shouting and laughing and there were spouts of water all around me.
And I thought that I was coming home, but I was not on the right path
and couldn't find it and went wandering about, but at last one of
them said, "Good-evening, Kelleher," and they went away, and then in
a moment I saw where I was by the stile. They were very small, like
little boys and girls, and had red caps.
I always saw them like that, but they were bigger at the butt of the
river; they go along the course of the rivers. Another time they came
about me playing music and I didn't know where I was going, and at
last one of them said the same way, "Good evening, Kelleher," and I
knew that I was at the gate of the College; it is the sweetest music
and the best that can be heard, like melodeons and fifes and whistles
and every sort.
_Mrs. Kelleher says_: I often hear that music too, I hear them
playing drums.
_K._: We had one of them in the house for a while, it was when I
was living up at Ticnock, and it was just after I married that
woman there that was a nice slip of a girl at that time. It was in
the winter and there was snow on the ground, and I saw one of them
outside, and I brought him in and put him on the dresser, and he
stopped in the house for a while, for about a week.
_Mrs. K._: It was more than that, it was two or three weeks.
_K._: Ah! maybe it was--I'm not sure. He was about fifteen inches high.
He was very friendly. It is likely he slept on the dresser at night.
When the boys at the public-house were full of porter, they used to
come to the house to look at him, and they would laugh to see him but
I never let them hurt him. They said I would be made up, that he would
bring me some riches, but I never got them. We had a cage here, I wish
I had put him in it, I might have kept him till I was made up.
_Mrs. K._: It was a cage we had for a thrush. We thought of putting
him into it, but he would not have been able to stand in it.
_K._: I'm sorry I didn't keep him--I thought sometimes to bring him
into Dublin to sell him.
_Mrs. K._: You wouldn't have got him there.
_K._: One day I saw another of the kind not far from the house, but
more like a girl and the clothes greyer than his clothes, that were
red. And that evening when I was sitting beside the fire with the
Missus I told her about it, and the little lad that was sitting on
the dresser called out, "That's Geoffrey-a-wee that's coming for
me," and he jumped down and went out of the door and I never saw him
again. I thought it was a girl I saw, but Geoffrey wouldn't be the
name of a girl, would it?
He had never spoken before that time. Somehow I think that he liked
me better than the Missus. I used to feed him with bread and milk.
_Mrs. K._: I was afraid of him--I was afraid to go near him, I
thought he might scratch my eyes out--I used to leave bread and milk
for him but I would go away while he was eating it.
_K._: I used to feed him with a spoon, I would put the spoon to his
mouth.
_Mrs. K._: He was fresh-looking at the first, but after a while he
got an old look, a sort of wrinkled look.
_K._: He was fresh-looking enough, he had a hardy look.
_Mrs. K._: He was wearing a red cap and a little red cloth skirt.
_K._: Just for the world like a Highlander.
_Mrs. K._: He had a little short coat above that; it was checked and
trousers under the skirt and long stockings all red. And as to his
shoes, they were tanned, and you could hardly see the soles of them,
the sole of his foot was like a baby's.
_K._: The time I lost my sight, it was a Thursday evening, and I was
walking through the fields. I went to bed that night, and when I rose
up in the morning, the sight was gone. The boys said it was likely I
had walked on one of their paths. Those small little paths you see
through the fields are made by _them_.
They are very often in the quarries; they have great fun up there,
and about Peacock Well. The Peacock Well was blessed by a saint, and
another well near, that cures the headache.
I saw one time a big grey bird about the cow-house, and I went to a
comrade-boy and asked him to come and to help me to catch it, but
when we came back it was gone. It was very strange-looking and I
thought that it had a head like a man.
_Old Manning:_
I never saw them except what I told you, the dog fighting, and I
heard the horses, and at that same time I saw smoke coming out of
the ground near Foley's house at Corker, by the gate.
My mother lived for twenty years in Coole, and she often told me that
when she'd pass Shanwalla hill there would people come out and meet
her and--with respects to you--they'd spit in her face.
Faeries of course there are and there's many poor souls doing their
penance, and how do we know where they may be doing it?
