The King tried all the things that Naggeneen had told him to do, to make his people learn all the wonderful magic that the human people knew so well. Naggeneen had told him at first that it would all be of no use, and so the King found it. The fairies were sent out to watch the men, to see all that they did, and to learn how to do it. It was all in vain.
The King often asked Naggeneen what was the one other way that he had said they might try. Naggeneen would never tell. When the time came to try it, he said, he would tell what it was, but it would be of no more use than the rest that they had done. Naggeneen laughed at all the others when they came home baffled and out of sorts. "You'll never do the things that men do," he said, "any more than they'll ever do the things that you do. And their wonders are more and better than yours."
After a time they ceased to try to learn any more. They began to live much as they had lived in Ireland. They had found a green place where they could dance, near the palace, but it was winter now, and the snow was over everything much of the time. They went to the O'Briens every day for the food that was left outside the window for them, and, for the most part, they spent the rest of the time in the palace. Often Naggeneen played the fiddle or the pipes for them. Then they forgot that it was his fault that they had ever come here, but when he stopped playing they remembered it and hated him again. And Naggeneen laughed at them. He had a strange laugh, without a bit of merriment or good-humor in it. There was something sad in his laugh and something sour, but nothing that it was pleasant to hear.
Then the spring began to come. The grass was looking a bit green and the air was warmer. They could dance on the grass now, whenever they liked. They had given up trying to learn the ways of men, and they were beginning to feel as if they had always lived here. Then Naggeneen came one evening and stood before the King and said: "It is the time now to try my plan, if you want to try it, but it's no good."
"What's the plan, then, at all?" the King asked.
"You know well," said Naggeneen, "that your people can find out nothing by going out and watching what men do. Now, what you want is to get a human child here, or maybe two of them, and keep them and let them grow up with you here, and then send them out to learn everything that men do, and come back and teach it to your people. Then you'll learn all these things that men do, and you can do the like."