The Hounds of the Mórrígan Quotes

“Rising up into the air, they took to the sky and flew. From west and beyond west, into the wind and through it, they came past countless moons and suns. One laughed and briefly wore a scarf of raindrops in her hair, and then with wicked feet she kicked a cloud and caused rain to swamp a boat.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“What is believed in one man's time, is despised in another man's day. To be sure, there will even be revulsion in some future years at things you hardly notice, that are happening in what is known to you as the present.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“He gripped it and the sky began to spin; and Pidge knew that if he didn't put it right, the country would somehow obey the signpost and twist around and that, even though he was directly headed for Shancreg and home, he would end up in Kyledove.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“You're daft,' she said.
'Doan matter what you think of me,' he said generously. 'I'll never think less of you.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Thank you for my life, Great Queen," he whispered, almost inaudibly; like the true subject of any tyrant, showing gratitude for being allowed to keep what was his alone.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Who goes dere? Friend or Foe?”
“Neither,” said Pidge and he laughed.
“Doan know what to do about a Neither,” said the frog looking baffled. Then he remembered that he was supposed to say something more.
“Tress.. um, tress…ah!…passers! Trespassers will be….will be…” He forgot the rest.
“What?” asked Brigit.
“Trespassers will be kilt stone dead!” the frog said brightly.
“Oh, really?” said Brigit.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“I’m too tell you to watch out,” he said, “there’s danger at the crossroads.”
“At the crossroads up ahead? What kind of danger?”
“Too soon to say—but danger there is.”
Pidge could only think of one possible danger.
“You can’t mean traffic, it’s so quiet around here?”
“I can’t mean traffic, young human sir—but you are to use the eye of clarity when you get to the crossroads, such as would confound Geography and Cartography; such as would make Pandora’s Box into a tuppeny lucky bag,” the old angler said earnestly, and added: “Bad work and many not knowing it; quiet as water under the ground. You be careful, young mortal sir, as there’s more than one kind of angling and you could be sniggled in a flash! There’s lures and lures. That’s my message!”
What a lot of strange things he said and I don’t understand the half of it, Pidge thought. Aloud he said:
“Who told you to tell me? Was it the Gardai?”
“Couldn’t say it was. But that’s the chatter that’s filling the place and I was to put you wise.” The old angler looked with dreadful earnestness straight into Pidge’s eyes as if trying to impress the importance of his words on Pidge’s brain. His concern was clearly very great.
“Well, thank you very much,” Pidge said.
“All the small wild things know it,” the old angler said. “It’s them that chatters.”
“They usually do,” Pidge replied, thinking of forest fires and how animals are said to scent danger from a silent wisp of smoke.
Not knowing what Pidge was thinking, the old angler looked surprised at Pidge’s apparent knowledge.
“You know more than the Minister of Education,” he said and he swung his legs in behind the wall with great agility. He began to walk off.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Was it my imagination or was she very rude? he asked himself mistrustfully. Did she sneer?
When a person lives in the country where population is sparse, he doesn’t get much chance to study things like sneers. With so few people about, that one sneer of the week could well be happening in the far side of the parish and he’d miss it if he wasn’t there. On the other hand, there could be six sneers per hour at the farm a half mile away and he wouldn’t get the chance to see them. For as sure as anything, the ones who are good at sneering, become best at smiling when a visitor arrives.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“In the real world, the Sergeant was tired of worrying and sick of cocoa. He was disturbed by feelings in his mind that he was not really himself at all.
Several times he half-started out of his chair on an impulse to get out on the streets to ask the first person he met: “Where were you at ten past three on the morning of December the thirteenth, nineteen fifty-four”; just to prove to himself that he was still the Sergeant and that he knew how to do his duty.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Odd isn’t it, that we never hear of the duck that laid the Golden Egg?”
The little duck was fuming.
“Oh, so ducks aren’t aristocratic—is that it? I suppose, Charlie, that you have never heard of the Duck of Edinburgh?” he asked with some heat.
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Then you don’t know everything, do you—not if you’ve never heard of His Highness!” the small duck finished in some triumph.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“You mustn’t take any notice of what I’m saying when I’m talking to myself. It’s only a bad habit we fall into when we’re solitary and we always say the worst to ourselves.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Leave me be! Leave me be!” she shouted; and with her stick, she beat at her dreams.
