half-beef, I having at the time a contract for the workhouse. And I
went astray on the mountains, and near Killifin I came to a weaver's
house and went in. And there was sitting in the corner such a
creature as I never saw before, with nothing on him but a shirt, and
eyes that would go through you. And I wouldn't stop in the house but
went out again. And the weaver followed me and says he, "Is it afraid
of him you are?" "It is," says I. "I thought you would be," says he,
"and would you believe that he's my own son, and as fine a young chap
as ever you seen until seven year ago when I sent him to Clough on
a message, and he fell going over a wall, and it's then he got the
touch, and it's like this he's been ever since." "Does he ask to eat
much?" says I. "He'd eat the whole world," says he. "Then it's not
your son that's in it, you may be sure of that," says I, and I turned
and went away and never went back there again.
And it's not many year ago that such a lot of fine women were taken
from Clough, very sudden, after childbirth--fine women--I knew them
all myself. And I'll tell you a thing I heard of in the country.
There was a woman died, and left her child. And every night at twelve
o'clock she'd come back, and brought it out of the bed to the fire,
and she'd comb it and wash it. And at last six men came and watched
and stopped her at the door, and she went very near to tear them all
asunder. But they got the priest, and he took it off her. Well, the
husband had got another wife, and the priest came and asked him would
he put her away, and take the first again. And so he did, and he
brought her to the chapel to be married to her again, and the whole
congregation saw her there. That was rather hard on the second wife?
Well, but wasn't it a great thing for the first poor creature to be
brought back? Sure there's many of those poor souls wandering about.
Sure enough, some are brought away and kept for years, but sometimes
they come back again. There was a woman beyond at Cahirmacun was away
for a year, and came back and reared a family after. They know well
what happened them, but they don't speak of it. There was a young
fellow got a touch there near Ballytown, and a little chap met him
wandering in the field. And he bid him put out food for him every
night, for he had none of their food ate yet, and so they hadn't got
full power over him. So food was left for him, and after a time he
came back as well as another.
_A Connemara man:_
There are many that die and don't go out of the world at all. The
priests know that. There was a boy dying in a house up the road, and
the priest came to him and he was lying as if dead, that he could
not speak nor hear, and the priest said, "_The boys_ have a hand in
this." He meant by that, the faeries. I was outside the house myself
at the time, for the boy was a friend of mine, and I didn't like him
to die. And you never saw such a storm as arose when the priest was
coming to the house, a storm of wind, and a cloud over the moon. But
after a while the boy died, and the storm went down and the moon
shone out as bright as before.
There was a man was said to go away of nights with _them_. When he
got the call, away he must go if he liked it or not.
And one day he was out in the bay with some others, and all of a sudden
he said, "Let me go home, my horse is like to die." And they wouldn't
mind him for a time, but at last they turned and rowed home, and they
found his horse that was well when he went out, stretched on the field.
Another time he was with a man that had a grand three-year-old filly
and was showing it to him. And he said, "You won't have her long";
and it wasn't long after that she died.
_Mrs. Feeney:_
There was a man died and his wife died, and an uncle took charge of
the children. The man had a shop but the uncle lived a little way
from the shop, and he would leave the children alone through the
night. There were two men making a journey, and a storm rose up, and
they asked could they have a part of the night in the house where the
shop was, and the uncle said they could, and he went to his own house.
The men were sitting up by the fire and the children were sleeping at
the other side of the room. And one of the men said to the other "God
rest the soul of the man that died here. He was a good man." And the
other said, "The wife wasn't so good." And just then they heard a noise
below, and they saw the wife that had died coming into the room and she
went across and lay down on the bed where the baby was. And the baby
that was crying before got quiet then and made no sound at all.
But as to the two men, bad as the storm was outside, they thought
better to be out in it than to stop in the room where the woman was,
so they went away. It was to quiet the baby she used to come back.
* * * * *
There was an old woman I remember, Mrs. Sheridan, and she had to
go with them for two or three hours every night for a while, and
she'd make great complaints of the hardship she'd meet with, and how
she'd have to spend the night going through little boreens or in the
churchyard at Kinvara, or they'd bring her down to the seashore. They
often meet with hardships like that, those they bring with them, so
it's no wonder they're glad to get back. This world's the best.
