the raths and souterrains, especially those in North-East Antrim, are
said to have been made by the Pechts. Last summer I visited one of
these, the cave of Finn McCoul. It is a souterrain situated in
Glenshesk, about three miles from Ballycastle. The ground above it is
perfectly flat, no fort or any inequality to mark the spot; indeed, the
farmer who kindly opened it for me had at first a difficulty in knowing
in what part of the field to dig, as the entrance had been covered. On
my second visit, however, I found he had discovered the spot. Entering a
narrow passage, I crept through an opening from one and a half to two
feet high, and found myself in a narrow chamber eight or nine feet long
and little over four feet in height. The roof was formed of large flat
slabs, which I was told were whinstone (basalt). At the opposite end of
this chamber there was another narrow opening, leading, I presume, to a
passage. I did not, however, venture farther; but I understand this
artificial cave extends for about twenty perches underground, and has
several chambers.
[Illustration: PLATE IX. [_R. Welch, Photo._
GREY MAN'S PATH, FAIR HEAD.]
I was told that this cave was the hiding-place of Finn McCoul. His
garden was pointed out to me on rising ground at some little distance,
and I was also informed that about fifty years ago his castle stood on
the hill; but nothing now remains of it, the stones having been used
when roads were made.
The following story was related to me on the spot: A Scotch giant came
over to fight Finn McCoul, but was conquered and slain. To celebrate
this victory Finn invited the Grey Man of the Path to a feast; but as
hares and rabbits would have been too small to furnish a repast for this
giant, Finn took his dog and went out to hunt red deer. They were
unsuccessful, and in anger he slew his dog Brown,[48] which afterwards
caused him much sorrow.
In the Grey Man of the Path we have, doubtless, a purely mythical
character, an impersonation of the mists which gather round Benmore,[49]
while Finn McCoul, or MacCumaill, is one of Ireland's greatest
traditional heroes. According to a well-known legend, he was a giant,
and united Scotland and Ireland by a stupendous mole, of which the cave
at Staffa and the Giant's Causeway are the two remaining fragments. In
Glenshesk he is only a tall man, between seven and eight feet in height.
Sometimes he is said to have been chief of the Pechts; sometimes he is
spoken of as their master, and it is said they worked as slaves to him
and the Fians.
According to tradition, the Pechts were very numerous, and must have
carried the heavy slabs for the roof of Finn McCoul's cave a distance of
several miles. Although usually looked on as strictly human,
supernatural characteristics are sometimes attributed to them. Like the
Swiss "Servan," both they and the Grogachs have been known to thresh
corn or do other work for the farmers.
I was told at Ballycastle of one man who always laid out at night the
bundles of corn he expected the Grogach to thresh, and each morning the
appointed task was accomplished. One night he forgot to lay the corn on
the floor of the barn, and threw his flail on the top of the stack. The
poor Grogach imagined that he was to thresh the whole, and set to work
manfully; but the task was beyond his strength, and in the morning he
was found dead. The farmer and his wife buried him, and mourned deeply
the loss of their small friend.
Clough-na-murry Fort is said to be a "gentle"[50] place, yet an old man
living near it told me he did not believe in the Grogachs; he thought it
was the Danes who had worked for the farmers. He said these Danes were a
persevering people, and that when they were in distress they would
thresh corn for the farmers, if food were left out for them. Others say
that the Danes were too proud to work.
One does not hear much of Brownies in Ulster; but I have been told they
were hairy people who did not require clothes, but would thresh or cut
down a field of corn for a farmer. On one occasion, out of gratitude for
the work done, some porridge was left for them on plates round the fire.
They ate it, but went away crying sadly:
"I got my mate an' my wages,
An' they want nae mair o' me."
Although, according to some, the Grogachs gladly accept food, others say
that they and the Pechts are offended if it is offered to them, and
leave to return no more.
I have not often heard of clothes being offered to the Pechts or
Grogachs, but the Rev. John G. Campbell relates a story of a Brownie in
Shetland who ground grain in a hand-quern at night. He was rewarded for
his labours by a cloak and hood left for him at the mill. These
disappeared in the morning, and with them the Brownie, who never came
back.[51]
A similar tale is told of a Swiss dwarf. At Ems, in Canton Valais, a
miller engaged the services of a "Gottwerg," and the little man worked
early and late, sometimes rising in the night to see that all was in
order. The mill produced twice as much as formerly, and at the end of
the year the dwarf was rewarded by a garment made of the best wool. He
put it on, jumped for joy, and crying out, "Now I am a handsome man, I
have no more need to grind rye," he disappeared, and was not seen
again.[52]
In these tales from Ireland, Scotland, and Switzerland, may there not be
a reminiscence of a conquered race of small stature, but considerable
strength, who worked either as slaves or for some small gift? No doubt
they were badly fed, and their clothing would be of the scantiest.
