one night he was up on the hill beyond, towards Slieve Echtge, where
there is a big forth, and he went into it, and there he found a lot
of _them_ playing cards. Like any other card-players they looked, and
he sat down and played with them, and they played fair. And when he
woke in the morning, he was lying outside on the hill, and nothing
under his head but a tuft of rushes.
_John Mangan:_
Old Hanrahan one time went out to the forth that's in front of his
house and cut a bush, and he a fresh man enough. And next morning he
hadn't a blade of hair on his head--not a blade. And he had to buy a
wig and to wear it for the rest of his life. I remember him and the
wig well.
And it was some years after that that Delane, the father of the great
cricketer, was passing by that way, and the water had risen and he
strayed off the road into it. And as he got farther and farther in,
till he was covered to better than his waist, he heard like the voice
of his wife crying, "Go on, John, go on farther." And he called out,
"These are John Hanrahan's faeries that took the hair off him." "And
what did you do then?" they asked him when he got safe to the house,
and was telling this. And he said, "I turned my coat inside out, and
after that they troubled me no more, and so I got safe to the road
again." But no one ever had luck that meddled with a forth, so it's
always said.
* * * * *
There's Mrs. Lynch's daughter was coming through the trees about
eight months ago and when she came to a thicket of bushes, a short
little man came, out, about three feet high, dressed all in white,
and he white himself or grey, and asked her to come with him, and she
ran away as fast as she could. And with the fright she got, she fell
into a sickness--what they call the sickness of Peter and Paul--and
you'd think she'd tear the house down when it comes on her.
* * * * *
I met a woman some time ago told me more about the forths in this
place than ever I knew before, and well she might for she had passed
seven years in them, working, working, minding children and the like
all the time; no singing or dancing for her.
_M. Haverty:_
There was one Rock, was brought into a forth. A three-legged horse
came for him one night and brought him away; and when he got there
they all called him by his name.
* * * * *
There was a man up there cut a tree in one of them, and he was took
ill immediately after, and didn't live long.
* * * * *
There's a bad bit of road near Kinvara Chapel, just when you get
within sight of the sea. I know a man has to pass there, and he
wouldn't go on the driver's side of the car, for it's to the right
side those things are to be seen. Sure there was a boy lost his life
falling off a car there last Friday week.
One night passing the big tree at Raheen I heard the sound of a
handsaw in the air, and I looked up and there in the top of a larch
tree that's near to a beech I saw a man sitting and cutting it with
the handsaw. So I hurried away home. But the next time I passed that
way I took a view of it to see might it have been one of the Dillons
that might be stealing timber; and there was no sign of a cut or a
touch in it at all.
* * * * *
There was a man on the road between Chevy and Marble Hill, where
there is a faery plumb-stone, that stands straight up and it about
five feet in height, and the man was building a house and carried it
away to put above his door. And from the time he brought it away, all
his stock began to die, and whenever he went in or out, night or day,
he was severely beaten. So at last he took the stone down and put it
back where it was before, and from that time nothing has troubled him.
_John Mangan:_
Myself and two of my brothers were over at Inchy Weir to catch a
horse, and growing close by the water there was a bush the form of
an umbrella, very close and thick at the top. So we began fooling as
boys do, and I said, "I'll bet a button none of you will make a stone
go through the bush." So I took up a pebble of cow-dung and threw it,
and they all threw, and no sooner did the pebble hit the bush than
there came from it music, like a band playing. So we all ran for our
lives, and when we had got about two hundred yards we looked back and
we saw something moving round the bush, first it had the clothes of a
woman and then of a man. So we stopped to see no more.
Well, it was some years after that when Sir William ordered all the
bushes in that part to be cut down. And one Prendergast a boy that used
to be a beater here and that went to America after, went to cut them
just in the same place where I had seen that sight, and a thorn ran
into his eye and blinded him, and he never got the sight of it again.
_An Old Woman near Ballinsloe:_
There are many forths around, and in that one beyond, there is often
music heard. The smith's father heard the music one time he was
passing and he could not stop from dancing till he was tired. I heard
him tell that myself.
And over there to the left there is a forth had an opening in it, and
the steward wanted to get it closed up, and he could get no men to do
it. And at last a young man said he would, and he went to work and at
the end of the week he was dead.
