with that of the northern invaders who were afterwards a terror to
Ireland. And so it was of those unearthly tribes an old basket-maker
was thinking when he said, in telling of the defeat of the Irish
under James, "The Danes were dancing in the raths around Aughrim the
night after the battle. Their ancestors were driven out of Ireland
before, and they were glad when they saw those that had put them out
put out themselves, and everyone of them skivered."_
_Many of the stories I have gathered tell how those tribes still
protect their own; and even today, March 21, 1916, I have read in the
"Irish Times" that "a farmer who was summoned by a road contractor
for having failed to cut a portion of a hedge on the roadside, told
the magistrates at Granard Petty Sessions that he objected to cutting
the hedge as it grew in a fort or rath. He however had no objection
to the contractor's men cutting the hedge. The magistrates allowed
the case to stand till the next Court."_
_As to Knockmaa, or Cruachmaa, or, as it is called today, Castle Hacket
Hill, that overlooks Lough Corrib and the plain of Moytura, and that we
see as a blue cloud from our roads, it was in Saint Patrick's time the
habitation of Finnbarr a king among the Sidhe and his seventeen sons,
and it is to this day spoken of as "a very Sheoguey place."_
_It was in these enchanted hills that the ale of Goibniu the Smith
kept whoever tasted it from sickness and from death, and there is
some memory of this in a story told me by an old farmer. "There was
a man one time set out from Ireland to go to America or some place;
a common man looking for work he was. And something happened to the
ship on the way, and they had to put to land to mend it. And in the
country where they landed he saw a forth, and he went into it, and
there he saw the smallest people he ever saw, and they were the Danes
that went out of Ireland; and it was foxes they had for dogs, and
weasels were their cats._
_"Then he went back to get into the ship, but it was gone away, and he
left behind. So he went back into the forth, and a young man came to
meet him, and he told him what had happened. And the young man said
'Come into the room within where my father is in the bed, for he is
out of his health and you might be able to serve him.' So they went in
and the father was lying in the bed, and when he heard it was a man
from Ireland was in it he said, 'I will give you a great reward if you
will go back and bring me a thing I want out of Castle Hacket Hill.
For if I had what is there,' he said, 'I would be as young as my son.'
So the man consented to go, and they got a sailing ship ready, and it
is what the old man told him, to go back to Ireland. 'And buy a little
pig in Galway,' he said, 'and bring it to the mouth of the forth of
Castle Hacket and roast it there. And inside the forth is an enchanted
cat that is keeping guard there, and it will come out; and here is a
shot-gun and some cross-money that will kill any faery or any enchanted
thing. And within in the forth,' he said, 'you will find a bottle and a
rack-comb, and bring them back here to me.'_
_"So the man did as he was told and he bought the pig and roasted it
at the mouth of the forth, and out came the enchanted cat, and it
having hair seven inches long. And he fired the cross-money out of
the shot-gun, and the cat went away and he saw it no more. And he
got the bottle and the rack-comb and brought them back to the old
man. And he drank what was in the bottle and racked his hair with the
rack, and he got young again, as young as his own son."_
_It may be some of those faery treasures are still given out; for of
the family who have been for a good while owners of the hill, one at
least had the gift of genius. And I remember being told in childhood,
and I have never known if it were fact or folk-tale, that her mother
having as a bride gone to listen to some debate or royal speech in
the House of Lords at Westminster, the whole assembly had stood up in
homage to her beauty._
_I was told by a Miller:_
It was the Danes built these forths. They were a fair-haired race,
and they married with the Irish that were dark-haired, just like
those linen weavers your own great-grandfather brought up from the
North, the Hevenors and the Glosters and others, married with the
Roman Catholics. There was a king of the Danes called Trevenher that
had a daughter that was a great beauty. And she gave a feast, and the
young men of the other race dressed like girls and came to it, and
sat at it till midnight, and then they threw off the women's clothes
and killed all the generals and the king himself. So the Danes were
driven out, that's why we have the fires and the wisps on St. John's
Eve. And as for Herself there, she wouldn't for all the world let St.
Martin's Day pass without killing of cocks--one for the woman and
another for the man.