Like the Danes and the Pechts, the fairies live underground. There is a
widespread story of a fairy woman who begs a cottager not to throw water
out at the doorstep, as it falls down her chimney. The request is
invariably granted.
Some of these "wee folk" dwell in palaces under the sea. I heard a
story at Ballyliffan, in Co. Donegal, of men being out in a boat which
was nearly capsized by a heavy sea raised by a fairy. At last one sailor
cried out to throw a nail against the advancing wave; this was done, and
the nail hit the fairy. That night a woman, skilled in healing, received
a message calling upon her to go to the courts below the sea. She
consented, extracted the nail, and cured the fairy woman, but was
careful not to eat any food offered to her. This fairy is said to have
promised a man a pot of gold if he would marry her, but he refused.
An old man at Culdaff told me another tale of the sea. A fishing-boat
was nearly overwhelmed, when a fairy-boat was seen riding on the top of
a great wave, and a voice from it cried: "Do not harm that boat; an old
friend of mine is in it." The voice belonged to a man who was supposed
to be dead; but he had been carried off by the fairies, and would not
allow them to injure his old friend.
If the Irish fairy has power over the waves, the Swiss dwarf can divert
the course of the devastating landslip. I was told by an elderly man in
the Bernese Oberland of the destruction of Burglauenen, a village near
Grindelwald. All the cottages were overwhelmed by a landslip except one
poor hut, which had given shelter to a dwarf, who was seen, seated on a
stone, directing the moving mass away from the abode of his friends. A
similar story is told of the destruction of Niederdorf, in the
Simmenthal.[53] One Sunday evening a feeble little man clad in rags came
to the village; he knocked at several houses, praying the inmates to
give him, for the love of God, a night's shelter. Everywhere he was
refused--one hard-hearted woman telling him to go and break
stones--until he came to a poor basket-maker and his wife, who gave him
the best they had, and when he left he promised that God would reward
them. A week later the village was destroyed by a terrible landslip, but
here also the dwarf saved the dwelling of those who had befriended him.
In this story and in many others the Swiss dwarf appears as a good
Christian, but sometimes a rude and terrible form of paganism is
attributed to him. In the tale of the "Gotwergini im Lötschental"[54]
these dwarfs are accused of devouring children, and are said to have
buried an old woman alive. She was apparently one of themselves. When
they were laying her in the pit she wept bitterly, and begged that she
might go free, saying she could still cook. But the dwarfs showed no
pity: placing some bread and wine beside her, they covered in the grave.
Is this an instance of the primitive barbarism of killing those no
longer able to work, which is said still to exist among the Todas of
India, and of which traces have been found in the customs of Scandinavia
and other countries?[55]
The Irish fairy never appears as a Christian.[56] He is regarded by the
peasant as a fallen angel, and no Church holds out to him the hope of
salvation. I was told in Inishowen that a priest walking between
Clonmany and Ballyliffan was surrounded by the "wee folk," who asked
anxiously if they could be saved. He threw his book towards them, bade
them catch it, and he would give them an answer; but at the sight of the
breviary they scattered and fled.[57]
The Protestant Bible and hymn-book are equally dreaded by them, and are
used as a spell against their influence. I was told in the North of
Antrim of a woman who was nearly carried off by the fairies because her
friends had omitted to leave these books beside her. Luckily her
husband, who was sleeping by the fire, awoke in time to save her. A pair
of scissors, a darning-needle, or any piece of iron, would have been
efficacious as a charm, so would the husband's trousers, if thrown
across the bed.