_A Farmer:_
I might not believe myself there are such things but for what
happened not long after I was married when my first little girl
was but a week old. I had gone up to Ballybrit to tie some sheep
and put fetters on them, and I was waiting for Haverty to come and
help me tie them. The baby was a little unwell that day but I was
not uneasy about her. But while I was waiting for Haverty, a blast
of wind came through the field and I heard a voice say quite clear
out of it "Katie is gone." That was the little one, we had called
her Catherine, but though she wasn't a week in the world, we had it
shortened already to Kate. And sure enough, the child got worse, and
we attended her through the night, and before daybreak she was gone.
_An Army Man:_
Two nights ago a travelling man came and knocked at John Hanlon's
house at 11 o'clock, where he saw a light in the window and he asked
would there be any one out hurling so late as that. For in coming by
the field beyond the chapel he saw it full of people, some on horses,
and hurling going on, and they were all dressed like soldiers, and
you would hear their swords clinking as they ran. And he was not sure
were they faeries till he asked John Hanlon was it the custom of
people in this country to go hurling so late as that. But that was
always a great field for them. From eleven to two, that is the time
they have for play, but they must go away before the cock crows. And
the cock will crow sometimes as early as 1 o'clock, a right one.
* * * * *
It was in the night that Christ our Saviour rose there were some Jews
sitting around the fire, and a cock boiling in the pot. And one of
them said, "He'll never rise again until that cock crows." And the
cock rose out of the pot and crowed, and he that was speaking got
scalded with the water that was splashed about.
_A Connemara Man:_
One night I was sleeping over there by the dresser and I heard them
("Would you say the day of the week," _says the old woman_. "It's
Thursday," said I. "Thank you," _says the old man, and goes on_)--I
heard them thick all about the house--but what they were saying I
couldn't know.
_The Old Woman:_
It was my uncle that was away at nights and knew the time his horse
fell in the ditch, and he out at sea. And another day he was working
at the bridge and he said, "Before this day is over, a man will be
killed here." And so it happened, and a man was killed there before
12 o'clock. He was in here one day with me, and I said, "I don't give
in to you being away and such things." And he says: "Um, Um, Um,"
three times, and then he says, "May your own living be long." We had
a horse, the grandest from this to Galway, had a foal when in this
place--and before long, both horse and foal died. And I often can
hear them galloping round the house, both horse and foal. And I not
the only one, but many in the village even hear them too.
_Young Mrs. Phelan:_
Often I saw a light in the wood at Derreen, above Ballyturn. It would
rise high over the trees going round and round. I'd see it maybe for
fifteen minutes at a time, and then it would fall like a lamp.
* * * * *
In the month of May is their chief time for changing, and it's then
there's blowing away of hay and such things and great disturbance.
_A Mayo Man:_
One time I was led astray in a town, in Golden Hill in Staffordshire. I
was in the streets and I didn't know what way to turn all of a sudden,
and every street looked like a wood before me, and so I went on until
I met some man I knew, and I asked him where I was, and I went in, and
stayed drinking with the others till 10 o'clock and I went home sober.
I saw the white rabbit too at Golden Hill. (_One of the other men
puts in_, "There is always a white rabbit seen there, that turns into
a woman before any misfortune happens, such as an accident.") I was
walking along the road, and it ran beside me, and then I saw a woman in
white before me on the road, and when I got to her, she was gone. And
that evening a woman in a house near by fell dead on her own doorstep.
Another time near this, I was passing the barn where Johnny Rafferty
the carpenter and his son used to be working, but it was shut and
locked and no one in it. But when I came near it, I felt as if I was
walking on wood, and my hair stood up on my head, and I heard the
noise of tools, and hammering and sawing in it.
_Pete Heffernan:_
Old Doran told me that he was near Castle Hacket one time and saw
them having a fair, buying and selling for all the world like
ourselves, common people. But you or I or fifty others might have
been there like him and not seen them. It's only them that are born
at midnight that has the second sight.
Fallen angels, they say they are. And they'd do more harm than what
they do but for the hope they have that some day they may get to
heaven. Very small they are, and go into one another so that what you
see might only be a sort of a little bundle. But to leave a couple of
cold potatoes about at night one should always do it, and to sweep
the hearth clean. Who knows when they might want to come in and warm
themselves.
