said: "Is it music I hear, or is it the squealing of pigs?" And they
all said they could hear nothing. But I could hear it for a long time,
and it the grandest I ever heard--and like a melodeon. And as to the
tune, I couldn't tell what it was but I know that I had heard it before.
_A Kerry Piper:_
One time in Kerry there was a coach coming after me and it passed
beside me, and I saw with it Mrs. Mitchell from the big house. And when
it came near the bridge it sank into the earth, and I saw no more of it.
* * * * *
And one time I was at Ennistymon I saw the ass-car and the woman and
the man out before me. I had a little ass of my own at that time,
and I followed them thinking to overtake them, but when I was in the
hollow they were on the hill, and when I was on the hill they were
in the hollow. And when they got near to the bridge that is over the
big river, they were not to be seen. For they can never cross over a
mering (boundary) that is a river.
_J. Fagan:_
One time I was at a party and I didn't leave the house till 2 o'clock
so you may think it was late in the night before I got home. And
after a while I looked back and I saw some one coming after me, a
little old woman about so high (3 feet) and she wearing a white cap
with a frilled border, and a red square and a red flannel petticoat.
I set off to run when I saw her, for at that time I had the run of
a hare, but when I got near home I looked back and she was after me
still. When I got inside the door I fell on my two knees. And it was
seven years before I got the better of that fright. And from that
time to this I never got the run again that I used to have.
* * * * *
There was a respectable woman, Mrs. Gaynor, living in Cloon, told me
that whenever she went out of Cloon in the direction of Fiddane in one
part of the road there was a woman sometimes met her, that she saw at
no other time, and every time she'd meet her she'd spit in her face.
There is a family at Tirneevan and they were having a wedding there.
And when it was going on, the wine ran short, and the spirits ran
out and they didn't know what to do to get more, Gort being two
miles away. And two or three strange people came in that they had
never seen before. And when they found what was wanting they said
that they'd go get it. And in a few minutes they were back with the
spirits and the wine--and no place to get it nearer than Gort.
* * * * *
There was a herd's house up at Burren that no one could live in. But
one Holland from Tirneevan said he'd take the place, and try how
would he get on there. So he went with his family, and the first
day the daughter made the place clean and swept it, and then she
went out for a can of milk. And when she was coming in the door, it
was knocked out of her hand and spilled over her. And that evening
when they sat down to their supper the door opened and eight or nine
people came in, and a red man among them. And they sat down and ate.
And then they showed Holland one side of the room, and bid him to
keep it always clean, and spring water in it.
_A Herd:_
There was a man woke about three o'clock one morning and he bade the
servant girl go down and make the fire and put on the potatoes, where
he had to be going out early. So she went down and there she saw one
of _them_ sitting by the hearth in the kitchen. So she ran upstairs
with the fright she got to where the man was in bed with his wife. So
then he went down himself, and he saw one of them sure enough sitting
by the fire and he asked "How did you come in?" And he said, "By the
lock-hole of the door." And the man said, "There's the pot full of
potatoes and you might as well have used a few of them." And he said,
"We have them used already; and you think now they are potatoes, but
when you put the pot down on the fire you'll see they are no more
than horse dung."
_Thomas Cloonan:_
One night my father was beyond on the other side of the lake, going
to watch an otter where the water goes away underground. And he heard
voices talking, and he thought one was the voice of Father Nagle
the parish priest of Kilbecanty, and the other the voice of Father
Hynes from Cloon that does be late out fishing for eels. And when he
came to where the voices were, there was no one at all in it. And
he went and sat in the cave, where the water goes under, and there
was a great noise like as if planks were being thrown down overhead.
And you may think how frightened he was when he never took off his
boots to cross the river, but run through it just as he was and never
stopped till he got to the house.
_Mrs. Cloonan:_
Two men I saw one time over in Inchy. I was sitting milking the cow
and she let a snore and I looked up and I saw the two men, small men,
and their hands and their feet the smallest ever I saw, and hats
turned back on their heads, but I did not see their faces. Then the
cow rose her foot, and I thought, "it will be worse for me if she'll
put her foot down on me," and I looked at her, and when I looked up
again they were gone. Mrs. Stafford told me it was not for me they
came, but for the cow, Blackberry, that died soon after.
