inspector of National Schools, who wrote about forty years ago a series
of letters describing Donegal and its inhabitants.[82] In his account of
Arranmore he says: "Until lately the islanders could not be induced to
attack a seal, they being strongly under the impression that these
animals were human beings metamorphosed by the power of their own
witchcraft. In confirmation of this notion, they used to repeat the
story of one Rodgers of their island, who, being alone in his skiff
fishing, was overtaken by a storm, and driven on the shore of the Scotch
Highlands. Having landed, he approached a house which was close to the
beach, and on entering it was accosted by name. Expressing his surprise
at finding himself known in a strange country, and by one whom he had
never seen, the old man who addressed him bared his head, and, pointing
to a scar on his skull, reminded Rodgers of an encounter he had with a
seal in one of the caves of Arranmore. 'I was,' he said, 'that seal, and
this is the mark of the wound you inflicted on me. I do not blame you,
however, for you were not aware of what you were doing.'"
I fear I have lingered too long over these old-world stories. To me
they point to a far-distant past, when Ulster was covered with forests,
in which the red deer and perhaps the Irish elk roamed, and inhabited by
rude tribes, some of them of dwarfish stature, others tall; but these
giants were apparently even less civilized than their smaller
neighbours. Wars were frequent; the giant could hurl the unwieldy mass
of stone, and the dwarfish man could send his arrow tipped with flint.
Even more common was the stealthy raid, when women and children were
carried off to the gloomy souterrain. How long did these rude tribes
survive? It would be difficult to say; possibly until after the days of
St. Patrick and St. Columkill.
I will not, however, indulge in a fancy sketch. The pressing need is not
to interpret but to collect these old tales. The antiquary of the
future, with fuller knowledge at his command, may be better able to
decipher them; but if they are allowed to perish, one link with the past
will be irretrievably lost.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] Read before the Archæological Section of the Belfast
Naturalists' Field Club, February 8, 1911.
[73] In "Celtic Folklore," vol. i., p. 210 _et seq._, Sir John
Rhys relates a similar story. Here the woman is brought to a place which
appears to her to be the finest she has ever seen. When the child is
born the father gives her ointment to anoint its eyes, but entreats her
not to touch her own with it. Inadvertently she rubs her finger across
her eye, and now she sees that the wife is her former maidservant
Eilian, and that she lies on a bundle of rushes and withered leaves in a
cave. Not long afterwards the woman sees the husband in the market at
Carnarvon, and asks for Eilian. He is angry, and, inquiring with which
eye she sees him, puts it out with a bulrush.
From Palestine we have another variant of this story. The Rev. J. E.
Hanauer, in "Folklore of the Holy Land," pp. 210 _et seq._, tells of a
woman at El Welejeh who had spoken unkindly to a frog. The next night,
on waking, she found herself in a cave surrounded by strange,
angry-looking people; one of these "Jân" reproached her bitterly, saying
that the frog was his wife, and threatening her with dire consequences
unless a son were born. She assisted at the birth of the child, who was
fortunately a boy, and was given a _mukhaleh_ or _kohl_ vessel, and was
bidden to rub some of this _kohl_ on the infant's eyes. When she had
done this, she rubbed some on one of her own eyes, but before she had
time to put any on the other the vessel was angrily taken from her. She
was rewarded with onion-leaves, which in the morning turned to gold.
Some time afterwards this woman was shopping at El Kuds, when she saw
the Jennizeh pilfering from shop to shop. She spoke to her and kissed
the baby, but the other answered fiercely, and, poking her finger into
the woman's eye, put it out.
[74] In "Guleesh na Guss Dhu," Dr. Douglas Hyde gives us a
similar tale from Co. Mayo. See "Beside the Fire," pp. 104-128.
[75] In "Folk Tales from Breffny," by B. Hunt, there is a story
(pp. 99-103), "The Cutting of the Tree," which tells of how the fairies,
when baffled in their endeavour to carry off the mistress of the house,
left in the kitchen a wooden image "cut into the living likeness of the
woman of the house."
[76] See _ante_, p. 60.
[77] Pp. 18-21.
[78] "Ogygia," part iii., chap. xii.
[79] Pp. xcix, c.
[80] Pp. c, ci.
[81] See _Morning Post_, December 28, 1910. In his work,
"Pygmies and Papuans," which gives the results of this expedition, Mr.
A. F. R. Wollaston also describes these pygmies (see especially pp.
159-161).
