by Lady Gregory
1920
Seven Short Plays
Folk-History Plays, 2 vols.
New Comedies
The Image
The Golden Apple
Our Irish Theatre. A Chapter of Autobiography
Visions and Beliefs, 2 vols.
Cuchulain of Muirthemne
Gods and Fighting Men
Saints and Wonders
Poets and Dreamers
The Kiltartan Poetry Book
"There's no doubt at all but that there's the same
sort of things in other countries; but you hear
more about them in these parts because the Irish
do be more familiar in talking of them."
The Sidhe cannot make themselves visible to all. They are shape-changers; they can grow small or grow large, they can take what shape they choose; they appear as men or women wearing clothes of many colours, of today or of some old forgotten fashion, or they are seen as bird or beast, or as a barrel or a flock of wool. They go by us in a cloud of dust; they are as many as the blades of grass. They are everywhere; their home is in the forths, the lisses, the ancient round grass-grown mounds. There are thorn-bushes they gather near and protect; if they have a mind for a house like our own they will build it up in a moment. They will remake a stone castle, battered by Cromwell's men, if it takes their fancy, filling it with noise and lights. Their own country is Tir-nan-Og—the Country of the Young. It is under the ground or under the sea, or it may not be far from any of us. As to their food, they will use common things left for them on the hearth or outside the threshold, cold potatoes it may be, or a cup of water or of milk. But for their feasts they choose the best of all sorts, taking it from the solid world, leaving some worthless likeness in its place; when they[Pg iv] rob the potatoes from the ridges the diggers find but rottenness and decay; they take the strength from the meat in the pot, so that when put on the plates it does not nourish. They will not touch salt; there is danger to them in it. They will go to good cellars to bring away the wine.
Fighting is heard among them, and music that is more beautiful than any of this world; they are seen dancing on the rocks; they are often seen playing at the hurling, hitting balls towards the goal. In each one of their households there is a queen, and she has more power than the rest; but the greatest power belongs to their fool, the Fool of the Forth, Amadan-na-Briona. He is their strongest, the most wicked, the most deadly; there is no cure for any one he has struck.
When they are friendly to a man they give him help in his work, putting their strength into his body. Or they may tell him where to find treasure, hidden gold; or through certain wise men or women who have learned from them or can ask and get their knowledge they will tell where cattle that have strayed may be found, or they will cure the sick or tell if a sickness is not to be cured. They will sometimes work as if against their own will or intention, giving back to the life of our world one who had received the call to go over to their own. They call many there, summoning them perhaps through the eye of a neighbour, the evil eye, or by a touch, a blow, a fall, a sudden terror. Those who have received their touch waste away from this[Pg v] world, lending their strength to the invisible ones; for the strength of a human body is needed by the shadows, it may be in their fighting, and certainly in their hurling to win the goal. Young men are taken for this, young mothers are taken that they may give the breast to newly born children among the Sidhe, young girls that they may themselves become mothers there.
While these are away a body in their likeness, or the likeness of a body, is left lying in their place. They may be given leave to return to their village after a while, seven years it may be, or twice or three times seven. But some are sent back only at the end of the years allotted them at the time of their birth, old spent men and women, thought to have been dead a long time, given back to die and be buried on the face of the earth.
There are two races among the Sidhe. One is tall and handsome, gay, and given to jesting and to playing pranks, leading us astray in the fields, giving gold that turns to withered leaves or to dust. These ride on horses through the night-time in large companies and troops, or ride in coaches, laughing and decked with flowers and fine clothes. The people of the other race are small, malicious, wide-bellied, carrying before them a bag. When a man or woman is about to die, a woman of the Sidhe will sometimes cry for a warning, keening and making lamentation. At the hour of death fighting may be heard in the air or about the house—that is, when the man in danger has friends[Pg vi] among the shadows, who are fighting on his behalf.
The dead are often seen among them, and will give help in danger to comrade or brother or friend. Sometimes they have a penance to work out, and will come and ask the living for help, for prayers, for the payment of a debt. They may wander in some strange shape, or be bound in the one place, or go through the air as birds. When the Sidhe pass by in a blast of wind we should say some words of blessing, for there may be among them some of our own dead. The dead are of the nature of the Saints, mortals who have put on immortality, who have known the troubles of the world. The Sidhe have been, like the Angels, from before the making of the earth. In the old times in Ireland they were called gods or the children of gods; now it is laid down they are those Angels who were cast out of heaven, being proud.
This is the news I have been given of the people of the Sidhe by many who have seen them and some who have known their power.
A. G.
Coole, February, 1916.
| page | |
| I.—Sea-Stories | 3 |
| II.—Seers and Healers | 35 |
| Biddy Early | 35 |
| Mrs. Sheridan | 70 |
| Mr. Saggarton | 92 |
| "A Great Warrior in the Business" | 103 |
| Old Deruane | 112 |
| III.—The Evil Eye—the Touch—the Penalty | 127 |
| IV.—Away | 169 |
| Witches and Wizards and Irish Folk-Lore | 247 |
| Notes | 265 |
"The Celtic Twilight" was the first book of Mr. Yeats's that I read, and even before I met him, a little time later, I had begun looking for news of the invisible world; for his stories were of Sligo and I felt jealous for Galway. This beginning of knowledge was a great excitement to me, for though I had heard all my life some talk of the faeries and the banshee (having indeed reason to believe in this last), I had never thought of giving heed to what I, in common with my class, looked on as fancy or superstition. It was certainly because of this unbelief that I had been told so little about them. Even when I began to gather these stories, I cared less for the evidence given in them than for the beautiful rhythmic sentences in which they were told. I had no theories, no case to prove, I but "held up a clean mirror to tradition."
It is hard to tell sometimes what has been a real vision and what is tradition, a legend hanging in the air, a "vanity" as our people call it, made use of by a story-teller here and there, or impressing itself as a real experience on some sensitive and imaginative mind. For tradition has a large place in "the Book of the People" showing a sowing and re-sowing, a continuity and rebirth as in nature. "Those," "The Others," "The Fallen Angels" have some of the attributes of the gods of ancient Ireland; we may even go back yet farther to the early days of the world when the Sons of God mated with the Daughters of Men. I believe that if Christianity could be blotted out and forgotten tomorrow, our people would not be moved at all from the belief in a spiritual world and an unending life; it has been with them since the Druids taught what Lucan called "the happy error of the immortality of the soul." I think we found nothing so trivial in our search but it may have been worth the lifting; a clue, a thread, leading through the maze to that mountain top where things visible and invisible meet.
To gather folk-lore one needs, I think, leisure, patience, reverence, and a good memory. I tried not to change or alter anything, but to write down the very words in which the story had been told. Sometimes Mr. Yeats was with me at the telling; or I would take him to hear for himself something I had been told, that he might be sure I had missed or added nothing. I filled many copybooks, and came to have a very faithful memory for all sides of folk-lore, stories of saints, of heroes, of giants and enchanters, as well as for these visions. For this I have had to "pay the penalty" by losing in some measure that useful and practical side of memory that is concerned with names and dates and the multiplication table, and the numbers on friends' houses in a street.
It was on the coast I began to gather these stories, and I went after a while to the islands Inishmor, Inishmaan, Inisheer, and so I give the sea-stories first.
I was told by:
A Man on the Height near Dun Conor:
It's said there's everything in the sea the same as on the land, and we know there's horses in it. This boy here saw a horse one time out in the sea, a grey one, swimming about. And there were three men from the north island caught a horse in their nets one night when they were fishing for mackerel, but they let it go; it would have broke the boat to bits if they had brought it in, and anyhow they thought it was best to leave it. One year at Kinvara, the people were missing their oats that was eaten in the fields, and they watched one night and it was five or six of the sea-horses they saw eating the oats, but they could not take them, they made off to the sea.
And there was a man on the north island fishing on the rocks one time, and a mermaid came up before him, and was partly like a fish and the rest like a woman. But he called to her in the name of God to be off, and she went and left him.
There was a boy was sent over here one morning early by a friend of mine on the other side of the island, to bring over some cattle that were in a[Pg 8] field he had here, and it was before daylight, and he came to the door crying, and said he heard thirty horses or more galloping over the roads there, where you'd think no horse could go.
Surely those things are on the sea as well as on the land. My father was out fishing one night off Tyrone and something came beside the boat, that had eyes shining like candles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose of a moment, and whatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink the boat. And then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the shining eyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to take a drop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him, and nothing would harm him.
A Galway Bay Lobster-Seller:
They are on the sea as well as on the land, and their boats are often to be seen on the bay, sailing boats and others. They look like our own, but when you come near them they are gone in an instant. (Note 1.)
My mother one time thought she saw our own boat come in to the pier with my father and two other men in it, and she got the supper ready, but when she went down to the pier and called them there was nothing there, and the boat didn't come in till two hours after.
There were three or four men went out one day to fish, and it was a dead calm; but all of a sudden[Pg 9] they heard a blast and they looked, and within about three mile of the boat they saw twelve men from the waist, the rest of them was under water. And they had sticks in their hands and were striking one another. And where they were, and the blast, it was rough, but smooth and calm on each side.
There's a sort of a light on the sea sometimes; some call it a "Jack O'Lantern" and some say it is sent by them to mislead them. (Note 2.)
There's many of them out in the sea, and often they pull the boats down. (Note 3.) It's about two years since four fishermen went out from Aran, two fathers and two sons, where they saw a big ship coming in and flying the flag for a pilot, and they thought she wanted to be brought in to Galway. And when they got near the ship, it faded away to nothing and the boat turned over and they were all four drowned.
There were two brothers of my own went to fish for the herrings, and what they brought up was like the print of a cat, and it turned with the inside of the skin outside, and no hair. So they pulled up the nets, and fished no more that day. There was one of them lying on the strand here, and some of the men of the village came down of a sudden and surprised him. And when he saw he was taken he began a great crying. But they only lifted him down to the sea and put him back into it. Just like a man they said he was. And a little way out there was another just like him,[Pg 10] and when he saw that they treated the one on shore so kindly, he bowed his head as if to thank them.