* * * * *
There was a man in Gort was brought for a while to Tir-na-Og, that is
a part of heaven.
* * * * *
McGarrity that was coming back one night to the new house beyond
the lake saw two children, two little girls they were, standing
beside the house. Paddy told me that, and he said they came there to
foretell him he was stopping there too late.
_John Phelan:_
I never saw them nor felt them all my life, and I walking the place
night and day, except one time when for twelve nights I slept in the
little house beyond, in the kitchen garden where the apples were being
robbed that time because there was no one living at home. In the
night-time in the loft above my head I used to hear a scratching and
a scraping, and one time a plank that was above in it began to move
about. But I had no fear but stopped there, but I did not put off my
clothes nor stretch myself on the bed for twelve nights. They say that
one man that slept in the same house was found in the morning choked in
his bed and the door locked that they had to burst it in.
And in old Richard Gregory's time there was one Horan slept there,
and one night he ran out of it and out of the Gort gate and got no
leave to put his clothes on. But there's some can see those things
and more that can't, and I'm one of those that can't. Walking Coole
demesne I am these forty years, days and nights, and never met
anything worse than myself.
But one night standing by the vinery and the moon shining, on a
sudden a wind rose and shook the trees and rattled the glass and the
slates, and no wind before, and it stopped as sudden as it came. And
there were two bunches of grapes gone, and them that took them took
them by the chimney and no other way.
_James Hill:_
One night since I lived here I found late at night that a black jennet
I had at that time had strayed away. So I took a lantern and went to
look for him, and found him near Doherty's house at the bay. And when
I took him by the halter, I put the light out and led him home. But
surely as I walked there was a footstep behind me all the way home.
I never rightly believed in them till I met a priest about two years
ago coming out from the town that asked his way to Mrs. Canan's,
the time she was given over, and he told me that one time his horse
stopped and wouldn't pass the road, and the man that was driving
said, "I can't make him pass." And the priest said, "It will be the
worse for you, if I have to come down into the road." For he knew
some bad thing was there. And he told me the air is full of them. But
Father Dolan wouldn't talk of such things, very proud he is, and he
coming of no great stock.
* * * * *
One night I was driving outside Coole gate--close to where the
Ballinamantane farm begins. And the mare stopped, and I got off the
car to lead her, but she wouldn't go on. Two or three times I made
her start and she'd stop again. Something she must have seen that I
didn't see.
Beasts will sometimes see more than a man will. There were three
young chaps I knew went up by the river to hunt coneens one evening,
and they threw the dog over the wall. And when he was in the field he
gave a yelp and drew back as if something frightened him.
* * * * *
Another time my father was going early to some place, and my mother
had a noggin of turnips boiled for him the night before, to give him
something to eat before he'd start. So they got up very early and she
lighted the fire and put the oven hanging over it for to warm the
turnips, and then she went back to bed again. And my father was in a
hurry and he went out and brought in a sheaf of wheaten straw to put
under the oven, the way it would make a quick blaze. And when he came
in, the oven had been taken off the hook, and was put standing in the
hearth, and no mortal had been there. So he was afraid to stop, and
he went back to the bed, and till daybreak they could hear something
that was knocking against the pot. And the servant girl that was in
the house, she awoke and heard quick steps walking to the stable, and
the door of it giving a screech as if it was being opened. But in the
morning there was no sign there or of any harm being done to the pot.
Then the girl remembered that she had washed her feet the night
before, and had never thought to throw out the water. And it's well
known to wash the feet and not to throw the water out, brings some
harm--except you throw fire into the vessel it stands in.
