By ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES.
Among savage peoples there is at first no distinction of a definite
kind between good and bad spirits, and when a distinction has been
reached, a great advance in a spiritual direction has been made. For
the key to the religion of savages is fear, and until such terror has
been counteracted by belief in beneficent powers, civilization will
not follow. But the elimination of the fear of the unseen is a slow
process; indeed, it will exist side by side with the belief in
Christianity itself, after a modification through various stages of
better pagan belief.
Ireland still presents, in its more out-of-the-way districts,
evidence of that strong persistence in the belief in maleficent or
malicious influences of the pre-Christian powers of the air, which it
seems difficult to eradicate from the Celtic imagination. In the
celebrated poem entitled _The Breastplate of St. Patrick_, there is
much the same attitude on the part of Patrick towards the Druids and
their powers of concealing and changing, of paralyzing and cursing,
as was shown by Moses towards the magicians of Egypt. Indeed, in
Patrick's time a belief in a world of fairies existed even in the
king's household, for "when the two daughters of King Leary of
Ireland, Ethnea the fair and Fedelma the ruddy, came early one
morning to the well of Clebach to wash, they found there a synod of
holy bishops with Patrick. And they knew not whence they came, or in
what form, or from what people, or from what country; but they
supposed them to be _Duine Sidh_, or gods of the earth, or a
phantasm."
Colgan explains the term _Duine Sidh_ thus: "Fantastical spirits," he
writes, "are by the Irish called men of the _Sidh_, because they are
seen, as it were, to come out of the beautiful hills to infest men,
and hence the vulgar belief that they reside in certain subterranean
habitations: and sometimes the hills themselves are called, by the
Irish, _Sidhe_ or _Siodha_."
No doubt, when the princesses spoke of the gods of the earth,
reference was made to such pagan deities as Beal; Dagda the great or
the good god; Aine, the Moon, goddess of the water and of wisdom;
Manannan macLir, the Irish Neptune; Crom, the Irish Ceres; and
Iphinn, the benevolent, whose relations to the Irish Oirfidh
resembled those of Apollo towards Orpheus; and to the allegiance they
owed to the Elements, the Wind, and the Stars. But besides these
pagan divinities and powers, and quite apart from them, the early
Irish believed in two classes of fairies: in the first place, a
hierarchy of fairy beings, well and ill disposed, not differing in
appearance, to any great degree at any rate, from human beings--good
spirits and demons, rarely visible during the daytime; and, in the
second place, there was the magic race of the De Danann, who, after
conquest by the Milesians, transformed themselves into fairies, and
in that guise continued to inhabit the underworld of the Irish hills,
and to issue thence in support of Irish heroes, or to give their aid
against other fairy adversaries.
There is another theory to account for the fairy race. It is that
they are angels who revolted with Satan and were excluded from heaven
for their unworthiness, but were not found evil enough for hell, and
therefore were allowed to occupy that intermediate space which has
been called "the Other World." It is still a moot point with the
Irish peasantry, as it was with the Irish saints of old, whether,
after being compelled to dwell without death among rocks and hills,
lakes and seas, bushes and forest, till the day of judgment, the
fairies then have the chance of salvation. Indeed, the fairies are
themselves believed to have great doubts of a future existence,
though, like many men, entertaining undefined hopes of happiness; and
hence the enmity which some of them have for mankind, who, they
acknowledge, will live eternally. Thus their actions are balanced
between generosity and vindictiveness towards the human race.
Mr. W.Y. Evans Wentz, A.M., of Leland Stanford University,
California, and Jesus College, Oxford, has received an honorary
degree from the latter university for his thesis, "The Fairy Faith in
Celtic Countries: Its Psychical Origin and Nature", a most laborious
as well as ingenious work, whose object is to prove "that the origin
of the fairy faith is psychical, and that fairyland, being thought of
as an invisible world within which the visible world is immersed as
an island in an unexplored ocean, actually exists, and that it is
peopled by more species of living beings than this world, because
incomparably more vast and varied in its possibilities." This may be
added as a fourth theory to account for the existence of fairies, and
it may be further stated here that the Irish popular belief in ghosts
attributes to some of their departed spirits much of the same
violence and malice with which fairies are credited. Mr. Jeremiah
Curtin gives striking instances of this kind in his book, the _Folk
Lore of West Kerry_.