Whatever's on the land, there's the same in the sea, and between the islands of Aran they can often see the horses galloping about at the bottom. (Note 4.)
There was a sort of a big eel used to be in Tully churchyard, used to come and to root up the bodies, but I didn't hear of him of late—he may be done away with now.
There was one Curran told me one night he went down to the strand where he used to be watching for timber thrown up and the like. And on the strand, on the dry sands, he saw a boat, a grand one with sails spread and all, and it up farther than any tide had ever reached. And he saw a great many people round about it, and it was all lighted up with lights. And he got afraid and went away. And four hours after, after sunrise, he went there again to look at it, and there was no sign of it, or of any fire, or of any other thing. The Mara-warra (mermaid) was seen on the shore not long ago, combing out her hair. She had no fish's tail, but was like another woman.
John Corley:
There is no luck if you meet a mermaid and you out at sea, but storms will come, or some ill will happen.
There was a ship on the way to America, and a[Pg 11] mermaid was seen following it, and the bad weather began to come. And the captain said, "It must be some man in the ship she's following, and if we knew which one it was, we'd put him out to her and save ourselves." So they drew lots, and the lot fell on one man, and then the captain was sorry for him, and said he'd give him a chance till tomorrow. And the next day she was following them still, and they drew lots again, and the lot fell on the same man. But the captain said he'd give him a third chance, but the third day the lot fell on him again. And when they were going to throw him out he said, "Let me alone for a while." And he went to the end of the ship and he began to sing a song in Irish, and when he sang, the mermaid began to be quiet and to rock like as if she was asleep. So he went on singing till they came to America, and just as they got to the land the ship was thrown up into the air, and came down on the water again. There's a man told me that was surely true.
And there was a boy saw a mermaid down by Spiddal not long ago, but he saw her before she saw him, so she did him no harm. But if she'd seen him first, she'd have brought him away and drowned him.
Sometimes a light will come on the sea before the boats to guide them to the land. And my own brother told me one day he was out and a storm came on of a sudden, and the sail of the boat was let down as quick and as well as if two men were in[Pg 12] it. Some neighbour or friend it must have been that did that for him. Those that go down to the sea after the tide going out, to cut the weed, often hear under the sand the sound of the milk being churned. There's some didn't believe that till they heard it themselves.
A Man from Roundstone:
One night I was out on the boat with another man, and we saw a big ship near us with about twenty lights. She was as close to us as that rock (about thirty yards), but we saw no one on board. And she was like some of the French ships that sometimes come to Galway. She went on near us for a while, and then she turned towards the shore and then we knew that she was not a right ship. And she went straight on to the land, and when she touched it, the lights went out and we saw her no more.
There was a comrade of mine was out one night, and a ship came after him, with lights, and she full of people. And as they drew near the land, he heard them shouting at him and he got afraid, and he went down and got a coal of fire and threw it at the ship, and in a minute it was gone.
A Schoolmaster:
A boy told me last night of two men that went with poteen to the Island of Aran. And when they were on the shore they saw a ship coming as if to land, and they said, "We'll have the bottle ready[Pg 13] for those that are coming." But when the ship came close to the land, it vanished. And presently they got their boat ready and put out to sea. And a sudden blast came and swept one of them off. And the other saw him come up again, and put out the oar across his breast for him to take hold of it. But he would not take it but said, "I'm all right again now," and sank down again and was never seen no more.
John Nagle:
For one there's on the land there's ten on the sea. When I lived at Ardfry there was never a night but there was a voice heard crying and roaring, by them that were out in the bay. A baker he was from Loughrea, used to give short weight and measure, and so he was put there for a punishment.
I saw a ship that was having a race with another go suddenly down into the sea, and no one could tell why. And afterwards one of the Government divers was sent down to look for her, and he told me he'd never as long as he'd live go down again, for there at the bottom he found her, and the captain and the saloon passengers, and all sitting at the table and eating their dinner, just as they did before.
A Little Girl:
One time a woman followed a boat from Galway twenty miles out, and when they saw that she[Pg 14] was some bad thing, wanting some of them, they drowned her.
Mrs. Casey:
I was at home and I got some stories from a man I had suspected of having newses. And he told me that when he was a youngster he was at a height where there used to be a great many of them. And all of a sudden he saw them fly out to where a boat was coming from Duras with seaweed. And they went in two flights, and so fast that they swept the water away from each side the boat, and it was left on the sand, and this they did over and over, just to be humbugging the man in the boat, and he was kept there a long time. When they first rose up, they were like clouds of dust, but with all sorts of colours, and then he saw their faces turned, but they kept changing colour every minute. (Note 5.) Laughing and humbugging they seemed to be.
My uncle that used to go out fishing for mackerel told me that one night some sort of a monster came under the boat and it wasn't a fish, and it had them near upset.
At an evening gathering in Inishmaan, by a Son
of the House:
There was a man on this island was down on the beach one evening with his dog, and some black thing came up out of the sea, and the dog made for it and began to fight it. And the man began to[Pg 15] run home and he called the dog, and it followed him, but every now and again it would stop and begin to fight again. And when he got to the house he called the dog in and shut the door, and whatever was outside began hitting against the door but it didn't get in. But the dog went in under the bed in the room, and before morning it was dead.
The Man of the House:
A horse I've seen myself on the sea and on the rocks—a brown one, just like another. And I threw a stone at it, and it was gone in a minute. We often heard there was fighting amongst these. And one morning before daybreak I went down to the strand with some others, and the whole of the strand, and it low tide, was covered with blood.
Colman Kane:
I knew a woman on this island and she and her daughter went down to the strand one morning to pick weed, and a wave came and took the daughter away. And a week after that, the mother saw her coming to the house, but she didn't speak to her.
There was a man coming from Galway here and he had no boatman. And on the way he saw a man that was behind him in the boat, that was putting up the sail and taking the management of everything, and he spoke no word. And he was with him all the way, but when the boat came to[Pg 16] land, he was gone, and the man isn't sure, but he thinks it was his brother.
You see that sand below on the south side. When the men are out with the mackerel boats at early morning, they often see those sands covered with boys and girls.
There were some men out fishing in the bay one time, and a man came and held on to the boat, and wanted them to make room for him to get in, and after a time he left them. He was one of those. And there was another of them came up on the rocks one day, and called out to Martin Flaherty that was going out and asked what was his name.
There's said to be another island out there that's enchanted, and there are some that see it. And it's said that a fisherman landed on it one time, and he saw a little house, and he went in, and a very nice-looking young woman came out and said, "What will you say to me?" and he said, "You are a very nice lady." And a second came and asked him the same thing and a third, and he made the same answer. And after that they said, "You'd best run for your life," and so he did, and his curragh was floating along and he had but just time to get into it, and the island was gone. But if he had said "God bless you," the island would have been saved.
A Fisherman on Kilronan Pier:
I don't give in to these things myself, but they'd make you believe them in the middle island.[Pg 17] Mangan, that I lodged with there, told me of seeing a ship when he was out with two other men, that followed them and vanished. And he said one of the men took to his bed from that time and died. And Doran told me about the horse he saw, that was in every way like a horse you'd see on land. And a man on the south island told me how he saw a calf one morning on the strand, and he thought it belonged to a neighbour, and was going to drive it up to his field, when its mother appeared on the sea, and it went off to her.
They are in the sea as well as on the land. That is well known by those that are out fishing by the coast. When the weather is calm, they can look down sometimes and see cattle and pigs and all such things as we have ourselves. And at nights their boats come out and they can be seen fishing, but they never last out after one o'clock.
The cock always crows on the first of March every year at one o'clock. And there was a man brought a cock out with him in his boat to try them. And the first time when it crowed they all vanished. That is how they were detected.
There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and they sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of fishes, for they can take their choice shape.
Pat O'Hagan:
There were two fine young women—red-haired women—died in my village about six months ago.[Pg 18] And I believe they're living yet. And there are some have seen them appear. All I ever saw myself was one day I was out fishing with two others, and we saw a canoe coming near us, and we were afraid it would come near enough to take away our fish. And as we looked it turned into a three-masted ship, and people in it. I could see them well, dark-coloured and dressed like sailors. But it went away and did us no harm.
One night I was going down to the curragh, and it was a night in harvest, and the stars shining, and I saw a ship fully rigged going towards the coast of Clare where no ship could go. And when I looked again, she was gone.
And one morning early, I and other men that were with me, and one of them a friend of the man here, saw a ship coming to the island, and he thought she wanted a pilot, and put out in the curragh. But when we got to where she was, there was no sign of her, but where she was the water was covered with black gulls, and I never saw a black gull before, thousands and crowds of them, and not one white bird among them. And one of the boys that was with me took a tarpin and threw it at one of the gulls and hit it on the head, and when he did, the curragh went down to the rowlocks in the water—up to that—and it's nothing but a miracle she ever came up again, but we got back to land. I never went to a ship again, for the people said it was on account of me helping in the Preventive Service it happened, and[Pg 19] that if I'd hit at one of the gulls myself, there would have been a bad chance for us. But those were no right gulls, and the ship was no living ship.
The Old Man in the Kitchen:
It's in the middle island the most of them are, and I'll tell you a thing that I know of myself that happened not long ago. There was a young girl, and one evening she was missing, and they made search for her everywhere and they thought that she was drowned or that she had gone away with some man. And in the evening of the next day there was a boy out in a curragh, and as he passed by a rock that is out in the sea there was the girl on it, and he brought her off. And surely she could not go there by herself. I suppose she wasn't able to give much account of it, and now she's after going to America. (Note 6.)
And in Aran there were three boys and their uncle went out to a ship they saw coming, to pilot her into the bay. But when they got to where she was, there was no ship, and a sea broke over the canoe, and they were drowned, all fine strong men. But a man they had with them that was no use or of no account, he came safe to land. And I know a man in this island saw curraghs and curraghs full of people about the island of a Sunday morning early, but I never saw them myself. And one Sunday morning in my time there were scores and scores lying their length by the sea on the sand below, and they saw a woman in the sea, up to her[Pg 20] waist, and she racking her hair and settling herself and as clean and as nice as if she was on land. Scores of them saw that.
