man of the neighbours digging potatoes in that field beyond, and
a woman passed by, and she never said anything. And presently the
top of his fingers got burned off, and he called out with the pain,
a blast he got from her as she passed. Often he'd come into this
house, and crying out with the hurt of the pain. And at last he went
to the priests at Esker, and they cured him, but they said, "Your
own priests could have done the same for you." And when he came back
there were two cows dead.
And the same thing when Carey's wife--that is a tenant of your
own--was sick, they called in Father Gardiner and he cured her, and
he told them to watch by her for two or three days. And then the
priest went out to see the stabling, and Carey with him, for Carey
had always a pair of good horses. And when they went into the stable,
the horses were dead before them.
* * * * *
It was Flaherty gave his life for my sister that was his wife. When
she fell sick he brought her to Biddy Early in the mountains beyond.
And she cured her the first time. But she said, "If you bring her
again, you'll pay the penalty." But when she fell sick again he
brought her, but he stopped a mile from the house. But she knew it
well, and told the wife where he was, and that time the horse died.
But the third time she fell sick he went again, knowing full well
he'd pay the penalty; and so he did and died. But she was cured; and
married one O'Dea afterwards.
The priests know well about these things, but they won't let on to
have seen them, and the people don't much like to be telling them
about them. But there was Father Gallagher that did cures by means of
them, and at last he got a touch himself, and was sent for a while to
an asylum, and now he has promised to leave them alone. Fallen angels
some say they are. I know a man that saw them hurling up there in
Hanlon's field. Red caps they wore and looked very diminutive, but
they were hurling away like Old Boots.
* * * * *
The way the bad luck came on Tom Hurley was when a cow fell sick on
him and lay like dead. He had a right to leave it or to kill it; but
the father-in-law cut a bit off the leg of it and it rose again, and
they sold it for seven pounds at the fair of Tubber. But he had no
luck since then, but lost four or five head of cattle, near all that
he owned.
* * * * *
There was a man did a cure on his son that came from America sick.
He didn't like to see him ailing, and one night he did the cure. But
before sunrise the sight of one of his eyes was gone.
_A Mountainy Man:_
There's some people living about three miles from here on Slieve-Mor,
and they came from the North at the time of the famine, and they can
do cures, but they don't like to say much about it--for the people of
the North all have it. Their names are natural, McManus, and Irwin
and Taylor. There's one of them gave a cure for a man that was sick,
and he grew better, but a calf died. And the son was going to him
again, but the mother said: "Let him alone, let him die, or we'll
lose all the stock"; for she'd sooner have the husband die than any
other beast. So the son was out and he met the man, and he said, "It
is to me you're coming?" And the son said it was, for he didn't like
to tell about what his mother said or about the death of the calf.
So the man got him a bottle, and said he'd come home with him, but
when they were on the road they met some one that spoke of the death
of the calf. So when the man heard that, he was angry and he said,
"If I knew that I wouldn't have helped you," and he broke the bottle
against the wall. So the father died, and the wife kept the stock--a
very unkind woman she was.
* * * * *
There was a woman of my village never put a shoe on her feet from the
time of her birth till the time of her death. Doing a penance she
said she was. And she never married and would never eat meat.
* * * * *
As to cures, there's none can do them like the priests can, if they
will. There was a woman I knew, and her little boy was sick and
couldn't move. And she got the priest to come and do a cure on him,
but no one knew what he did. And often he said to the woman: "You
have a horse and a pony, and which do you value the most?" And she
said she valued the pony the most. And next day the horse had died,
but the little boy got well.
_A Man of the Islands:_
There's an old woman here now--there she is passing the road--that
does cures with herbs. But last year she got a sore hand and she had
to go to the hospital, and before she came back they took two fingers
off her. And there's no luck about bone-setters either. There's one
here on the island and a good many go to him. But he had but one son
and he never did any good, and now he's gone away from him.
_John Curtis:_
When Father Callan was a curate he did a cure for me one time for my
cattle, and I gave him half a sovereign in his hand for it, in this
road. It was the time I had so much trouble, and my brothers trying
to rob me, and but for our landlord I wouldn't have kept the farm.
