Start for Caerfili—Johanna Colgan—Alms-Giving—The Monstrous Female—The
Evil Prayer—The Next Day—The Aifrionn—Unclean
Spirits—Expectation—Wreaking Vengeance—A decent Alms.
I left Merthyr about twelve o’clock for Caerfili. My course lay along
the valley to the south-east. I passed a large village called Troed y
Rhiw, or the foot of the slope, from its being at the foot of a lofty
elevation, which stands on the left-hand side of the road, and was
speeding onward fast, with the Taf at some distance on my right, when I
saw a strange-looking woman advancing towards me. She seemed between
forty and fifty, was bare-footed and bare-headed, with grizzled hair
hanging in elf locks, and was dressed in rags and tatters. When about
ten yards from me, she pitched forward, gave three or four grotesque
tumbles, heels over head, then standing bolt upright, about a yard before
me, raised her right arm, and shouted in a most discordant voice—“Give me
an alms, for the glory of God!”
I stood still, quite confounded. Presently, however, recovering myself,
I said:—“Really, I don’t think it would be for the glory of God to give
you alms.”
“Ye don’t! Then, Biadh an taifrionn—however, I’ll give ye a chance yet.
Am I to get my alms or not?”
“Before I give you alms I must know something about you. Who are you?”
“Who am I? Who should I be but Johanna Colgan, a bedivilled woman from
the county of Limerick?”
“And how did you become bedevilled?”
“Because a woman something like myself said an evil prayer over me for
not giving her an alms, which prayer I have at my tongue’s end, and
unless I get my alms will say over you. So for your own sake, honey,
give me my alms, and let me go on my way.”
“Oh, I am not to be frightened by evil prayers! I shall give you nothing
till I hear all about you.”
“If I tell ye all about me will ye give me an alms?”
“Well, I have no objection to give you something if you tell me your
story.”
“Will ye give me a dacent alms?”
“Oh, you must leave the amount to my free will and pleasure. I shall
give you what I think fit.”
“Well, so ye shall, honey; and I make no doubt ye will give me a dacent
alms, for I like the look of ye, and knew ye to be an Irishman half a
mile off. Only four years ago, instead of being a bedivilled woman,
tumbling about the world, I was as quiet and respectable a widow as could
be found in the county of Limerick. I had a nice little farm at an aisy
rint, horses, cows, pigs, and servants, and, what was better than all, a
couple of fine sons, who were a help and comfort to me. But my black day
was not far off. I was a mighty charitable woman, and always willing to
give to the bacahs and other beggars that came about. Every morning,
before I opened my door, I got ready the alms which I intended to give
away in the course of the day to those that should ask for them, and I
made so good a preparation that, though plenty of cripples and other
unfortunates wandering through the world came to me every day, part of
the alms was sure to remain upon my hands every night when I closed my
door. The alms which I gave away consisted of meal; and I had always a
number of small measures of meal standing ready on a board, one of which
I used to empty into the poke of every bacah or other unfortunate who
used to place himself at the side of my door and cry out ‘Ave Maria!’ or
‘In the name of God!’ Well, one morning I sat within my door spinning,
with a little bit of colleen beside me who waited upon me as servant. My
measures of meal were all ready for the unfortunates who should come,
filled with all the meal in the house; for there was no meal in the house
save what was in those measures—divil a particle, the whole stock being
exhausted; though by evening I expected plenty more, my two sons being
gone to the ballybetagh, which was seven miles distant, for a fresh
supply, and for other things. Well, I sat within my door, spinning, with
my servant by my side to wait upon me, and my measures of meal ready for
the unfortunates who might come to ask for alms. There I sat, quite
proud, and more happy than I had ever felt in my life before; and the
unfortunates began to make their appearance. First came a bacah on
crutches; then came a woman with a white swelling; then came an
individual who had nothing at all the matter with him, and was only a
poor unfortunate, wandering about the world; then came a far cake, {22} a
dark man, who was led about by a gossoon; after him a simpley, and after