It became necessary, therefore, for the Gaels who believed in the
preternatural powers of the fairies for good and ill to propitiate
them as far as possible. On May eve, accordingly, cattle were driven
into raths and bled there, some of the blood being tasted, the rest
poured out in sacrifice. Men and women were also bled on these
occasions. The seekers for buried treasure, over which fairies were
supposed to have influence, immolated a black cock or a black cat to
propitiate them. Again, a cow, suffering from sickness believed to be
due to fairy malice, was bled and then devoted to St. Martin. If it
recovered, it was never sold or killed. The first new milk of a cow
was poured out on the ground to propitiate the fairies, and
especially on the ground within a fairy rath. The first drop of any
drink is also thrown out by old Irish people. If a child spills milk,
the mother says, "that's for the fairies, leave it to them and
welcome." Slops should never be thrown out of doors without the
warning, "Take care of water!" lest fairies should be passing
invisibly and get soiled by the discharge. Eddies of dust upon the
road are supposed to be caused by the fairies, and tufts of grass,
sticks, and pebbles are thrown into the centre of the eddy to
propitiate the unseen beings. Some fairies of life size, who live
within the green hills or under the raths, are supposed to carry off
healthy babes to be made fairy children, their abstractors leaving
weak changelings in their place. Similarly, nursing mothers are
sometimes supposed to be carried off to give the breast to fairy
babes, and handsome young men are spirited away to become bridegrooms
to fairy brides. Again, folk suffering from falling sickness are
supposed to be in that condition owing to the fatigue caused by
nocturnal rides through the air with the fairies, whose steeds are
bewitched rushes, blades of grass, straws, fern roots, and cabbage
stalks. The latter, to be serviceable for the purpose, should be cut
into the rude shapes of horses before the metamorphosis can take
place.
Iron of every kind keeps away malignant fairies: thus, a horseshoe
nailed to the bottom of the churn prevents butter from being
bewitched. Here is a form of charm against the fairies who have
bewitched the butter: "Every window should be barred, a great turf
fire should be lit upon which nine irons should be placed, the
bystanders chanting twice over in Irish, 'Come, butter, come; Peter
stands at the gate waiting for a buttered cake.' As the irons become
heated the witch will try to break in, asking the people to take the
irons, which are burning her, off the fire. On their refusing, she
will go and bring back the butter to the churn. The irons may then be
removed from the fire and all will go well."
If a neighbor or stranger should enter a cottage during the churning,
he should put his hand to the dash, or the butter will not come. A
small piece of iron should be sewed into an infant's clothes and kept
there until the child is baptized, and salt should be sprinkled over
his cradle to preserve the babe from abduction. The fairies are
supposed to have been conquered by an iron-weaponed race, and hence
their dread of the metal.
To recover a spell-bound friend, stand on All Hallows' eve at cross
roads or at a spot pointed out by a wise woman or fairy doctor. When
you have rubbed fairy ointment on your eyelids, the fairies will
become visible as the host sweeps by with its captive, whom the gazer
will then be able to recognize. A sudden gust announces their
approach. Stooping down, you will then throw dust or milk at the
procession, whose members are then obliged to surrender your
spell-bound friend. If a man leaves home after his wife's
confinement, some of his clothes should be spread over the mother and
infant, or the fairies may carry them off. It is good for a woman,
but bad for a man, to dream of fairies. It betokens marriage for a
girl, misfortune for a man, who should not undertake serious business
for some time after such dreaming.
Fairy changelings may be recognized by tricky habits, constant
crying, and other unusual characteristics. It was customary to
recover the true child in the following way: The changeling was
placed upon an iron shovel over the fire, when it would go shrieking
up the chimney, and the _bona fide_ human child would be restored. It
was believed that fairy changelings often produced a set of small
bagpipes from under the clothes and played dance music upon them,
till the inmates of the cottage dropped with exhaustion from the
effects of the step dancing they were compelled to engage in.
On Samain eve, the night before the first of November, or, as it is
now called, All Hallows' night or Hallowe'en, all the fairy hills or
_shees_ are thrown wide open and the fairy host issues forth, as
mortals who are bold enough to venture near may see. Naturally
therefore people keep indoors so as not to encounter the spectral
host. The superstition that the fairies are abroad on Samain night
still exists in Ireland and Scotland, and there is a further belief,
no doubt derived from it, that the graves are open on that night and
that the spirits of the dead are abroad.
Salt, as already suggested, is regarded to be so lucky that if a
child falls, it should always be given three pinches of salt, and if
a neighbor calls to borrow salt, it should not be refused, even
though it be the last grain in the house.
An infant born with teeth should have them drawn by the nearest
smith, and the first teeth when shed should be thrown into the fire,
lest the fairies should get hold of what had been part of you.
Those who hear fairy music are supposed to be haunted by the melody,
and many are believed to go mad or commit suicide in consequence.
The fairies are thought to engage in warfare with one another, and in
the year 1800 a specially sanguinary battle was believed to have been
fought between two clans of the fairies in county Kilkenny. In the
morning the hawthorns along the fences were found crushed to pieces
and drenched with blood.
In popular belief fairies often go hunting, and faint sounds of fairy
horns, the baying of fairy hounds, and the cracking of fairy whips
are supposed to be heard on these occasions, while the flight of the
hunters is said to resemble in sound the humming of bees.