[82] I was shown a MS. copy of some of these letters by a
relative of the writer at Burtonport. I believe they were written for a
newspaper, and were afterwards republished in "The Derry People," under
the title "The Rosses Thirty Years Ago." They contain much interesting
information in regard to the traditions current among the peasantry.
Giants and Dwarfs[83]
The population of Ulster is derived from many sources, and in its
folklore we shall find traces of various tribes and people. I shall
begin with a tale which may have been brought by English settlers.
In "Folklore as an Historical Science" Sir G. Laurence Gomme has given
several variants of the story of the Pedlar of Swaffham and London
Bridge. Most of these come from England, Scotland, and Wales, but among
them there are also a Breton and a Norse version. I have found a local
variant in Donegal. An elderly woman told me that at Kinnagoe a "toon"
or small hamlet about three miles from Buncrana, there lived a man whose
name, she believed, was Doherty. He dreamt one night that on London
Bridge he should hear of a treasure. He set out at once for London, and
when he came there walked up and down the bridge until he was wearied.
At last a man accosted him and asked him why he loitered there. In
reply, Doherty told his dream, upon which the other said: "Ah, man! Do
you believe in drames? Why, I dreamt the other night that at a place
called Kinnagoe a pot of gold is buried. Would I go to look for it? I
might loss my time if I paid attention to drames." "That's true,"
answered Doherty, who now hurried home, found the pot of gold, bought
houses and land, and became a wealthy man.
Whether this story embodies an earlier Irish legend I do not know, but I
should say that the mention of London Bridge points to its having been
brought over by English settlers. Sir G. L. Gomme tells us that "the
earliest version of this legend is quoted from the manuscripts of Sir
Roger Twysden, who obtained it from Sir William Dugdale, of Blyth Hall,
in Warwickshire, in a letter dated January 29, 1652-53. Sir William says
of it that 'it was the tradition of the inhabitants, as it was told me
there.'"
May not some of the planters brought over by the Irish Society have
carried this legend from their English home, giving it in the name
Kinnagoe a local habitation?
Most of our folklore comes, however, from a very early period. Our
Irish fairy, although regarded as a fallen angel, is not the medieval
elf, who could sip honey from a flower, but a small old man or woman
with magical powers, swift to revenge an injury, but often a kindly
neighbour. No story is told more frequently than that of the old fairy
woman who borrows a "noggin" of meal, repays it honestly, and rewards
the peasant woman by saying that her kist will never be empty, generally
adding the condition as long as the secret is kept. The woman usually
observes the condition until her husband becomes too inquisitive. When
she reveals the secret the kist is empty.
Another widespread tale is that of the fairy woman who comes to the
peasant's cottage, sometimes to beg that water may not be thrown out at
the door, as it comes down her chimney and puts out the fire; sometimes
to ask, for a similar reason, that the "byre," or cowhouse, may be
removed to another site. In some tales it is a fairy man who makes the
request. If it is refused, punishment follows in sickness among the
cattle; if complied with, the cows flourish and give an extra supply of
milk. In one instance the "wee folk" provided money to pay a mason to
build the new cowhouse. We may smile, and ask how the position of the
cowhouse could affect the homes of the fairies; but if these small
people lived in the souterrains, as tradition alleges, we may even at
the present day find these artificial caves under inhabited houses. At a
large farmhouse on the border of Counties Antrim and Londonderry I was
told one ran under the kitchen. At another farm near Castlerock, Co.
Londonderry, the owner opened a trapdoor in his yard, and allowed me to
look down into a souterrain. At Finvoy, Co. Antrim, I was shown one of
these caves over which a cottage formerly stood. A souterrain also runs
under the Glebe House at Donaghmore, Co. Down. The following extract is
from a work[84] in preparation, by the Rev. Dr. Cowan, Rector of the
parish, who, in describing this souterrain, writes: "The lintel to the
main entrance is the large stone which forms the base of the old Celtic
cross, which stands a few yards south of the church. Underneath the
cross is the central chamber, which is sixty-two feet long, three feet
wide and upwards of four feet high, with branches in the form of
transepts about thirty feet in length. From these, again, several
sections extend ... one due north terminating at the Glebe House (a
distance of two hundred yards) underneath the study, where, according to
tradition, some rich old vicar in past times fashioned the extreme end
into the dimensions of a wine-cellar."