the simpleton somebody else as much or more unfortunate. And as the
afflicted people arrived and placed themselves by the side of the door
and said ‘Ave Mary,’ or ‘In the name of God,’ or crossed their arms, or
looked down upon the ground, each according to his practice, I got up and
emptied my measure of meal into his poke, or whatever he carried about
with him for receiving the alms which might be given to him; and my
measures of meal began to be emptied fast, for it seemed that upon that
day, when I happened to be particularly short of meal, all the
unfortunates in the county of Limerick had conspired together to come to
ask me for alms. At last every measure of meal was emptied, and there I
sat in my house with nothing to give away provided an unfortunate should
come. Says I to the colleen: ‘What shall I do provided any more come,
for all the meal is gone, and there will be no more before the boys come
home at night from the ballybetagh.’ Says the colleen: ‘If any more
come, can’t ye give them something else?’ Says I: ‘It has always been my
practice to give in meal, and loth should I be to alter it; for if once I
begin to give away other things, I may give away all I have.’ Says the
colleen: ‘Let’s hope no one else will come: there have been thirteen of
them already.’ Scarcely had she said these words, when a monstrous
woman, half-naked, and with a long staff in her hand, on the top of which
was a cross, made her appearance; and placing herself right before the
door, cried out so that you might have heard her for a mile, ‘Give me an
alms for the glory of God!’ ‘Good woman,’ says I to her, ‘you will be
kind enough to excuse me: all the preparation I had made for alms has
been given away, for I have relieved thirteen unfortunates this blessed
morning—so may the Virgin help ye, good woman!’ ‘Give me an alms,’ said
the Beanvore, with a louder voice than before, ‘or it will be worse for
you.’ ‘You must excuse me, good mistress,’ says I, ‘but I have no more
meal in the house. Those thirteen measures which you see there empty
were full this morning, for what was in them I have given away to
unfortunates. So the Virgin and Child help you.’ ‘Do you choose to give
me an alms?’ she shrieked, so that you might have heard her to
Londonderry. ‘If ye have no meal give me something else.’ ‘You must
excuse me, good lady,’ says I: ‘it is my custom to give alms in meal, and
in nothing else. I have none in the house now; but if ye come on the
morrow ye shall have a triple measure. In the meanwhile may the Virgin,
Child, and the Holy Trinity assist ye!’ Thereupon she looked at me
fixedly for a moment, and then said, not in a loud voice, but in a low,
half-whispered way, which was ten times more deadly:—
“‘Biaidh an taifrionn gan sholas duit a bhean shilach!’
Then turning from the door she went away with long strides. Now, honey,
can ye tell me the meaning of those words?”
“They mean,” said I, “unless I am much mistaken: ‘May the Mass never
comfort ye, you dirty queen!’”
“Ochone! that’s the maning of them, sure enough. They are cramped words,
but I guessed that was the meaning, or something of the kind. Well,
after hearing the evil prayer, I sat for a minute or two quite stunned;
at length recovering myself a bit I said to the colleen: ‘Get up, and run
after the woman and tell her to come back and cross the prayer.’ I meant
by crossing that she should call it back or do something that would take
the venom out of it. Well, the colleen was rather loth to go, for she
was a bit scared herself, but on my beseeching her, she got up and ran
after the woman, and being rather swift of foot, at last, though with
much difficulty, overtook her, and begged her to come back and cross the
prayer, but the divil of a woman would do no such thing, and when the
colleen persisted she told her that if she didn’t go back, she would say
an evil prayer over her too. So the colleen left her, and came back,
crying and frighted. All the rest of the day I remained sitting on the
stool speechless, thinking of the prayer which the woman had said, and
wishing I had given her everything I had in the world, rather than she
should have said it. At night came home the boys, and found their mother
sitting on the stool, like one stupefied. ‘What’s the matter with you,
mother?’ they said. ‘Get up and help us to unpack. We have brought home
plenty of things on the car, and amongst others a whole boll of meal.’