There's a house up there where the family have to leave a plate of potatoes ready every night, and all's gone in the morning. (Note 7.)
They are said to have all things the same as ourselves under the sea, and one day a cow was seen swimming as if for the headland, but before she got to it she turned another way and went down. And one time I got a small muc-warra (porpoise) and I went to cut it up to get what was good of it, for it had about two inches of fat, and when I cut it open the heart and the liver and every bit of it were for all the world like a pig you would cut up on land.
There's a house in the village close by this that's haunted. My sister was sitting near it one day, and it empty and locked, and some other little girls, and they heard a noise in it, and at the same time the flags they were sitting on grew red-hot, that they had to leave them. And another time the woman of the house was sick, and a little girl that was sitting by the fire in the kitchen saw standing in the door the sister of the woman that was sick, and she a good while dead, and she put up her arm, as if to tell her not to notice her. And the poor woman of that house, she had no luck, nothing but miscarriages or dead babies. And one child lived to be nine months old, and there was less flesh on it at the end of the nine months than[Pg 21] there was the day it was born. She has a little girl now that's near a year old, but her arm isn't the size of that, and she's crabbed and not like a child as she should be. Many a one that's long married without having a child goes to the fortune-teller in Galway, and those that think anything of themselves go to Roundstone.
A Man near Loughmore:
I know a woman was washed and laid out, and it went so far that two half-penny candles were burned over her. And then she sat up, came back again, and spoke to her husband, and told him how to divide his property, and to manage the children well. And her step-son began to question her, and he might have got a lot out of her but her own son stopped him and said to let her alone. And then she turned over on her side and died. She was not to say an old woman. It's not often the old are taken. What use would there be for them? But a woman to be taken young, you know there's demand for her. It's the people in the middle island know about these things. There were three boys from there lost in a curragh at the point near the lighthouse, and for long after their friends were tormented when they came there fishing, and they would see ships there when the people of this island that were out at the same time couldn't see them. There were three or four out in a curragh near the lighthouse, and a conger-eel came and upset it, and they were[Pg 22] all saved but one, but he was brought down and for the whole day they could hear him crying and screeching under the sea. And they were not the only ones, but a fisherman that was there from Galway had to go away and leave it, because of the screeching.
There was a coast-guard's wife there was all but gone, but she was saved after. And there's a boy here now was for a long time that they'd give the world he was gone altogether, with the state he was, in, and now he's as strong as any boy in the island; and if ever any one was away and came back again, it was him. Children used often to be taken, but there's a great many charms in use in these days that saves them. A big sewing-needle you'll see the woman looking for to put with a baby, and as long as that's with it, it's safe. But anyway they're always put back again into the world before they die in the place of some young person. And even a beast of any consequence if anything happens to it, no one in the island would taste it; there might be something in it, some old woman or the like.
There were a few young men from here were kept in Galway for a day, and they went to a woman there that works the cards. And she told them of deaths that would come in certain families. And it wasn't a fortnight after that five boys were out there, just where you see the curragh now, and they were upset and every one drowned, and they were of the families that she had named on the cards.
My uncle told me that one night they were all up at that house up the road, making a match for his sister, and they stopped till near morning, and when they went out, they all had a drop taken. And he was going along home with two or three others and one of them, Michael Flaherty, said he saw people on the shore. And another of them said that there were not, and my uncle said, "If Flaherty said that and it not true, we have a right to bite the ear off him, and it would be no harm." And then they parted, and my uncle had to pass by the beach, and then he saw whole companies of people coming up from the sea, that he didn't know how he'd get through them, but they opened before him and let him pass.
There were men going to Galway with cattle one morning from the beach down there, and they saw a man up to his middle in the sea—all of them saw it.
There was a man was down early for lobsters on the shore at the middle island, and he saw a horse up to its middle in the sea, and bowing its head down as if to drink. And after he had watched it awhile it disappeared.
There was a woman walking over by the north shore—God have mercy on her—she's dead since—and she looked out and saw an island in the sea, and she was a long time looking at it. It's known to be there, and to be enchanted, but only few can see it.
There was a man had his horse drawing seaweed[Pg 24] up there on the rocks, the way you see them drawing it every day, in a basket on the mare's back. And on this day every time he put the load on, the mare would let its leg slip and it would come down again, and he was vexed and he had a stick in his hand and he gave the mare a heavy blow. And that night she had a foal that was dead, not come to its full growth, and it had spots over it, and every spot was of a different colour. And there was no sire on the island at that time, so whatever was the sire must have come up from the sea. (Note 8.)
A Man Watching the Weed-gatherers:
There's no doubt at all about the sea-horses. There was a man out at the other side of the island, and he saw one standing on the rocks and he threw a stone at it and it went off in the sea. He said it was grand to see it swimming, and the mane and the tail floating on the top of the water.
A Woman from the Connemara Side:
I was told there was a mare that had a foal, and it had never had a horse. And one day the mare and foal were down by the sea, and a horse put up its head and neighed, and away went the foal to it and came back no more.
And there was a man on this island watched his field one night where he thought the neighbours' cattle were eating his grass, and what he saw was[Pg 25] horses and foals coming up from the sea. And he caught a foal and kept it, and set it racing, and no horse or no pony could ever come near it, till one day the race was on the strand, and away with it into the sea, and the jockey along with it, and they never were seen again.
Mrs. O'Dea and Mrs. Daly:
There was a cow seen come up out of the sea one day and it walked across the strand, and its udder like as if it had been lately milked. And Tommy Donohue was running up to tell his father to come down and see it, and when he looked back it was gone out to sea again.
There was a man here was going to build a new house, and he brought a wise woman to see would it be in the right place. And she made five heaps of stones in five places, and said, "Whatever heap isn't knocked in the night, build it there." And in the morning all the heaps were knocked but one, and so he built it there. (Note 9.)
One time I was out over by that island with another man, and we saw three women standing by the shore, beating clothes with a beetle. And while we looked, they vanished, and then we heard the cry of a child passing over our heads twenty feet in the air.
I know they go out fishing like ourselves, for Father Mahony told me so; and one night I was out myself with my brother, beyond where that ship is, and we heard talk going on, so we knew[Pg 26] that a boat was near, and we called out to let them know we heard them, and then we saw the boat and it was just like any other one, and the talk went on, but we couldn't understand what they were saying. And then I turned to light my pipe, and while I lighted it, the boat and all in it were gone.
Mrs. Casey:
I got a story from an old man down by the sea at Tyrone. He says there was a man went down one night to move his boat from the shore where it was to the pier. And when he had put out, he found it was going out to sea, instead of to touch the pier, and he felt it very heavy in the water, and he looked behind him and there on the back of the boat were six men in shiny black clothes like sailors, and there was one like a harvest-man dressed in white flannel with a belt round his waist. And he asked what they were doing, and the man in white said he had brought the others out to make away with them there, and he took and cut their bodies in two and threw them one by one over the boat, and then he threw himself after them into the sea. And the boat went under water too, and the poor man himself lost his wits, but it came up again and he said he had never seen as many people as he did in that minute under the water. And then he got home and left the boat, and in the morning he came down to it, and there was blood in it; and first he washed it and then[Pg 27] he painted it, but for all he could do, he couldn't get rid of the blood.
Peter Donohue:
There was a woman, a friend of this man's, living out in the middle island, and one day she came down to where a man of this island was putting out his curragh to come back, and she said, "I just saw a great crowd of them—that's the Sheogue—going over to your island like a cloud." And when he got home he went up to a house there beyond, where the old woman used to be selling poteen on the sly. And while he was there her little boy came running in and cried, "Hide away the poteen, for the police are on the island! Such a man called to me from his curragh to give warning, for he saw the road full of them with the crowd of them and they with their guns and cutlasses and all the rest." But the man was in the house first knew well what it was, after what he heard from the woman on the other island, and that they were no right police, and sure enough no other one ever saw them. And that same day, my mother had put out wool to dry in front of where that house is with the three chimneys, near the Chapel. And I was there talking to some man, one on each side of the yard, and the wall between us. And the day was as fine as this day is and finer, and not a breath of air stirring. And a woman that lived near by had her wool out drying too. And the wool that was in my mother's yard began to rise up, as if something[Pg 28] was under it, and I called to the other man to help me to hold it down, but for all we could do it went up in the air, a hundred feet and more, till we could see it no more. And after a couple of hours it began to drop again, like snow, some on the thatch and some on the rocks and some in the gardens. And I think it was a fortnight before my mother had done gathering it. And one day she was spinning it, I don't know what put it in my mind, but I asked her did she lose much of that wool. And what she said was, "If I didn't get more than my own, I didn't get less." That's true and no lie, for I never told a lie in my life—I think. But the wool belonging to the neighbouring woman was never stirred at all.
And the woman that had the wool that wasn't stirred, she is the woman I married after, and that's now my wife.
There was a man, one Power, died in this island, and one night that was bright there was a friend of his going out for mackerel, and he saw these sands full of people hurling, and he well knew Power's voice that he heard among them.
There was a cousin of my own built a new house, and when they were first in it and sitting round the fire, the woman of the house that was singing for them saw a great blot of blood come down the chimney on to the floor, and they thought there would be no luck in the house and that it was a wrong place. But they had nothing but good luck ever after.
Peter Dolan:
There was a man that died in the middle island, that had two wives. And one day he was out in the curragh he saw the first wife appear. And after that one time the son of the second wife was sick, and the little girl, the first wife's daughter, was out tending cattle, and a can of water with her and she had a waistcoat of her father's put about her body, where it was cold. And her mother appeared to her in the form of a sheep, and spoke to her, and told her what herbs to find, to cure the step-brother, and sure enough they cured him. And she bid her leave the waistcoat there and the can, and she did. And in the morning the waistcoat was folded there, and the can standing on it. And she appeared to her in her own shape another time, after that. Why she came like a sheep the first time was that she wouldn't be frightened. The girl is in America now, and so is the step-brother that got well. (Note 10.)
