cured by her myself one time. Look at this thumb--I got it hurted one
time, and I went out into the field after and was ploughing all the
day, I was that greedy for work. And when I went in I had to lie on
the bed with the pain of it, and it swelled and the arm with it, to
the size of a horse's thigh. I stopped two or three days in the bed
with the pain of it, and then my wife went to see Biddy Early and
told her about it, and she came home and the next day it burst, and
you never seen anything like all the stuff that came away from it. A
good bit after I went to her myself, where it wasn't quite healed,
and she said, "You'd have lost it altogether if your wife hadn't been
so quick to come." She brought me into a small room, and said holy
words and sprinkled holy water and told me to believe. The priests
were against her, but they were wrong. How could that be evil doing
that was all charity and kindness and healing?
She was a decent looking woman, no different from any other woman of
the country. The boy she was married to at the time was lying drunk
in the bed. There were side-cars and common cars and gentry and
country people at the door, just like Gort market, and dinner for all
that came, and everyone would bring her something, but she didn't
care what it was. Rich farmers would bring her the whole side of a
pig. Myself, I brought a bottle of whiskey and a shilling's worth
of bread, and a quarter of sugar and a quarter pound of tea. She was
very rich, for there wasn't a farmer but would give her the grass
of a couple of bullocks or a filly. She had the full of a field of
fillies if they'd all been gathered together. She left no children,
and there's no doubt at all that the reason of her being able to do
cures was that she was _away_ seven years. She didn't tell me about
it but she spoke of it to others.
When I was coming away I met a party of country people on a cart from
Limerick, and they asked where was her house, and I told them: "Go on
to the cross, and turn to the left, and follow the straight road till
you come to the little humpy bridge, and soon after that you'll come
to the house."
But the priests would be mad if they knew that I told any one the way.
She died about twelve year ago; I didn't go to the wake myself, or
the funeral, but I heard that her death was natural.
No, Mrs. Early is no relation to Biddy Early--the nuns asked her the
same thing when she was married. A cousin of hers had her hand cut with
a jug that was broke, and she went up to her and when she got there,
Biddy Early said: "It's a thing you never should do, to beat a child
that breaks a cup or a jug." And sure enough it was a child that broke
it, and she beat her for doing it. But cures she did sure enough.
_Bartley Coen:_
There was a neighbour of my own, Andrew Dennehy:
I was knocked up by him one night to go to the house, because he
said _they_ were calling to him. But when they got there, there was
nothing to be found. But some see these things, and some can't. It's
against our creed to believe in them. And the priests won't let on
that they believe in them themselves, but they are more in dread of
going about at night than any of us. They were against, Biddy Early
too. There was a man I knew living near the sea, and he set out to
go to her one time. And on his way he went into his brother-in-law's
house, and the priest came in there, and bid him not to go on. "Well,
Father," says he, "cure me yourself if you won't let me go to her to
be cured." And when the priest wouldn't do that (for the priests can
do many cures if they like to), he went on to her. And the minute
he came in, "Well," says she, "you made a great fight for me on the
way." For though it's against our creed to believe it, she could hear
any earthly thing that was said in every part, miles off. But she had
two red eyes, and some used to say, "If she can cure so much, why
can't she cure her own eyes?"
No, she wasn't _away_ herself. It is said it was from a son of her
own she got the knowledge, a little chap that was astray. And one day
when he was lying sick in the bed he said: "There's such and such a
woman has a hen down in the pot, and if I had the soup of the hen, I
think it would cure me." So the mother went to the house, and when
she got there, sure enough, there was a hen in the pot on the fire.
But she was ashamed to tell what she came for, and she let on to have
only come for a visit, and so she sat down. But presently in the heat
of the talking she told what the little chap had said. "Well," says
the woman, "take the soup and welcome, and the hen too if it will do
him any good." So she brought them with her, and when the boy saw the
soup, "It can't cure me," says he, "for no earthly thing can do that.
But since I see how kind and how willing you are, and did your best
for me, I'll leave you a way of living." And so he did, and taught
her all she knew. That's what's said at any rate.