And there was a girl milking a cow not long after that, and she saw
him coming to her, and she ran away, and he called to her to stop and
she did not, and he said "That you may never milk another cow!" And
within a week, she herself was dead.
There was a woman over there in that house you can see, and she wanted
to root up a forth; covetousness it was, she had plenty and she wanted
more. And she tried to get a man to do it and she could not, but at
last a man that had been turned out of his holding, and that was in
want, said he would do it. And before he went to work he went on his
two knees, and he wished that whatever harm might come from it might
come on her, and not on himself. And so it did, and her hands got
crippled and crappled. And they travelled the world and could get no
relief for her, and her cattle began to die, and she died herself in
the end. And the daughter and the son-in-law had to leave that house
and to build another, for they were losing all the cattle, and they are
left alone now, but the daughter lost a finger by it.
_A Man near Corcomroe:_
I saw a light myself one night in the big forth over there near the
sea. Like a bonfire it was, and going up about thirty feet into the air.
* * * * *
Ghosts are to be heard about the forths. They make a heavy noise, and
there are creaks in their shoes. Doing a penance I suppose they are.
And there's many see the lights in the forths at Newtown.
_J. Doheny:_
One time I was cutting bushes up there near the river, and I cut a
big thorn bush, I thought it no harm to do it when it wasn't standing
by itself, but in a thicket, and it old and half-rotten. And when I
had it cut, I heard some one talking very loud to my wife, that was
gathering kippeens down in the field the other side of the wall. And
I went down to know who it was talking to her. And when I asked her
she said "No, it's to yourself some one was talking, for I heard his
voice where you were, and I saw no one." So I said, "Surely it's one
of them mourning for the bush I cut," for the sound of his voice was
as if he was mad vexed.
* * * * *
I think it's not in the tree at the corner there's anything, it's
something in the place. Not long ago there was one Greeley going
to Galway with a load of barley, and when he came to that corner
he heard the sound of a train crossing from inside the wall, and
the horse stopped. And then he heard it a second time and the horse
refused to go on, and at the end he had to turn back home again, for
he had no use trying to make the horse go on.
* * * * *
There were ash trees growing around the blessed well at Corker, and
one night Deeley, the uncle of Pat Deeley that lives beyond, and two
other men went to cut them down, to get the makings of a car-body.
And the next day Deeley's lip was drawn down--like this--and water
running from it for the rest of his life. I often see him; and as to
the two other men, they died soon after.
And big Joyce that was a servant to John O'Hara, he went to cut trees
one night near that hole at Raheen, near the corner of the road, and
he was prevented, and never could get the handsaw near a tree, nor
the other men that were with him.
And there was another man went and cut a bush not far from the
Kinvara road, and with the first stroke he heard a sort of a cough
or a groan come from beneath it, that was a token to him to leave it
alone. But he wouldn't leave off, and his mouth was drawn to one side
all of a sudden and in two days after he was dead. Surely, one should
leave such things alone.
_A Piper:_
I had a fall myself in Galway the other day that I couldn't move
my arm to play the pipes if you gave me Ireland. And a man said to
me--and they are very smart people in Galway--that two or three got a
fall and a hurt in that same place. "There is places in the sea where
there is drowning," he said, "and places on the land as well where
there do be accidents, and no man can save himself from them, for it
is the will of God."
_A Man Asking Alms:_
It's not safe sometimes to meddle with walls. There was a man beyond
Gort knocked some old walls not long ago, and he's dead since.
But it's by the big tree outside Raheen where you take the turn to
Kinvara that the most things are seen. There was a boy living with
Conor in Gort that was out before daylight with a load of hay in a
cart, and he sitting on top of it, and he was found lying dead just
beside the tree, where he fell from the top of the cart, and the
horse was standing there stock-still. There was a shower of rain fell
while he was lying there, and I passed the road two hours later, and
saw where the dust was dry where his body had been lying. And it was
only yesterday I was hearing a story of that very same place. There
was a man coming from Galway with a ton weight of a load on his cart,
and when he came to that tree the linching of his wheel came out,
and the cart fell down. And presently a little man, about two and a
half feet in height, came out from the wall and lifted up the cart,
and held it up till he had the linching put up again. And he never
said a word but went away as he came, and the man came in to Gort.