A Galway Woman:
One time myself, I was up at the well beyond, and looking into it, a very fine day, and no breath of air stirring, and the stooks were ripe standing about me. And all in a minute a noise began in them, and they were like as if knocking at each other and fighting like soldiers all about me.
Mary Moran:
There was a girl here that had been to America and came back, and one day she was coming over[Pg 30] from Liscannor in a curragh, and she looked back and there behind the curragh was the "Gan ceann" the headless one. And he followed the boat a great way, but she said nothing. But a gold pin that was in her hair fell out, and into the sea, that she had brought from America, and then it disappeared. And her sister was always asking her where was the pin she brought from America, and she was afraid to say. But at last she told her, and the sister said, "It's well for you it fell out, for what was following you would never have left you, till you threw it a ring or something made of gold." It was the sister herself that told me this.
Up in the village beyond they think a great deal of these things and they won't part with a drop of milk on May Eve, and last Saturday week that was May Eve there was a poor woman dying up there, and she had no milk of her own, and as is the custom, she went out to get a drop from one or other of the neighbours. But not one would give it because it was May Eve. I declare I cried when I heard it, for the poor woman died on the second day after.
And when my sister was going to America she went on the first of May and we had a farewell party the night before, and in the night a little girl that was there saw a woman from that village go out, and she watched her, and saw her walk round a neighbour's house, and pick some straw from the roof.
And she told of it, and it happened a child had died in that house and the father said the woman must have had a hand in it, and there was no good feeling to her for a long while. Her own husband is lying sick now, so I hear.
In talking to the people I often heard the name of Biddy Early, and I began to gather many stories of her, some calling her a healer and some a witch. Some said she had died a long time ago, and some that she was still living. I was sure after a while that she was dead, but was told that her house was still standing, and was on the other side of Slieve Echtge, between Feakle and Tulla. So one day I set out and drove Shamrock, my pony, to a shooting lodge built by my grandfather in a fold of the mountains, and where I had sometimes, when a young girl, stayed with my brothers when they were shooting the wild deer that came and sheltered in the woods. It had like other places on our estate a border name brought over from Northumberland, but though we called it Chevy Chase the people spoke of its woods and outskirts as Daire-caol, the Narrow Oak Wood, and Daroda, the Two Roads, and Druim-da-Rod, their Ridge. I stayed the night in the low thatched house, setting out next day for Feakle "eight strong miles over the mountain." It was a wild road, and the pony had to splash his way through two unbridged rivers, swollen with the summer rains. The red mud of the road, the purple heather and foxglove, the brown bogs were a contrast to the grey rocks and walls of Burren and Aidhne, and there were many low hills brown when near, misty blue in the distance; then the Golden Mountain, Slieve nan-Or, "where the last great battle will be fought before the end of the world." Then I was out of Connacht into Clare, the brown turning to green pasture as I drove by Raftery's Lough Greine.
I put up my pony at a little inn. There were portraits of John Dillon and Michael Davitt hanging in the parlour, and the landlady told me Parnell's likeness had been with them, until the priest had told her he didn't think well of her hanging it there. There was also on the wall, in a frame, a warrant for the arrest of one of her sons, signed by, I think, Lord Cowper, in the days of the Land War. "He got half a year in gaol the same year Parnell did. He got sick there, and though he lived for some years the doctor said when he died the illness he got in gaol had to do with his death."
I had been told how to find Biddy Early's house "beyond the little humpy bridge," and I walked on till I came to it, a poor cottage enough, high up on a mass of rock by the roadside. There was only a little girl in the house, but her mother came in afterwards and told me that Biddy Early had died about twenty years before, and that after they had come to live in the house they had been "annoyed for a while" by people coming to look for her. She had sent them away, telling them Biddy Early was dead, though a friendly priest had said to her, "Why didn't you let on you were her and make something out of them?" She told me some of the stories I give below, and showed me the shed where the healer had consulted with her invisible friends. I had already been given by an old patient of hers a "bottle" prepared for the cure, but which she had been afraid to use. It lies still unopened on a shelf in my storeroom. When I got back at nightfall to the lodge in the woods I found many of the neighbours gathered there, wanting to hear news of "the Tulla Woman" and to know for certain if she was dead. I think as time goes on her fame will grow and some of the myths that always hang in the air will gather round her, for I think the first thing I was told of her was, "There used surely to be enchanters in the old time, magicians and freemasons. Old Biddy Early's power came from the same thing." (Note 11.)
An Old Woman in the Lodge Kitchen says:
Do you remember the time John Kevin beyond went to see Biddy Early, for his wife, she was sick at the time. And Biddy Early knew everything, and that there was a forth behind her house, and she said, "Your wife is too fond of going out late at night."
I was told by a Gate-keeper:
There was a man at Cranagh had one of his sheep shorn in the night, and all the wool taken. And he got on his horse and went to Feakle and Biddy Early, and she told him the name of the man that did it, and where it was hidden, and so he got it back again.
There was a man went to Biddy Early, and she told him that the woman he'd marry would have her husband killed by his brother. And so it happened, for the woman he married was sitting by the fire with her husband, and the brother came in, having a drop of drink taken, and threw a pint at him that hit him on the head and killed him. It was the man that married her that told me this.
Mrs. Kearns:
Did I know any one that was taken by them? Well, I never knew one that was brought back[Pg 40] again. Himself went one time to Biddy Early for his uncle, Donohue, that was sick, and he found her there and her fingers all covered with big gold rings, and she gave him a bottle, and she said: "Go in no house on your way home, or stop nowhere, or you'll lose it." But going home he had a thirst on him and he came to a public-house, and he wouldn't go in, but he stopped and bid the boy bring him out a drink. But a little farther on the road the horse got a fall, and the bottle was broke.
Mrs. Cregan:
It's I was with this woman here to Biddy Early. And when she saw me, she knew it was for my husband I came, and she looked in her bottle and she said, "It's nothing put upon him by my people that's wrong with him." And she bid me give him cold oranges and some other things—herbs. He got better after.
Daniel Curtin:
Did I ever hear of Biddy Early? There's not a man in this countryside over forty year old that hasn't been with her some time or other. There's a man living in that house over there was sick one time, and he went to her, and she cured him, but says she, "You'll have to lose something, and don't fret after it." So he had a grey mare and she was going to foal, and one morning when he went out he saw that the foal was born, and was[Pg 41] lying dead by the side of the wall. So he remembered what she said to him and he didn't fret.
There was one Dillane in Kinvara, Sir William knew him well, and he went to her one time for a cure. And Father Andrew came to the house and was mad with him for going, and says he, "You take the cure out of the hands of God." And Mrs. Dillane said, "Your Reverence, none of us can do that." "Well," says Father Andrew, "then I'll see what the devil can do and I'll send my horse tomorrow, that has a sore in his leg this long time, and try will she be able to cure him."
So next day he sent a man with his horse, and when he got to Biddy Early's house she came out, and she told him every word that Father Andrew had said, and she cured the sore. So after that, he left the people alone; but before it, he'd be dressed in a frieze coat and a riding whip in his hand, driving away the people from going to her.
She had four or five husbands, and they all died of drink one after another. Maybe twenty or thirty people would be there in the day looking for cures, and every one of them would bring a bottle of whiskey. Wild cards they all were, or they wouldn't have married her. She'd help too to bring the butter back. Always on the first of May, it used to be taken, and maybe what would be taken from one man would be conveyed to another.
Mr. McCabe:
Biddy Early? Not far from this she lived, above at Feakle. I got cured by her myself one time. Look at this thumb—I got it hurted one time, and I went out into the field after and was ploughing all the day, I was that greedy for work. And when I went in I had to lie on the bed with the pain of it, and it swelled and the arm with it, to the size of a horse's thigh. I stopped two or three days in the bed with the pain of it, and then my wife went to see Biddy Early and told her about it, and she came home and the next day it burst, and you never seen anything like all the stuff that came away from it. A good bit after I went to her myself, where it wasn't quite healed, and she said, "You'd have lost it altogether if your wife hadn't been so quick to come." She brought me into a small room, and said holy words and sprinkled holy water and told me to believe. The priests were against her, but they were wrong. How could that be evil doing that was all charity and kindness and healing?
She was a decent looking woman, no different from any other woman of the country. The boy she was married to at the time was lying drunk in the bed. There were side-cars and common cars and gentry and country people at the door, just like Gort market, and dinner for all that came, and everyone would bring her something, but she didn't care what it was. Rich farmers would bring her the whole side of a pig. Myself, I[Pg 43] brought a bottle of whiskey and a shilling's worth of bread, and a quarter of sugar and a quarter pound of tea. She was very rich, for there wasn't a farmer but would give her the grass of a couple of bullocks or a filly. She had the full of a field of fillies if they'd all been gathered together. She left no children, and there's no doubt at all that the reason of her being able to do cures was that she was away seven years. She didn't tell me about it but she spoke of it to others.
When I was coming away I met a party of country people on a cart from Limerick, and they asked where was her house, and I told them: "Go on to the cross, and turn to the left, and follow the straight road till you come to the little humpy bridge, and soon after that you'll come to the house."
But the priests would be mad if they knew that I told any one the way.
She died about twelve year ago; I didn't go to the wake myself, or the funeral, but I heard that her death was natural.
No, Mrs. Early is no relation to Biddy Early—the nuns asked her the same thing when she was married. A cousin of hers had her hand cut with a jug that was broke, and she went up to her and when she got there, Biddy Early said: "It's a thing you never should do, to beat a child that breaks a cup or a jug." And sure enough it was a child that broke it, and she beat her for doing it. But cures she did sure enough.