_Mr. Fahy:_
Well, that's what's believed, that it's from her son Biddy Early got
it. After his death always lamenting for him she was, till he came
back, and gave her the gift of curing.
She had no red eyes, but was a fresh clean-looking woman; sure any
one might have red eyes when they'd got a cold.
She wouldn't refuse even a person that would come from the very
bottom of the black North.
* * * * *
"I was with Biddy Early myself one time, and got a cure from her for
my little girl that was sick. A bottle of whiskey I brought her, and
the first thing she did was to open it and to give me a glass out of
it. "For," says she, "you'll maybe want it my poor man." But I had
plenty of courage in those days."
The priests were against her; often Father Boyle would speak of her
in his sermons. They can all do those cures themselves, but that's a
thing it's not right to be talking about.
_The Little Girl of Biddy Early's House:_
The people do be full of stories of all the cures she did. Once after
we came to live here a carload of people came, and asked was Biddy
Early here, and my mother said she was dead. When she told the priest
he said she had a right to shake a bottle and say she was her, and
get something from them. It was by the bottle she did all, to shake
it, and she'd see everything when she looked in it. Sometimes she'd
give a bottle of some cure to people that came, but if she'd say to
them, "You'll never bring it home," break it they should on the way
home, with all the care they'd take of it.
She was as good, and better, to the poor as to the rich. Any poor
person passing the road, she'd call in and give a cup of tea or a
glass of whiskey to, and bread and what they wanted.
She had a big chest within in that room, and it full of pounds of tea
and bottles of wine and of whiskey and of claret, and all things in
the world. One time she called in a man that was passing and gave
him a glass of whiskey, and then she said to him, "The road you were
going home by, don't go by it." So he asked why not, and she took
the bottle--a long shaped bottle it was--and looked into it, holding
it up, and then she bid him look through it, and he'd see what would
happen him. But her husband said, "Don't show it to him, it might
give him a fright he wouldn't get over." So she only said, "Well, go
home by another road." And so he did and got home safe, for in the
bottle she had seen a party of men that wouldn't have let him pass
alive. She got the rites of the Church when she died, but first she
had to break the bottle.
It was from her brother that she got the power, when she had to go to
the workhouse, and he came back, and gave her the way of doing the
cures.
_The Blacksmith I met near Tulla:_
I know you to be a respectable lady and an honourable one because I
know your brothers, meeting them as I do at the fair of Scariff. No
fair it would be if they weren't there. I knew Biddy Early well, a
nice fresh-looking woman she was. It's to her the people used to be
flocking, to the door and even to the window, and if they'd come late
in the day, they'd have no chance of getting to her, they'd have to
take lodgings for the night in the town. She was a great woman. If
any of the men that came into the house had a drop too much drink
taken, she'd turn them out if they said an unruly word. And if any
of them were fighting or disputing or going to law, she'd say, "Be
at one, and ye can rule the world." The priests were against her and
used to be taking the cloaks and the baskets from the country people
to keep them back from going to her.
I never went to her myself--for you should know that no ill or harm
ever comes to a blacksmith.
_An Old Midwife:_
Tell me now is there anything wrong about you or your son that you
went to that house? I went there but once myself, when my little girl
that was married was bad, after her second baby being born. I went to
the house and told her about it, and she took the bottle and shook it
and looked in it, and then she turned and said something to himself
[her husband] that I didn't hear--and she just waved her hand to me
like that, and bid me go home, for she would take nothing from me.
But himself came out and told that what she was after seeing in the
bottle was my little girl, and the coffin standing beside her. So I
went home, and sure enough on the tenth day after, she was dead.
* * * * *
_The lodge people came rushing out to see the picture of Biddy
Early's house and ask, "Did she leave the power to any one else?" and
I told of the broken bottle. But Mr. McCabe said, "She only had the
power for her own term, and-no one else could get it from her."_
* * * * *
_I asked old Mr. McCabe if he had lost anything when she cured him,
and he said: "Not at that time, but sometimes I thought afterwards it
came on my family when I lost so many of my children. A grand stout
girl went from me, stout and broad, what would ail her to go?"_
_I was told by Mat King:_
Biddy Early surely did thousands of cures. Out in the stable she used
to go, where her _friends_ met her, and they told her all things.