* * * * *
There was a woman living over there near Aughsulis, and a few years
ago she lost a fine young milch cow, with its first calf. And she
and the three boys in the house salted it down and they ate the half
of it and they couldn't eat the other half, it was too hard or too
tough, and they put it under the dung that was in the yard, the way
it would melt into it. And when the springtime came, they turned up
the dung, and in the place it was buried they found nothing but three
planks of the wood that's cut in Connemara--deal they call it. So
the cow never died, but was brought away with _themselves_. For many
a young boy and young woman goes like that, and there's no doubt at
all that Mary Hynes was taken. There's some living yet can remember
her coming to the pattern was there beyond, and she was said to be
the handsomest girl in Ireland. (_Note_ 41.)
* * * * *
There's a man now living between this place and Kinvara, Fannen his
name is, and he goes away with them, and he's got delicate and silly
like. One night he was in that bad place that's near the chapel of
Kinvara, and he found a great crowd of them about him and a man on a
white horse was with them, and tried to keep him, and he cried and
struggled and they let him go at last. But now the neighbours all
say he does be going with them, and he told me himself he does. I
wouldn't be afraid of him when I'd meet him on the road, but many of
the neighbours would be afraid.
And two of his sons have got silly. They found a bar of gold one time
out playing in the field, and the money they got for it they put
it in the bank. But I believe it's getting less now, and what good
did it do them when they went like that? One of the boys was to be
a priest, but they had to give that up when he got silly. It was no
right money. And they'd best not have touched it.
_Mrs. Finnegan:_
Dreams, we should not pay too much attention to, and we should judge
them well, that is, if a dream is bad or good, we should say "It's a
good dream"; and we should never tell a dream to anyone fasting; and
it's said if you tell your dream to a tree fasting, it will wither
up. And it's better to dream of a person's downfall than of him being
up. When the good people take a cow or the like, you'll know if they
did it by there being no fat on what's left in its place and no eyes
in it. When my own springer died so sudden this year, I was afraid
to use it. But Pat Hevenor said, "It's a fool you are, and it might
save you the price of a bag of meal to feed the bonifs with a bit of
it." And he brought the cart and brought it home to me. So I put down
a bit to boil for the bonifs to try it, for I heard that if it was
_their_ work, it would go to water. But there was fat rising to the
top, that I have enough in the shed to grease the cart wheels for a
year. So then I salted a bit of it down.
If they take any one with them, yourself or myself it might be,
they'll put some old spent man in his place, that they had with them
a long time, and the father and the mother and the children will
think it is the child or the father or the mother that is in it. And
so it may be he'd get absolution. But as for the old faeries that
were there from the beginning, I don't know about them. (_Note_ 42.)
It's said that if we know how to be neighbourly with them, they'd be
neighbourly and friendly with us. It's said it was they brought away
the potatoes in the bad time, when all the potatoes turned black. But
it wasn't for spite, it was because they wanted them themselves.
_Mrs. Casey:_
There was a woman in Ballinamore died after the baby being born.
And the husband took another wife and she very young, that everyone
wondered she'd like to go into the house. And every night the first
wife came to the loft, and looked down at her baby, and they couldn't
see her; but they'd know she was there by the child looking up and
smiling at her.
So at last some one said that if they'd go up in the loft after the
cock crowing three times they'd see her. And so they did, and there
she was, with her own dress on, a plaid shawl she had brought from
America, and a cotton skirt with some edging at the bottom.
So they went to the priest, and he said Mass in the house, and they
didn't see so much of her after that. But after a year, the new wife
had a baby. And one day she bid the first child to rock the cradle.
But when she sat down to it, a sort of a sickness came over her, and
she could do nothing, and the same thing always happened, for her
mother didn't like to see her caring the second wife's baby.
And one day the wife herself fell in the fire and got a great many
burns, and they said that it was _she_ did it.
So they went to the blessed well Tubbermacduagh near Kinvara, and
they were told to go there every Friday for twelve weeks, and they
said seven prayers and gathered seven stones every time. And since
then she doesn't come to the house, but the little girl goes out
and meets her mother at a faery bush. And sometimes she speaks to
her there, and sometimes in her dreams. But no one else but her own
little girl has seen her of late.
