of the mill-stream between the two wheels of Ballylee. It can cure
all things brought about by _them_, but not any common ailment. But
there is no cure for the stroke given by a queen or a fool. There
is a queen in every house or regiment of them. It is of those they
steal away they make queens for as long as they live or that they are
satisfied with them.
There were two women fighting at a spring of water, and one hit the
other on the head with a can and killed her. And after that her
children began to die. And the husband went to Biddy Early and as
soon as she saw him she said, "There's nothing I can do for you, your
wife was a wicked woman, and the one she hit is a queen among them,
and she is taking your children one by one and you must suffer till
twenty-one years are up." And so he did.
The stroke of a fool, there's no cure for either. There are many
fools among them dressed in strange clothes like one of the mummers
that used to be going through the country. But it might be the fools
are the wisest after all. There are two classes, the Dundonians that
are like ourselves, and another race, more wicked and more spiteful.
Very small they are and wide, and their belly sticks out in front, so
that what they carry they don't carry it on the back, but in front,
on the belly in a bag. (_Note_ 28.)
* * * * *
They were fighting when Johnny Casey died; that's what often happens.
Everyone has friends among them, and the friends would be trying to
save you when the others would be trying to bring you away. Youngsters
they pick up here and there, to help them in their fights and in their
work. They have cattle and horses, but all of them have only three legs.
They don't have children themselves, only the women that are brought
away among them, they have children, but they don't live for ever,
like the Dundonians.
The handsome they like, and the good dancers. And if they get a boy
amongst them, the first to touch him, he belongs to her.
* * * * *
There was a boy was a splendid dancer, and straight and firm, for
they don't like those that go to right or left as they walk. Well,
one night he was going to a house where there was a dance, and when
he was about half-way to it, he came to another house, where there
was music and dancing going on. So he turned in, and there was a room
all done up with curtains and with screens, and a room inside where
the people were sitting, and it was only those that were dancing sets
that came to the outside room.
* * * * *
As to their treasure, it's best to be without it. There was a man
living by a forth, and where his house touched the forth, he built a
little room and left it for them, clean and in good order, the way
they'd like it. And whenever he'd want money, for a fair or the like,
he'd find it laid on the table in the morning. And when he had it
again, he'd leave it there, and it would be taken away in the night.
But after that going on for a time he lost his son.
* * * * *
There was a room at Crags where things used to be thrown about, and
everyone could hear the noises there. They had a right to clear it
out and settle it the way they'd like it. You should do that in your
own big house. Set a little room for them--with spring water in it
always--and wine you might leave--no, not flowers--they wouldn't want
so much as that--but just what would show your good will.
Now I have told you more than I told my wife.
"A GREAT WARRIOR IN THE BUSINESS"
_It was on the bounds of Connemara I heard of this healer, and went to
see his wife in her little rock-built cabin among the boulders, to ask
if a cure could be done for Mr. Yeats, who was staying at a friend's
house near, and who was at that time troubled by uncertain eyesight._
_One evening later we walked beside the sea to the cottage where we
were to meet the healer; a storm was blowing and we were glad when
the door was opened and we found a bright turf fire._
_He was short and broad, with regular features, and his hair was
thick and dark, though he was an old man. He wore a flannel-sleeved
waistcoat, and his trousers were much patched on the knees. He sat
on a low bench in the wide chimney nook, holding a soft hat in his
hands which kept nervously moving. The woman of the house came over
now and then to look at the iron tripod on the hearth. She, like the
healer, spoke only Irish. The man of the house sat between us and
interpreted, holding a dip candle in his hands. A dog growled without
ceasing at one side of the hearth, a reddish cat sat at the other.
The woman seemed frightened and angry at times as the old man spoke,
and clutched the baby to her breast._
_I was told by the man of the house, Coneely:_
There's a man beyond is a great warrior in this business, and no man
within miles of the place will build a house or a cabin or any other
thing without him going there to say if it's in a right place.
It was Fagan cured me of a pain I had in my arm, I couldn't get rid
of. He gave me a something to drink, and he bid me go to a quarry and
to touch some of the stones that were lying outside it and not to
touch others of them. Anyway I got well.