There was a little priest long ago used to do cures,--Soggarthin
Mina, they used to call him,--and once he came in this house he
looked up and said, "There--it's full of them--there they are."
* * * * *
There was a man, one Flaherty, came to his brother-in-law's house one
day to borrow a horse. And the next day the horse was sent back, but
he didn't come himself. And after a few days more they went to ask
for him, but he had never come back at all. So the brother-in-law
went to Biddy Early's and she and some others were drinking whiskey,
and they were sorry that they were near at the bottom of the bottle.
And she said: "That's no matter, there's a man on his way now,
there'll soon be more." And sure enough there was, for he brought
a bottle with him. So when he came in, he told her about Flaherty
having disappeared. And she described to him a corner of a garden
at the back of a house and she said, "Go look and you'll find him
there," and so they did, dead and buried.
Another time a man's cattle was dying, and he went to her and she
said, "Is there such a place as Benburb, having a forth up on the
hill beyond there? for it's there they're gone." And sure enough, it
was towards that forth they were straying before they died.
_An Old Man on the Beach:_
The priests were greatly against Biddy Early. And there's no doubt
it was from the faeries she got the knowledge. But who wouldn't go
to hell for a cure if one of his own was sick? And the priests don't
like to be doing cures themselves. Father Flynn said to me (rather
incoherent in the high wind), if I do them, I let the devil into me.
But there was Father Carey used to do them, but he went wrong, with
the people bringing too much whiskey to pay him--and Father Mahony
has him stopped now.
_Maher of Slieve Echtge:_
I knew a man went to Biddy Early, and while she was in the other room
he made the tongs red hot and laid them down, and when she came back
she took them up and burned herself. And he said, if she had known
anything she'd have known not to touch it, that it was red hot. So
he walked off and asked for no cure.
_The Spinning-Woman:_
Biddy Early was a witch, wherever she got it. There was a priest at
Feakle spoke against her one time, and soon after he was passing
near her house and she put something on the horse so that he made a
bolt into the river and stopped there in the middle, and wouldn't go
back or forward. Some people from the neighbourhood went to her, and
she told them all about the whole place, and that one time there was
a great battle about the castle, and that there is a passage going
from here to the forth beyond on Dromore Hill, and to another place
that's near Maher's house. And she said that there is a cure for all
sicknesses hidden between the two wheels of Ballylee mill. And how
did she know that there was a mill here at all? Witchcraft wherever
she got it; away she may have been in a trance. She had a son, and
one time he went to the hurling beyond at some place in Tipperary,
and none could stand against him; he was like a deer.
* * * * *
I went to Biddy Early one time myself, about my little boy that's now
in America that was lying sick in the house. But on the way to her I
met a sergeant of police and he asked where was I going, and when I
told him, he said, to joke with me, "Biddy Early's dead." "May the
devil die with her," says I. Well, when I got to the house, what do
you think, if she didn't know that, and what I said. And she was vexed
and at the first, she would do nothing for me. I had a pound for her
here in my bosom. But when I held it out she wouldn't take it, but she
turned the rings on her fingers, for she had a ring for every one, and
she said, "A shilling for this one, sixpence for another one." But all
she told me was that the boy was nervous, and so he was, she was right
in that, and that he'd get well, and so he did.
There was a man beyond in Cloon, was walking near the gate the same
day and his little boy with him, and he turned his foot and hurt it,
and she knew that. She told me she slept in Ballylee mill last night,
and that there was a cure for all things in the world between the two
wheels there. Surely she was _away_ herself, and as to her son, she
brought him back with her, and for eight or nine year he lay in the
bed in the house. And he'd never stir so long as she was in it, but no
sooner was she gone away anywhere than he'd be out down the village
among the people, and then back again before she'd get to the house.
She had three husbands, I saw one of them when I was there, but I
knew by the look of him he wouldn't live long. One man I know went to
her and she sent him on to a woman at Kilrush--one of her own sort,
and they helped one another. She said to some woman I knew: "If you
have a bowl broke or a plate throw it out of the door, and don't
make any attempt to mend it, it vexes _them_."