_Simon Niland:_
Late one night I was out walking, and a gun in my hand, and I was
going down a little avenue of stones, and I heard after me the noise
of a horse's steps. So I stopped and sat down on the stile, for I
thought, the man that's with the horse, I'll have his company a bit
of the way. But the noise got louder like as if it was twenty horses
coming, and then I was knocked down, and I put out my foot to save
the gun from being broken. But when I got up there was no hurt on me
or on the gun, and the noise was all gone, and the place quiet. It
was maybe four year after that or six, I was walking the same path
with the priest and a few others, for a whale had come ashore, and
the jaw-bones of it were wanted to make the piers of a gate. And the
priest said to me, "Did you ever hear of the battle of Troy?" "I
didn't hear but I read about it," says I. "Well," says he, "there was
a man at that time called Simon, and they found that whenever he came
out with them to fight there was luck with them, and when he wasn't
with them, there'd be no luck. And that's why we put you in front of
us, to lead us on the path, you having the same name." So that put
it in my head, and I told him about what happened that night, and I
said, "Now would you believe that?" "I would," says he. "And what are
such things done by?" says I. "The fallen angels," he said, "for they
have power to do such things and to raise wind and storm, but yet
they have the hope of salvation at the last."
* * * * *
One clear night and the moon shining, I was walking home down this
road, and I had a strong dog at that time. And just here where you
stand he began to bark at something and he made rushes at it, and
made as if he was worrying it, but I could see nothing, though if it
had been even the size of a rat I must have seen it, the night was
so clear. And I had to leave him at last and heard him barking and I
was at the house-door before he came up with me.
* * * * *
I know a good many on the island have seen _those_, but they wouldn't
say what they are like to look at, for when they see them their
tongue gets like a stone.
_Mrs. Hynes of Slieve Echtge:_
When you see a blast of wind pass, pick a green rush and throw it
after them, and say, "God speed you." There they all are, and maybe
the _stroke lad_ at the end of them.
* * * * *
There was a neighbour of mine in late with me one night, and when he
was going home, just as he passed that little road you see, a big
man came over the wall in front of him, and was growing bigger as he
went, till he nearly fainted with the fright he got.
* * * * *
They can do everything. They can raise the wind, and draw the storm.
And to Drogheda they go for wine, for the best wine is in the cellars
there.
_An Islander:_
One night I and another lad were coming along the road, and the dog
began to fight, as if he was fighting another dog, but we could see
nothing and we called him off but he wouldn't come. And when we got
home he answered us, and he seemed as if tired out.
* * * * *
There was a strange woman came to this island one day and told some
of the women down below what would happen to them. And they didn't
believe her, she being a stranger, but since that time, it's all been
coming true.
_Mrs. Casey:_
I knew a woman that every night after she went to bed used to see
some sort of a shadow that used to appear to her. So she went to some
old woman, and she told her to sprinkle holy water about and to put a
blackthorn stick beside her bed. So she got the stick and put it there
and sprinkled the holy water, and it never appeared since then. Three
sorts of holy water she got, from the priest and from the friars and
from some blessed well. And she has them in three pint bottles in the
window, and she'd kill you if you so much as looked at them.
_A Fisherman:_
I never saw anything myself, but one day I was going over the fields
near Killeen, and it the quietest day of summer you ever saw. And
all of a sudden I heard a great noise like thunder, and a blast of
wind passed by me that laid the thistles low, and then all was quiet
again. It might be that they were changing, for they change from
place to place.
I would not give in to faeries myself but for one thing. There was a
little boy of my own, and there was a wedding going to be here, and
there was no bread in the house, and none to be had in Kilcolgan, and
I bade him to go to Kinvara for bread. I pulled out the ass-car for
him and he set out.
And from that time he was never the same, and now he is in the asylum
at Ballinasloe.
Did he tell what happened? He never told me anything, but he told a
neighbour that he met awful looking people on the road to Kinvara
just about midnight, and that whatever they did to him, he could
never recover it.
_A Carter:_
Often and often I heard things. A great shouting I heard one night
inside Coole demesne,--a hurling it must have been. Another time I
was passing at night-time, near Reed the weaver's, and there were
rocks thrown at me all along the road, but they did not touch me, and
I could not see any one thing there. But I never went that road again
at night-time.
It's said those that die are left in the place where they lived to
do their penance. Often and often when I came to that house below, I
felt knocks under the bed, and like some one walking over it.
Two men I know were going from Gort one night, and there near the
wall of the demesne they saw two men ploughing, and they asked one
another what could they be to be ploughing by night. And then they
saw that as they ploughed, the land was going away from them, and
they were gone themselves, and they saw them no more.