* * * * *
As to the three lisses at Ryanrush, there must have been a great deal
of fighting there in the old time. There are some bushes growing on
them and no one, man or woman, will ever put a hand to cut them, no
more than they would touch the little bush by the well beyond, that
used to have lights shining out of it.
And if any one was to fall asleep within the liss himself, he would
be taken away and the spirit of some old warrior would be put in his
place, and it's he would know everything in the whole world. There's
no doubt at all but that there's the same sort of things in other
countries. Sure _these_ can go through and appear in Australia in
one minute. But you hear more about them in these parts, because the
Irish do be more familiar in talking of them.
* * * * *
Enchanters and magicians they were in the old times, and could make
the birds sing and the stones and the fishes speak.
* * * * *
It's in the forths they mostly live. The last priest that was here
told us a lot about them, but he said not to be anyway afraid of
them, for they are but poor souls doing their penance.
_Mary Nagle:_
That's a fine big liss at Ryanrush, and people say they hear things
there, and sometimes a great light is seen--no wonder these things
should be seen there, for it was a great place for fighting in the
old centuries, and a great deal of bones have been turned up in the
fields. There was an open passage I remember into the liss, and two
girls got a candle one time and went in, but they saw nothing but the
ashes of the fires the Danes used to make. The passage is closed up
now I believe, with big stones no man could lift.
One time a woman from the North came to our house, and she said a
great deal of people is kept below there in the lisses; she had been
there herself, and in the night-time in one moment they'd all be away
at Cruachmaa, wherever that may be, down in the North I believe.
And she knew everything that was in the house, and told us about my
sister being sick, and that there was a hurling going on, as there
was that day at the Isabella wood in Coole. And all about Coole House
she knew as if she spent her life in it. I'd have picked a lot of
stories out of her but my mother got nervous when she heard the truth
coming out, and bid me be quiet. She had a red petticoat on her, the
same as any country woman, and she offered to cure me, for it was
that time I was delicate and your ladyship sent me to the salt water,
but she asked a shilling and my mother said she hadn't got it. "You
have," says she, "and heavier metal than that you have in the house."
So then my mother gave her the shilling, and she put it in the fire
and melted it, and says she, "After two days you'll see your shilling
again." But we never did. And the cure she left, I never took it;
it's not safe, and the priests forbid us to take their cures--for it
must surely be from the devil their knowledge comes. But no doubt at
all she was one of the Ingentry, that can take the form of a woman by
day and another form at night. After that she went to Mrs. Quaid's
house and asked her for a bit of tobacco. "You'll get it again" she
said, "and more with it." And sure enough, that very day a bit of
meat came into Mrs. Quaid's house. (_Note_ 1.)
_Maurteen Joyce:_
There's a forth near Clough that wanders underneath, but a man
couldn't get into it without he'd crawl on his hands and knees. Well,
Kennedy's filly was brought in there, and lived there for five days
without food but what she got from _them_, and no one knew where she
was till a man passing by heard her neighing and then she was dug out.
* * * * *
There's a forth near our house, but it's not the good people that are
in it, only the old inhabitants of Ireland shut up there below.
* * * * *
There are a few old forths about, some of them you mightn't notice
unless you understood such things; but sometimes passing by you'd
feel a cold wind blowing from them, would nearly rend you in two.
* * * * *
When I was a young chap myself I used to see a white woman walking
about sometimes at midday--that's the worst hour there is--and she'd
always go back into a forth, the forth of Cahir near Cloonmore, and
disappear into it.
She was known to be a woman that had died nine years before; and she
would sometimes come into the sister's house, and bid her keep it
clean. But one time the sister's husband went to burn the inside of
the forth, and the next morning his barn where he had all the wheat of
the harvest and near a ton of hay and two or three packs of wool, was
found to be on fire. And his own little girl, about eight years of age,
was in the barn, and a labouring man broke through and brought a wet
cloth with him and threw it over her and carried her out. But she was
as black as cinders and dead. Vexed they were at him burning the forth.