She had passed the children without noticing them. And then Pidge was not afraid of her any longer. He realized that her anger was directed only against herself and her own thoughts.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Do you see?”
“Sort of,” she said, and she frowned hard to make her head work better.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“You know the way you can sometimes see someone who looks lost in a crowd?” said Sonny.
“Yes,” Pidge said.
“No.” Brigit frowned.
“Well he might be in Faery. Have you ever known one person to stop and listen to the cuckoo calling, and the person standing beside him doesn’t hear anything, and only thinks his friend is imagining it?”
“Yes,” Pidge said.
Brigit half-nodded.
“Or a girl might look into a river and shout: ‘Look! There’s a fish!’ and her friend shouts: ‘Where! Where! I can’t see it!’”
“Oh, yes!” Brigit agreed.
“The two worlds go hand in hand. As you know from going through the stones, you could be walking through a field and a few steps to the right of you, you could be walking in this world.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“I really must stop worrying and frightening myself like this, and take things as they come, he told himself very firmly.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“She is nearly as hungry as fire, which is the hungriest thing on land.”
“It is?” Pidge said, wondering about wolves with sharp teeth and hyenas and jackals, whose very nature seemed to be hunger.
“You may say it is. Haven’t you ever seen flames licking their red lips as they consume all before them? Fire is so hungry that the more it is fed, the bigger its appetite grows. Other things can be gratified, but not fire. And the sea is all this and more.”
“Do you really mean that Hannah is nearly that hungry?” Brigit asked, disbelieving.
“I do. And signs on it, because of her appetite she is nearly as strong as water.”
“Water?” Brigit said, her voice rising in scorn. “Water isn’t strong.”
“I don’t believe you’re serious but if you are, you’re wrong. Water is so strong, it can wear away rocks and shift mountains. Don’t you know well, that one man can tame a horse but it takes hundreds or even thousands to spancel water? If a country was a person, the rivers and streams would be its veins with all its life’s blood in them. Even when it is harnessed it is never tamed. It can light up cities and turn wheels and if it gets free and throws itself at a town, it can wipe out life like chalk on a slate. It can do all of that; but the sea can do all that, and more.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Melodie Moonlight’s shadow lay flat on the floor, exhausted.
“Get up and fight, you cur,” Melodie snarled in a sudden temper, “or you will be sent to the dark side of the Moon.”
And the shadow got up and tried to fight. It crawled and cringed after her and did as she wished, because it knew that the dark side of the Moon would be death.
A shadow needs light to live.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“There is nothing in the world as enticing as a wood of any kind, because of its mysteries.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Pidge quickly bit into his apple. It taste of—apple; with an apple’s sweetness. Goodness, he thought, I’m half expecting miracles all the time now. He took another bite and happened to glance thoughtlessly up at the sky. There was a plane, high up there, leaving a vapour-trail behind it like the track of a sort of skysnail. And that’s just ordinary too, he thought, nothing magical about that except that it’s a marvellously clever thing. Not all miracles are magic.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“As they neared the glasshouse, they went on tip toes, making it a game of spying. When they got closer they noticed the closed venetian blinds.
“They’ve got some of those slatted blinds, but there might be a place to peep in,” Brigit said.
Then they noticed the sign saying:
BEWARE OF THE FROG
and they burst into delighted laughter.
“What you laffin’ at?” said the frog as he sprang into view from behind an old up-turned bucket. Then he remembered that he was on guard and said: “Halt! Who goes dere? Friend or Foe?”
Pidge and Brigit were astounded and delighted and they stared at the frog in happy disbelief.
“You can’t talk,” Brigit ventured after awhile, her eyes wide and her voice full of doubt and hope at the same time.
“You hear me awright,” the frog said accusingly.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan

“Is it a sort of quest?”
“Yes.”
Pidge had once read a story to Brigit about a quest. She looked stern.
“I’m not slaying no dragons or anything like that,” she declared.
“Any,” Pidge said. “I’m not slaying any dragons.”
“Neither am I!” She nodded solemnly.
“There never was any dragons to be slayed in this,” the old angler said, smiling at Brigit, “unless all things graceless are dragons. It’s more seeking than slaying.”
― Pat O'Shea, The Hounds of the Mórrígan