[Music]
OMENS.--Page 108.
We have other omens beside the Banshee and the Dullahan and the
Coach-a-Bower. I know one family where death is announced by the
cracking of a whip. Some families are attended by phantoms of ravens
or other birds. When McManus, of '48 celebrity, was sitting by his
dying brother, a bird of vulture-like appearance came through the
window and lighted on the breast of the dying man. The two watched in
terror, not daring to drive it off. It crouched there, bright-eyed,
till the soul left the body. It was considered a most evil omen.
Lefanu worked this into a tale. I have good authority for tracing its
origin to McManus and his brother.
A WITCH TRIAL.--Page 146.
The last trial for witchcraft in Ireland--there were never very
many--is thus given in MacSkimin's _History of Carrickfergus_:--"1711,
March 31st, Janet Mean, of Braid-island; Janet Latimer, Irish-quarter,
Carrickfergus; Janet Millar, Scotch-quarter, Carrickfergus; Margaret
Mitchel, Kilroot; Catharine M'Calmond, Janet Liston, alias Seller,
Elizabeth Seller, and Janet Carson, the four last from Island Magee,
were tried here, in the County of Antrim Court, for witchcraft."
Their alleged crime was tormenting a young woman, called Mary Dunbar,
about eighteen years of age, at the house of James Hattridge, Island
Magee, and at other places to which she was removed. The circumstances
sworn on the trial were as follows:--
"The afflicted person being, in the month of February, 1711, in the
house of James Hattridge, Island Magee (which had been for some time
believed to be haunted by evil spirits), found an apron on the parlour
floor, that had been missing some time, tied with _five strange
knots_, which she loosened.
"On the following day she was suddenly seized with a violent pain in
her thigh, and afterwards fell into fits and ravings; and, on
recovering, said she was tormented by several women, whose dress and
personal appearance she minutely described. Shortly after, she was
again seized with the like fits, and on recovering she accused five
other women of tormenting her, describing them also. The accused
persons being brought from different parts of the country, she
appeared to suffer extreme fear and additional torture as they
approached the house.
"It was also deposed that strange noises, as of whistling, scratching,
etc., were heard in the house, and that a sulphureous smell was
observed in the rooms; that stones, turf, and the like were thrown
about the house, and the coverlets, etc., frequently taken off the
beds and made up in the shape of a corpse; and that a bolster once
walked out of a room into the kitchen with a night-gown about it! It
likewise appeared in evidence that in some of her fits three strong
men were scarcely able to hold her in the bed; that at times she
vomited feathers, cotton yarn, pins, and buttons; and that on one
occasion she slid off the bed and was laid on the floor, as if
supported and drawn by an invincible power. The afflicted person was
unable to give any evidence on the trial, being during that time dumb,
but had no violent fit during its continuance."
In defence of the accused, it appeared that they were mostly sober,
industrious people, who attended public worship, could repeat the
Lord's Prayer, and had been known to pray both in public and private;
and that some of them had lately received communion.
Judge Upton charged the jury, and observed on the regular attendance
of accused at public worship; remarking that he thought it improbable
that real witches could so far retain the form of religion as to
frequent the religious worship of God, both publicly and privately,
which had been proved in favour of the accused. He concluded by giving
his opinion "that the jury could not bring them in guilty upon the
sole testimony of the afflicted person's visionary images." He was
followed by Judge Macarthy, who differed from him in opinion, "and
thought the jury might, from the evidence, bring them in guilty,"
which they accordingly did.
This trial lasted from six o'clock in the morning till two in the
afternoon; and the prisoners were sentenced to be imprisoned twelve
months, and to stand four times in the pillory of Carrickfergus.
Tradition says that the people were much exasperated against these
unfortunate persons, who were severely pelted in the pillory with
boiled cabbage stalks and the like, by which one of them had an eye
beaten out.
T'YEER-NA-N-OGE.--Page 200.
"_Tir-na-n-óg_," Mr. Douglas Hyde writes, "'The Country of the Young,'
is the place where the Irish peasant will tell you _geabhaedh tu an
sonas aer pighin_, 'you will get happiness for a penny,' so cheap and
common it will be. It is sometimes, but not often, called
_Tir-na-hóige_; the 'Land of Youth.' Crofton Croker writes it,
_Thierna-na-noge_, which is an unfortunate mistake of his, _Thierna_
meaning a lord, not a country. This unlucky blunder is, like many
others of the same sort where Irish words are concerned, in danger of
becoming stereotyped, as the name of Iona has been, from mere clerical
carelessness."
THE GONCONER OR GANCANAGH [GEAN-CANACH].--Page 207.