And all my stock began to die. There was hardly a day I'd come out
but I'd see maybe two or three sheep lying there in the field with
froth at their mouths, and they turning black. The same thing was
happening Tommy Hare's stock, and he went to Father Callan and he
came to the house and read some sort of a Mass and took the sickness
off them. So then I went to him myself, and he said he'd read a Mass
in the chapel for me, and so he did. And the stock were all right
from that time, and the day he came to see them and that I gave him
the money, there ran a dog out of Roche's house and came behind the
priest and gave him a bite in the leg, that he had to go to Dublin to
cut it out. Why did the dog do it? He did it because he was mad when
he saw the stock getting well. And weren't the Roches queer people
that they wouldn't kill the dog when the priest wanted it, the way
he'd be in no danger if the dog would go mad after?
IV
AWAY
IV
AWAY
_Pwyll, Prince of Dyved ... let loose the dogs in the wood and
sounded the horn and began the chase. And as he followed the dogs he
lost his companions; and while he listened to the hounds he heard the
cry of other hounds, a cry different from his own, and coming in the
opposite direction.... And he saw a horseman coming towards him on a
large light-grey steed with a hunting horn round his neck, and clad
in garments of grey woollen in the fashion of a hunting garb, and
the horseman drew near and spoke to him thus:... "A crowned King I
am in the land whence I come.... There is a man whose dominions are
opposite to mine, who is ever warring against me, and by ridding me
of this oppression which thou can'st easily do, shalt thou gain my
friendship." "Gladly will I do this," said he. "Show me how I may."
"I will show thee. Behold, thus it is thou mayest. I will send thee
to Annwyvn in my stead, and I will give thee the fairest lady thou
didst ever behold to be thy companion, and I will put my form and
semblance upon thee, so that not a page of the chamber nor an officer
nor any other man that has always followed me shall know that it is
not I. And this shall be for the space of a year from tomorrow and
then we will meet in this place." ... "Verily," said Pwyll, "what
shall I do concerning my kingdom?" Said Arawn: "I will cause that no
one in all thy dominions, neither man nor woman, shall know that I am
not thou, and I will go there in thy stead."_--"The Mabinogion."
_I was told by a Man of Slieve Echtge:_
That girl of the Cohens that was away seven year, she was bid tell
nothing of what she saw, but she told her mother some things and told
of some she met there. There was a woman--a cousin of my own--asked
was her son over there, and she had to press her a long time, but at
last she said he was. And he was taken too with little provocation,
fifty years ago. We were working together, myself and him and a lot
of others, making that trench you see beyond, to drain the wood. And
it was contract work, and he was doing the work of two men and was
near ready to take another piece. And some of them began to say to
him, "It's a shame for you to be working like that, and taking the
bread out of the hands of another," and I standing there. And he
said he didn't care, and he took the spade and sent the scraws out
flying, to the right and to the left. And he never put a spade into
the ground again, for that night he was taken ill, and died shortly
after. Watched he was, and taken by _them_.
* * * * *
As to the woman brought back again, it was told me by a boy going to
school there at the time, so I know there's no lie in it. It was
one of the Taylors, a rich family in Scariff. His wife was sick and
pining away for seven years, and at the end of that time one day he
came in he had a drop of drink taken, and he began to be a bit rough
with her. And she said, "Don't be rough with me now, after bearing
so well with me all these seven years. But because you were so good
and so kind to me all that time," says she, "I'll go away from you
now and I'll let your own wife come back to you." And so she did, for
it was some old hag she was, and the wife came back again and reared
a family. And before she went away, she had a son that was reared a
priest, and after she came back, she had another son that was reared
a priest, so that shows a blessing came on them. (_Note_ 39.)
_A Man on the Beach:_
I remember when a great many young girls were taken, it is likely by
_them_. And two year ago two fine young women were brought away from
Aranmor one in a month and one in a week after the birth. And lately I
heard that her own little girl and another little girl that was with
her saw one of them appear in a cabin outside when she came to have a
look at the child she left, but she didn't want to appear herself.