While, as we have seen, the fairies are endowed with many supernatural
qualities, they have much in common with ordinary mortals; there are
fairy men, fairy women, and fairy children. I have more than once heard
of a fairy's funeral; they intermarry with mortals, and I have been told
that those who bear the name of Ferris are descended from fairies. I
presume Ferris is a corruption of Fir Sidhe. Fairies are never
associated with churchyards, nor are they usually looked on as the
spirits of the departed. The banshee may, indeed, partake to some extent
of a ghostly character. Lady Wilde speaks of her as the "spirit of
death--the most weird and awful of all the fairy powers," and adds, "but
only certain families of historic lineage or persons gifted with music
and song are attended by this spirit."[58]
It has often been stated that the banshee is an appanage of the great,
but this is not the belief of the peasantry of Ulster: many families in
humble life have a banshee attached to them. When in a curragh on Lough
Sessiagh, in Co. Donegal, the neighbouring hill of Ben Olla was pointed
out to me, and I was also shown a small cottage in which a girl named
Olla had lived. She was carried off by the fairies, and her wailing was
heard before the death of her mother, and again before the death of
several members of her family. A farmer, or even a labourer, may have a
banshee attached to his family--a little white creature was the
description given to me by a woman who said she had seen one; others say
that banshees are like birds.
To leave these weird apparitions, it will be seen that the ordinary
fairy, the Grogach, the Pecht, and the Dane, all inhabit underground
dwellings, although the fairy and Grogach are regarded more in the light
of supernatural beings. To cut down a fairy or a "Skiough" bush is to
court misfortune, sometimes to attempt an impossible task. In Glenshesk
some men tried to cut down a Skiough bush, but the hatchet broke; after
several failures they gave up, and the bush still flourishes. Another
bush was transplanted, but returned during the night.
To the Danes and Pechts the building of all the raths and souterrains
is ascribed, and in North-East Antrim the Pechts are said to have been
so numerous that, when making a fort, they could stand in a long line,
and hand the earth from one to another, no one moving a step. A
similar story is told of the Scotch Pechts by the Rev. Andrew Small
in his "Antiquities of Fife" (1823).[59] Speaking of the Round Tower
of Abernethy, "The story goes," he says, "that it was built by the
Pechts ... and that while the work was going on they stood in a row
all the way from the Lomond Hill to the building, handing the stones
from one to another.... That it has been built of freestone from the
Lomond Hill is clear to a demonstration, as the grist or nature of
the stone points out the very spot where it has been taken from--namely,
a little west, and up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile
straight south from Meralsford." According to popular tradition in
Scotland, these Pechts or Picts were great builders, and many of the
edifices ascribed to them belong to a comparatively late period. Mr.
MacRitchie suggests that in the erection of some of these the Picts
may have been employed as serfs or slaves.[60] He believes the Pechts
to be the Picts of history. Mr. W. C. Mackenzie, on the other hand,
has suggested that they are an earlier dwarf race, the Pets or Peti,
who have been confused by the peasantry with the Picts.[61] This is
a matter I must leave to others to decide; but I may remark in passing
that in an ancient poem on the Cruithnians, preserved in the book of
Lecan, we have a suggestion that these Cruithnians or Picts were a
smaller race than their enemies, the Tuath Fidga. We are told how
"God vouchsafed unto them, in munificence,
For their faithfulness--for their reward--
To protect them from the poisoned arms
Of the repulsive horrid giants."[62]
Then follows an account of the cure discovered by the Cruithnian
Druid--how he milked thrice fifty cows into one pit, and bathing in this
pit appears to have healed the warriors and preserved them from harm.
In an article on "The Fairy Mythology of Europe in its Relation to Early
History,"[63] Mr. A. S. Herbert identifies the early dwarf race with
Palæolithic man, and states that from such skeletons as have been
unearthed "it is believed that they were a people of Mongolian or
Turanian origin, short, squat, yellow-skinned, and swarthy."