_An Old Woman who was Housekeeper to the Donnellans:_
I'll tell you how the fortune of the family began.
It was Tully O'Donnellan was riding home from Ballinasloe, or some
other place, and it was raining, and he came to a river that was in
flood, and there used to be no bridges in those times. And when he
was going to ride through the river, he saw the _greasa_ leprechaun
on the bank, and he offered him a lift, and he stooped down and
lifted him up behind him on the horse.
And when he got near where the castle was, he saw it in flames before
him. And the leprechaun said, "Don't fret after it but build a new
castle in the place I'll show you, about a stone's throw from the
old one." "I have no money to do that," said Tully Donnellan. "Never
mind that," said the leprechaun, "but do as I bid you, and you'll
have plenty." So he did as he bade him, and the morning after he went
to live in the new castle, when he went into that room that has the
stone with his name on it now, it was full up of gold, and you could
be turning it like you'd turn potatoes into a shovel. And when the
children would go into the room with their father and mother, the
nurses would put bits of wax on their shoes, the way bits of the gold
would stick to them. And they had great riches and smothered the world
with it, and they used to shoe their horses with silver. It was in
racing they ran through it, and keeping hounds and horses and horns.
_Old Pegs Kelly:_
I seen the Sheogue but once, and that was five or six years ago, and
I walking the railway where I was looking after my little hens that
do be straying. And I saw them coming along, and in a minute I was in
the middle of them. Shavings, and shavings, and shavings going along
the road as fast as they could go. And I knew there was no shavings
to be seen this many year, since the stakes were made for the railway
down at Nolan's, and the carpenter that made them dead, and the shop
where he made them picked clean. And I knew well they were the horses
the Sheogue did be riding. But some that saw them said they looked
like bits of paper. And I threw three stones after them and I heard
them cry out as they went. And that night the roof was swept off Tom
Dermot's house in Ryanrush and haystacks blown down. And John Brady's
daughter that was daft those many years was taken, and Tom Horan's
little girl that was picking potatoes, she and her brothers together.
She turned black all of a minute and three days after, she was dead.
That's the only time I seen them, and that I never may again, for
believe me that time I had my enough, thinking as I did that I hadn't
more than three minutes to live.
_A Herd's Wife:_
Martin's new wife is a fine big woman, if she is lucky. But it's not a
lucky house. That's what happened the last wife that lost her baby and
died. William Martin knows well _they_ are in it, but he is a dark man
and would say nothing. I saw them myself about the house one time, and
I met one on the forth going through the fields; he had the appearance
of a man in his clothes. And sometimes when I look over at Martin's
house there is a very dark look like a dark cloud over it and around it.
_The other Army Man:_
The faeries are all fallen angels. Father Folan told us from the
altar that they're as thick as the sands of the sea all about us,
and they tempt poor mortals. But as for carrying away women and the
like, there's many that says so, but they have no proof. But you have
only to bid them begone and they will go. One night myself I was
after walking back from Kinvara, and down by the wood beyond I felt
one coming beside me, and I could feel the horse that he was riding
on and the way that he lifted his legs, but they didn't make a sound
like the hoofs of a horse. So I stopped and turned around and said
very loud "Be off!" And he went and never troubled me after. And I
knew a man that was dying, and one came up on his bed and he cried
out to it, "Get out of that, you unnatural animal!" And it left him.
There's a priest I heard of that was looking along the ground like as
if he was hunting for something, and a voice said to him "If you want
to see them you'll see enough of them," and his eyes were opened and
he saw the ground thick with them. Singing they do be sometimes and
dancing, but all the time they have the cloven foot.
Fallen angels they are, and after they fell God said, "Let there be
Hell, and there it was in a moment"--("God save us! It's a pity He said
that word and there might have been no Hell today" _murmurs the wife_).
And then He asked the devil what would he take for the souls of all the
people. And the devil said nothing would satisfy him but the blood of a
Virgin's Son. So he got that and then the gates of Hell were opened.
_The Wife:_
I never seen anything, although one night I was out after a cow till
2 o'clock in the morning and old Gantly told me he wondered at me to
be out in this place, by the wood near the white gate where he saw a
thing himself one night passing. But it's only them that's living in
mortal sin can see such things, that's so Thomas, whatever you may
say. But your ladyship's own place is middling free from them, but
Ratlin's full of them.