_John Flatley:_
There was a man I knew, Andy White, had a little chap, a little
_summach_ of four years. And one day Andy was away to sell a pig in
the market at Mount Bellew, and the mother was away someplace with
the dinner for the men in the field, and the little chap was in the
house with the grandmother, and he sitting by the fire. And he said
to the grandmother: "Put down a skillet of potatoes for me, and an
egg." And she said: "I will not; what do you want with them, sure
you're not long after eating." And he said, "Take care but I'll throw
you over the roof of the house." And then he said, "Andy"--that was
his father--"is after selling the pig to a jobber, and the jobber
has it given back to him again, and he'll be at no loss by that, for
he'll get a half-a-crown more at the end." So when the grandmother
heard that she wouldn't stop in the house with him but ran out, and
he only four years old.
When the mother came back and was told about it she went out and she
got some of the leaves of the Lus-Mor, and she brought them in and
put them on him; and he went, and her own child came back again. They
didn't see him going or the other coming, but they knew it by him.
But if her child had died among them, and they can die there as well
as in this world, then he wouldn't come back, but that shape in his
place would take the appearance of death.
_Mrs. Cooke:_
There's a man in Kildare that lost his wife. And every night at
twelve o'clock she came back, to look at her child. And it was told
the husband that if he had twelve men with him with forks when she
came in, they would be able to stop her from going out again.
So the next night he was there, and with him his twelve friends with
forks. And when she came in they shut the door, and when she could
not get out she sat down and was quiet.
And one night she was sitting by the hearth with them all, she said
to her husband, "It's a strange thing that Lenchar would be sitting
there so quiet, with the bottom after being knocked out of his churn."
So the husband went to Lenchar's house, and he found it was true
what she had said, and the bottom was after being knocked out of
his churn. But after that he left her, and lived in the village and
wouldn't go near her any more.
* * * * *
Myself, I saw when I was but a child a woman come to the door that
had been seven years with the good people, but do you think that
could be true? And she had two strong girls with her. My brother was
ill at the time, where he had his hip hurt with the shaft of a cart
he was backing into the shed, and my father asked her could she cure
him. And she said, "I will, if you will give me the reward I ask
for." "What is that?" said he. And she stooped down and pointed at a
little kettle that stood below the dresser, and it was the last thing
my mother had bought in this world before she died. So he was vexed
because she cast her eye on that, and he bid her go out of the house
for she wouldn't get it, and so she went away.
But I remember well her being there and telling us that while the
seven years were going by, she was often glad to come outside the
houses in the night-time, and pick a bit of what was in the pigs'
troughs. And she bid us always to leave a bit somewhere about the
house for them that couldn't come in and ask for it. And though my
father was a cross man and didn't believe in such things, to the day
of his death he never dared to go up to bed without leaving a bit of
food outside the door. (_Note_ 40.)
_A Herd:_
The McGarritys in the house beyond, they have plenty of money. It was
money they got _out_, buried money, and _they_ are after them.
There is one of them--Ned--is rather silly; I meet him often on the
farm stretched by the side of the wall. He met with something one
night and he is not the same since then.
There is another of them was walking one evening by the brink of the
bushes and he met with two fillies--he thought them to be fillies--and
one of them called out, "How are you, John?" and he legged it home as
fast as he could. It is likely it was the father or the uncle.
Sure leaving town one time he was brought away to the railway
station, and some of the people brought him hither again and set him
towards home and he was brought back to the very same place. They
had a right to have got the priest to say a few Masses in that house
before they went to live in it at all.
It was the time their uncle was dying there was a whistle heard
outside and the man in the bed answered it, and it was that very
night he died. To keep money you would get _out_ like, that is not
right unless you might give the first of it in a few Masses. It was
the man the money was took from gave that whistle.
_Mrs. Donnely:_
My mother told me that when she was a young girl, and before the
time of side-cars, a man that was living in Duras married a girl
from Ardrahan side. And it was the custom in those days for a newly
married girl to ride home on a horse, behind her next-of-kin.