And one time down by the hill we were gathering in the red seaweed,
and there was a boy there that was leading a young horse, the same
way he'd been leading him a year or more. But this day of a sudden he
made a snap to bite him, and secondly he reared as if to jump on top
of him, and thirdly turned around and made at him with the hoofs. And
the boy threw himself to one side and escaped, but with the fright he
got he went into his bed and stopped there. And the next day Fagan
came and told him everything that had happened, and he said, "I saw
thousands on the strand near where it was last night."
_Fagan's wife said to me in her house:_
Are you _right_? You are? Then you're my friend. Come here close and
tell me is there anything himself can do for you?
I do the fortunes no more since I got great abuse from the priest for
it. Himself got great abuse from the priest too--Father Haverty--and
he gave him plaster of Paris,--I mean by that he spoke soft and
blathered him, but he does them all the same, and Father Kilroy gave
him leave when he was here.
It was from his sister he got the cure. Taken she was when her baby
was born. She died in the morning and the baby at night. We didn't
tell John of it for a month after, where he was away, caring horses.
But he knew of it before he came home, for she followed him there one
day he was out in the field, and when he didn't know her she said,
"I'm your sister Kate." And she said, "I bring you a cure that you
may cure both yourself and others." And she told him of the herb and
the field he'd find it growing, and that he must choose a plant with
seven branches, the half of them above the clay and the half of them
covered up. And she told him how to use it.
Twenty years she's gone, but she's not dead yet, but the last time he
saw her he said that she was getting grey. Every May and November he
sees her, he'll be seeing her soon now. When her time comes to die,
she'll be put in the place of some other one that's taken, and so
she'll get absolution. (_Note_ 29.)
He has cured many. But sometimes they are vexed with him, for some
cure he has done, when he interferes with some person they're meaning
to bring away. And many's the good beating they gave him out in the
fields for doing that.
Myself they gave a touch to, here in the thigh, so that I lost my
walk; vexed with me they are for giving up the throwing of the cup.
A nurse she's been all the time among them. And don't believe those
that say they have no children. A boy among them is as clever as any
boy here, but he must be matched with a woman from earth. And the
same way with their women, they must get a husband here. And they
never can give the breast to a child, but must get a nurse from here.
One time I saw them myself, in a field and they hurling. Bracket caps
they wore and bracket clothes that were of all colours.
Some were the same size as ourselves and some looked like gossoons
that didn't grow well. But himself has the second sight and can see
them in every place.
There's as many of them in the sea as on the land, and sometimes they
fly like birds across the bay.
The first time he did a cure it was on some poor person like
ourselves, and he took nothing for it, and in the night the sister
came and bid him not to do it any more without a fee. And that time
we lost a fine boy.
They'll all be watching round when a person is dying; and suppose it
was myself, there'd be my own friends crying, crying, and themselves
would be laughing and jesting, and glad I'd go. (_Note_ 30.)
There is always a mistress among them. When one of us goes among them
they would all be laughing and jesting, but when that tall mistress you
heard of would tip her stick on the ground, they'd all draw to silence.
* * * * *
Tell me the Christian name of your friend you want the cure for.
"William Butler," I'll keep that. (_Note_ 31.) And when himself
gathers the herb, if it's for a man, he must call on the name of some
other man, and call him a king--Righ--and if it's for a woman he must
call on the name of some other woman and call her a queen that is
calling on the king or the queen of the plant.
_Fagan said to W. B. Yeats and to me:_
It's not from _them_ the harm came to your eyes. I see them in all
places--and there's no man mowing a meadow that doesn't see them at
some time or other. As to what they look like, they'll change colour
and shape and clothes while you look round. Bracket caps they always
wear. There is a king and a queen and a fool in each house of them,
that is true enough--but they would do you no harm. The king and the
queen are kind and gentle, and whatever you'll ask them for they'll
give it. They'll do no harm at all if you don't injure them. You might
speak to them if you'd meet them on the road, and they'd answer you, if
you'd speak civil and quiet and show respect, and not be laughing or
humbugging--they wouldn't like that. One night I was in bed with the
wife beside me, and the child near me, near the fire. And I turned and
saw a woman sitting by the fire, and she made a snap at the child, and
I was too quick for her and got hold of it, and she was at the door and
out of it in one minute, before I could get to her.