‘You might as well have left it behind you,’ said I; ‘this morning a
single measure of meal would have been to me of all the assistance in the
world, but I question now if I shall ever want meal again.’ They asked
me what had happened to me, and after some time I told them how a
monstrous woman had been to me, and had said an evil prayer over me,
because having no meal in the house I had not given her an alms. ‘Come,
mother,’ said they, ‘get up and help us to unload! never mind the prayer
of the monstrous woman—it is all nonsense.’ Well, I got up and helped
them to unload, and cooked them a bit, and sat down with them, and tried
to be merry, but felt that I was no longer the woman that I was. The
next day I didn’t seem to care what became of me, or how matters went on,
and though there was now plenty of meal in the house, not a measure did I
fill with it to give away in the shape of alms; and when the bacahs and
the liprous women, and the dark men, and the other unfortunates placed
themselves at the side of the door, and gave me to understand that they
wanted alms, each in his or her particular manner, divil an alms did I
give them, but let them stand and took no heed of them, so that at last
they took themselves off, grumbling and cursing. And little did I care
for their grumblings and cursings. Two days before I wouldn’t have had
an unfortunate grumble at me, or curse me, for all the riches below the
sun; but now their grumblings and curses didn’t give me the slightest
unasiness, for I had an evil prayer spoken against me in the Shanna
Gailey by the monstrous woman, and I knew that I was blighted in this
world and the next. In a little time I ceased to pay any heed to the
farming business, or to the affairs of the house, so that my sons had no
comfort in their home. And I took to drink and induced my eldest son to
take to drink too—my youngest son, however, did not take to drink, but
conducted himself well, and toiled and laboured like a horse and often
begged me and his brother to consider what we were about, and not to go
on in a way which would bring us all to ruin, but I paid no regard to
what he said, and his brother followed my example, so that at last seeing
things were getting worse every day, and that we should soon be turned
out of house and home, for no rint was paid, every penny that could be
got being consumed in waste, he bade us farewell and went and listed for
a sodger. But if matters were bad enough before he went away, they
became much worse after; for now when the unfortunates came to the door
for alms, instead of letting them stand in pace till they were tired, and
took themselves off, I would mock them and point at them, and twit them
with their sores and other misfortunes, and not unfrequently I would
fling scalding water over them, which would send them howling and honing
away, till at last there was not an unfortunate but feared to come within
a mile of my door. Moreover I began to misconduct myself at chapel, more
especially at the Aifrionn or Mass, for no sooner was the bell rung, and
the holy corpus raised, than I would shout and hoorah, and go tumbling
and toppling along the floor before the holy body, as I just now tumbled
along the road before you, so that the people were scandalized, and would
take me by the shoulders and turn me out of doors, and began to talk of
ducking me in the bog. The priest of the parish, however, took my part,
saying that I ought not to be persecuted, for that I was not accountable
for what I did, being a possessed person, and under the influence of
divils. ‘These, however,’ said he, ‘I’ll soon cast out from her, and
then the woman will be a holy cratur, much better than she ever was
before.’ A very learned man was Father Hogan, especially in casting out
divils, and a portly, good-looking man too, only he had a large rubicon
nose, which people said he got by making over free with the cratur in
sacret. I had often looked at the nose, when the divil was upon me, and
felt an inclination to seize hold of it, just to see how it felt. Well,
he had me to his house several times, and there he put holy cloths upon
me, and tied holy images to me, and read to me out of holy books, and
sprinkled holy water over me, and put questions to me, and at last was so
plased with the answers I gave him, that he prached a sermon about me in
the chapel, in which he said that he had cast six of my divils out of me,
and should cast out the seventh, which was the last, by the next Sabbath,
and then should present me to the folks in the chapel as pure a vessel as
the blessed Mary herself—and that I was destined to accomplish great
things, and to be a mighty instrument in the hands of the Holy Church,
for that he intended to write a book about me, describing the miracle he
had performed in casting the seven divils out of me, which he should get
printed at the printing-press of the blessed Columba, and should send me
through all Ireland to sell the copies, the profits of which would go
towards the support of the holy society for casting out unclane spirits,
to which he himself belonged. Well, the people showed that they were
plased by a loud shout, and went away longing for the next Sunday when I
was to be presented to them without a divil in me. Five times the next
week did I go to the priest’s house, to be read to, and be sprinkled, and
have cloths put upon me, in order that the work of casting out the last
divil, which it seems was stronger than all the rest, might be made
smooth and aisy, and on the Saturday I came to have the last divil cast
out, and found his riverince in full canonicals, seated in his aisy
chair. ‘Daughter,’ said he when he saw me, ‘the work is nearly over.