Not to keep the water you wash your feet in in the house at night,
not to throw it out of the door where it might go over them, but to
take it a bit away from the house, and if by any means you can, to
keep a bit of light burning at night, if you mind these three things
you'll never be troubled with them.
That woman of mine was going to Mass one day early and she met a small
little man, and him with a book in his hand. "Where are you going?"
says he. "To the chapel beyond," says she. "Well," says he, "you'd
better take care not to be coming out at this hour and disturbing
people," says he. And when she got into the chapel she saw him no more.
_An Old Woman with Oysters from Tyrone:_
Oh, I wouldn't believe in the faeries, but it's no harm to believe in
fallen angels!
_Mrs. Day:_
My own sons are all for education and read all books and they
wouldn't believe now in the stories the old people used to tell. But
I know one Finnegan and his wife that went to Esserkelly churchyard
to cry over her brother that was dead. And all of a sudden there
came a pelt of a stone against the wall of the old church and no one
there. And they never went again, and they had no business to be
crying him and it not a funeral.
Francis, my son that's away now, he was out one morning before the
daybreak to look at a white heifer in the field. And there he saw a
little old woman, and she in a red cloak--crying, crying, crying. But
he wouldn't have seen that if he had kept to natural hours.
There were three girls near your place, and they went out one time
to gather cow-dung for firing. And they were sitting beside a small
little hill, and while they were there, they heard a noise of churning,
churning, in the ground beneath them. And as they listened, all of a
minute, there was a naggin of milk standing beside them. And the girl
that saw it first said, "I'll not drink of it lest they might get power
over me." But the other girl said, "I'll bring it home and drink it."
And she began to ridicule them. And because of she ridiculing them and
not believing in them, that night in bed she was severely beaten so
that she wasn't the better of it for a long time.
* * * * *
Often they'll upset a cart in the middle of the road, when there's no
stone nor anything to upset it. And my father told me that sometimes
after he had made the hay up into cocks, and on a day without a
breath of wind, they'd find it all in the next field lying in wisps.
One time too the cart he was driving went over a leprechaun--and the
old woman in the cart had like to faint.
_Mr. Hosty of Slieve Echtge:_
I never would have believed the shadow of a soul could have power,
till that hurling match I saw that I told you about.
* * * * *
It was in the old time it happened, that there was war in heaven. He
that was called the brightest of the angels raised himself up against
God. And when they were all to be thrown out, St. Michael spoke up
for them for he saw that when the heavens were weeded out they'd be
left without company. So they were stopped in the falling, in the air
and in the earth and in the sea. And they are about us sure enough,
and whenever they'll be saved I don't know, but it is not for us to
say what God will do in the end.
I often heard that our winter is their summer--sure they must have
some time for setting their potatoes and their oats. But I remember a
very old man used to say when he saw the potatoes black, that it was
to them they were gone. "Sure" he used to say, "the other world must
have its way of living as well as ourselves."
_Mrs. Casey:_
Dolan I was talking to the other day, and I asked him if faeries used
not to be there. And he said, "They're in it yet. There where you're
standing, they were singing and dancing a few nights ago. And the
same evening I saw two women down by the lake, and I thought it was
the ladies from the house gone out for a walk, but when I came near,
it was two strange women I saw, sitting there by the lake, and their
wings came, and they vanished into the air."
_John Phelan:_
I was cutting trees in Inchy one time. And at 8 o'clock one morning
when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts with her hair hanging
down over her shoulders, brown hair, and she had a good clean face
and was tall and nothing on her head, and her dress was no way gaudy,
but simple. And when she felt me coming, she gathered herself up and
was gone as if the earth had swallowed her up. And I followed her
and looked for her, but I never could see her again from that day to
this, never again.