* * * * *
There was one time a tailor, and he was a wild card, always going to
sprees. And one night he was passing by a house, and he heard a voice
saying, "Who'll take the child?" And he saw a little baby held out,
and the hands that were holding it, but he could see no more than
that. So he took it, and he brought it to the next house, and asked
the woman there to take it in for the night.
Well, in the morning the woman in the first house found a dead child
in the bed beside her. And she was crying and wailing and called all
the people. And when the woman from the neighbouring house came,
there in her arms was the child she thought was dead. But if it
wasn't for the tailor that chanced to be passing by and to take it,
we know very well what would have happened it.
* * * * *
That's a thing happens to many, to have faery children put upon them.
_A Man at Corcomroe:_
There was one Delvin, that lies under a slab yonder, and for seven
years he was brought away every night, and into this abbey. And he
was beat and pinched, and when he'd come home he'd faint; but he used
to say that the place that he went to was grander than any city. One
night he was with a lot of others at a wake, and they knew the time
was coming for him to go, and they all took hold of him. But he was
drawn out of the door, and the arms of those that were holding him
were near pulled out of their sockets.
* * * * *
Mischievous they are, but they don't do much harm. Some say they are
fallen angels, and hope yet to be saved.
_A Slieve Echtge Woman:_
I knew another was away for seven years--and it was in the next
townland to this she lived. Bridget Clonkelly her name was. There
was a large family of them, and she was the youngest, and a very
fine-looking fair-haired girl she was. I knew her well, she was the
one age with myself.
It was in the night she used to go to them, and if the door was shut,
she'd come in by the key-hole. The first time they came for her, she
was in bed between her two sisters, and she didn't want to go, And
they beat her and pinched her, till her brother called out to know
what was the matter.
She often told me about them, and how she was badly treated because
she wouldn't eat their food. She got no more than about three cold
potatoes she could eat all the time she was with them.
All the old people about here put out food every night, the first of
the food before they have any of it tasted themselves. And she said
there was a red-haired girl among them, that would throw her into the
river she got so mad with her. But if she'd had their food ate, she'd
never have got away from them at all.
She married a serving-man after, and they went to Sydney, and if
nothing happened in the last two years they're doing well there now.
_Mrs. Casey:_
Near my own house by the sea there was a girl went out one day to get
nuts near the wood, and she heard music inside the wood. And when
she went home she told her mother. But the next day she went again,
and the next, and she stopped so long that the mother sent the other
little girl to look for her, but she could see no one. But she came
in after a time, and she went inside into the room, and while she was
there the mother heard music from the room; but when the girl came
out she said she heard nothing. But the next day after that she died.
The neighbours all came in to the wake, and there was tobacco and
snuff there, but not much, for it's the custom not to have so much
when a young person dies. But when they looked at the bed, it was no
young person they saw in it, but an old woman with long teeth that
you'd be frightened, and the face wrinkled, and the hands. So they
didn't stop but went away, and she was buried the next day. And in
the night the mother would hear music all about the house, and lights
of all colours flashing about the windows.
She was never seen again except by a boy that was working about the
place. He met her one evening at the end of the house, dressed in her
own clothes. But he could not question her where she was, for it's
only when you meet them by a bush you can question them there.
_A Man of Slieve Echtge:_
There was a man, and he a cousin of my own, lost his wife. And one
night he heard her come into the room, where he was in bed with the
child beside him, and he let on to be asleep, and she took the child
and brought her out to the kitchen fire and sat down beside it and
suckled it.
And then she put it back into the bed again, and he lay still and
said nothing. The second night she came again, and he had more
courage and he said, "Why have you got no boots on?" For he saw that
her feet were bare. And she said, "Because there's iron nails in
them." So he said, "Give them to me," and he got up and drew all the
nails out of them, and she brought them away.