_An Old Miller:_
Did _they_ get help to make those forths? You may know well that they
did. There was an engineer here when that road was being made--a
sort of an idolater or a foreigner he was--anyway he made it through
the forth, and he didn't last long after. Those other engineers,
Edgeworth and Hemans beyond at Ardrahan when the railway was made,
I'm told they avoided such things.
_A Slieve Echtge Man:_
There were two brothers taken away sudden, two O'Briens. They were
cutting heath one day and filling the cart with it, and a voice told
them to leave off cutting the heath, but they went on, and a blow
struck the cart on the axle. And soon after that one of the brothers
sat down in his chair and died sudden. And the other was one day
going to market, I was going to it that day myself, and he wasn't far
beyond the white gate when the axle of the cart broke in that same
place where it had got the blow, and so he had to go home again, and
near the river where they're cutting the larch he turned in to talk
to a poor man that was cutting a tree, and the tree fell, and the top
of it struck him and killed him. And it was last March that happened.
There was one Leary in Clough had the land taken that's near Newtown
racecourse. And he was out there one day building a wall, and it was
time for his dinner, but he had none brought with him. And a man came
to him and said "Is it home you'll be going for your dinner?" And
he said "It's not worth my while to go back to Clough, I'd have the
day lost." And the man said, "Well, come in and eat a bit with me."
And he brought him into a forth, and there was everything that was
grand, and the dinner they gave him of the best, so that he eat near
two plates of it. And then he went out again to build the wall. And
whether it was with lifting the heavy stones I don't know, but (with
respects to you) when he was walking the road home he began to vomit,
and what he vomited up was all green grass.
_A Man on the Connemara Coast:_
This is a faery stream we're passing; there were some used to see
them by the side of it, and washing themselves in it. And there used
to be heard a faery forge here every night, and the hammering of the
iron could be heard, and the blast of the furnace.
There is a faery hill beyond there in the mountain, and some have
seen fires in it all through the night. And one time the police were
out there still-hunting, and the head of them, one Rogers, was in the
middle of that place, and there he died, no one could say how, though
some of his men were round about him.
That's a nice flat clean place that rock we're passing--that's the
sort of place they'd be seen dancing or having their play.
_A Piper:_
I knew twin sons, Considines, and one was struck with madness in
England, and one at home--Pat in England, Mike in Connacht--at the
one time. Both were sent to Ballinasloe Asylum, and got well in eight
months, and that was ten year ago, and one of them is married and
rearing a family. The mother used to be doing cures with herbs; it is
likely that is the reason but she gave it up after they were struck.
There were three of another family went in to the Asylum, one this
year, one next year, and one the year after, and no reason but that
their house was close to the side of a forth.
_Maurteen Joyce:_
When I was in Clare there was a forth, and two or three men went
down it one time, and brought rushes and lights with them. And they
came to where there was a woman washing at a river and they heard
the crying of young lambs, and it November, for when we have winter,
there is summer there. So they got afraid, and two of the men came
back, but one of them stopped there and was never heard of after. The
best of things they have, and no trouble at all but to be eating; but
they have no chance of being saved till the Day of Judgment.
I knew another forth that two men watched, and at night there came
out of it two troops of horses, and they began to graze. But when the
men came near them they made for the forths, and all they got was a
foal. And they kept it, and it was a mare-horse, and it had foals,
and the breed was the best that was ever seen in the country.
_Mrs. Leary:_
There did strange things happen in that wood, noises would be heard,
and those that went in to steal rods could never get them up on their
back to bring them away. But there was one man said whatever happened
he'd bring them, and he got them on to his back, and then they were
lifted off it over the wood. But they fell again and he got them and
carried them away; I suppose they thought well of him having so much
courage.
Cruachmaa is the great place for them.
A man who had lost a blood mare met an old man from a forth who said
"Put your right foot on my right foot." And he did so, and at once he
saw the blood mare and his foal close by.
_The Old Man Who Is Making a Well:_
There was a man and his wife was brought away at Cruachmaa and he was
told to go dig, and he'd get her out. And he began to dig, and when
he had a hole made at the side of the hill he saw her coming out, but
he couldn't stop the pick that he had lifted for the stroke, and it
went through her head.
_J. Doran:_
Whether they are in it or not, there are many tell stories of them.