_Mrs. McDonagh:_
Our religion doesn't allow us to go to fortune tellers. They don't
get the knowledge from God, and so it must be from demons.
The priests took the bottle from Biddy Early before she died, and
they found black things in it.
* * * * *
I never went to Biddy Early myself. I think there was a good deal of
devilment in the things she did. The priests can do cures as well as
she did, but they don't like to do them, unless they're curates that
like to get the money.
* * * * *
There was a man in Cloughareeva and his wife was that bad she would
go out in her shift at night into the field. And he went to Biddy
Early and she said, "Within three days a disgraced priest will come
to you and will cure her."
And after three days the disgraced priest that had been put out for
drink came bowling into the house, and they reached down from the
shelf a bottle of whiskey. Father Boyle was mad when he heard of it,
but he cured her all the same.
* * * * *
There was a man on this estate, and he sixty years, and he took to
the bed, and his wife went to Biddy Early and she said, "It can't
be by _them_ he's taken, what use would it be to them, he being so
old." And Biddy Early is the one that should surely know. I went to
her myself one time, to get a cure for myself when I fell coming down
that hill up there, and got a hurt on my knee. And she gave me one
and she told me all about the whole place, and that there was a bowl
broken in the house, and so there was. The priests can do cures by
the same power that she had, but those that have much stock don't
like to be doing them; for they're sure to lose all.
* * * * *
I knew one went to Biddy Early about his wife, and as soon as she saw
him, she said, "On the fourth day a discarded priest will call in and
cure your wife"; and so he did--one Father James.
_Mrs. Nelly:_
The old man here that lost his hair went to Biddy Early but he didn't
want to go, and we forced him and persuaded him. And when he got to
the house she said, "It wasn't of your own free will you came here,"
and she wouldn't do anything for him.
She didn't like either for you to go too late. Dolan's sister was
sick a long time, and when the brother went at the last to Biddy
Early she gave him a bottle with a cure. But on the way home the
bottle was broke, and the car, and the horse got a fright and ran
away. She said to him then, "Why did you go to cut down the bush of
white thorn you see out of the window?" And then she told him an old
woman in the village had overlooked him--Murphy's sister--and she
gave him a bottle to sprinkle about her house. I suppose she didn't
like that bush being interfered with, she had too much charms.
And when Doctor Folan was sent for to see her he was led astray, and
it is beyond Ballylee he found himself. And surely she was _taken_ if
ever any one was.
_An Old Woman:_
I went up to Biddy Early's one time with another woman. A fine stout
woman she was, sitting straight up on her chair. She looked at me and
she told me that my son was worse than what I was, and for myself
she bid me to take what I was taking before, and that's dandelions.
Five leaves she bid me pick and lay them out on the table with three
pinches of salt on the three middle ones. As to my son, she gave me a
bottle for him but he wouldn't take it and he got better without.
The priests were against her, but there was one of them passed near
her house one day, and his horse fell forward. And he sent his boy
to her and she said, "Tell him to spit on the horse and to say,
'God bless it,'" and he did and it rose again. He had looked at it
proud-like without saying "God bless it" in his heart.
_Daniel Shea:_
It was all you could do to get to Biddy Early with your skin whole,
the priests were so set against her. I went to her one time myself,
and it was hard when you got near to know the way, for all the people
were afraid to tell it.
It was about a little chap of my own I went, that some strange thing
had been put upon. When I got to her house there were about fifty to
be attended to before me, and when my turn came she looked in the
bottle, a sort of a common greenish one that seemed to have nothing
in it. And she told me where I came from, and the shape of the
house and the appearance of it, and of the lake you see there, and
everything round about. And she told me of a lime-kiln that was near,
and then she said, "The harm that came to him came from the forth
beyond that." And I never knew of there being a forth there, but
after I came home I went to look, and there sure enough it was.
And she told me how it had come on him, and bid me remember a day
that a certain gentleman stopped and spoke to me when I was out
working in the hayfield, and the child with me playing about. And I
remembered it well, it was old James Hill of Creen, that was riding
past, and stopped and talked and was praising the child. And it was
close by that forth beyond that James Hill was born.
