Ghosts, or as they are called in Irish, _Thevshi_ or _Tash_
(_taidhbhse_, _tais_), live in a state intermediary between this life
and the next. They are held there by some earthly longing or affection,
or some duty unfulfilled, or anger against the living. "I will haunt
you," is a common threat; and one hears such phrases as, "She will haunt
him, if she has any good in her." If one is sorrowing greatly after a
dead friend, a neighbour will say, "Be quiet now, you are keeping him
from his rest;" or, in the Western Isles, according to Lady Wilde, they
will tell you, "You are waking the dog that watches to devour the souls
of the dead." Those who die suddenly, more commonly than others, are
believed to become haunting Ghosts. They go about moving the furniture,
and in every way trying to attract attention.
When the soul has left the body, it is drawn away, sometimes, by the
fairies. I have a story of a peasant who once saw, sitting in a fairy
rath, all who had died for years in his village. Such souls are
considered lost. If a soul eludes the fairies, it may be snapped up by
the evil spirits. The weak souls of young children are in especial
danger. When a very young child dies, the western peasantry sprinkle
the threshold with the blood of a chicken, that the spirits may be
drawn away to the blood. A Ghost is compelled to obey the commands of
the living. "The stable-boy up at Mrs. G----'s there," said an old
countryman, "met the master going round the yards after he had been
two days dead, and told him to be away with him to the lighthouse, and
haunt that; and there he is far out to sea still, sir. Mrs. G---- was
quite wild about it, and dismissed the boy." A very desolate
lighthouse poor devil of a Ghost! Lady Wilde considers it is only the
spirits who are too bad for heaven, and too good for hell, who are
thus plagued. They are compelled to obey some one they have wronged.
The souls of the dead sometimes take the shapes of animals. There is a
garden at Sligo where the gardener sees a previous owner in the shape
of a rabbit. They will sometimes take the forms of insects, especially
of butterflies. If you see one fluttering near a corpse, that is the
soul, and is a sign of its having entered upon immortal happiness. The
author of the _Parochial Survey of Ireland_, 1814, heard a woman say
to a child who was chasing a butterfly, "How do you know it is not the
soul of your grandfather." On November eve the dead are abroad, and
dance with the fairies.
As in Scotland, the fetch is commonly believed in. If you see the
double, or fetch, of a friend in the morning, no ill follows; if at
night, he is about to die.