The third night she came again, and when she was suckling the child
he saw that she was still barefoot, and he asked why didn't she wear
the boots. "Because," says she, "you left one sprig in them, between
the upper and the lower sole, But if you have courage," says she,
"you can do more than that for me. Come tomorrow night to the gap up
there beyond the hill, and you'll see the riders going through, and
the one you'll see on the last horse will be me. And bring with you
some fowl droppings and urine, and throw them at me as I pass, and
you'll get me again." Well he got so far as to go to the gap, and to
bring what she told him, and when they came riding through the gap,
he saw her on the last horse, but his courage failed him, and he let
it drop, and he never got the chance to see her again.
Why she wanted the nails out of her boots? Because it's well known
_they_ will have nothing to do with iron. And I remember when every
child would have an old horse nail hung round its neck with a bit of
straw, but I don't see it done now.
* * * * *
There was another man though, one of the family of the Coneys beyond
there, and his wife was away from him four years. And after that
he put out the old hag was in her place, and got his wife back and
reared children after that, and one of them was trained a priest.
* * * * *
There was a drunken man in Scariff, and one night he had drink taken
he couldn't get home, and fell asleep by the roadside near the
bridge. And in the night he awoke and heard _them_ at work with cars
and horses. And one said to another, "This work is too heavy, we'll
take the white horse belonging to so and so"--giving the name of a
rich man in the town. So as soon as it was light he went to this man,
and told him what he had heard them say. But he would only laugh at
him and say, "I'll pay no attention to what a drunkard dreams." But
when he went out after to the stable, his white horse was gone.
* * * * *
That's easy understood. They are shadows, and how could a shadow move
anything? But they have power over mankind that they can bring them
away to do their work.
* * * * *
There was a woman used to go out among them at night, and she said to
her sister, "I'll be out on a white horse and I'll stop and knock at
your door," and so she would do sometimes.
And one day there was a man asked her for a debt she owed, and she
said, "I have no money now." But then she put her hand behind her
and brought it back filled with gold. And then she rubbed it in her
hand, and when she opened the hand there was nothing in it but dried
cow-dung. And she said, "I could give you that but it would be no use
to you."
_An Old Woman Talking of Cruachmaa:_
I remember my father being there, and telling me of a girl that was
away for seven years, and all thought she was dead. And at the end
of the seven years she walked back one day into her father's house,
and she all black-looking. And she said she was married there and
had two children, but they died and then she was driven away. And
she stopped on at her father's house, but the neighbours used to say
there was never a day but she'd go up the hill and be there crying
for one or two hours.
_An Old Woman who only Speaks Irish:_
I remember a young man coming to the island fourteen years ago that had
never been in it before and that knew everything that was in it, and
could tell you as much as to the stones of the chimney in every house.
And after a few days he was gone and never came again, for they brought
him about to every part. But I saw him and spoke to him myself.
_Mr. Sullivan:_
There was a man had buried his wife, and she left three children. And
then he took a second wife, and she did away with the children, hurried
them off to America, and the like. But the first wife used to be seen
up in the loft, and she making a plan of revenge against the other wife.
The second one had one son and three daughters; and one day the son
was out digging the field, and presently he went into what is called
a faery hole. And there was a woman came before him, and, says she,
"what are you doing here trespassing on my ground?" And with that she
took a stone and hit him in the head, and he died with the blow of
the stone she gave him. And all the people said it was by the faeries
he was taken.
_Peter Henderson:_
There was a first cousin of mine used sometimes to go out the house,
that none would see him going, And one night his brother followed
him, and he went down a path to the sea, and then he went into a hole
in the rocks, that the smallest dog wouldn't go into. And the brother
took hold of his feet and drew him out again. He went to America
after that, and is living there now; and sometimes in his room
they'll see him kicking and laughing as if _some_ were with him.
One night when some of the neighbours from these islands were with him,
he told them he'd been back to Inishmaan, and told all that was going
on. And some would not believe him. And he said, "You'll believe me
next time." So the next night he told them again he had been there, and
he brought out of his pocket a couple of boiled potatoes and a bit of
fish and showed them, so then they all believed it.
_An Old Man from the State of Maine says, hearing this:_
I knew him in America, and he used often to visit this island, and
would know about all of them were living, and would bring us word of
them, and all he'd tell us would turn out right. He's living yet in
America.