And I remember myself, the black and white dog used to be on the
road between Hanlon's gate and Gort. It was there for ten years and
no one ever saw it, but one evening Father Boyle's man was going out
to look at a few little sheep and lambs belonging to the priest, and
when he came to the stile the dog put up its paws on it and looked at
him, and he was afraid to go on. So next morning he told Father Boyle
about it and he said "I think that you won't see it any more." And
sure enough from that day it never was seen again.
_Steve Simon:_
I don't know did I draw down to you before, your ladyship, the
greatest wonder ever I saw in my life?
I was passing by the forth at Corcomroe, coming back from some shopping
I had done in Belharbour, and I saw twelve of the finest horses ever
I saw, and riders on them racing round the forth. Many a race I saw
since I lived in this world, but never a race like that, for tipping
and tugging and welting the horses; the jockeys in coloured clothes,
striped and blue, and little blue caps on them, and a lady in the front
of them on a bayish horse and wearing a scarlet jacket.
I told what I saw the same evening to an old woman living near and
she said, "Whatever you saw keep it secret, or some harm will come
upon you." There was another thing I saw besides the riders. There
were crowds and crowds of people, standing as we would against walls
or on a stage, and taking a view. They were shouting, but the men
racing on the horses said nothing at all. Never a race like that one,
with the swiftness and the welting and fine horses that were in it.
What clothing had these people? They had coats on them, and on their
back there were pictures, pictures in the form of people. Shields
I think they were. Anyway there were pictures on them. Striped the
coats were, and a sort of scollop on them the same as that screen in
the window (a blind with Celtic design). They had little blue caps,
such as wore them, but some had nothing on the head at all; and they
had blue slippers--those I saw of them--but I was afeared to take
more than a side view except of the racers.
_An Old Army Man:_
You know the forth where the old man lost his hair? Well there's
another man, Waters, that married Brian's sister, has the second
sight, and there's a big bush left in that forth, and when he goes
there he sees a woman sitting under it, and she lighting a fire.
* * * * *
Cloran's father was living over at Knockmaa one time and his wife
died, and he believed it was taken into the hill she was. So he went
one morning and dug a hole in the side of the hill. But the next
morning when he went back to dig again, the hole was filled up and
the grass growing over it as before. And this he did two or three
times. And then some one told him to put his pick and his spade
across the hole. And so he did, and it wasn't filled up again. But
what happened after I don't know.
_An Old Army Man:_
That's a bad bit of road near Kinvara where the boy lost his life last
week; I know it well. And I knew him, a quiet boy, and married to a
widow woman; she wanted the help of a man, and he was young. What would
ail him to fall off the side of an ass-car and to be killed?
XI
BLACKSMITHS
XI
BLACKSMITHS
_I have been told:_
Yes, they say blacksmiths have something about them, and if there's a
seventh blacksmith in succession, from generation to generation, he
can do many things, and if he gave you his curse you wouldn't be the
better of it. There was one near the cliffs, Pat Doherty, but he did
no harm to any one, but was as quiet as another. He is dead now and
his son is a blacksmith too. (_Note_ 2.)
* * * * *
There was a man one time that was a blacksmith, and he used to go
every night playing cards, and for all his wife could say he wouldn't
leave off doing it. So one night she got a boy to go stand in the old
churchyard he'd have to pass, and to frighten him. So the boy did
so, and began to groan and to try to frighten him when he came near.
But it's well known that nothing of that kind can do any harm to a
blacksmith. So he went in and got hold of the boy, and told him he
had a mind to choke him, and went his way.
But no sooner was the boy left alone than there came about him
something in the shape of a dog, and then a great troop of cats. And
they surrounded him and he tried to get away home, but he had no power
to go the way he wanted but had to go with them. And at last they came
to an old forth and a faery bush, and he knelt down and made the sign
of the cross and said a great many "Our Fathers," and after a time they
went into the faery bush and left him. And he was going away and a
woman came out of the bush, and called to him three times, to make him
look back. And he saw that it was a woman that he knew before, that was
dead, and so he knew that she was amongst the faeries.
