the ancient Irish. It is sometimes described as under the earth,
sometimes as all about us, and sometimes as an enchanted island. This
island paradise has given rise to many legends; sailors have bragged
of meeting it. A Dutch pilot settled in Dublin in 1614, claimed
to have seen it off the coast of Greenland in 61° of latitude. It
vanished as he came near, but sailing in an opposite direction he
came upon it once more, but Giraldus Cambrensis claimed that shortly
before he came to Ireland such a phantom island was discovered off
the west coast of Ireland and made habitable. Some young men saw it
from the shore; when they came near it, it sank into the water. The
next day it reappeared and again mocked the same youths with the
like delusion. At length, on their rowing towards it on the third
day, they followed the advice of an older man, and let fly an arrow,
barbed with red-hot steel, against the island; and then landing,
found it stationary and habitable.
NOTE 23. Supernatural strength is often spoken of by the people as
a sign of faery power. It is also enumerated in _The Roman Ritual_
among the signs of possession. I have read somewhere that the priests
of Apollo showed it in their religious transports.
NOTE 24. "Materializations" are generally imperfect. The spirit makes
just enough of mind and form for its purpose. Even when the form is
only visible to the clairvoyant there may still be materialization,
though not carried far enough to affect ordinary sight.
NOTE 25. The picture was made by "A. E." of one of the forms he sees
in vision.
NOTE 26. The barrel which contained a brew that made the spirits
invisible is probably the cauldron of the god Dagda, called "The
Undry" "because it was never empty." The Tuatha-de-Danaan, the old
Irish divine race, brought with them to Ireland four talismans, the
sword, the spear, the stone, and the cauldron. Rhys, in his _Celtic
Heathendom_, compares it with the Irish well of wisdom, overhung by
nine hazels, and the Welsh "Cauldron of the Head of Hades," set over
a fire, blown into a flame by the breath of nine young girls. Girls
and hazels were alike, he thinks, symbols of time because of the nine
days of the old Celtic week, and comparable with the nine Muses,
daughters of Memory. Nutt thought the Celtic cauldron the first form
of the Holy Grail.
NOTE 27. In my record of this conversation I find a sentence that has
dropped out in Lady Gregory's. The old man used these words: "And I
took down a fork from the rafters and asked her was it a broom and she
said it was," and it was that answer that proved her in the power of
the faeries. She was "suggestible" and probably in a state of trance.
NOTE 28. The Dundonians are, of course, the Tuatha-de-Danaan, and
those with the bag are the "firbolg" or "bag-men," we have now, it
may be, a true explanation of a name Professor Rhys has interpreted
with intricate mythology. I wonder if these bags are related to the
Sporran of the Highlanders.
NOTE 29. Here though maybe but in seeming, spiritism and folk-lore are
at issue with one another. The spirit of the séance room is described
as growing to maturity and remaining in that state. In Swedenborg it
moves toward "the day-spring of its youth." Among the country people
too, one sometimes hears of the dead growing to the likeness of thirty
years in heaven and remaining so. Thirty years, I suppose, because
at that age Christ began his ministry. The idea that underlies Mrs.
Fagan's statement seems to be that we have a certain measure of life to
live out on earth or in some intermediate state. Are the inhabitants of
this "intermediate state" the "earthbound" of the spiritists?
NOTE 30. Professor Lombroso quotes from Professor Faffofer the
following description of how he received news of the death
of Carducci: "On the 18th of February, in the evening, our
spirit-friends did not at once give us notice of their presence at
our sitting, and we waited for them about half an hour. 'Remigo,'
on being asked the reason why they had delayed, replied: 'We are in
a state of agitation and confusion here. We have just come from a
festival--of grief for you and joy for us. We have been present at
the death-bed of Carducci." He had died that day and in that very
hour and the news had not yet arrived by the ordinary channels.
NOTE 31. I was the patient; it seemed to be the only way of coming to
intimate speech with the knowledgeable man.
NOTE 32. The ghosts of "spiritism" are constantly changing place or
state. Sometimes for this reason they must say "goodbye" to a medium.
That they are passing to a "higher state" seems to be the usual phrase.
See for instance the account signed by A. I. Smart and a number of
witnesses, published in _The Medium and Daybreak_, of June 15, 1877.
NOTE 33. I have been several times told that a great battle for the
potatoes preceded the great famine. What decays with us seems to come
out, as it were, on the other side of the picture and is spirits'
property.