According to another tradition--an older one, no doubt--this chamber
under the study was the dressing-room of the small Danes, who after
their toilet proceeded through the underground passages to church. They
had to pass through many little doors, down stairs, through parlours,
until they came to the great chamber under the cross where the minister
held forth. I shall not attempt to guess to what old faith this minister
or priest belonged, or what were the rites he celebrated; but the stairs
probably represent the descent from one chamber to another, and the
little doors the bridges found in some souterrains, and, I believe, at
Donaghmore, where one stone juts out from the floor, and a little
farther on another comes down from the roof, leaving only a narrow
passage, so that one must creep over and under these bridges to get to
the end of the cave.
The Danes are regarded by the country people as distinctly human, and
yet there is much in them that reminds us of the fairies; indeed, I was
told by two old men--one in Co. Antrim, and the other in Co. Derry--that
they and the wee-folk are much the same. In a former paper[85] I
referred to the difference in dress ascribed to the fairies in various
parts of the country. I am inclined to believe that this indicates a
variety of tribes among the aboriginal inhabitants. In the fairies who
dress in green may we not have a tradition of people who stained
themselves with woad or some other plant? These fairies are chiefly
heard of in North-East Antrim. In some parts of that county they are
said to wear tartan, but in other parts of Ulster the fairies are
usually, although not universally, described as dressing in red. Do
these represent a people who dyed themselves with red ochre, or who
simply went naked? In Tory Island I was told the fairies dressed in
black; and Keating informs us that the Fomorians, who had their
headquarters at Toirinis, or Tory Island, were "sea-rovers of the race
of Cam, who fared from Africa."[86]
Stories of the fairies or wee-folk are to be found everywhere in
Ulster, and the Danes are also universally known; but one hears of the
Pechts, chiefly in the north-east of Antrim, where the Grogach is also
known. The following story was told to me in Glenariff, Co. Antrim:
A Grogach herded the cattle of a farmer, and drove them home in the
evening. He was about the size of a child, and was naked. A fire was
left burning at night so that he might warm himself, and after a time
the daughter of the house made him a shirt. When the Grogach saw this he
thought it was a "billet" for him to go, and, crying bitterly, he took
his departure, and left the shirt behind him. As I pointed out on a
former occasion,[87] in many respects the Grogach resembles the Swiss
dwarf. The likeness to the Brownie is also very marked. At Ballycastle I
was told the Grogach was a hairy man about four feet in height, who
could bear heat or cold without clothing.
Patrick Kennedy has described a Gruagach as a giant, and states that the
word "Gruagach" has for root _gruach_--"hair," giants and magicians
being "furnished with a large provision of that appendage."[88] This
Gruagach was closely related to the fairies, and, indeed, we shall find
later in a Donegal story a giant ogress spoken of as a fairy woman. In
Scotland, as well as in the South of Ireland, the name is Gruagach, but
in Antrim I heard it pronounced "Grogach." I was also told near
Cushendall that the Danes were hairy people.
One does not hear so much about giants in Antrim as in Donegal, but in
Glenariff I was told of four, one of whom lifted a rock at Ballycastle
and threw it across the sea to Rathlin--a distance of five or six miles.
Great as this feat was, a still greater was reported to me near
Armoy,[89] where I was shown a valley, and was told the earth had been
scooped out and thrown into the sea, where it formed the Island of
Rathlin.
The grave of the giant Gig-na-Gog is to be seen some miles from Portrush
on the road to Beardiville.[90] I could not, however, hear anything of
Gig-na-Gog, except that he was a giant.
In the stories of giants we no doubt often have traditions of a tall
race, who are sometimes represented as of inferior mental capacity. At
other times we appear to be listening to an early interpretation of the
works of Nature. The Donegal peasant at the present day believes that
the perched block on the side of the hill has been thrown by the arm of
a giant. In the compact columns of the Giant's Causeway and of Fingal's
Cave at Staffa primitive man saw a work of great skill and ingenuity,
which he attributed to a giant artificer; and Finn McCoul is credited
with having made a stupendous mole, uniting Scotland and Ireland. This
Finn McCoul has many aspects. He does not show to much advantage in the
following legend, which I heard on the banks of Lough Salt in Donegal:
Finn was a giant but there was a bigger giant named Goll, who came to
fight Finn, and Finn was afraid. His wife bade him creep into the
cradle, and she would give an answer to Goll. When the latter appeared,
he asked where was Finn. The wife replied he was out, and she was alone
with the baby in the cradle. Goll looked at the child, and thought, if
that is the size of Finn's infant, what must Finn himself be? and
without more ado he turned and took his departure.[91] This Finn had an
eye at the back of his head, and was so tall his feet came out at the
door of his house. We are not told, however, what was the size of the
house.