Bartley Coen:
There was a neighbour of my own, Andrew Dennehy:
I was knocked up by him one night to go to the house, because he said they were calling to him. But when they got there, there was nothing to be found. But some see these things, and some can't. It's against our creed to believe in them. And the priests won't let on that they believe in them themselves, but they are more in dread of going about at night than any of us. They were against, Biddy Early too. There was a man I knew living near the sea, and he set out to go to her one time. And on his way he went into his brother-in-law's house, and the priest came in there, and bid him not to go on. "Well, Father," says he, "cure me yourself if you won't let me go to her to be cured." And when the priest wouldn't do that (for the priests can do many cures if they like to), he went on to her. And the minute he came in, "Well," says she, "you made a great fight for me on the way." For though it's against our creed to believe it, she could hear any earthly thing that was said in every part, miles off. But she had two red eyes, and some used to say, "If she can cure so much, why can't she cure her own eyes?"
No, she wasn't away herself. It is said it was from a son of her own she got the knowledge, a little chap that was astray. And one day when he was lying sick in the bed he said: "There's[Pg 45] such and such a woman has a hen down in the pot, and if I had the soup of the hen, I think it would cure me." So the mother went to the house, and when she got there, sure enough, there was a hen in the pot on the fire. But she was ashamed to tell what she came for, and she let on to have only come for a visit, and so she sat down. But presently in the heat of the talking she told what the little chap had said. "Well," says the woman, "take the soup and welcome, and the hen too if it will do him any good." So she brought them with her, and when the boy saw the soup, "It can't cure me," says he, "for no earthly thing can do that. But since I see how kind and how willing you are, and did your best for me, I'll leave you a way of living." And so he did, and taught her all she knew. That's what's said at any rate.
Mr. Fahy:
Well, that's what's believed, that it's from her son Biddy Early got it. After his death always lamenting for him she was, till he came back, and gave her the gift of curing.
She had no red eyes, but was a fresh clean-looking woman; sure any one might have red eyes when they'd got a cold.
She wouldn't refuse even a person that would come from the very bottom of the black North.
"I was with Biddy Early myself one time, and got a cure from her for my little girl that was sick.[Pg 46] A bottle of whiskey I brought her, and the first thing she did was to open it and to give me a glass out of it. "For," says she, "you'll maybe want it my poor man." But I had plenty of courage in those days."
The priests were against her; often Father Boyle would speak of her in his sermons. They can all do those cures themselves, but that's a thing it's not right to be talking about.
The Little Girl of Biddy Early's House:
The people do be full of stories of all the cures she did. Once after we came to live here a carload of people came, and asked was Biddy Early here, and my mother said she was dead. When she told the priest he said she had a right to shake a bottle and say she was her, and get something from them. It was by the bottle she did all, to shake it, and she'd see everything when she looked in it. Sometimes she'd give a bottle of some cure to people that came, but if she'd say to them, "You'll never bring it home," break it they should on the way home, with all the care they'd take of it.
She was as good, and better, to the poor as to the rich. Any poor person passing the road, she'd call in and give a cup of tea or a glass of whiskey to, and bread and what they wanted.
She had a big chest within in that room, and it full of pounds of tea and bottles of wine and of whiskey and of claret, and all things in the world. One time she called in a man that was passing[Pg 47] and gave him a glass of whiskey, and then she said to him, "The road you were going home by, don't go by it." So he asked why not, and she took the bottle—a long shaped bottle it was—and looked into it, holding it up, and then she bid him look through it, and he'd see what would happen him. But her husband said, "Don't show it to him, it might give him a fright he wouldn't get over." So she only said, "Well, go home by another road." And so he did and got home safe, for in the bottle she had seen a party of men that wouldn't have let him pass alive. She got the rites of the Church when she died, but first she had to break the bottle.
It was from her brother that she got the power, when she had to go to the workhouse, and he came back, and gave her the way of doing the cures.
The Blacksmith I met near Tulla:
I know you to be a respectable lady and an honourable one because I know your brothers, meeting them as I do at the fair of Scariff. No fair it would be if they weren't there. I knew Biddy Early well, a nice fresh-looking woman she was. It's to her the people used to be flocking, to the door and even to the window, and if they'd come late in the day, they'd have no chance of getting to her, they'd have to take lodgings for the night in the town. She was a great woman. If any of the men that came into the house had a drop too much drink taken, she'd turn them out if they said an[Pg 48] unruly word. And if any of them were fighting or disputing or going to law, she'd say, "Be at one, and ye can rule the world." The priests were against her and used to be taking the cloaks and the baskets from the country people to keep them back from going to her.
I never went to her myself—for you should know that no ill or harm ever comes to a blacksmith.
An Old Midwife:
Tell me now is there anything wrong about you or your son that you went to that house? I went there but once myself, when my little girl that was married was bad, after her second baby being born. I went to the house and told her about it, and she took the bottle and shook it and looked in it, and then she turned and said something to himself [her husband] that I didn't hear—and she just waved her hand to me like that, and bid me go home, for she would take nothing from me. But himself came out and told that what she was after seeing in the bottle was my little girl, and the coffin standing beside her. So I went home, and sure enough on the tenth day after, she was dead.
The lodge people came rushing out to see the picture of Biddy Early's house and ask, "Did she leave the power to any one else?" and I told of the broken bottle. But Mr. McCabe said, "She only[Pg 49] had the power for her own term, and-no one else could get it from her."
I asked old Mr. McCabe if he had lost anything when she cured him, and he said: "Not at that time, but sometimes I thought afterwards it came on my family when I lost so many of my children. A grand stout girl went from me, stout and broad, what would ail her to go?"
I was told by Mat King:
Biddy Early surely did thousands of cures. Out in the stable she used to go, where her friends met her, and they told her all things. There was a little priest long ago used to do cures,—Soggarthin Mina, they used to call him,—and once he came in this house he looked up and said, "There—it's full of them—there they are."
There was a man, one Flaherty, came to his brother-in-law's house one day to borrow a horse. And the next day the horse was sent back, but he didn't come himself. And after a few days more they went to ask for him, but he had never come back at all. So the brother-in-law went to Biddy Early's and she and some others were drinking whiskey, and they were sorry that they were near at the bottom of the bottle. And she said: "That's no matter, there's a man on his way now, there'll soon be more." And sure enough there was, for he brought a bottle with him. So when he came in,[Pg 50] he told her about Flaherty having disappeared. And she described to him a corner of a garden at the back of a house and she said, "Go look and you'll find him there," and so they did, dead and buried.
Another time a man's cattle was dying, and he went to her and she said, "Is there such a place as Benburb, having a forth up on the hill beyond there? for it's there they're gone." And sure enough, it was towards that forth they were straying before they died.
An Old Man on the Beach:
The priests were greatly against Biddy Early. And there's no doubt it was from the faeries she got the knowledge. But who wouldn't go to hell for a cure if one of his own was sick? And the priests don't like to be doing cures themselves. Father Flynn said to me (rather incoherent in the high wind), if I do them, I let the devil into me. But there was Father Carey used to do them, but he went wrong, with the people bringing too much whiskey to pay him—and Father Mahony has him stopped now.
Maher of Slieve Echtge:
I knew a man went to Biddy Early, and while she was in the other room he made the tongs red hot and laid them down, and when she came back she took them up and burned herself. And he said, if she had known anything she'd have known[Pg 51] not to touch it, that it was red hot. So he walked off and asked for no cure.
The Spinning-Woman:
Biddy Early was a witch, wherever she got it. There was a priest at Feakle spoke against her one time, and soon after he was passing near her house and she put something on the horse so that he made a bolt into the river and stopped there in the middle, and wouldn't go back or forward. Some people from the neighbourhood went to her, and she told them all about the whole place, and that one time there was a great battle about the castle, and that there is a passage going from here to the forth beyond on Dromore Hill, and to another place that's near Maher's house. And she said that there is a cure for all sicknesses hidden between the two wheels of Ballylee mill. And how did she know that there was a mill here at all? Witchcraft wherever she got it; away she may have been in a trance. She had a son, and one time he went to the hurling beyond at some place in Tipperary, and none could stand against him; he was like a deer.
I went to Biddy Early one time myself, about my little boy that's now in America that was lying sick in the house. But on the way to her I met a sergeant of police and he asked where was I going, and when I told him, he said, to joke with me, "Biddy Early's dead." "May the devil[Pg 52] die with her," says I. Well, when I got to the house, what do you think, if she didn't know that, and what I said. And she was vexed and at the first, she would do nothing for me. I had a pound for her here in my bosom. But when I held it out she wouldn't take it, but she turned the rings on her fingers, for she had a ring for every one, and she said, "A shilling for this one, sixpence for another one." But all she told me was that the boy was nervous, and so he was, she was right in that, and that he'd get well, and so he did.
There was a man beyond in Cloon, was walking near the gate the same day and his little boy with him, and he turned his foot and hurt it, and she knew that. She told me she slept in Ballylee mill last night, and that there was a cure for all things in the world between the two wheels there. Surely she was away herself, and as to her son, she brought him back with her, and for eight or nine year he lay in the bed in the house. And he'd never stir so long as she was in it, but no sooner was she gone away anywhere than he'd be out down the village among the people, and then back again before she'd get to the house.
She had three husbands, I saw one of them when I was there, but I knew by the look of him he wouldn't live long. One man I know went to her and she sent him on to a woman at Kilrush—one of her own sort, and they helped one another. She said to some woman I knew: "If you have a bowl broke or a plate throw it out of the door, and[Pg 53] don't make any attempt to mend it, it vexes them."
Mrs. McDonagh:
Our religion doesn't allow us to go to fortune tellers. They don't get the knowledge from God, and so it must be from demons.
The priests took the bottle from Biddy Early before she died, and they found black things in it.
I never went to Biddy Early myself. I think there was a good deal of devilment in the things she did. The priests can do cures as well as she did, but they don't like to do them, unless they're curates that like to get the money.
There was a man in Cloughareeva and his wife was that bad she would go out in her shift at night into the field. And he went to Biddy Early and she said, "Within three days a disgraced priest will come to you and will cure her."
And after three days the disgraced priest that had been put out for drink came bowling into the house, and they reached down from the shelf a bottle of whiskey. Father Boyle was mad when he heard of it, but he cured her all the same.