Another time in the field a woman came beside me, and I went on to a
gap in the wall and she was in it before me. And then she stopped me
and she said: "I'm your sister that was taken; and don't you remember
how I got the fever first and you tended me, and then you got it
yourself, and one had to be taken and I was the one." And she taught me
the cure, and the way to use it. And she told me that she was in the
best of places, and told me many things that she bound me not to tell.
And I asked was it here she was kept ever since, and she said it was,
but she said, "In six months I'll have to move to another place, and
others will come where I am now, and it would be better for you if we
stopped here, for the most of us here now are your neighbours and your
friends." And it was she gave me the second sight. (_Note_ 32.)
Last year I was digging potatoes and a man came by, one of _them_,
and one that I knew well before. And he said, "You have them this
year, and we'll have them the next two years." And you know the
potatoes were good last year and you see that they are bad now, and
have been made away with. (_Note_ 33.) And the sister told me that
half the food in Ireland goes to them, but that if they like they can
make out of cow-dung all they want, and they can come into a house
and use what they like and it will never be missed in the morning.
* * * * *
_The old man suddenly stooped and took a handful of hot ashes in
his hand, and put them in his pocket. And presently he said he'd be
afraid tonight going home the road. When we asked him why, he said
he'd have to tell what errand he had been on._
_He said one eye of W. B. Y.'s was worse than the other, and asked if
he had ever slept out at nights. We asked if he goes to enquire of_
them (_the Others_) _what is wrong with those who came to him and he
said, "Yes, when it has to do with their business--but in this case
it has nothing to do with it."_ (_Note_ 34.)
_Coneely said next day:_
I walked home with the old man last night, he was afraid to go by
himself. He pointed out to me on the way a graveyard where he had got
a great beating from _them_ one night. He had a drop too much taken
after being at a funeral, and he went there and gathered the plant
wrong. And they came and punished him, that his head is not better of
it ever since.
He told me the way he knows in the gathering of the plant what is
wrong with the person that is looking for a cure. He has to go on
his knees and say a prayer to the king and the queen and the gentle
and the simple among them, and then he gathers it, and if there are
black leaves about it, or white ones, but chiefly a black leaf folded
down, he knows the illness is some of their business; but for this
young man the plant came fresh and green and clean. He has been among
them and has seen the king and the queen, and he says that they are
no bigger than the others, but the queen wears a wide cap, and the
others have bracket caps.
He never would allow me to build a shed there beside the house,
though I never saw anything there myself.
OLD DERUANE
_Old Deruane lived in the middle island of Aran, Inishmaan, where I
have stayed more than once. He was one of the evening visitors to the
cottage I stayed in, when the fishers had come home and had eaten, and
the fire was stirred and flashed on the dried mackerel and conger eels
hanging over the wide hearth, and the little vessel of cod oil had a
fresh wick put in it and lighted. The men would sit in a half-circle
on the floor, passing the lighted pipe from one to another; the women
would find some work with yarn or wheel. The talk often turned on the
fallen angels or the dead, for the dwellers in those islands have not
been moulded in that dogma which while making belief in the after-life
an essential, makes belief in the shadow-visit of a spirit yearning
after those it loved a vanity, a failing of the great essential, common
sense, and sets down one who believes in such things as what Burton
calls in his Anatomy "a melancholy dizzard."_
_I was told by Old Deruane:_
I was born and bred in the North Island, and ten old fathers of mine
are buried there.
I can speak English, because I went to earn in England in the
hard times, and I was for five quarters in a country town called
Manchester; and I have threescore and fifteen years.