_Mary Shannon:_
There was a herd's house near Loughrea that had a bad name; and a
strange woman came in one time and told the woman of the house that
she must never throw dirty water out of the back-door. "For," said
she, "if you had clean linen hanging there on a line before the fire,
how would you like any one to come in and to throw dirty water over
it?" And she bid her leave food always on the dresser. "For," said
she, "wherever you leave it we'll be able to find it." And she told
how they often went into Loughrea to buy things, and provisions,
and would look like any other person, and never be known, for they
can make themselves visible or invisible as they like. You might
be talking to one of them and never know she was different from
another. At our place there used to be a good many of these people
about, these Ingentry women or women from the North we sometimes call
them. There was one came into the house one day and told my mother
she didn't get all her butter in the milk. And she told her the
servant-girl was stealing and hiding some of it, for in these days
servants were cheap and we kept a couple; you'd get them for about
five shillings a quarter. And my mother went to look, and then she
went out of the house, and went off in a minute in a blast. And the
husband that was coming into the house, he never saw her at all, and
she going out of the door.
Sunset is a bad hour, and just before sunrise in the morning, and
about 12 o'clock in the day, it's best not to be too busy or going
about too much.
_An Aran Man:_
Sometimes they travel like a cloud, or like a storm. One day I was
setting out the manure in my own garden and they came and rolled it
in a heap and tossed it over the wall, and carried it out to sea
beyond the lighthouse.
_Mr. Finnerty:_
People say two days of the week, they name two days. Some say Thursday,
and some say whatever day it is, and the day before it, and then they
can't be heard. In the village beyond, there were a good many people in
a house one night, and lights in it, and talking, and of a sudden some
one opened the door--and there outside and round the house _they_ were
listening to them--and when the door was open they were all seen, and
made off as thick as crows to the forth near the Burren hills.
* * * * *
There was one Ward was walking one night near Castle Taylor, and in
that big field that's near the corner where Burke was murdered he saw
a big fire, and a lot of people round about it, and among them was a
girl he used to know that had died.
* * * * *
Last week in that field beyond there, the hay was all taken up, and
turned into the next field in wisps.
* * * * *
You must put the potatoes out for them before they are put on the
table, for they would not touch them if they had been touched by
common persons.
* * * * *
And I saw Horan that had the orchard here bought run to our house in
the middle of the night naked with nothing on but his trousers, where
he was after being beat out of the house in the kitchen garden.
Every night when he was going to bed there did a knocking come in the
loft over his head, but he gave no attention to it. But a great storm
came and a great lot of the apples was blown down and he gathered
them up and filled the loft with them, thinking when he showed them
to get compensation. And that is the night he was beat out of bed.
And John Phelan knows well what things used to be in that house.
_John Creevy:_
My father? Yes indeed he saw many things, and I tell you a thing he
told me, and there's no doubt in the earthly world about it. It was
when they lived at Inchy they came over here one time for to settle
a marriage for Murty Delvin's aunt. And when they had the business
settled, they were going home again at dead of night. And a man was
after getting married that day, one Delane from beyond Kilmacduagh,
and the drag was after passing the road with him and his party going
home. And all of a minute the road was filled with men on horses
riding along, so that my father had to take shelter in Delane's
big haggard by the roadside. And he heard the horsemen calling on
Delane's name. And twenty-one days after, Delane lay dead.
There's no doubt at all about the truth of that, and they were no
riders belonging to this world that were on those horses.
_Thomas Brown:_
There was a woman walking in the road that had a young child at home,
and she met a very old man, having a baby in his arms. And he asked
would she give it a drop of breast-milk. So she did, and gave it a
drink. And the old man said: "It's well for you that you did that, for
you saved your cow by it. But tomorrow look over the wall into the
fields of the rich man that lives beyond the boundary, and you'll see
that one of his was taken in the place of yours." And so it happened.
In the old times there used to be many stories of such things, half
the world seemed to be on the _other side_.
I used not to believe in them myself, until one night I heard them
hurling. I was coming home from town with Jamsie Flann; we were not
drunk but we were hearty. Coming along the road beyond we heard them
hurling in the field beside us. We could see nothing but we'd hear
them hit the ball, and it fly past us like the lightning, so quick,
and when they hit the goal, we heard a moan--"Oh! ah!"--that was
all. But after we went a little way we sat down by a little hill to
rest, and there we heard a thousand voices talking. What they said,
we couldn't understand, or the language, but we knew that it was one
side triumphing over the other.