Professor J. Kollmann, of Basle, speaking of dwarf races, describes "the
flat, broad face, with a flat, broad, low nose and large nose
roots."[64]
Compare these statements with the description given by Harris in the
eighteenth century of the native inhabitants of the northern and eastern
coasts of Ireland. "They are," he says, "of a squat sett Stature, have
short, broad Faces, thick Lips, hollow Eyes, and Noses cocked up, and
seem to be a distinct people from the Western Irish, by whom they are
called Clan-galls--_i.e._, the offspring of the Galls. The curious may
carry these observations further. Doubtless a long intercourse and
various mixtures of the natives have much worn out these distinctions,
of which I think there are yet visible remains."[65]
We have, indeed, had in Ireland from very early times a mingling of
various races, but in the North we are in the home of the Irish Picts or
Cruithnians, and possibly this description of Harris may indicate that
some of the inhabitants in his day bore marks of a dwarfish ancestry. I
have already drawn attention to a statement in an old Irish
manuscript[66] that the Luchorpan or wee-bodies, the Fomores and others,
were of the race of Ham. Keating also speaks of the Fomorians being
sea-rovers of the race of Cam (Ham), who fared from Africa,[67] and
states that among the articles of tribute exacted by them from the race
of Neimhidh were two-thirds of the children. Unless these were all
slaughtered, we have here an intermingling of races, and in the same way
it would be quite possible that Finn McCoul might be a tall man, and yet
the leader of the small Pechts. The capture of women and children has
been a common practice among savage races, and this I believe to be the
origin of many fairy-tales, rather than any reference to the abode of
the dead. Throughout the "Colloquy of the Ancients," Finn and the Fianna
frequently enter the green sidh--the mound where the Tuatha de Danann
dwell, and from which the fairies derive their name "fir-sidh."
Sometimes they fight as allies of the inmates; frequently they
intermarry with them.[68] Throughout this colloquy the dwellers in the
sidh possess many magical powers, but they hardly appear as gods of the
ancient Irish, and the verse in Fiacc's hymn referring to the worship of
the Sidis is not among the stanzas regarded as genuine by Professor
Bury.[69]
We see that both in Ireland and Switzerland there are many legends of
dwarf races who inhabit underground dwellings. In Switzerland their
skeletons have been found. Those discovered by Dr. Nuesch at
Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen, have been minutely described by Dr.
J. Kollmann, Professor of Anatomy at Basle.[70] This burial-place dates
from the early Neolithic period; in it are found skeletons belonging to
men of ordinary height, and in close proximity the graves of dwarfs.
The neighbourhood of Schaffhausen appears to be rich in the remains of
early man; several skeletons have been found in the cave of Dachsenbüel,
two of them of small men, "such as in Africa would be accounted
pygmies."[71] Professor Kollmann mentions several other places in
Switzerland where skeletons of dwarfs have been found, as also in the
Grotte des Enfants on the Bay of Genoa. He also speaks of dwarf races
existing at the present day in Sicily, Sardinia, Sumatra, the Philippine
Islands, besides the well-known Veddas of Ceylon, the Andaman Islanders,
and the African pygmies. He believes that these small people represent
the oldest form of human beings, and that from them the taller races
have been evolved.
How long did these primitive people continue to exist in Ireland and
in Switzerland? It would be difficult to say. Tradition ascribes to them
a strong physique, but even if they could hold their own with the taller
races in the Neolithic period, it must have been hard for them to
contend with those who used weapons of bronze or iron, and, as we have
seen, iron is specially obnoxious to the fairies. The people, however,
who built the large number of souterrains dotted over Antrim and Down
could not be easily exterminated. Many of them may have been enslaved or
gradually absorbed in the rest of the population; others would take
refuge in retired spots, such as are still spoken of as "gentle" or
haunted by fairies. If I might hazard a conjecture, I should say that
both in Ireland and in Switzerland dwarf races had survived far into
Christian times, perhaps to a comparatively recent period. The Irish
fairy may possibly represent those who refused to accept the teaching of
St. Patrick and St. Columbkill, while St. Gall and other Irish monks may
have numbered Swiss dwarfs among their converts. Be this as it may, we
have certainly in Ulster the tradition of two dwarf races, the small
Danes and the Pechts, who are undoubtedly human. We are shown their
handiwork, and, primitive as are their underground dwellings, the
builders of the souterrains had advanced far beyond the stage when man
could only find shelter in the caves provided for him by Nature. How
many centuries did he take to learn the lesson? It is a far-reaching
question, but here fairy-tales and popular legends are silent. They keep
no count of time, although they may bring to us whispers from long-past
ages.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Reprinted from the _Antiquary_, October, 1909.
[46] May it not be that Cinderella's glass shoe was really
green and derived its name from the Irish word _glas_, denoting that
colour, which is familiar to us in place-names? I make this conjecture
with diffidence. I know the usual explanation is that the shoe was made
of a kind of fur called in Old French vair, and that a transcriber
changed this word into _verre_. Miss Cox, in her "Cinderella," mentions
that she had only found six instances of a glass shoe. As Littré says in
the article on _vair_ in his Dictionary, a _soulier de verre_ is absurd.