_An Aran Woman:_
There was a woman in Killinny was dying, and it was she used to be
minding the Lodge over there, and when she was near death her own
little girl went out, and she saw her standing, and a black-haired
woman with her. And she came back and said to her father "Don't be
fretting, my mother's not there in the bed, I saw her up by the Lodge
and a black woman with her, that took her in with her." And there was a
man from Arklow there, and he said, "That's not your wife at all that's
in the bed--that's not Maggie Mulkair. That is a black woman and Maggie
Mulkair is red-haired." And the husband looked in the bed, and so it
wasn't Maggie Mulkair that was in it, but at that minute she died. It's
well known they bring back the old to put in the place of the young.
* * * * *
There was a girl in the County Clare, and she went to get married,
and she and the husband were riding back on the one horse and it
slipped and fell. And when she got to the house, she sat quiet and
not a word out of her. And everybody said she used to be a pleasant,
jolly girl, but this was like an old woman.
And she sat there by the hob for three days and she didn't turn her
face to the people. But the husband said, "Let her alone, maybe
she's shy yet." But his mother got angry at last and she said, "I'd
sooner be rubbing stones on the clothes than watching an idle woman."
And she went out to the flax and she said to the girl, "You'd best
get the dinner ready before the men come in." But when she came in
there was nothing done; and she gave her a blow with some pieces of
the flax that were in her hand, and said, "Get out of this for a
good-for-nothing woman!" And with that she went up the chimney and
was gone. And the mother got the dinner ready, and then she went out,
not knowing in the world how to tell the husband what she had done.
But when she got to the field where they were working, there was the
girl walking down the hill, and she took the two hands of the mother
and said, "It's well for me you hadn't patience to last two days more
or I'd never have got back, but I never touched any of the food while
I was with them."
_Mrs. Casey:_
There was a girl one time, and a boy wanted to marry her, but the
father and mother wouldn't let her have him, for he had no money. And
he died, and they made a match for her with another. And one day she
was out going to her cousins' house, and he came before her and put
out his hand and said, "You promised yourself to me, and come with
me now." And she ran, and when she got to the house she fell on the
floor. And the cousins thought she had taken a drop of drink, and
they began to scold her.
Another day after that she was walking with her husband and her
brother, and a little white dog with them, and they came to a little
lake. And he appeared to her again, and the husband and the brother
didn't see him, but the dog flew at him, and began barking at him and
he was hitting at the dog with a stick, and all the time trying to
get hold of the girl's hand. And the husband and the brother wondered
what the dog was barking at and why it drew down to the lake in the
end, and out into the water. For it was into it that he was wanting
to draw the girl.
* * * * *
It's a strange thing that you'll see a man in his coffin and buried;
and maybe a fortnight after, the neighbours will tell you they saw
him walking about. There was one Flaherty lived up at Johnny Reed's
and he died. And a few days later Johnny Reed's sister and another
woman went out with baskets of turnips to the field where the sheep
were, to throw them out for them. And when they got to the field they
could see Flaherty walking, just in the same clothes he had before he
died, long skirts and a jacket, and frieze trousers. So they left the
turnips and came away.
* * * * *
There was a man up there near Loughrea, one of the Mahers, was away
for seven years. In the night he'd be taken, and sometimes in the
daytime when he was in the bed sick, that's the time he'd be along
with them; riding out and going out across the bay, going as fast as
the wind in the sky. Did he like to be with them? Not at all, he'd
sooner be at home; and it is bad for the health too to be going out
these rough nights. There were three men near him that had horses,
Daniel O'Dea and Farragher and Flynn, and he told them they should
sell their horses. And Daniel O'Dea and Farragher sold theirs, but
the other man wouldn't mind him. And after a few days his horse died.
Of course they had been with him at night riding their own horses,
and that's how he knew what would happen and gave the warning.
_The Spinning Woman:_
There was a man got married, and he began to pine away, and after a
few weeks the mother asked him what ailed him. And he opened his coat
and showed her his breast inside, that it was all torn and bloody. And
he said: "That's the way I am; and that's what she does to me in the
nights." So the mother brought her out and bid her to pick the green
flax, and she was against touching it, but the mother made her. And no
sooner had she touched three blades of it but she said, "I'm gone now,"
and away with her. And when they went back to the room they found the
daughter lying in a deep sleep, where she had just been put back.