[Illustration: PLATE XI. [_R. Welch, Photo._
VALLEY NEAR ARMOY, WHENCE, ACCORDING TO LEGEND, EARTH WAS TAKEN TO FORM
RATHLIN.]
In this tale Finn shows little courage, but as a rule he is represented
as a noted hero. I was told a long story at Glenties in Donegal of the
three sons Finn had by the Queen of Italy. He had seen her bathing in
Ireland, and he stole her clothes, so she had to stay until she could
get them back. After a time she found them, and returned to her own
country, where she gave birth to three sons--Dubh, Kian, and Glasmait.
When they were fourteen years of age the King of Italy sent them away
that they might go to their father Finn.
They arrived in Ireland, and when Finn saw them he said: "If those three
be the sons of a King, they will come straight on; if not, they will ask
their way." The lads came straight on, knelt before Finn, and claimed
him as their father. He asked them who was their mother, and when they
said the Queen of Italy, Finn remembered the stolen clothes, and
received them as his sons.
One day the followers of Finn could not find his dividing knife, and
Dubh determined to go in search of it. He put a stick in the fire, and
said he would be back before the third of it was burnt out. He followed
tracks, and came to a house where there was a great feast. He sat down
among the men, and saw they were cutting with Finn's knife. It was
passed from one to another until it came to Dubh, who, holding it in his
hand, sprang up and carried it off.
When Dubh got home he wakened Kian and said: "My third of the stick is
burnt, and now do you see what you can do." Kian followed the tracks,
and got to the same place. He found the men drinking out of a horn. One
called for whisky, another for wine, and whatever was asked, the horn
gave. Kian heard them say it was Finn's horn, and that his knife had
been carried off the previous night. Kian waited, and when the horn came
he grasped it tightly and ran off home, where he found his third of the
stick was burnt. He waked Glasmait, and told him two-thirds of the night
had passed, and it was now his turn to go out. Glasmait followed the
same tracks, but when he came to the house blood was flowing from the
door, and, looking in, he saw the place full of corpses. One man only
remained alive. He told Glasmait how they had all been drinking when
someone ran off with Finn McCoul's horn. "One man blamed another," he
said; "they quarrelled and fought until everyone was killed except
myself. Now I beseech you throw the ditch[92] upon me and bury me. I do
not wish to be devoured by the fairy woman, who will soon be here. She
is an awful size, and upon her back is bound Finn McCoul's sword of
light,[93] which gives to its possessor the strength of a hundred men."
The man gave Glasmait some hints to aid him in the coming fight, and
added: "Now I have told you all, bury me quick."
Glasmait threw the ditch upon him, and hid himself in a corner. The
Banmore, or large woman, now came in, and began her horrible repast. She
chose the fat men; three times she lifted Glasmait, but rejected him as
too young and lean. At last she lay down to sleep. Glasmait followed the
advice he had received. He touched her foot, but jumped aside to avoid
the kick. He touched her hand, but jumped aside to avoid her slap. When
she was again asleep, he drew his sword and cut the cords which bound
the sword of light to her back, and seized upon it. She roused herself,
and for two hours they fought, until in the end Glasmait ripped open her
body, when, behold, three red-haired boys sprang out and attacked him.
He slew two of them, but the third escaped. Glasmait returned home with
the sword of light, and found his third of the stick burnt.
The three sons now presented their father with the dividing knife, the
drinking horn, and the sword of light, and there was great rejoicing
that these had been recovered.
Some time after this a red-haired boy appeared, and begged to be taken
into Finn's service for a twelvemonth, saying he could kill birds and do
any kind of work. When asked what wages he looked for, he replied that
he hoped when he died, Finn and his men would put his body in a cart,
which would come for it, and bury him where the cart stopped.
The red-haired boy worked well, but at the end of the year he suddenly
died. A cart drawn by a horse appeared, and Finn and his men tried to
place the body in it; but it could not be moved until the horse wheeled
round and did the work itself, starting immediately afterwards with its
load. Finn and his men followed, but a great mist came on, so that they
could not see clearly. At last they arrived at an old, black castle
standing in a glen. Here they found the table laid, and sat down to eat,
but before long the red-haired boy appeared alive, and cried vengeance
upon Finn and his sons. The men tried to draw their swords, but found
them fastened to the ground, and the red-haired boy cut off fifty heads.