And I often saw the half of Cruachmaa covered--like as if there was a
mist on it.
But one side of a wall is luckier than another, all the old people will
tell you that. There was a big stone in the yard behind our house and
my husband thought to blast it, for it was in the way, and my mother
said "I'm in the house longer than you, and take my advice and never
touch that stone," and he never did. But there was a man built a house
close by and he wanted to close a passage, and one morning he came
early and was laying hands on that stone to take it. But I was out when
I heard him and drove him away. And the house never throve with him, he
lost two or three children, and then he died himself.
_A Gate-keeper:_
At St. Patrick's well at Burren there used to be a great pattern
every year. And every year there was something lost and killed at it,
a horse or a man or a woman.
So at last the priest put a stop to it. And there was an old woman
with me in the barracks at Burren, and she told me she remembered
well when she was a young girl and the time came when the pattern
used to be, the first year it was stopped her father put her up on a
big high wall near the well, and bid her look down. And there she saw
the whole place full of the _gentry_, and they playing and dancing
and having their own games, they were in such joy to have done away
with the pattern. I suppose the well belonged to them before it got
the name of St. Patrick.
There's a small little house not far down the road where they used to
be very fond of going. And a woman in the town asked the old woman
that lived in it what did they look like. And she said "For all the
world like people coming in to Chapel."
* * * * *
There was a girl coming back here one time from Clough, and instead
of coming here she went the Esserkelly road and was led astray and a
man met her and says he, "Why do you say you're going to Labane and
it's to Roxborough you're facing?" and he turned her around. And when
she got home she took off the bundle she had on her back, and what
jumped out of it but a young hare.
_Mrs. Casey:_
I have a great little story about a woman--a jobber's wife that lived
a mile beyond Ardrahan. She had business one time in Ballyvaughan,
and when she was on the road beyond Kinvara a man came to her out
of a forth and he asked her to go in and to please a child that was
crying. So she went in and she pleased the child, and she saw in a
corner an old man that never stopped from crying. And when she went
out again she asked the man that brought her in, why was the old man
roaring and crying. The man pointed to a milch cow in the meadow and
he said, "Before the day is over he will be in the place of that cow,
and it will be brought into the forth to give milk to the child."
And she can tell herself that was true, for in the evening when she
was coming back from Ballyvaughan, she saw in that field a cow dead,
and being cut in pieces, and all the poor people bringing away bits
of it, that was the old man that had been put in its place. There is
poison in that meat, but no poison ever comes off the fire, but you
must mind to throw away the top of the pot.
* * * * *
That forth where I heard the talking long ago, and left my can, it's
only the other day I was telling Pat Stephens of it that has the
land. And he told me he put a trough in it to catch the water about a
month ago. And the next day one of his best bullocks died.
_Mrs. O'Brien:_
It's a bad piece of the road that poor boy fell off his cart at and
was killed. There's a forth near it, and it's in that forth my five
children are that were swept from me. I went and I told Father Carey
I knew they were there, and he said "Say your prayers, my poor woman,
that's all you can do." When they were young they were small and thin
enough, they grew up like a bunch of rushes, but they got strong
and stout and good-looking. Too good they were, so that everyone
would remark them and would say, "Oh, look at Ellen O'Brien--look
at Catherine--look at Martin! So good to work and so handsome, so
loyal to their mother." And they were all taken from me, all gone
now but one. Consumption they were said to get, but it never was in
my family or in the father's, and how would they get it without some
provocation? Four of them died with that, and Martin was drowned. One
of the little girls was in America and the other at home, and they
both got sick and at the end of nine months both of them died.
Only twice they got a warning. Michael that was the first to go was out
one morning very early to bring a letter to Mr. Crowe. And he met on
the road a small little woman, and she came across him and across him
again, and then again, as if to be humbugging him. And he got afraid,
and told me about her when he got home. And not long after that he died.