And she was sitting behind her uncle on the horse, and when they were
passing by Ardrahan churchyard he felt her to shiver and nearly to
slip off the horse, and he put his hand behind for to support her,
and all he could feel in his hand was for all the world like a piece
of tow. So he asked her what ailed her, and she said that she thought
of her mother when she was passing by the churchyard. A year after
that when her baby was born, then she died. But everyone said the
night she was taken was on her wedding-night.
And sure a sister-in-law of my own was taken the same way that poor
Mrs. Hehir was. It was a couple of days after her baby was born, and
I went to see her, and she Fardy's daughter and niece to Johnson that
has the demesne land. And she was sitting up on the bed and so well
and so strong that her mother says to me, "Catherine, try could you
get a chicken any place; I think she'll be able to eat it tomorrow."
"Chicken's is scarce, ma'am," says I, "but anyway I'll do my best and
someway or other I'll find one."
Well, after that we left, and her husband being tired with the nights
he'd been sitting up came with us to sleep at the house of his uncle,
Johnson. And hardly had he got to the house when bad news followed
him. And when he got home his wife was dead before him. Hardly were
we out of the house when she said to her mother "Take off my boots."
"Sure, you have no boots on," said the mother. "Well," says she, "lay
me at the foot of the bed." And presently she says, "Send in to the
McInerneys and ask them if the coffin they have is a better one than
mine." And the mother saw she was going, and sent for the husband,
but she was gone before he could come. And she so well and sitting up
in the bed. But Hehir's wife was out of bed altogether, and brought
her husband his tea in the hayfield before she was took.
* * * * *
And now I'll tell your ladyship a story that's all truth and no lie.
There was an uncle of my own living near Kinvara, and one night his
wife was coming home from Kinvara town, and she passed three men that
were lying by the roadside. And the first of them said to her in
Irish, "Go home, my poor woman." And the second said, "Go home if you
can." And when she got home and told the story, she said the voice of
the second was like the voice of her brother that was dead.
And from that day she began to waste away, and was wasting for
seven year, until she died. And at the last some person said to her
husband, "It's time for you to ask her what way she's been spending
these seven years."
So he went into the room where she was on the bed, and said, "I
believe it's time to ask you now what way have you been spending
these seven years." And she said, "I'll tell you presently when you
come in again, but leave me now for a while." And he went back into
the kitchen and took his pipe for to have a smoke before he'd go back
and ask her again. And the servant girl that was in the house was the
first to go into the room, and found her cold and dead before her.
They had her took away before she had the time to tell what she had
been doing all those seven years.
_J. Kenny:_
I was in a house one night with a man used to go away with the
faeries. He got up in the night and opened the house door and went
out. About four hours he was away, and when he came back he seemed
to be very angry. I saw him putting off his clothes.
_Nora Whelan:_
Indeed Moneen has a great name for things that do be going on there
beside that big forth. Sure there's many can hear them galloping,
galloping all the night. You know Stephen's house at the meadow?
Well, his daughter got a touch from them one night when she heard
them going past with horses and with carriages, and she the only one
in the house that felt them. She got silly like for a bit, but she's
getting better now.
* * * * *
An old woman from Loughrea told me that a woman, I believe it was from
Shragwalla close to the town, was taken away one time for fourteen
years when she went out into the field at night with nothing on but her
shift. And she was swept there and then, and an old hag put into the
bed in her place, and she suckling her young son at the time.
It was a great many years after that, there was a pedlar used to be
going about, and in his travels he went to England. And up in the
north of England he saw a rich house and went into the kitchen of it,
and there he saw that same woman, in a corner working. And he went up
to her and said, "I know where you come from." "Where's that?" says
she, and he gave her the name of her own village. Well, she laughed
and she went out of the kitchen, and I don't know did she buy
anything from him. But anyhow not long after that she come back and
walked into her own house.