And she said to him, "It's well for you that I was here, and worked
hard for you, or you would have been brought in among them, and be
like me." So he got home. And the blacksmith got home too and his
wife was surprised to see he was no way frightened. But he said, "You
might know that there's nothing of that sort could harm me."
For a blacksmith is safe from all, and when he goes out in the night
he keeps always in his pocket a small bit of wire, and they know him
by that. So he went on playing, and they grew very poor after.
* * * * *
And I knew a woman from the County Limerick had been _away_, and she
could tell you all about the forths in this place and how she was
recovered. She met a man she knew on the road, and she out riding with
them all on horseback, and told him to bring a bottle of forge-water
and to throw it on her, and so he did, and she came back again.
* * * * *
Blacksmiths surely are safe from these things. And if a blacksmith
was to turn his anvil upside down and to say malicious words, he
could do you great injury.
* * * * *
There was a child that was changed, and my mother brought it a nice
bit of potato cake one time, for tradesmen often have nice things on
the table. But the child wouldn't touch it, for they don't like the
leavings of a smith.
* * * * *
Blacksmiths have power, and if you could steal the water from the
trough in the forge, it would cure all things.
* * * * *
And as to forges, there's some can hear working and hammering in them
through the night.
XII
MONSTERS AND SHEOGUEY BEASTS
XII
MONSTERS AND SHEOGUEY BEASTS
_The Dragon that was the monster of the early world now appears
only in the traditional folk-tales, where the hero, a new Perseus,
fights for the life of the Princess who looks on crying at the brink
of the sea, bound to a silver chair, while the Dragon is "put in a
way he will eat no more kings' daughters." In the stories of today
he has shrunk to eel or worm, for the persons and properties of
the folk-lore of all countries keep being transformed or remade in
the imagination, so that once in New England on the eve of George
Washington's birthday, the decorated shop windows set me wondering
whether the cherry tree itself might not be a remaking of the
red-berried dragon-guarded rowan of the Celtic tales, or it may be of
a yet more ancient apple. I ventured to hint at this in a lecture at
Philadelphia, and next day one of the audience wrote me that he had
looked through all the early biographies of Washington, and either
the first three or the first three editions of the earliest--I have
mislaid the letter--never mention the cherry tree at all._
_The monstrous beasts told of today recall the visions of Maeldune on
his strange dream-voyage, where he saw the beast that was like a horse
and that had "legs of a hound with rough sharp nails," and the fiery
pigs that fed on golden fruit, and the cat that with one flaming leap
turned a thief to a heap of ashes; for the folk-tales of the world have
long roots, and there is nothing new save their reblossoming._
_I have been told by a Car-driver:_
I went to serve one Patterson at a place called Grace Dieu between
Waterford and Tramore, and there were queer things in it. There was a
woman lived at the lodge the other side from the gate, and one day she
was looking out and she saw a woolpack coming riding down the road of
itself.
There was a room over the stable I was put to sleep in, and no one
near me. One night I felt a great weight on my feet, and there was
something very weighty coming up upon my body and I heard heavy
breathing. Every night after that I used to light the fire and bring
up coal and make up the fire with it that it would be near as good
in the morning as it was at night. And I brought a good terrier up
every night to sleep with me on the bed. Well, one night the fire was
lighting and the moon was shining in at the window, and the terrier
leaped off the bed and he was barking and rushing and fighting and
leaping, near to the ceiling and in under the bed. And I could see
the shadow of him on the walls and on the ceiling, and I could see
the shadow of another thing that was about two foot long and that had
a head like a pike, and that was fighting and leaping. They stopped
after a while and all was quiet. But from that night the terrier
never would come to sleep in the room again.
_By Others:_
The worst form a monster can take is a cow or a pig. But as to a
lamb, you may always be sure a lamb is honest.
* * * * *
A pig is the worst shape they can take. I wouldn't like to meet
anything in the shape of a pig in the night.