Now, however, the great Manannan appeared. He bade the red-haired boy
drop his sword, or he would give him a slap that would turn his face to
the back of his head. He also bade him replace the heads on the fifty
men. The red-haired boy had to submit, and after that he troubled Finn
no more. Manannan dispelled the mist, and brought Finn and his men back
to their own home, where they feasted for three days and three nights.
This somewhat gruesome story contains several points of interest. The
stealing of the clothes is an incident which occurs with slight
variations in many folk-tales. In "The Stolen Veil"[94] Musäus tells us
how the damsel of fairy lineage was detained when her veil was carried
off, and it was only after she had recovered it that she was able, in
the guise of a swan, to return to her home.
We have read, too, of how the Shetlander captured the sealskin of the
Finn woman, without which she could not return as a seal to her
husband.[95] It should also be noted that the fairy ogress is a large
woman, apparently a giantess, while her three sons have the red hair so
often associated with the fairies. At the end of the tale Finn and his
men are saved by Manannan, the Celtic god of the sea, who has given his
name to the Isle of Man. In Balor of Tory Island the great Fomorian
chief, we have another giant, with an eye at the back of his head, which
dealt destruction to all who encountered its gaze. I was told in Tory
Island that when Balor was mortally wounded water fell so copiously from
his eye that it formed the biggest lough in the world, deeper even than
Lough Foyle.[96]
These giants belonged to an olden time and a very primitive race. They
have passed away, and are no longer like the fairies--objects of fear or
awe.
The fairies, being believed to be fallen angels, are especially
dreaded on Hallow Eve night. In some places oatmeal and salt are put on
the heads of the children to protect them from harm. I first heard of
this custom in the valley of the Roe, where there are a large number of
forts said to be inhabited by the fairies. The neighbourhood of Dungiven
on that river is rich in antiquities. I was told there was a souterrain
under the Cashel or "White Fort," said to have been built by the Danes.
There is another under Carnanban Fort, and not far from this there are
the stone circles at Aghlish. An old woman of ninety-six showed them to
me, and said it was a very gentle[97] place, and it would not be safe to
take away one of the stones.
[Illustration: PLATE XII. [_R. Welch, Photo._
FLINT SPEARHEAD AND BASALT AXES FOUND UNDER FORT IN LENAGH TOWNLAND.]
Here we have an instance of the strong belief that to interfere in any
way with stone, tree, or fort, belonging to the fairies is certain to
bring disaster. About sixty-five years ago, when the railway was being
made between Belfast and Ballymena, an old fort with fairy bushes in the
townland of Lenagh stood on the intended track, and had to be removed.
The men working on the line were most unwilling to meddle with either
fort or bushes. One, however, braver than the rest began to cut down a
thorn, when he met with an accident which strengthened the others in
their refusal. In the end the fort had to be blown up, I believe by the
officials of the railway, and underneath it a very fine spearhead and
other implements were found.[98]
A fort near Glasdrumman, Co. Down, was demolished by the owner, but the
country-people noted that the man who struck the first blow was injured
and died soon afterwards, while the owner himself became a permanent
invalid. A woman living near this fort related that in the evening after
the work was begun she heard an awful screech from the fort; presumably
the fairies were leaving their home.
A curious story was told me by an old woman in the Cottage Hospital at
Cushendall. A man at Glenravel named M'Combridge went out one evening to
look for his heifer, but could not find it. He saw a great house in one
of his fields, where no house had been before, and, wondering much at
this, he went in. An old woman sat by the fire, and soon two men came in
leading the heifer. They killed it with a blow on the head and put it
into a pot. M'Combridge was too much afraid to make any objection; he
rose, however, to leave the house, but the old woman said: "Wait; you
must have some of the broth of your own heifer." Three times she made
him partake of the broth, and he was then unable to leave the house. She
put him to bed, and the man gave birth to a son. He fell asleep, but was
wakened by something touching his ear, and found himself on the grass
near his home, and the heifer close to his ear.
This fantastic story no doubt represents a dream, but does it contain a
reminiscence of the couvade, where, after the birth of the child, the
father goes to bed? Sir E. B. Tylor, in the "Early History of Mankind,"
has shown how widespread this custom was both in the Old and the New
World.