I knew two fine young women were brought away after childbirth, and
they were seen after in the North Island going about with _them_. One
of them I saw myself there, one time I was out late at night going to
the east village. I saw her pattern walking on the north side of the
wall, on the road near me, but she said nothing. And my body began
to shake, and I was going to get to the south side of the wall, to
put it between us; but then I said, "Where is God?" and I walked on
and passed her, and she looked aside at me but she didn't speak. And
I heard her after me for a good while, but I never looked back, for
it's best not to look back at them.
And there was another woman had died, and one evening late I was
coming from the schoolmaster, for he and I are up to one another, and
he often gives me charity. And then I saw her or her pattern walking
along that field of rock you passed by just now. But I stopped and I
didn't speak to her, and she went on down the road, and when she was
about forty fathoms below me I could hear her abusing some one, but
no one there. I thought maybe it was that she was vexed at me that
I didn't question her. She was a young woman too. I'll go bail they
never take an old man or woman--what would they do with them? If by
chance they'd come among them they'd throw them out again.
Another night I was out and the moon shining, I knew by the look of it
the night was near wore away. And when I came to the corner of the road
beyond, my flesh began to shake and my hair rose up, and every hair was
as stiff as that stick. So I knew that some evil thing was near, and
I got home again. This island is as thick as grass with them, or as
sand; but good neighbours make good neighbours, and no woman minding a
house but should put a couple of the first of the potatoes aside on the
dresser, for there's no house but they'll visit it some time or other.
Myself, I always brush out my little tent clean of a night before I lie
down, and the night I'd do it most would be a rough night. How do we
know what poor soul might want to come in?
I saw them playing ball one day when the slip you landed at was being
made, and I went down to watch the work. There were hundreds of them
in the field at the top of it, about three feet tall, and little caps
on them; but the men that were working there, they couldn't see
them. (_Note_ 35.) And one morning I went down to the well to leave
my pampooties in it to soak--it was a Sabbath morning and I was going
to Mass--and the pampooties were hard and wore away my feet, and I
left them there. And when I came back in a few minutes they were
gone, and I looked in every cleft, but I couldn't find them. And when
I was going away, I felt _them_ about me, and coming between my two
sticks that I was walking with. And I stopped and looked down and
said, "I know you're there," and then I said, "_Gentlemen_, I know
you're here about me," and when I said that word they went away. Was
it they took my pampooties? Not at all--what would they want with
such a thing as pampooties? It was some children must have taken
them, and I never saw them since.
One time I wanted to settle myself clean, and I brought down my
waistcoat and a few little things I have, to give them a rinse in
the sea-water, and I laid them out on a stone to dry, and I left
one of my sticks on them. And when I came back after leaving them
for a little time, the stick was gone. And I was vexed at first to
be without it, but I knew that they had taken it to be humbugging
me, or maybe for their own use in fighting. For there is nothing
there is more fighting among than them. So I said, "Welcome to it,
_Gentlemen_, may it bring you luck; maybe you'll make more use of it
than ever I did myself."
One night when I was sleeping in my little tent, I heard a great noise
of fighting, and I thought it was down at Mrs. Jordan's house, and that
maybe the children were troublesome in the bed, she having a great
many of them. And in the morning as I passed the house I said to her,
"What was on you in the night?" And she said there was nothing happened
there, and that she heard no noise. So I said nothing but went on; and
when I came to the flag-stones beyond her house, they were covered with
great splashes and drops of blood. So I said nothing of that either,
but went on. What time of the year? Wait till I think, it was this very
same time of the year, the month of May.
One time I was out putting seed in the ground, and the ridges all
ready and the seaweed spread in them; and it was a fine day, but I
heard a storm in the air, and then I knew by signs that it was they
were coming. And they came into the field and tossed the seaweed and
the seed about, and I spoke to them civil and then they went in to
a neighbour's field, and from that down to the sea, and there they
turned into a ship, the grandest that ever I saw.
There was a man on this island went out with two others fishing in his
curragh, and when they were about a mile out they saw a ship coming
towards them, and when they looked again, instead of having three masts
she had none, and just when they were going to take up the curragh to
bring it ashore, a great wave came and turned it upside down. And the
man that owned her got such a fright that he couldn't walk, and the
other two had to hold him under the arms to bring him home. And he went
to his bed, and within a week after, he was dead.