* * * * *
But the nights are queer--surely they are queer by sea or by land.
There was a friend of mine told me he was out visiting one night,
and coming home across the fields he came into a great crowd of them.
They did him no harm, and among them he saw a great many he knew,
that were dead, five or six out of our own village. And he was in his
bed for two months after that, and he told the priest of it. He said
he couldn't understand the talk, it was like the hissing of geese,
and there was one very big man, that seemed the master of them, and
his talk was like you'll hear in a barrel when it's being rolled.
There's a hill, Cruach-na-Sheogue down by the sea, and many have seen
them there dancing in the moonlight.
There was a man told me he was passing near it one night, and the
walls on each side of the road were all covered with people sitting
on them, and he walked between, and they said nothing to him. And he
knew many among them that were dead before that. Is it only the young
go there? Ah, how do we know what use they may have for the old as
well as for the young?
There are but few in these days that die right. The priests know
about this more than we do, but they don't like to be talking of
_them_ because they might be too big in our minds.
* * * * *
They are just the same in America as they are here, and my sister
that came home told me they were, and the women that do cures, just
like the woman at Clifden, or that woman you know of.
There was one she went to out there, and when you'd come in to ask a
cure she'd be lulled into a sleep, and when she woke she'd give the
cure. _Away_ she was while the sleep lasted.
_The Spinning Woman:_
No, I never seen them myself, and I born and bred in the same village
as Michael Barrett. But the old woman that lives with me, she does
be telling me that before she came to this part she was going home
one night, where she was tending a girl that was sick, and she had to
cross a hill forth. And when she came to it, she saw a man on a white
horse, and he got to the house before her, and the horse stopped at
the back-door. And when she got there and went in, sure enough the
girl was gone.
I never saw anything myself, but one night I was passing the boreen
near Kinvara, and a tall man with a tall hat and a long coat came out
of it. He didn't follow me, but he looked at me for a while, and then
he went away.
* * * * *
And one time I saw the leprechaun. It's when I was a young woman,
and there was black frieze wanting at Ballylee, and in those days
they all thought there could no black frieze be spun without sending
for me. So I was coming home late in the evening, and there I saw
him sitting by the side of the road, in a hollow between two ridges.
He was very small, about the height of my knee, and wearing a red
jacket, and he went out of that so soon as he saw me. I knew nothing
about him at that time. The boys say if I'd got a hold of his purse
I'd be rich for ever. And they say he should have been making boots;
but he was more in dread of me than I of him, and had his instruments
gathered up and away with him in one second.
* * * * *
There used to be a lot of things seen, but someway the young people
go abroad less at night, and I'm thinking the souls of some of
_those_ may be delivered by this time.
* * * * *
There was a boy looked out of the door, and he saw a woman milking
the cow. But after, when he went to milk her, he found as much milk
as ever there was.
_Mrs. Phelan:_
There was a woman at Kilbecanty was out one evening and she saw a
woman dressed in white come after her, and when she looked again she
had disappeared into a hole in the wall. Small she must have grown
to get into that. And for eleven days after that, she saw the same
appearance, and after eleven days she died.
* * * * *
There was another woman lived at Kilbecanty, just beside the
churchyard, you can see the house yet. And one day she found a plate
of food put in at the door, the best of food, meat and other things.
So she eat it and the next day the same thing happened. And she told
a neighbouring woman about it, and she left her door open, and a
plate of food was left in to her that night. But when she saw it she
was afraid to eat it, but took it and threw it out. And the next day
she died. But the woman that eat the food, nothing happened to her.
* * * * *
There was one Halloran took that farm on the road beyond one time,
but he locked the house up, not meaning to go and live in it yet a
while, and he kept the key in his pocket. But one night late he was
coming by and he saw a light in the window and looked in, and he saw
a woman sitting by a fire she was after lighting. So he ran away and
never went to live in the house after.
One night myself coming back from Kelly's I saw a man by the side of
the road, and I knew him to be one Cuniff that had died a year before.
There were two men stealing apples in a garden, and when they tried
to get out there was a soldier at the door with a sword in his hand.
And at the door there he was still before them; so they had to leave
the two bags of apples behind.
_W. Sullivan:_