And Ellen used to be going to milk the cow for the nuns morning and
evening, and there's a place she had to pass, a sort of enchanted
place, I forget the name of it. And when she came home one evening
she said she'd go there no more, for when she was passing that place
she saw a small little woman, with a little cloak about her, and her
face not the size of a doll's face. And with the one look of her she
got a fright and ran as fast as she could, and sat down to milk the
cow. And when she was milking she looked up, and there was the small
little woman coming along by the wall. And she said she'd never like
to go up there again. So to move the thought out of her mind I said
"Sure that's the little woman is stopping up at Shamus Mor's house."
"Oh, it's not, Mother," said she; "I know well by her look she was no
right person." "Then my poor girl you're lost," says I, "for I know
it was the same woman that my husband saw." And sure enough, it was
but a few weeks after that she died. There wasn't much change in them
before their death, but there was a great change after.
And Martin, the last that went, was stout and strong and nothing
ailed him, but he was drowned. He'd go down sometimes to bathe in the
sea and one day he said he was going, and I said, "Do not, for you
have no swim."
But a boy of the neighbours came after that and called to him, and I
was making the little dinner for him, and I didn't see him from the
door. And I never knew he was gone till when I went out of the house
the girl from next door looked at me someway strange, and then she
told me two boys were drowned, and then she told me one of them was
my own. Held down he was, they said, by something under water. _They_
had him followed there.
It wasn't long after he died I woke one night and I felt some one
near, and I struck the light and then I saw his shadow. He was
wearing his little cap, but under it I knew his face and the colour
of his hair. And he never spoke and he was going out the door and I
called to him and said "Oh, Martin, come back to me and I'll always
be watching for you." And every night after that I'd hear things
thrown about the house outside, and noises. So I got afraid to stop
in it, and went to live in another house, and I told the priest I
knew Martin was not dead but that he was living. And about eight
weeks after Catherine dying, I had what I thought was a dream. I
thought I dreamt that I saw her sweeping out the floor of the room,
and I said, "Catherine, why are you sweeping? Sure you know I sweep
the floor down and the hearth every night." And I said "Tell me where
you are now?" And she said, "I'm in the forth beyond." And she said
"I have a great deal of things to tell you, but I must look out and
see are they watching me"; now wasn't that very sharp for a dream?
And she went to look out the door, but she never came back again.
And in the morning when I told it to a few respectable people they
said "Take care but it might have been no dream, but herself that
came back and talked to you." And I think it was, and that she came
back to see me, and to keep the place well swept.
* * * * *
Sure we know there were some in the forths in the old times, for my
aunt's husband was brought away into one, and why wouldn't they be
there now? He was sent back out of it again; a girl led him home, and
she told him he was brought away because he answered to the first call
and that he had a right only to answer to the third. But he didn't want
to come home. He said he saw more people in it than he ever saw at a
hurling, and that he'd ask no better place than it in high heaven.
* * * * *
The Banshee always cries for the O'Briens. And Anthony O'Brien was a
fine man when I married him, and handsome, and I could have had great
marriages if I didn't choose him, and many wondered at me. And when
he was took ill and in the bed, Johnny Rafferty came in one day, and
says he "Is Anthony living?" and I said he was. "For," says he, "as I
was passing, I heard crying, crying, from the hill where the forths
are, and I thought it must be for Anthony, and that he was gone."
And then Ellen, the little girl, came running in, and she says, "I
heard the mournfullest crying that ever you heard just behind the
house." And I said "It must be the Banshee." And Anthony heard me say
that where he was lying in the bed, and he called out, "If it's the
Banshee it's for me, and I must die today or tomorrow." And in the
middle of the next day, he died.
* * * * *
One time I was passing by a forth down there, and I saw a thick smoke
coming out of it, straight up it went and then it spread at the top.
And when it was clearing away I saw two rows of birds, one on the one
side and one on the other, and I stopped to look at them. They were
white, and had shoulders and heads like dogs, and there was a great
noise like a rattling, and a man that was passing by looked up and
said "God speed you," and they flew away.
_A Seaside Man:_
There were five boys of the Callinans, and they rich and well-to-do,
were out in a boat, and a ship came out from the shore and touched it
and it sank, and the ship was seen no more. And one of the boys held
on to the boat, and some men came out and brought him to land. But
the second time after that he went out, he was swept.
_An Old Man in Gort Workhouse:_