NOTE 34. This is true but he might have guessed it from the
difference of my glasses; one is plain glass.
NOTE 35. They are only small when "upon certain errands," but when
small, three feet or thereabouts seems to be the almost invariable
height. Mary Battle, my uncle George Pollexfen's second-sighted
servant told me that "it is something in our eyes makes them big or
little." People in trance often see objects reduced. Mrs. Piper when
half awakened will sometimes see the people about her very small.
NOTE 36. The same story as that in one of the most beautiful of the
"Noh" plays of Japan. I tell the Japanese story in my long terminal
essay.
NOTE 37. Mediums have often said that the spirits see this world
through our eyes. John Heydon, upon the other hand, calls good
spirits "The eyes and ears of God."
NOTE 38. The herbs were gathered before dawn, probably that the dew
might be upon them. Dew, a signature or symbol of the philosopher's
stone, was held once to be a secretion from dawning light.
NOTE 39. The most puzzling thing in Irish folk-lore is the number of
countrymen and countrywomen who are "away." A man or woman or child
will suddenly take to the bed, and from that on, perhaps for a few
weeks, perhaps for a lifetime, will be at times unconscious, in a state
of dream, in trance, as we say. According to the peasant theory these
persons are, during these times, with the faeries, riding through the
country, eating or dancing, or suckling children. They may even, in
that other world, marry, bring forth, and beget, and may when cured of
their trances mourn for the loss of their children in faery. This state
generally commences by their being "touched" or "struck" by a spirit.
The country people do not say that the soul is away and the body in
the bed, as a spiritist would, but that body and soul have been taken
and somebody or something put in their place so bewitched that we do
not know the difference. This thing may be some old person who was
taken years ago and having come near his allotted term is put back to
get the rites of the church, or as a substitute for some more youthful
and more helpful person. The old man may have grown too infirm even to
drive cattle. On the other hand, the thing may be a broomstick or a
heap of shavings. I imagine that an explanatory myth arose at a very
early age when men had not learned to distinguish between the body and
the soul, and was perhaps once universal. The fact itself is certainly
"possession" and "trance" precisely as we meet them in spiritism, and
was perhaps once an inseparable part of religion. Mrs. Piper surrenders
her body to the control of her trance personality but her soul,
separated from the body has a life of its own, of which, however, she
is little if at all conscious.
There are two books which describe with considerable detail a like
experience in China and Japan respectively: _Demon Possession and
Allied Themes_, by the Rev. John L. Nevius, D.D. (Fleming H. Revell
& Co., 1894); _Occult Japan_, by Percival Lowell (Houghton, Mifflin,
1895). In both countries, however, the dualism of body and soul
is recognized, and the theory is therefore identical with that of
spiritism. Dr. Nevius is a missionary who gradually became convinced,
after much doubt and perplexity, of the reality of possession by what
he believes to be evil spirits precisely similar to that described in
the New Testament. These spirits take possession of some Chinese man
or woman who falls suddenly into a trance, and announce through their
medium's mouth, that when they lived on earth they had such and such a
name, sometimes if they think a false name will make them more pleasing
they will give a false name and history. They demand certain offerings
and explain that they are seeking a home; and if the offerings are
refused, and the medium seeks to drive them from body and house they
turn persecutors; the house may catch fire suddenly; but if they have
their way, they are ready to be useful, especially to heal the sick.
The missionaries expel them in the name of Christ, but the Chinese
exorcists adopt a method familiar to the west of Ireland--tortures or
threats of torture. They will light tapers which they stick upon the
fingers. They wish to make the body uncomfortable for its tenant. As
they believe in the division of soul and body they are not likely to
go too far. A man actually did burn his wife to death, in Tipperary
a few years ago, and is no doubt still in prison for it. My uncle,
George Pollexfen, had an old servant Mary Battle, and when she spoke
of the case to me, she described that man as very superstitious. I
asked what she meant by that and she explained that everybody knew that
you must only threaten, for whatever injury you did to the changeling
the faeries would do to the living person they had carried away. In
fact mankind and spiritkind have each their hostage. These explanatory
myths are not a speculative but a practical wisdom. And one can count
perhaps, when they are rightly remembered, upon their preventing the
more gross practical errors. The Tipperary witch-burner only half knew
his own belief. "I stand here in the door," said Mary Battle, "and I
hear them singing over there in the field, but I have never given in to
them yet." And by "giving in" I understood her to mean losing her head.