It was soon after that day that the mother and I went to Loughrea,
and when we came back, the child had slipped on the threshold of the
house and got a fall, and he was screeching and calling out that his
knee was hurt, and from that time he did no good, and pined away and
had the pain in the knee always.
And Biddy Early said, "While you're talking to me now the child lies
dying," and that was at twelve o'clock in the day. And she made up a
bottle for me, herbs I believe it was made of, and she said, "Take care
of it going home, and whatever may happen, don't drop it"; and she
wrapped it in all the folds of my handkerchief. So when I was coming
home and got near Tillyra I heard voices over the wall talking, and
when I got to the Roxborough gate there were many people talking and
coming to where we were. I could hear them and see them, and the man
that was with me. But when I heard them I remembered what she said,
and I took the bottle in my two hands and held it, and so I brought it
home safely. And when I got home they told me the child was worse, and
that at twelve o'clock the day before he lay as they thought dying. And
when I brought the bottle to him, he pulled the bed-clothes up over his
head, and we had the work of the world to make him taste it. But from
the time he took it, the pain in the knee left him and he began to get
better, and Biddy Early had told me not to let many days pass without
coming to her again, when she gave me the bottle. But seeing him so
well, I thought it no use to go again, and it was not on May Day, but
it was during the month of May he died. He took to the bed before that,
and he'd be always calling to me to come inside the bed where he was,
and if I went in, he'd hardly let me go. But I got afraid, and I didn't
like to be too much with him.
He was but eight years old when he died, but Ned Cahel that used to
live beyond there then told me privately that when I'd be out of the
house and he'd come in, the little chap would ask for the pipe, and
take it and smoke it, but he'd never let me see him doing it. And he
was old-fashioned in all his ways.
Another thing Biddy Early told me to do was to go out before sunrise
to where there'd be a boundary wall between two or three estates, and
to bring a bottle, and lay it in the grass and gather the dew into
it. But there were hundreds of people she turned away, because she'd
say, "What's wrong with you has nothing to do with my business."
There was a Clare woman with me when I went there, and she told me
there was a boy from a village near her was brought tied in a cart
to Biddy Early, and she said, "If I cure you, will you be willing to
marry me?" And he said he would. So she cured him and married him. I
saw him there at her house. It might be that she had the illness put
upon him first.
The priests don't do cures by the same means, and they don't like to
do them at all. It was in my house that you see that Father Gregan did
one on Mr. Phayre. And he cured a girl up in the mountains after, and
where is he now but in a madhouse. They are afraid of the power they
do them by, that it will be too strong for them. Some say the bishops
don't like them to do cures because the whiskey they drink to give them
courage before they do them is very apt to make drunkards of them. It's
not out of the prayer-book they read, but out of the Roman ritual, and
that's a book you can read evil out of as well as good.
* * * * *
There was a boy of the Saggartons in the house went to Biddy Early
and she told him the house of his bachelor [the girl he would marry]
and he did marry her after. And she cured him of a weakness he had
and cured many, but it was seldom the bottle she'd give could be
brought home without being spilled. I wonder did she go to _them_
when she died. She got the cure among them anyway.
_Mrs. Dillon:_
My mother got crippled in her bed one night--God save the hearers--and
it was a long time before she could walk again with the pain in her
back. And my father was always telling her to go to Biddy Early, and
so at last she went. But she could do nothing for her, for she said,
"What ails you has nothing to do with my business." And she said, "You
have lost three, and one was a grand little fair-haired one, and if
you'd like to see her again, I'll show her to you." And when she said
that, my mother had no courage to look and to see the child she lost,
but fainted then and there. And then she said, "There's a field of corn
beyond your house and a field with hay, and it's not long since that
the little fellow that wears a Llanberis cap fell asleep there on a
cock of hay. And before the stooks of corn are in stacks he'll be taken
from you, but I'll save him if I can." And it was true enough what she
said, my little brother that was wearing a Llanberis cap had gone to
the field, and had fallen asleep on the hay a few days before. But no
harm happened him, and he's all the brother I have living now. Out in
the stable she used to go to meet her _people_.
_Mrs. Locke:_