A fur slipper, however, does not appear very suitable for a ball.
[47] See Ulster Fairies, Danes and Pechts, p. 27 _et seq._
[48] This is, no doubt, a corruption of Bran.
[49] The Grey Man's Path is a fissure on the face of Benmore or
Fair Head, by which a good climber can ascend the cliff. It has been
suggested that this Grey Man is one of the old gods, possibly Manannan,
the Irish sea-god. In the _Ulster Journal of Archæology_ for 1858, vol.
vi., p. 358, there is an account given of the Grey Man appearing near
the mouth of the Bush River to two youths, who believed they would have
seen his cloven foot had he not been standing in the water. They had at
first mistaken the apparition for an ordinary man.
[50] A place inhabited by fairies, or "gentlefolk."
[51] "Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland,"
p. 188.
[52] Dr. J. Jegerlehner, "Was die Sennen erzählen, Märchen und
Sagen aus dem Wallis," pp. 102, 103.
[53] See "Der Untergang des Niederdorfs" in "Sagen und
Sagengeschichten aus dem Simmenthal," vol. ii., pp. 29-44, by D.
Gempeler.
[54] See "Am Herdfeuer der Sennen, Neue Märchen und Sagen aus
dem Wallis," pp. 26-31, by Dr. J. Jegerlehner.
[55] See "Folklore as an Historical Science," by Sir G.
Laurence Gomme, pp. 67-78.
[56] I have heard of only one exception.
[57] Patrick Kennedy, in "A Belated Priest," tells how the
"good people" surrounded a priest on a dark night, and asked him to
declare that at the Last Day their lot would not be with Satan. He
replied by the question, "Do you adore and love the Son of God?" There
came no answer but weak and shrill cries, and with a rushing of wings
the fairies disappeared (see "Fictions of the Irish Celts," p. 89).
In "The Priest's Supper," the good people are anxious to know if their
souls will be saved at the Last Day, but when an interview with a priest
is suggested to them they fly away (see "Fairy Legends and Traditions of
the South of Ireland," by T. Crofton Croker, pp. 36-42).
[58] "Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of
Ireland," vol. i., p. 250.
[59] It is quoted by Mr. David MacRitchie in "Testimony of
Tradition," p. 67.
[60] "Testimony of Tradition," p. 68.
[61] See "The Picts and Pets" in the _Antiquary_ for May, 1906,
p. 172.
[62] "The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius,"
edited, with a translation and notes, by James H. Todd, D.D., F.T.C.
(Dublin, 1848). The verse quoted is given at p. lxix, additional notes.
[63] See the _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1908.
[64] See "Ein dolichokephaler Schädel aus dem Dachsenbüel und
die Bedeutung der kleinen Menschenrassen für das Abstammungsproblem der
Grossen." His words are: "In dem platten, breiten Gesicht sitzt dann
eine platte, breite, niedrige Nase, mit breiter Nasenwürzel." He is
speaking of the characteristics of the present dwarf races found
throughout the world, and quotes the authority of Hagen.
[65] Sir James Ware's "Antiquities of Ireland," translated,
revised, and improved, with many material additions, by Walter Harris,
Esq., vol. ii., chap. ii., p. 17 (Dublin, 1764). The above is taken from
one of the additional notes by Harris.
[66] Quoted by Mr. Standish H. O'Grady in "Silva Gadelica"
(translation and notes), pp. 563, 564. See Ante p. 32.
[67] Keating's "History of Ireland," book i., chap. viii.
Translation by P. W. Joyce, LL.D., M.R.I.A.
[68] See Cael's "Wooing of Credhe" in "The Colloquy of the
Ancients"; "Silva Gadelica," by Standish H. O'Grady, volume with
translation and notes, pp. 119-122.
[69] See "Life of St. Patrick," p. 264.
[70] See Der Mensch, "Separat-Abzug aus den Denkschriften der
Schweiz Naturforschenden Gesellschaft," Band xxxv, 1896.
[71] See the paper already referred to, "Ein dolichokephaler
Schädel," etc. Professor J. Kollmann's words are: "Die man in Africa
wohl zu den Pygmäen zählen wurde."
Folklore from Donegal[72]
The stories current among the peasantry are varied, especially in
Donegal, where we hear of giants and fairies, of small and tall Finns,
of short, stout Firbolgs or Firwolgs, of Danes who made heather ale, and
sometimes of Pechts with their large feet.