The form of possession described in Lowell's book is not involuntary
like that the missionary describes. And the possessing spirits are
believed to be those of holy hermits or of the gods. He saw it for
the first time on a pilgrimage to the top of Mount Ontaké. Close on
the border of the snow he came to a rest house which was arranged to
enclose the path, that all, it would seem, might stop and rest and
eat and give something to its keeper. Presently he saw three young
men dressed in white who passed on in spite of the entreaties of
the keeper. He followed and presently found them praying before a
shrine cut in the side of a cliff. When the prayer was finished one
of them took from his sleeve a stick that had hanging from it pieces
of zigzag paper, and sat himself on a bench opposite the shrine. One
of the others sat facing upon another bench, clasping his hands over
his breast and closing his eyes. Then the first young man began a
long evocation, chanting and twisting and untwisting his fingers
all the time. Presently he put the wand with the zigzag paper into
the other's hands and the other's hands began to twitch, and that
twitching grew more and more. The man was possessed. A spirit spoke
through his mouth and called itself the God, Hakkai.
Now the evoker became very respectful and asked if the peak would be
clear of clouds, and the pilgrimage a lucky one, and if the god would
take care of those left at home. The god answered that the peak would
be clear until the afternoon of the day following and all else go
well. The voice ceased and the evoker offered a prayer of adoration.
The entranced man was awakened by being touched on the breast and
slapped upon the back and now another of the three took his place.
And all was gone through afresh; and when that was over the third
young man was entranced in his turn.
Mr. Lowell made considerable further investigation and records many
cases, and was told that the god or spirit would sometimes speak in a
tongue unknown to the possessed man, or gave useful medical advice.
He is one of the few Europeans who have witnessed what seems to be
an important right of Shinto religion. Shintoism, or the Way of the
Gods, until its revival in the last half of the nineteenth century
remained lost and forgotten in the roots of Japanese life. It had
been superseded by Buddhism, if Mr. Lowell was correctly informed,
as completely as this old faery faith of Ireland has been superseded
by Christianity. Buddhism, however, having no Christian hostility to
friendly spirits, does not seem to have done anything to discourage
a revival which was one of the causes that brought Japan under the
single rule of the Mikado. It had always indeed in certain of its
sects practised ceremonies that had for their object the causing of
possession.
There is a story in _The Book of the Dun Cow_ which certainly
describes a like experience, though Prof. Rhys interprets it as a
solar myth. I will take the story from Lady Gregory's _Cuchulain of
Muirthemne_. The people of Ulster were celebrating the festival of
the beginning of winter, held always at the beginning of November.
The first of November is still a very haunted day and night. A flock
of wild birds lit upon the waters near to Cuchulain and certain fair
women. "In all Ireland there were not birds to be seen that were more
beautiful."
One woman said: "'I must have a bird of these birds on each of my
two shoulders.' 'We must all have the same,' said the other women.
'If any one is to get them, it is I that must first get them,' said
Eithne Inguba, who loved Cuchulain. 'What shall we do?' said the
women. 'It is I will tell you that,' said Levarcham, 'for I will go
to Cuchulain from you to ask him to get them.'"
So she went to Cuchulain and said: '"The women of Ulster desire that
you will get these birds for them.' Cuchulain put his hand upon his
sword as if to strike her, and he said: 'Have the idle women of
Ulster nothing better to do than to send me catching birds today?'
'It is not for you,' said Levarcham, 'to be angry with them; for
there are many of them are half blind today with looking at you, from
the greatness of their love for you.'"
After this Cuchulain catches the birds and divides them amongst the
women, and to every woman there are two birds, but when he comes to
his mistress, Eithne Inguba, he has no birds left. '"It is vexed
you seem to be,' he said, 'because I have given the birds to the
other women.' 'You have good reason for that,' she said, 'for there
is not a woman of them but would share her love and her friendship
with you; while as for me no person shares my love but you alone.'"
Cuchulain promises her whatever birds come, and presently there come
two birds who are linked together with a chain of gold and "singing
soft music that went near to put sleep on the whole gathering."