The husband never knew her, but the boy that was then fourteen year
come up and touched her, and the father cried out, "Leave off putting
your hand to that fine dress," for she had very rich clothes on. But
she stood up and said, "I'm no other than your wife come back again,
and the first thing you have to do is to bring in all you can carry
of turf, and to make a big fire here in the middle of the floor."
Well, the old hag was in the room within, in the bed where she'd been
lying a long time, and they thinking she was dying. And when the
smoke of the fire went in at the door she jumps up and away with her
out of the house, and tale or tidings of her they never had again.
My mother often told me about her sister's child--my cousin--that
used to spend the nights in the big forth at Moneen. Every night she
went there, and she got thin and tired like. She used to say that she
saw grand things there, and the horses galloping and the riding. But
then she'd say, "I must tell no more than that, or I'll get a great
beating." She wasted away, but one night they were so sure that she
was dead they had the pot boiling full of water to wash her. But she
recovered again and lived five years after that.
* * * * *
Sure there was a faery in the house out beyond fourteen years. Katie
Morgan she was called. She never kept the bed, but she'd sit in the
corner of the kitchen on a mat, and from a good stout lump of a girl
that she was she wasted to nothing, and her teeth grew as long as
your fingers and then they dropped out. And she'd eat nothing at all
only crabs and sour things. And she'd never leave the house in the
day-time, but in the night she'd go out and pick things out of the
fields she could eat. And the hurt she got or whatever it was touched
her, it was one day that she was swinging on the corner gate just
there by the forth. She died as quiet as another. But you wouldn't
like to be looking at her after the teeth fell out.
_Martin Rabitt:_
There's some people it's lucky to meet and others it's unlucky, and
if you set off to go to America or around the world, and one of the
unlucky ones comes and speaks to you on the boat, you might as well
turn back and come home again.
My own sister was taken away, she and her husband within twenty-four
hours, and not a thing upon them, and she with a baby a week old.
Well, the care of that child fell on me, and sick or sorry it never
was but thriving always.
And a friend of mine told me the same thing. His wife was taken away in
child-birth--and the five children she left that did be always ailing
and sickly--from that day there never was a hap'orth ailed them.
Did the mother come back to care them? Sure and certain she did, and
I'm the one can tell that. For I slept in the room with my sister's
child after she dying; and as sure as I stand here talking to you,
she was back in the room that night.
Walking towards nightfall myself, I've seen the shadows dancing
before me, but I wasn't afeared, no more than I am of you. And I've
felt them other times crying and groaning about the house.
* * * * *
As to the faeries, up beyond Ballymore there's a woman that was said
to be with them for seven years. But she came back after that and had
an impediment in her speech ever since.
_Martin King:_
There's a little forth on this side of Clough behind Glyn's house, and
there was a boy in Clough was said to have passed a night and a day
in it. I often saw him, and he was dull looking, but for cleverness
there was no one could touch him. I saw a picture of a train he drew
one time, with not a bolt nor a ha'porth left out; and whatever he put
his hand to he could do it, and he with no more teaching than any other
poor boy in the town. I believe that he went to America afterwards.
* * * * *
And I remember a boy was about my own age over at Annagh at the other
side of the water, and it's said that he was away for two years.
Anyway for all that time he was sick in bed, and no one ever saw bit
or sup cross his lips in all that time, though the food that was
left in the room would disappear, whatever happened it. He recovered
after and went to America.
* * * * *
There was a girl near taken, in the Prestons' house. I saw her myself
in the bed, near gone. But of a sudden she sat up and looked on the
floor and began to curse, and then they left her for they can't bear
curses. They have the hope of Heaven or they wouldn't leave one on
the face of the earth, and they are afraid of God. They'll not do you
much harm if you leave them alone; it's best not to speak to them at
all if you should meet them. If they bring any one away they'll leave
some old good-for-nothing thing in its place, and the same way with a
cow or a calf or such things. But a sheep or a lamb it's beyond their
power to touch, because of our Lord.
_An Old Butcher:_
I was born myself by daylight, and my mother often told me that I'd
never see anything worse than myself. There's some can see those
things and some that can't.