* * * * *
No, I saw nothing myself, I'm not one of those that can see such
things; but I heard of a man that went with the others on rent day, and
because he could pay no rent but only made excuses, the landlord didn't
ask him in to get a drink with the others. So as he was coming home by
himself in the dark, there was something on the road before him, and he
gave it a hit with the toe of his boot, and it let a squeal. So then he
said to it, "Come in here to my house, for I'm not asked to drink with
them; I'll give drink and food to you." So it came in, and the next
morning he found by the door a barrel full of wine and another full of
gold, and he never knew a day's want after that.
* * * * *
Walking home one night with Jack Costello, there was something before
us that gave a roar, and then it rose in the air like a goose, and
then it fell again. And Jackeen told me after that it had laid hold
on his trousers, and he didn't sleep all night with the fright he got.
* * * * *
There's a monster in Lough Graney, but it's only seen once in seven
years.
* * * * *
There is a monster of some sort down by Duras, it's called the ghost
of Fiddeen. Some say it's only heard every seven years. Some say it
was a flannel seller used to live there that had a short fardel. We
heard it here one night, like a calf roaring.
* * * * *
One night my grandfather was beyond at Inchy where the lads from Gort
used to be stealing rods, and he was sitting by the wall, and the dog
beside him. And he heard something come running from Inchy Weir and
he could see nothing, but the sound of its feet on the ground was
like the sound of the feet of a deer. And when it passed by him the
dog got in between him and the wall and scratched at him, but still
he could see nothing but only could hear the sound of hoofs. So when
it was passed he turned away home.
Another time, my grandfather told me, he was in a boat out on the lake
here at Coole with two or three men from Gort. And one of them had an
eel-spear and he thrust it into the water and it hit something, and
the man fainted, and they had to carry him in out of the boat to land.
And when he came to himself he said that what he struck was like a
horse or like a calf, but whatever it was, it was no fish.
* * * * *
There is a boy I knew, one Curtin near Ballinderreen, told me that
he was going along the road one night and he saw a dog. It had claws
like a cur, and a body like a person, and he couldn't see what its
head was like. But it was moaning like a soul in pain, and presently
it vanished, and there came most beautiful music, and a woman came
out and he thought at first it was the Banshee, and she wearing a red
petticoat. And a striped jacket she had on, and a white band about
her waist. And to hear more beautiful singing and music he never did,
but to know or to understand what she was expressing, he couldn't do
it. And at last they came to a place by the roadside where there were
some bushes. And she went in there and disappeared under them, and
the most beautiful lights came shining where she went in. And when he
got home, he himself fainted, and his mother put her beads over him,
and blessed him and said prayers. So he got quiet at last.
* * * * *
I would easily believe about the dog having a fight with something
his owner couldn't see. That often happens in this island, and that's
why every man likes to have a black dog with him at night--a black
one is the best for fighting such things.
And a black cock everyone likes to have in their house--a March cock
it should be.
* * * * *
I knew the captain of a ship used to go whale fishing, and he said he
saw them by scores. But by his account they were no way like the ones
McDaragh saw; it was I described them to him.
* * * * *
We don't give in to such things here as they do in the middle island;
but I wouldn't doubt that about the dog. For they can see what we
can't see. And there was a man here was out one night and the dog
ran on and attacked something that was in front of him--a faery it
was--but he could see nothing. And every now and again it would do
the same thing, and seemed to be fighting something before him,
and when they got home the man got safe into the house, but at the
threshold the dog was killed.
And a horse can see many things, and if ever you're out late, and the
horse to stop as if there was something he wouldn't pass, make the
sign of the cross between his ears, and he'll go on then. And it's
well to have a cock always in the house, if you can have it from a
March clutch, and the next year if you can have another cock from a
March clutch from that one, it's the best. And if you go late out of
the house, and that there is something outside it would be bad to
meet, that cock will crow before you'll go out.
* * * * *
I'm sorry I wasn't in to meet you surely, knowing as much as I do
about the faeries. One night I went with four or five others down by
the mill to hunt rabbits. And when we got to the field by the river
there was the sound of hundreds, some crying and the other part
laughing, that we all heard them. And something came down to the
river, first I thought he was a dog and then I saw he was too big and
strange looking. And you'd think there wouldn't be a drop of water
left in the river with all he drank. And I bid the others say nothing
about it, for Patrick Green was lying sick at the mill, and it might
be taken for a bad sign. And it wasn't many days after that he died.
* * * * *