And there's many say they saw the banshee, and that if she heard you
singing loud, she'd be very apt to bring you away with her.
_A Piper:_
There was an old priest I knew--Father McManus--and when he would go
walking in the green lawn before the house, his man, Keary, would go
with him, and he carrying three sticks. And after a while the priest
would say, "_Cur do maide_"--Fire your stick--as far as you can, and
he would throw it. And he would say the same thing a second and a
third time, and after that he would say, "We have no more to protect
us now," and he would go in. And another priest I was talking to the
other day was telling me they are between earth and air and the grass
is full of them.
_Mrs. Casey:_
There was a boy I knew at Tyrone was a great card player. And one
night about 10 o'clock he was coming home from a party, and he had
the cards in his hands and he shuffling them as he went along. And
presently he saw a man before him on the road, and the man stopped
till he came up, and when he saw the cards, he says "Stop here and
I'll have a game with you," for the moon was shining bright. So the
boy sat down, and the stranger asked him had he any money, and he
said he had five shillings after the night's play. "Well," says the
man, "we'll play the first game for half-a-crown." So they sat down
and put out the money on a flagstone that was much like a table, and
they began to play, and the first game was won by the stranger. "Well
now," says he, "we'll have another." So the boy began to shuffle the
cards, but as he did, one card dropped on the ground, and he stooped
down for it, and when he did, he saw the man's feet that were partly
under the flagstone, and they were like the feet of a cow. So with
the fright he got, he jumped up and began to run and never stopped
till he got inside his house and had the door shut. And when he had
been sitting there a few minutes, a knock came to the door, and he
heard the voice of the stranger say, "It's well for you you ran away
when you did, or you'd be where I am now." And he heard no more; it
was the boy himself told me this.
I hear them in this house ever since the first night I came, in the
kitchen, when all are in bed. Footsteps, I wouldn't think so much of,
but scraping the potatoes, that's another thing.
* * * * *
A daughter I had that went to America died there, and the brother
that came back told me that he was with her, and she going, and
surely they all heard the jennet coming to the door, and when they
opened it, there was nothing there, and many people standing and
waiting about it. I knew a woman died beyond in Boher and left a
house full of children and the night she died there was a light seen
in the sick house.
* * * * *
To leave a few cold potatoes, the first of them, outside, you should
surely do it, and not to leave the house without spring water. I knew
a boy that was sleeping up in the loft of a house and one night they
had forgotten to leave water within in the kitchen. And about midnight
he awoke and he saw through a hole in the loft two women, and one of
them just after having a baby. And they said, "What way will we wash
the child, and no water here; we must take the pan of milk down from
the shelf." So the boy said out loud the way they'd hear him, "I must
go for spring water. I forgot to leave it below." So he went and got
it and left it there, and let on not to see them. And--for I forget
what time after that--there was no morning he put his clothes on but
he'd find a half-crown in his boot. To do you harm? No, but the best of
neighbours they are, if you don't chance to offend them.
_A Schoolmaster:_
In Donegal one night some of the people were at a still in the
mountains, and on a sudden they heard a shot fired, and they thought
it was a signal given to the police, and they made home to the
village. And all the night they could hear like the tramp of horses
and of police and the noise of cars passing by, but nothing could be
seen. And next day the police came in earnest, and searched about
the place where they had been at work at the still, but no one was
there and they found nothing. So they knew it was a warning they were
after being given.
_John Madden:_
One day old Fogarty of Clough was cutting rods in Coole with a
black-handled knife, and he put it in his pocket, and presently he
felt for it and it was gone. But when he went home and went into the
house, there was the knife lying on the table.
* * * * *
My wife's brother was on a cock of hay in that field beyond one time,
and he sat down to rest and he saw them hurling in red caps and blue,
and a crowd looking in at them. But he said nothing to the men that
were with him. They are mostly in forths and lonesome places.
_An old man, Kelleher, living in the Wicklow Mountains, told me and
W. B. Yeats and Miss Pollexfen:_