weepnot-Windblown.

This was bad enough, but when Leslie’s wife, ‘Flipping’ Felicity,
so named due to her habit at Lady Murgatroyd’s School For Gentle Girls,
of saying ‘flip’ instead of the F word, founded lesbian group Fanny’s Frolics -
that was the final straw, and he was out on his ear, the world’s most educated bum.

To cheer him up the prof asked, ‘Do you want to meet a mountain God?
He resides in that other part of this nation, where the Orange Men march 
and their leaders proclaim, “Keep out the Pope, or the end will surely be nigh!”’

He answered, ‘If I can get a square meal out of it, I’m game!’

Arriving at a border checkpoint they were escorted to my mountain,
after declaring, ‘We have an appointment with a God over there, 
where the magical Mournes meet the heavenly sky.’

Entering my sacred kingdom of Donard with his men, 
one corporal McSteake was so infused by the magical air, 
that he threw away his rifle to climb my mountain peak.

My faeries were amused by his dialect, Scouse I think they call it.
It was like those sing-song voices spoken in county Cork, 
or those residents of the island known as Man, home to the famous tailless cat.

According to legend, the curious feline hid on a Viking warship
to escape Polyander Prettypreach, Chief Constable of the animal kingdom,
who had discovered the puss was in love with the rabbit Bunny Boniface, 
in contravention of inter-species laws, and condemned her to death.

But she sailed away, hoping to leap onto driftwood 
and return to her love nest in the undergrowth.
Seeking a hidey hole in the hold, she disturbed Wolfie Wakeup, 
King Shortbeard’s sleepy-eyed Wolf, who grumpily bit her tail.

But the stowaway became one of his majesty’s favourite pets,
after she guided the vessel through fog, using powers gained from rock pixies, 
who’d passed on their echo-sounding powers in return for keeping the rats down.

Then the pussy spotted a porpoise, Peter Poutalot, 
and using sea talk learned from Ollie, the famous juggling seal of Kilkeel,
asked the curious mammal for a lift, and was duly deposited on a secluded beach,
with Peter shouting, ‘Sorry I couldn’t get you to Ireland,
it’s the Marine Mammals’ AGM tonight, of which I’m chairman.

‘Ask for the Isle Of Man’s official bard, McGibbins Of The Hill, 
whose songs resonate with the hidden aura of his granite abode, 
a hollow hacked out of the towering edifice that is Mount Snaefell,
cousin to the supreme mountain god over there in Ireland, mighty Slieve Donard.’

The former soldier, Corporal McSteake, declared.
‘I tell you this tale because it echoes my story.
I discovered the meaning of life can’t be found within a uniform. 

‘For, just like the puss who loved a bunny, I didn’t belong anywhere 
- a Liverpudlian who hates football, a hippie who insisted on cutting his hair,
a good-looking fella who rarely got the girl.’

I and this odd chap chatted over several pints of Mournes stout,
myself listing the varieties of turf found on my heathered slopes,
the insects and fauna found within, such as the fast-spreading Fantailed Fungitude,  
kept down by dropping rats droppings from a great height (my faeries used stilts for this),
and the Crawling Cellimus, a multi-legged Narachnopoid,
much sought after by eagles and grouse, who nest up here to avoid being shot at.

Then the former soldier discoursed about those 18th century rebels 
his Irish granny told him about, who, armed with a pitchfork, 
forged their bloody campaigns, while their red-coated enemies 
drove a scourge of death from Antrim to Cork.

Then it was time for afternoon tea and a Garibaldi biscuit,
which our guest had nicked from General Bunsonby-Brown’s batman,
who at that moment was gazing towards the Mourne mountains,
wondering where that ‘bleeding Scouser corporal McSteake had gone’.

Well, dear visitor, I am coming to the conclusion of my tale.
so pleased was I by your appearance I went on a bit,
talking about Vikings, the famous Manx tailless cat and small men called Murphy. 

Regrettably, those marvellous beings belong in that nether world 
between the real world and mine.
Alas, when professors Lovelorn and Fergus’ claim to have 
discovered a mythical god was revealed in National Geographic Magazine, 
they were devastated by the resulting opprobrium. 

So they joined those folkies who meet at Cropredy and Cambridge, 
those very ‘uncool’ festivals, the music there emanating 
in the fields and forests of the British Isles, and not in a house or a garage.

To hear about these and other ancient characters, my young friend, 
listen to Lovelorn and Fergus’ novelty folk band,
with the former on banjo and himself on fiddle,
cheekily called Much Maligned Madmen,
their lyrics covertly spreading the news of faeries who inhabit a 
mountain kingdom in a green land known to the Gaels as Eireann.

As for the former soldier McSpeake, he lived in a secret cave in Tollymungin Forest,
and made a fortune busking at the seaside haven of Rockspiddle
(he was too well known in Newcastle),
completing his set with John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High,
enlisting a cat without a tail to go around with the hat, 
with the ghosts of those mythical characters, the Midget Murphys, 
Wolfie Wakeup and Bonniface The Bunny Rabbit singing the chorus.