There was a man on this estate, and he sixty years, and he took to the bed, and his wife went to Biddy Early and she said, "It can't be by them he's taken, what use would it be to them, he being[Pg 54] so old." And Biddy Early is the one that should surely know. I went to her myself one time, to get a cure for myself when I fell coming down that hill up there, and got a hurt on my knee. And she gave me one and she told me all about the whole place, and that there was a bowl broken in the house, and so there was. The priests can do cures by the same power that she had, but those that have much stock don't like to be doing them; for they're sure to lose all.
I knew one went to Biddy Early about his wife, and as soon as she saw him, she said, "On the fourth day a discarded priest will call in and cure your wife"; and so he did—one Father James.
Mrs. Nelly:
The old man here that lost his hair went to Biddy Early but he didn't want to go, and we forced him and persuaded him. And when he got to the house she said, "It wasn't of your own free will you came here," and she wouldn't do anything for him.
She didn't like either for you to go too late. Dolan's sister was sick a long time, and when the brother went at the last to Biddy Early she gave him a bottle with a cure. But on the way home the bottle was broke, and the car, and the horse got a fright and ran away. She said to him then, "Why did you go to cut down the bush of white thorn you see out of the window?" And then she[Pg 55] told him an old woman in the village had overlooked him—Murphy's sister—and she gave him a bottle to sprinkle about her house. I suppose she didn't like that bush being interfered with, she had too much charms.
And when Doctor Folan was sent for to see her he was led astray, and it is beyond Ballylee he found himself. And surely she was taken if ever any one was.
An Old Woman:
I went up to Biddy Early's one time with another woman. A fine stout woman she was, sitting straight up on her chair. She looked at me and she told me that my son was worse than what I was, and for myself she bid me to take what I was taking before, and that's dandelions. Five leaves she bid me pick and lay them out on the table with three pinches of salt on the three middle ones. As to my son, she gave me a bottle for him but he wouldn't take it and he got better without.
The priests were against her, but there was one of them passed near her house one day, and his horse fell forward. And he sent his boy to her and she said, "Tell him to spit on the horse and to say, 'God bless it,'" and he did and it rose again. He had looked at it proud-like without saying "God bless it" in his heart.
Daniel Shea:
It was all you could do to get to Biddy Early[Pg 56] with your skin whole, the priests were so set against her. I went to her one time myself, and it was hard when you got near to know the way, for all the people were afraid to tell it.
It was about a little chap of my own I went, that some strange thing had been put upon. When I got to her house there were about fifty to be attended to before me, and when my turn came she looked in the bottle, a sort of a common greenish one that seemed to have nothing in it. And she told me where I came from, and the shape of the house and the appearance of it, and of the lake you see there, and everything round about. And she told me of a lime-kiln that was near, and then she said, "The harm that came to him came from the forth beyond that." And I never knew of there being a forth there, but after I came home I went to look, and there sure enough it was.
And she told me how it had come on him, and bid me remember a day that a certain gentleman stopped and spoke to me when I was out working in the hayfield, and the child with me playing about. And I remembered it well, it was old James Hill of Creen, that was riding past, and stopped and talked and was praising the child. And it was close by that forth beyond that James Hill was born.
It was soon after that day that the mother and I went to Loughrea, and when we came back, the child had slipped on the threshold of the house and got a fall, and he was screeching and calling out[Pg 57] that his knee was hurt, and from that time he did no good, and pined away and had the pain in the knee always.
And Biddy Early said, "While you're talking to me now the child lies dying," and that was at twelve o'clock in the day. And she made up a bottle for me, herbs I believe it was made of, and she said, "Take care of it going home, and whatever may happen, don't drop it"; and she wrapped it in all the folds of my handkerchief. So when I was coming home and got near Tillyra I heard voices over the wall talking, and when I got to the Roxborough gate there were many people talking and coming to where we were. I could hear them and see them, and the man that was with me. But when I heard them I remembered what she said, and I took the bottle in my two hands and held it, and so I brought it home safely. And when I got home they told me the child was worse, and that at twelve o'clock the day before he lay as they thought dying. And when I brought the bottle to him, he pulled the bed-clothes up over his head, and we had the work of the world to make him taste it. But from the time he took it, the pain in the knee left him and he began to get better, and Biddy Early had told me not to let many days pass without coming to her again, when she gave me the bottle. But seeing him so well, I thought it no use to go again, and it was not on May Day, but it was during the month of May he died. He took to the bed before that, and he'd be always[Pg 58] calling to me to come inside the bed where he was, and if I went in, he'd hardly let me go. But I got afraid, and I didn't like to be too much with him.
He was but eight years old when he died, but Ned Cahel that used to live beyond there then told me privately that when I'd be out of the house and he'd come in, the little chap would ask for the pipe, and take it and smoke it, but he'd never let me see him doing it. And he was old-fashioned in all his ways.
Another thing Biddy Early told me to do was to go out before sunrise to where there'd be a boundary wall between two or three estates, and to bring a bottle, and lay it in the grass and gather the dew into it. But there were hundreds of people she turned away, because she'd say, "What's wrong with you has nothing to do with my business."
There was a Clare woman with me when I went there, and she told me there was a boy from a village near her was brought tied in a cart to Biddy Early, and she said, "If I cure you, will you be willing to marry me?" And he said he would. So she cured him and married him. I saw him there at her house. It might be that she had the illness put upon him first.
The priests don't do cures by the same means, and they don't like to do them at all. It was in my house that you see that Father Gregan did one on Mr. Phayre. And he cured a girl up in the mountains after, and where is he now but in a madhouse. They are afraid of the power they do them[Pg 59] by, that it will be too strong for them. Some say the bishops don't like them to do cures because the whiskey they drink to give them courage before they do them is very apt to make drunkards of them. It's not out of the prayer-book they read, but out of the Roman ritual, and that's a book you can read evil out of as well as good.
There was a boy of the Saggartons in the house went to Biddy Early and she told him the house of his bachelor [the girl he would marry] and he did marry her after. And she cured him of a weakness he had and cured many, but it was seldom the bottle she'd give could be brought home without being spilled. I wonder did she go to them when she died. She got the cure among them anyway.
Mrs. Dillon:
My mother got crippled in her bed one night—God save the hearers—and it was a long time before she could walk again with the pain in her back. And my father was always telling her to go to Biddy Early, and so at last she went. But she could do nothing for her, for she said, "What ails you has nothing to do with my business." And she said, "You have lost three, and one was a grand little fair-haired one, and if you'd like to see her again, I'll show her to you." And when she said that, my mother had no courage to look and to see the child she lost, but fainted then and[Pg 60] there. And then she said, "There's a field of corn beyond your house and a field with hay, and it's not long since that the little fellow that wears a Llanberis cap fell asleep there on a cock of hay. And before the stooks of corn are in stacks he'll be taken from you, but I'll save him if I can." And it was true enough what she said, my little brother that was wearing a Llanberis cap had gone to the field, and had fallen asleep on the hay a few days before. But no harm happened him, and he's all the brother I have living now. Out in the stable she used to go to meet her people.
Mrs. Locke:
It was my son was thatching Heniff's house when he got the touch, and he came back with a pain in his back and in his shoulders, and took to the bed. And a few nights after that I was asleep, and the little girl came and woke me and said, "There's none of us can sleep, with all the cars and carriages rattling round the house." But though I woke and heard her say that, I fell into a sound sleep again and never woke till morning. And one night there came two taps at the window, one after another, and we all heard it and no one there. And at last I sent the eldest boy to Biddy Early and he found her in the house. She was then married to her fourth man. And she said he came a day too soon and would do nothing for him. And he had to walk away in the rain. And the next day he went back and she said,[Pg 61] "Three days later and you'd have been too late." And she gave him two bottles, the one he was to bring to a boundary water and to fill it up, and that was to be rubbed to the back, and the other was to drink. And the minute he got them he began to get well, and he left the bed and could walk, but he was always delicate. When we rubbed his back we saw a black mark, like the bite of a dog, and as to his face, it was as white as a sheet.
I have the bottle here yet, though it's thirty year ago I got it. She bid the boy to bring whatever was left of it to a river, and to pour it away with the running water. But when he got well I did nothing with it, and said nothing about it—and here it is now for you to see. I never let on to Father Folan that I went to her, but one time the Bishop came, MacInerny. I knew he was a rough man, and I went to him and made my confession, and I said, "Do what you like with me, but I'd walk the world for my son when he was sick." And all he said was, "It would have been no wonder if the two feet had been cut off from the messenger." And he said no more and put nothing on me.
There was a boy I saw went to Biddy Early, and she gave him a bottle and told him to mind he did not lose it in the crossing of some road. And when he came to the place it was broke.
Often I heard of Biddy Early, and I knew of a[Pg 62] little girl was sick and the brother went to Biddy Early to ask would she get well. And she said, "They have a place ready for her, room for her they have." So he knew she would die, and so she did.
The priests can do things too, the same way as she could, for there was one Mr. Lyne was dying, a Protestant, and the priest went in and baptized him a Catholic before he died, and he said to the people after, "He's all right now, in another world." And it was more than the baptizing made him sure of that.
Mrs. Brennan, in the house beyond, went one time to Biddy Early, where the old man was losing his health. And all she told him was to bid him give over drinking so much whiskey. So after she said that, he used only to be drinking gin.
There was a boy went to Biddy Early for his father, and she said, "It's not any of my business that's on him, but it's good for yourself that you came to me. Weren't you sowing potatoes in such a field one day and didn't you find a bottle of whiskey, and bring it away and drink what was in it?" And that was true and it must have been a bottle they brought out of some cellar and dropped there, for they can bring everything away, and put in its place what will look like it.