Now kneel down before me, and I will make the sign of the cross over your
forehead, and then you will feel the last and strongest of the divils,
which have so long possessed ye, go out of ye through your eyes, as I
expect you will say to the people assembled in the chapel to-morrow.’ So
I put myself on my knees before his reverence, who after muttering
something to himself, either in Latin or Shanna Gailey—I believe it was
Latin, said, ‘Look me in the face, daughter!’ Well, I looked his
reverence in the face, and there I saw his nose looking so large, red,
and inviting that I could not resist the temptation, and before his
reverence could make the sign of the cross, which doubtless would have
driven the divil out of me, I made a spring at it, and seizing hold of it
with forefinger and thumb, pulled hard at it. Hot and inctious did it
feel. Oh, the yell that his reverence gave! However, I did not let go
my hold, but kept pulling at the nose, till at last to avoid the torment,
his reverence came tumbling down upon me, causing me by his weight to
fall back upon the floor. At the yell which he gave, and at the noise of
the fall, in came rushing his reverence’s housekeeper and stable-boy, who
seeing us down on the floor, his reverence upon me and my hand holding
his reverence’s nose, for I felt loth to let it go, they remained in
astonishment and suspense. When his reverence, however, begged them, for
the Virgin’s sake, to separate him from the divil of a woman, they ran
forward, and having with some difficulty freed his reverence’s nose from
my hand, they helped him up. The first thing that his reverence did, on
being placed on his legs, was to make for a horse-whip, which stood in
one corner of the room, but I guessing how he meant to use it, sprang up
from the floor, and before he could make a cut at me, ran out of the
room, and hasted home. The next day, when all the people for twenty
miles round met in the chapel, in the expectation of seeing me presented
to them a purified and holy female, and hearing from my mouth the account
of the miracle which his reverence had performed, his reverence made his
appearance in the pulpit with a dale of gould bater’s leaf on his nose,
and from the pulpit he told the people how I had used him, showing them
the gould bater’s leaf on his feature, as testimony of the truth of his
words, finishing by saying that if at first there were seven devils,
there were now seven times seven within me. Well, when the people heard
the story, and saw his nose with the bater’s leaf upon it, they at first
began to laugh, but when he appealed to their consciences, and asked them
if such was fitting tratement for a praist, they said it was not, and
that if he would only but curse me, they would soon do him justice upon
me. His reverence then cursed by book, bell, and candle, and the people,
setting off from the chapel, came in a crowd to the house where I lived,
to wrake vengeance upon me. Overtaking my son by the way, who was coming
home in a state of intoxication, they bate him within an inch of his
life, and left him senseless on the ground, and no doubt would have
served me much worse, only seeing them coming, and guessing what they
came about, though I was a bit intoxicated myself, I escaped by the back
of the house out into the bog, where I hid myself amidst a copse of
hazels. The people coming to the house, and not finding me there, broke
and destroyed every bit of furniture, and would have pulled the house
down, or set fire to it, had not an individual among them cried out that
doing so would be of no use, for that the house did not belong to me, and
that destroying it would merely be an injury to the next tenant. So the
people, after breaking my furniture and ill-trating two or three dumb
beasts, which happened not to have been made away with, went away, and in
the dead of night I returned to the house, where I found my son, who had
just crawled home covered wit bruises. We hadn’t, however, a home long,
for the agents of the landlord came to seize for rent, took all they
could find, and turned us out upon the wide world. Myself and son
wandered together for an hour or two, then, having a quarrel with each
other, we parted, he going one way and I another. Some little time after
I heard that he was transported. As for myself, I thought I might as
well take a leaf out of the woman’s book who had been the ruin of me. So
I went about bidding people give me alms for the glory of God, and
threatening those who gave me nothing that the mass should never comfort
them. It’s a dreadful curse that, honey; and I would advise people to
avoid it even though they give away all they have. If you have no
comfort in the mass, you will have comfort in nothing else. Look at me:
I have no comfort in the mass, for as soon as the priest’s bell rings, I
shouts and hoorahs, and performs tumblings before the blessed corpus,
getting myself kicked out of chapel, and as little comfort as I have in
the mass have I in other things, which should be a comfort to me. I have
two sons who ought to be the greatest comfort to me, but are they so?
We’ll see—one is transported, and of course is no comfort to me at all.
The other is a sodger. Is he a comfort to me? Not a bit. A month ago
when I was travelling through the black north, tumbling and toppling
about, and threatening people with my prayer, unless they gave me alms, a
woman, who knew me, told me that he was with his regiment at Cardiff,
here in Wales, whereupon I determined to go and see him, and crossing the
water got into England, from whence I walked to Cardiff asking alms of
the English in the common English way, and of the Irish, and ye are the
first Irish I have met, in the way in which I asked them of you. But
when I got to Cardiff did I see my son? I did not, for the day before he
had sailed with his regiment to a place ten thousand miles away, so I
shall never see his face again nor derive comfort from him. Oh, if
there’s no comfort from the mass there’s no comfort from anything else,
and he who has the evil prayer in the Shanna Gailey breathed upon him,
will have no comfort from the mass. Now, honey, ye have heard the story
of Johanna Colgan, the bedivilled woman. Give her now a dacent alms and
let her go!”
“Would you consider sixpence a decent alms?”
“I would. If you give me sixpence, I will not say my prayer over ye.”
“Would you give me a blessing?”
“I would not. A bedivilled woman has no blessing to give.”
“Surely if you are able to ask people to give you alms for the glory of
God, you are able to give a blessing.”
“Bodderation! are ye going to give me sixpence?”
“No! here’s a shilling for you! Take it and go in peace.”
“There’s no pace for me,” said Johanna Colgan, taking the money. “What
did the monstrous female say to me? ‘Biaidh an taifrionn gan sholas duit
a bhean shalach.’ {23} This is my pace—hoorah! hoorah!” then giving two
or three grotesque topples she hurried away in the direction of Merthyr
Tydvil.