One night I heard a crying down the road, and the next day, there was
a child of Tom Regan's dead. And it was a few months after that, that
I heard a crying again. And the next day another of his children was
gone.
There was a fine young man was buried in the graveyard below, and
a good time after that, there was work being done in it, and they
came on his coffin, and the mother made them open it, and there was
nothing in it at all but a broom, and it tied up with a bit of a rope.
There was a man was passing by that Sheoguy place below, "Breagh" we
call it. And he saw a man come riding out of it on a white horse. And
when he got home that night there was nothing for him or for any of
them to eat, for the potatoes were not in yet. And in the morning he
asked the wife was there anything to eat, and she said a neighbour
had sent in a pan of meal. So she made that into stirabout, and he
took but a small bit of it out of her hand to leave more for the
rest. And then he took a sheet, and bid her make a bag of it, and he
got a horse and rode to the place where he saw the man ride out, for
he knew he was the master of _them_. And he asked for the full of the
bag of meal, and said he'd bring it back again when he had it. And
the man brought the bag in, and filled it for him and brought it out
again. And when the oats were ripe, the first he cut, he got ground
at the mill and brought it to the place and gave it in. And the man
came out and took it, and said whatever he'd want at any time, to
come to him and he'd get it.
In a bad year they say they bring away the potatoes and that may be so.
They want provision, and they must get them at one place or another.
_Mr. McArdle joins in and says:_
This I can tell you and be certain of, and I remember well that the
man in the third house to this died after being sick a long time. And
the wife died after, and she was to be buried in the same place, and
when they came to the husband's coffin they opened it, and there was
nothing in it at all, neither brooms nor anything else.
There's a boy, I know him well, that was up at that forth above the
house one day, and a blast of wind came and blew the hat off him. And
when he saw it going off in the air he cried out, "Do whatever is
pleasing to you, but give me back my cap!" And in the moment it was
settled back again on to his head.
_Old Deruane goes on:_
There are many can do cures, because they have something walking
with them, what one may call a ghost from among the Sheogue. A few
cures I can do myself, and this is how I got them. I told you that
I was for five quarters in Manchester, and where I lodged were two
old women in the house, from the farthest end of Mayo, for they were
running from Mayo at the time because of the hunger. And I knew that
they were likely to have a cure, for St. Patrick blessed the places
he was not in more than the places he was in, and with the cure he
left and the fallen angels, there are many in Mayo can do them.
Now it's the custom in England never to clean the table but once
in the week and that on a Saturday night. And on that night all is
set out clean, and all the crutches of bread and bits of meat and
the like are gathered together in a tin can, and thrown out in the
street, and women that have no other way of living come round then
with a bag that would hold two stone, and they pick up all that's
thrown out in the street, and live on it for a week. And often I
didn't eat the half of what was before me, and I wouldn't throw it
out, but I'd bring it to the two old women that were in the house, so
they grew very fond of me.
Well, when the time came that I thought to draw towards home, I brought
them one day to a public-house and made a drop of punch for them, and
then I picked the cure out of them, for I was wise in those days.
Those that get a touch I could save from being brought away, but I
couldn't bring back a man that's away, for it's only those that have
been living among them for a while that can do that. There was a
neighbour's child was sick, and I got word of it, and I went to the
house, for the woman there had showed me kindness. And I went in to the
cradle and I lifted the quilt off the child's face and you could see by
it, and I knew the sign, that there was some of their work there. And
I said, "You are not likely to have the child long with you, Ma'am."
And she said, "Indeed I know I won't have him long." So I said nothing
but I went out, and whatever I did, and whatever I got there, I brought
it again and gave it to the child, and he began to get better. And the
next day I brought the same thing again, and gave it the child, and I
looked at it and I said to the mother, "He'll live to comb his hair
grey." And from that time he got better, and now there's no stronger
child in the island, and he the youngest in the house.