There was a boy near Feakle got the touch in[Pg 63] three places, and he got a great desire to go out night-walking, and he got sick. And they asked Biddy Early and she said, "Watch the hens when they come in to roost at night, and catch a hold of the last one that comes." So the mother caught it, and then she thought she'd like to see what would Biddy Early do with it. So she brought it up to her house and laid it on the floor, and it began to rustle its wings, and it lay over and died. It was from her brother Biddy Early got the cure. He was sick a long time, and there was a whitethorn tree out in the field, and he'd go and lie under it for shade from the sun. And after he died, every day for a year she'd go to the whitethorn tree, and it is there she'd cry her fill. And then he brought her under and gave her the cure. It was after that she was in service beyond Kinvara. She did her first cure on a boy, after the doctors giving him up.
An Old Man from Kinvara:
My wife is paralysed these thirty-six years, and the neighbours said she'd get well if the child died, for she got it after her confinement, all in a minute. But the child died in a year and eleven months, and she got no better. And then they said she'd get taken after twenty-one years, but that passed, and she's just the same way. And she's as good a Christian as any all the time.
I went to Biddy Early one time about her. She was a very old woman, all shaky, and the crankiest[Pg 64] woman I ever saw. And the husband was a fine young man, and he lying in the bed. It was a man from Kinvara half-paralysed I brought with me, and she would do nothing for him at first, and then the husband bid her do what she could. So she took the bottle and shook it and looked in it, and she said what was in him was none of her business. And I had work to get him a lodging that night in Feakle, for the priests had all the people warned against letting any one in that had been to her. She wouldn't take the whiskey I brought, but the husband and myself, we opened it and drank it between us.
She gave me a bottle for my wife, but when I got to the workhouse, where I had to put her in the hospital, they wouldn't let me through the gate for they heard where I had been. So I had to hide the bottle for a night by a wall, on the grass, and I sent my brother's wife to find it, and to bring it to her in the morning into the workhouse. But it did her no good, and Biddy Early told her after it was because I didn't bring it straight to her, but had left it on the ground for the night.
Biddy Early beat all women. No one could touch her. I knew a girl, a friend of my own, at Burren and she was sick a long while and the doctors could do nothing for her, and the priests read over her but they could do nothing. And at last the husband went to Biddy Early and she said, "I can't cure her, and the woman that can cure her[Pg 65] lives in the village with her." So he went home and told this and the women of the village came into the house and said, "God bless her," all except one, and nothing would make her come into the house. But they watched her, and one night when a lot of them were sitting round the fire smoking, she let a spit fall on the floor. So they gathered that up (with respects to you), and brought it in to the sick woman and rubbed it to her, and she got well. It might have done as well if they brought a bit of her petticoat and burned it and rubbed the ashes on her. But there's something strange about spits, and if you spit on a child or a beast it's as good as if you'd say, "God bless it."
John Curtin:
I was with Biddy Early one time for my brother. She was out away in Ennis when we got to the house, and her husband that she called Tommy. And the kitchen was full of people waiting for her to come in. So then she came, and the day was rainy, and she was wet, and she went over to the fire, and began to take off her clothes, and to dry them, and then she said to her husband: "Tommy, get the bottle and give them all a drop." So he got the bottle and gave a drink to everyone. But my brother was in behind the door, and he missed him and when he came back to the fire she said: "You have missed out the man that has the best heart of them all, and there he is behind the door."[Pg 66] And when my brother came out she said, "Give us a verse of a song," and he said, "I'm no songster," but she said, "I know well that you are, and a good dancer as well." She cured him and his wife after.
There was a neighbour of mine went to her too, and she said: "The first time you got the touch was the day you had brought a cart of turf from that bog at Ballinabucky to Scahanagh. And when you were in the road you got it, and you had to lie down on the creel of turf till you got to the public road." And she told him that he had a pane of glass broke in his window and that was true enough. She must have been away walking with the faeries every night or how did she know that, or where the village of Scahanagh was?
Mrs. Kenny has been twice to Biddy Early. Once for her brother who was ill, and light-headed and sent to Galway. And Biddy Early shook the bottle twice, and she said, "It is none of my business, and it's a heavy cold that settled in his head." And she would not take the shilling. A red, red woman she was.
Mary Glyn:
I am a Clare woman, but the last fifty years I spent in Connacht. Near Feakle I lived, but I only saw Biddy Early once, the time she was brought to the committee and to the courthouse. She lived in a little house near Feakle that time, and her landlord was Dr. Murphy in Limerick,[Pg 67] and he sent men to evict her and to pull the house down, and she held them in the door and said: "Whoever will be the first to put a bar to the house, he'll remember it." And then a man put his bar in between two stones, and if he did, he turned and got a fall someway and he broke the thigh. After that Dr. Murphy brought her to the court, "Faeries and all," he said, for he brought the bottle along with her. So she was put out, but Murphy had cause to remember it, for he was living in a house by himself, and one night it caught fire and was burned down, and all that was left of him was one foot that was found in a corner of the walls. She had four husbands, and the priest wouldn't marry her to the last one, and it was by the teacher that she was married. She was a good-looking woman, but like another, the day I saw her. My husband went to her the time Johnny, my little boy, was dying. He had a great pain in his temple, and she said: "He has enough in him to kill a hundred; but if he lives till Monday, come and tell me." But he was dead before that. And she said, "If you came to me before this, I'd not have let you stop in that house you're in." But Johnny died; and there was a blush over his face when he was going, and after that I couldn't look at him, but those that saw him said that he wasn't in it. I never saw him since, but often and often the father would go out thinking he might see him. But I know well he wouldn't like to come back and to see me fretting for him.
We left the house after that and came here. A travelling woman that came in to see me one time in that house said, "This is a fine airy house," and she said that three times, and then she said, "But in that corner of it you'll lose your son," and it happened, and I wish now that I had minded what she said. A man and his family went into that house after, and the first summer they were in it, he and his sons were putting up a stack of hay in the field with pitchforks, and the pitchfork in his hand turned some way into his stomach and he died.
It is Biddy Early had the great name, but priests were against her. There went a priest one time to stop her, and when he came near the door the horse fell that was in his car. Biddy Early came out then and bid him to give three spits on the horse, and he did that, and it rose up then and there. It was himself had put the evil eye on it. "It was yourself did it, you bodach," she said to the priest. And he said, "You may do what you like from this out, and I will not meddle with you again."
Mrs. Crone:
I was myself digging potatoes out in that field beyond, and a woman passed by the road, but I heard her say nothing, but a pain came on my head and I fell down, and I had to go to my bed for three weeks. My mother went then to Biddy[Pg 69] Early. Did you ever hear of her? And she looked in the blue bottle she had, and she said my name. And she saw me standing before her, and knew all about me and said, "Your daughter was digging potatoes with her husband in the field, and a woman passed by and she said, 'It is as good herself is with a spade as the man,'" for I was a young woman at the time. She gave my mother a bottle for me, and I took three drinks of it in the bed, and then I got up as well as I was before.
Peter Feeney:
Biddy Early said to a man that I met in America and that went to her one time, that this place between Finevara and Aughanish is the most haunted place in all Ireland.
Surely Biddy Early was away herself. That's what I always heard. And I hear that at a hurling near Feakle the other day there was a small little man, and they say he was a friend of hers and has got her gift.
Mrs. Sheridan, as I call her, was wrinkled and half blind, and had gone barefoot through her lifetime. She was old, for she had once met Raftery, the Gaelic poet, at a dance, and he died before the famine of '47. She must have been comely then, for he had said to her: "Well planed you are; the carpenter that planed you knew his trade"; and she was ready of reply and answered him back, "Better than you know yours," for his fiddle had two or three broken strings. And then he had spoken of a neighbour in some way that vexed her father, and he would let him speak no more with her. And she had carried a regret for this through her long life, for she said: "If it wasn't for him speaking as he did, and my father getting vexed, he might have made words about me like he did for Mary Hynes and for Mary Brown." She had never been to school she told me, because her father could not pay the penny a week it would have cost. She had never travelled many miles from the parish of her birth, and I am sure had never seen pictures except the sacred ones on chapel walls; and yet she could tell of a Cromwellian castle built up and of a drawbridge and of long-faced, fair-haired women, and of the yet earlier round house and saffron dress of[Pg 71] the heroic times, I do not know whether by direct vision, or whether as Myers wrote: "It may even be that a World-soul is personally conscious of all its past, and that individual souls, as they enter into deeper consciousness enter into something which is at once reminiscence and actuality.... Past facts were known to men on earth, not from memory only but by written record; and these may be records, of what kind we know not, which persist in the spiritual world. Our retrocognitions seem often a recovery of isolated fragments of thought and feeling, pebbles still hard and rounded amid the indecipherable sands over which the mighty waters are 'rolling evermore.'"
She had never heard of the great mystic Jacob Behmen, and yet when an unearthly visitor told her the country of youth is not far from the place where we live, she had come near to his root idea that "the world standeth in Heaven and Heaven in the World, and are in one another as day and night."
I was told by Mrs. Sheridan:
There was a woman, Mrs. Keevan, killed near the big tree at Raheen, and her husband was after that with Biddy Early, and she said it was not the woman that had died at all, but a cow that died and was put in her place. All my life I've seen them and enough of them. One day I was with Tom Mannion by the big hole near his house, and we saw a man and a woman come from it, and a great troop of children, little boys they seemed to be, and they went through the gate into Coole, and there we could see them running and running along the wall. And I said to Tom Mannion, "It may be a call for one of us." And he said, "Maybe it's for some other one it is." But on that day week he was dead.
One time I saw the old Colonel standing near the road, I know well it was him. But while I was looking at him, he was changed into the likeness of an ass.
I was led astray myself one day in Coole when I went to gather sticks for the fire. I was making a bundle of them, and I saw a boy beside me, and a little grey dogeen with him, and at first I thought it was William Hanlon, and then I saw it was not. And he walked along with me, and I asked him[Pg 74] did he want any of the sticks and he said he did not, and he seemed as we were walking to grow bigger and bigger. And when he came to where the caves go underground he stopped, and I asked him his name, and he said, "You should know me, for you've seen me often enough." And then he was gone, and I know that he was no living thing.