O'Kearney, a Louthman, deeply versed in Irish lore, writes of the
_gean-c[=a]nach_ (love-talker) that he is "another diminutive being of
the same tribe as the Lepracaun, but, unlike him, he personated love
and idleness, and always appeared with a dudeen in his jaw in lonesome
valleys, and it was his custom to make love to shepherdesses and
milk-maids. It was considered very unlucky to meet him, and whoever
was known to have ruined his fortune by devotion to the fair sex was
said to have met a _gean-c[=a]nach_. The dudeen, or ancient Irish
tobacco pipe, found in our raths, etc., is still popularly called a
_gean-canach's_ pipe."
The word is not to be found in dictionaries, nor does this spirit
appear to be well known, if known at all, in Connacht. The word is
pronounced _gánconâgh_.
In the MS. marked R.I.A. 23/E. 13 in the Roy' Ir. Ac., there is a long
poem describing such a fairy hurling-match as the one in the story,
only the fairies described as the _shiagh_, or host, wore plaids and
bonnets, like Highlanders. After the hurling the fairies have a hunt,
in which the poet takes part, and they swept with great rapidity
through half Ireland. The poem ends with the line--
"_'S gur shiubhail me na cûig cúig cûige's gan fúm acht buachallân
buidhe_;"
"and I had travelled the five provinces with nothing under me but a
yellow bohalawn (rag-weed)."--[_Note by Mr. Douglas Hyde._]
FATHER JOHN O'HART.--Page 220.
Father O'Rorke is the priest of the parishes of Ballysadare and
Kilvarnet, and it is from his learnedly and faithfully and
sympathetically written history of these parishes that I have taken
the story of Father John, who had been priest of these parishes, dying
in the year 1739. Coloony is a village in Kilvarnet.
Some sayings of Father John's have come down. Once when he was
sorrowing greatly for the death of his brother, the people said to
him, "Why do you sorrow so for your brother when you forbid us to
keen?" "Nature," he answered, "forces me, but ye force nature." His
memory and influence survives, in the fact that to the present day
there has been no keening in Coloony.
He was a friend of the celebrated poet and musician, Carolan.
SHONEEN AND SLEIVEEN.--Page 220.
_Shoneen_ is the diminutive of _shone_ [Ir. _Seón_]. There are two
Irish names for John--one is _Shone_, the other is _Shawn_ [Ir.
_Seághan_]. Shone is the "grandest" of the two, and is applied to the
gentry. Hence _Shoneen_ means "a little gentry John," and is applied
to upstarts and "big" farmers, who ape the rank of gentleman.
_Sleiveen_, not to be found in the dictionaries, is a comical Irish
word (at least in Connaught) for a rogue. It probably comes from
_sliabh_, a mountain, meaning primarily a mountaineer, and in a
secondary sense, on the principle that mountaineers are worse than
anybody else, a rogue. I am indebted to Mr. Douglas Hyde for these
details, as for many others.
DEMON CAT.--Page 229.
In Ireland one hears much of Demon Cats. The father of one of the
present editors of the _Fortnightly_ had such a cat, say county Dublin
peasantry. One day the priest dined with him, and objecting to see a
cat fed before Christians, said something over it that made it go up
the chimney in a flame of fire. "I will have the law on you for doing
such a thing to my cat," said the father of the editor. "Would you
like to see your cat?" said the priest. "I would," said he, and the
priest brought it up, covered with chains, through the hearth-rug,
straight out of hell. The Irish devil does not object to these
undignified shapes. The Irish devil is not a dignified person. He has
no whiff of sulphureous majesty about him. A centaur of the
ragamuffin, jeering and shaking his tatters, at once the butt and
terror of the saints!
A LEGEND OF KNOCKMANY.--Page 266.
Carleton says--"Of the grey stone mentioned in this legend, there is a
very striking and melancholy anecdote to be told. Some twelve or
thirteen years ago, a gentleman in the vicinity of the site of it was
building a house, and, in defiance of the legend and curse connected
with it, he resolved to break it up and use it. It was with some
difficulty, however, that he could succeed in getting his labourers to
have anything to do with its mutilation. Two men, however, undertook
to blast it, but, somehow, the process of ignition being mismanaged,
it exploded prematurely, and one of them was killed. This coincidence
was held as a fulfilment of the curse mentioned in the legend. I have
heard that it remains in that mutilated state to the present day, no
other person being found who had the hardihood to touch it. This
stone, before it was disfigured, exactly resembled that which the
country people term a miscaun of butter, which is precisely the shape
of a complete prism, a circumstance, no doubt, which, in the fertile
imagination of the old Senachies, gave rise to the superstition
annexed to it."