Cuchulain went in their pursuit, though Eithne and his charioteer
tried to dissuade him, believing them enchanted. Twice he casts a
stone from his sling and misses, and then he throws his spear but
merely pierces the wing of one bird. Thereupon the birds dive and he
goes away in great vexation, and he lies upon the ground and goes to
sleep, and while he sleeps two women come to him and put him under
enchantment. In the Connacht stories the enchantment begins with a
stroke, or with a touch from some person of faery and it is so the
women deal with Cuchulain. "The woman with the green cloak went up
to him and smiled at him and she gave him a stroke of a rod. The
other went up to him then and smiled at him and gave him a stroke
in the same way; and they went on doing this for a long time, each
of them striking him in turn till he was more dead than alive. And
then they went away and left him there." The men of Ulster found him
and they carried him to a house and to a bed and there he lay till
the next November came round. They were sitting about the bed when a
strange man came in and sat amongst them. It was the God, Ængus, and
he told how Cuchulain could be healed. A king of the other world,
Labraid, wished for Cuchulain's help in a war, and if he would give
it, he would have the love of Fand the wife of the sea god Manannan.
The women who gave him the strokes of the rods were Fand and her
sister Liban, who was Labraid's wife. They had sought his help as the
Connacht faeries will ask the help of some good hurler. Were they
too like our faeries "shadows" until they found it? When the god was
gone, Cuchulain awoke, and Conahar, the King of Ulster, who had been
watching by his bedside, told him that he must go again to the rock
where the enchantment was laid upon him. He goes there and sees the
woman with the green cloak. She is Liban and pleads with him that
he may accept the love of Fand and give his help to Labraid. If he
will only promise, he will become strong again. Cuchulain will not go
at once but sends his charioteer into the other world. When he has
his charioteer's good report, he consents, and wins the fight for
Labraid and is the lover of Fand. In the Connacht stories a wife can
sometimes get back her husband by throwing some spell-breaking object
over the heads of the faery cavalcade that keeps him spellbound.
Emir, in much the same way, recovers her husband Cuchulain, for she
and her women go armed with knives to the yew tree upon Baile's
strand where he had appointed a meeting with Fand and outface Fand
and drive her away.
We have here certainly a story of trance and of the soul leaving
the body, but probably after it has passed through the minds of
story-tellers who have forgotten its original meaning. There is
no mention of any one taking Cuchulain's place, but Prof. Rhys in
his reconstruction of the original form of the story of "Cuchulain
and the Beetle of Forgetfulness," a visit also to the other world,
makes the prince who summoned him to the adventure take his place in
the court of Ulster. There are many stories belonging to different
countries, of people whose places are taken for a time by angels or
spirits or gods, the best known being that of the nun and the Virgin
Mary, and all may have once been stories of changelings and entranced
persons. Pwyll and Arawyn in the Mabinogion change places for a
year, Pwyll going to the court of the dead in the shape of Arawyn to
overcome his enemies, and Arawyn going to the court of Dyved. Pwyll
overcomes Arawyn's enemies with one blow and the changeling's rule
at Dyved was marvellous for its wisdom. In all these stories strength
comes from men and wisdom from among gods who are but shadows. I have
read somewhere of a Norse legend of a false Odin that took the true
Odin's place, when the sun of summer became the wintry sun. When we
say a man has had a stroke of paralysis or that he is touched we
refer perhaps to a once universal faery belief.
NOTE 40. I suppose this woman who was glad to "pick a bit of what
was in the pigs' trough" had passed along the roads in a state of
semi-trance, living between two worlds. Boehme had for seven days
what he called a walking trance that began by his gazing at a gleam
of light on a copper pot and in that trance truth fell upon him "like
a bursting shower."
NOTE 41. A village beauty of Bally Lee. Raftery praised her in lines
quoted in my _Celtic Twilight_, and Lady Gregory speaks of her in her
essay on Raftery in _Poets and Dreamers_.
NOTE 42. An old, second-sighted servant to an uncle of mine used to
say that dreams were no longer true "when the sap began to rise" and
when I asked her how she knew that, she said; "What is the use of
having an intellect unless you know a thing like that."
NOTE 43. "In the faeries" is plainly a misspeaking of the old phrase
"in faery" that is to say "in glamour" "under enchantment." The word
"faery" as used for an individual is a modern corruption. The right
word is "fay."
NOTE 44. The sudden filling of the air by a sweet odour is a common
event of the Séance room. It is mentioned several times in the
"Diary" of Stanton Moses.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Since writing the above the authors of _An Adventure_ have shown
me a mass of letters proving that they spoke of the visions to
various correspondents before the corroboration, and showing the long
and careful research that the corroboration involved.
W. B. Y.
October, 1918.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.
Inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original.