Besides the life-sized fairies who are reputed to have these direct
dealings with human beings, there are diminutive preternatural beings
who are also supposed to come into close touch with men. Among these
is the Luchryman (_Leithphrogan_), or brogue maker, otherwise known
as Leprechaun. He is always found mending or making a shoe, and, if
grasped firmly and kept constantly in view, will disclose hidden
treasure to you, or render up his _sparan na sgillinge_, or purse of
the (inexhaustible) shilling. He can only be bound by a plough chain
or woolen thread. He is the symbol of industry which, if steadily
faced, leads to fortune, but, if lost sight of, is followed by its
forfeiture.
Love in idleness is personified by another pigmy, the _Geancanach_
(love-talker). He does not appear, like the Leprechaun, with a purse
in one of his pockets, but with his hands in both of them, and a
_dudeen_ (short pipe) in his mouth, as he lazily strolls through
lonely valleys making love to the foolish country lasses and
"gostering" with the idle "boys." To meet him meant bad luck, and
whoever was ruined by ill-judged love was said to have been with the
_Geancanach_.
Another evil sprite was the _Clobher-ceann_, "a jolly, red-faced,
drunken little fellow," always "found astride of a wine-butt" singing
and drinking from a full tankard in a hard drinker's cellar, and
bound by his appearance to bring its owner to speedy ruin.
Then there were the _Leannan-sighes_, or native Muses, to be found in
every place of note to inspire the local bard, and the _Beansighes_
(Banshees, fairy women) attached to each of the old Irish families
and giving warning of the death of one of its members with piteous
lamentations.
Black Joanna of the Boyne (_Siubhan Dubh na Boinne_) appeared on
Hallowe'en in the shape of a great black fowl, bringing luck to the
home whose _Banithee_ (woman of the house) kept the dwelling
constantly clean and neat.
The Pooka, who appeared in the shape of a horse, and whom Shakespeare
is by many believed to have adapted as "Puck," was a goblin who
combined "horse-play" with viciousness, but also at times helped with
the housework.
The _Dullaghan_ was a churchyard demon whose head was of a movable
kind. Dr. Joyce writes: "You generally meet him with his head in his
pocket, under his arm, or absent altogether; or if you have the
fortune to light upon a number of _Dullaghans_, you may see them
amusing themselves by flinging their heads at one another or kicking
them for footballs."
An even more terrible churchyard demon is the fascinating phantom
that waylays the widower at his wife's very tomb, and poisons him by
her kiss when he has yielded to her blandishments.
Of monsters the Irish had, and still believe in, the _Piast_ (Latin
_bestia_), a huge dragon or serpent confined to lakes by St. Patrick
till the day of judgment, but still occasionally seen in their
waters. In old Fenian times, namely, the days of Finn and his
companion knights, the _Piasts_, however, roamed the country,
devouring men and women and cattle in large numbers, and some of the
early heroes are recorded to have been swallowed alive by them and
then to have hewed their way out of their entrails.
Merrows, or Mermaids, are also still believed in, and many folk tales
exist describing their intermarriage with mortals.
According to Nicholas O'Kearney, "It is the general opinion of many
old persons versed in native traditional lore, that, before the
introduction of Christianity, all animals possessed the faculties of
human reason and speech; and old story-tellers will gravely inform
you that every beast could speak before the arrival of St. Patrick,
but that the saint having expelled the demons from the land by the
sound of his bell, all the animals that, before that time, had
possessed the power of foretelling future events, such as the Black
Steed of _Binn-each-labhra_, the Royal Cat of _Cloughmagh-righ-cat_
(Clough), and others, became mute, and many of them fled to Egypt and
other foreign countries."
Cats are said to have been appointed to guard hidden treasures; and
there are few who have not heard old Irish people tell about strange
meetings of cats and violent battles fought by them in the
neighborhood. "It was believed," adds O'Kearney, "that an evil spirit
in the shape of a cat assumed command over these animals in various
districts, and that when those wicked beings pleased they could
compel all the cats belonging to their division to attack those of
some other district. The same was said of rats; and rat-expellers,
when commanding a colony of those troublesome and destructive animals
to emigrate to some other place, used to address their 'billet' to
the infernal rat supposed to hold command over the rest. In a curious
pamphlet on the power of bardic compositions to charm and expel rats,
lately published, Mr. Eugene O'Curry states that a degraded priest,
who was descended from an ancient family of hereditary bards, was
enabled to expel a colony of rats by the force of satire!"
Hence, of course, Shakespeare's reference to rhyming Irish rats to
death.
It will thus be seen that Irish Fairy Lore well deserves to have been
called by Mr. Alfred Nutt, one of the leading authorities on the
subject, "as fair and bounteous a harvest of myth and romance as ever
flourished among any race."