There was a child I had, and he a year and a half old, and he got a quinsy and a choking in the throat and I was holding him in my arms beside the fire, and all in a minute he died. And the men were working down by the river, washing sheep, and they heard the crying of a child from over there in the air, and they said, "That's Sheridan's child." So I knew sure enough that he was taken.
Come here close and I'll tell you what I saw at the old castle there below (Ballinamantane). I was passing there in the evening and I saw a great house and a grand one with screens (clumps of trees) at the ends of it, and the windows open—Coole house is nothing like what it was for size or grandeur. And there were people inside and ladies walking about, and a bridge across the river. For they can build up such things all in a minute. And two coaches came driving up and across the bridge to the castle, and in one of them I saw two gentlemen, and I knew them well and both of them had died long before. As to the coaches and the horses I didn't take much notice of them for I was too much taken up with looking at the two gentlemen. And a man came and called out and[Pg 75] asked me would I come across the bridge, and I said I would not. And he said, "It would be better for you if you did, you'd go back heavier than you came." I suppose they would have given me some good thing. And then two men took up the bridge and laid it against the wall. Twice I've seen that same thing, the house and the coaches and the bridge, and I know well I'll see it a third time before I die. (Note 12.)
One time when I was living at Ballymacduff there was two little boys drowned in the river there, one was eight years old and the other eleven years. And I was out in the fields, and the people looking in the river for their bodies, and I saw a man coming away from it, and the two boys with him, he holding a hand of each and leading them away. And he saw me stop and look at them and he said, "Take care would you bring them from me, for you have only one in your own house, and if you take these from me, she'll never come home to you again." And one of the little chaps broke from his hand and ran to me, and the other cried out to him, "Oh, Pat, would you leave me!" So then he went back and the man led them away. And then I saw another man, very tall he was, and crooked, and watching me like this with his head down and he was leading two dogs the other way, and I knew well where he was going and what he was going to do with them.
And when I heard the bodies were laid out, I went to the house to have a look at them, and those[Pg 76] were never the two boys that were lying there, but the two dogs that were put in their places. I knew this by a sort of stripes on the bodies such as you'd see in the covering of a mattress; and I knew the boys couldn't be in it, after me seeing them led away.
And it was at that time I lost my eye, something came on it, and I never got the sight again. All my life I've seen them and enough of them. One time I saw one of the fields below full of them, some were picking up stones and some were ploughing it up. But the next time I went by there was no sign of it being ploughed at all. They can do nothing without some live person is looking at them, that's why they were always so much after me. Even when I was a child I could see them, and once they took my walk from me, and gave me a bad foot, and my father cured me, and if he did, in five days after he died.
But there's no harm at all in them, not much harm.
There was a woman lived near me at Ballymacduff, and she used to go about to attend women; Sarah Redington was her name. And she was brought away one time by a man that came for her into a hill, through a door, but she didn't know where the hill was. And there were people in it, and cradles and a woman in labour, and she helped her and the baby was born, and the woman told her it was only that night she was brought[Pg 77] away. And the man led her out again and put her in the road near her home and he gave her something rolled in a bag, and he bid her not to look at it till she'd get home, and to throw the first handful of it away from her. But she wouldn't wait to get home to look at it, and she took it off her back and opened it, and there was nothing in it but cow-dung. And the man came to her and said, "You have us near destroyed looking in that, and we'll never bring you in again among us."
There was a man I know well was away with them, often and often, and he was passing one day by the big tree and they came about him and he had a new pair of breeches on, and one of them came and made a slit in them, and another tore a little bit out, and then they all came running and tearing little bits till he hadn't a rag left. Just to be humbugging him they did that. And they gave him good help, for he had but an acre of land, and he had as much on it as another would have on a big farm. But his wife didn't like him to be going and some one told her of a cure for him, and she said she'd try it and if she did, within two hours after she was dead; killed they had her before she'd try it. He used to say that where he was brought was into a round very big house, and Cairns that went with them told me the same. (Note 13.)
Three times when I went for water to the well, the water spilled over me, and I told Bridget after that they must bring the water themselves, I'd go for it no more. And the third time it was done[Pg 78] there was a boy, one of the Heniffs, was near, and when he heard what happened me he said, "It must have been the woman that was at the well along with you that did that." And I said there was no woman at the well along with me. "There was," said he; "I saw her there beside you, and the two little tins in her hand."
One day after I came to live here at Coole, a strange woman came into the house, and I asked what was her name and she said, "I was in it before ever you were in it," and she went into the room inside and I saw her no more.
But Bridget and Peter saw her coming in, and they asked me who she was, for they never saw her before. And in the night when I was sleeping at the foot of the bed, she came and threw me out on the floor, that the joint of my arm has a mark in it yet. And every night she came, and she'd spite me or annoy me in some way. And at last we got Father Nolan to come and to drive her out. And as soon as he began to read, there went out of the house a great blast, and there was a sound as loud as thunder. And Father Nolan said, "It's well for you she didn't have you killed before she went."
There's something that's not right about an old cat and it's well not to annoy them. I was in the house one night, and one came in, and he tried to bring away the candle that was lighted in the candlestick, and it standing on the table. And I had a little rod beside me, and I made a hit at him[Pg 79] with it, and with that he dropped the candle and made at me as if to tear me. And I went on my knees and asked his pardon three times, and when I asked it the third time he got quiet all of a minute, and went out at the door.
And as to hares—bid Master Robert never to shoot a hare, for you wouldn't know what might be in it. There were two women I knew, mother and daughter, and they died. And one day I was out by the wood, and I saw two hares sitting by the wall, and the minute I saw them I knew well who they were. And the mother made as though she'd kill me, but the daughter stopped her. Bad they must have been to have been put into that shape, and indeed I know that they weren't too good. I saw the mother another time come up near the door as if to see me, and when she got near, she turned herself into a red hare.
The priests can do cures out of their book, and the time the cure is done is when they turn the second leaf. There was a boy near Kinvara got a hurt and he was brought into a house and Father Grogan was got to do a cure on him. And he did it, and within two days the priest's brother was made a fool of, and is locked up in a madhouse ever since, and it near seven years ago. (Note 14.)
There was a boy of the Nally's died near a year ago; and when I heard he was dead I went down to the house, and there I saw him outside and two men bringing him away, and one of them said to me, "We couldn't do this but for you being there[Pg 80] watching us." That's the last time I saw any of them.
There was a boy got a fall from a cart near the house beyond, and he was brought in to Mrs. Raynor's and laid in the bed and I went in to see him. And he said what he saw was a little boy run across the road before the cart, and the horse took fright and ran away and threw him from it. And he asked to be brought to my house, for he wouldn't stop where he was; "for" says he, "the woman of this house gave me no drink and showed me no kindness, and she'll be repaid for that." And sure enough within the year she got the dropsy and died. And he was carried out of the door backwards, but the mother brought him to her own house and wouldn't let him come to mine, and 'twas as well, for I wouldn't refuse him, but I don't want to be annoyed with them any more than I am.
Did you know Mrs. Byrne that lived in Doolin? Swept she was after her child was born. And near a year after I saw her coming down the road near the old castle. "Is that you, Mary?" I said to her, "and is it to see me you are coming?" But she went on. It was in May when they are all changing. (Note 15.) There was a priest, Father Waters, told me one time that he was after burying a boy, one Fahy, in Kilbecanty churchyard. And he was passing by the place again in the evening, and there he saw a great fire burning, but whether it was of turf or of sticks he couldn't tell, and there[Pg 81] was the boy he had buried sitting in the middle of it.
I know that I used to be away among them myself, but how they brought me I don't know, but when I'd come back, I'd be cross with the husband and with all. I believe when I was with them I was cross that they wouldn't let me go, and that's why they didn't keep me altogether, they didn't like cross people to be with them. The husband would ask me where I was, and why I stopped so long away, but I think he knew I was taken and it fretted him, but he never spoke much about it. But my mother knew it well, but she'd try to hide it. The neighbours would come in and ask where was I, and she'd say I was sick in the bed—for whatever was put there in place of me would have the head in under the bed-clothes. And when a neighbour would bring me in a drink of milk, my mother would put it by and say, "Leave her now, maybe she'll drink it tomorrow." And maybe in a day or two I'd meet someone and he'd say, "Why wouldn't you speak to me when I went into the house to see you?" And I was a young fresh woman at that time. Where they brought me to I don't know, or how I got there, but I'd be in a very big house, and it round, the walls far away that you'd hardly see them, and a great many people all round about. I saw there neighbours and friends that I knew, and they in their own clothing and with their own appearance, but they wouldn't speak to me nor I to them, and[Pg 82] when I'd meet them again I'd never say to them that I saw them there. But the others had striped clothes of all colours, and long faces, and they'd be talking and laughing and moving about. What language had they? Irish of course, what else would they talk?
And there was one woman of them, very tall and with a long face, standing in the middle, taller than any one you ever saw in this world, and a tall stick in her hand; she was the mistress. She had a high yellow thing on her head, not hair, her hair was turned back under it, and she had a long yellow cloak down to her feet and hanging down behind. Had she anything like that in the picture in her hand? [a crown of gold balls or apples.] It was not on her head, it was lower down here about the body, and shining, and a thing [a brooch] like that in the picture, but down hanging low like the other. And that picture you have there in you hand, I saw no one like it, but I saw a picture like it hanging on the wall. (Note 16.) It was a very big place and very grand, and a long table set out, but I didn't want to stop there and I began crying to go home. And she touched me here in the breast with her stick, she was vexed to see me wanting to go away. They never brought me away since. Grand food they'd offer me and wine, but I never would touch it, and sometimes I'd have to give the breast to a child.
Himself died, but it was they took him from me. It was in the night and he lying beside me, and I[Pg 83] woke and heard him move, and I thought I heard some one with him. And I put out my hand and what I touched was an iron hand, like knitting needles it felt. And I heard the bones of his neck crack, and he gave a sort of a choked laugh, and I got out of the bed and struck a light and I saw nothing, but I thought I saw some one go through the door. And I called to Bridget and she didn't come, and I called again and she came and she said she struck a light when she heard the noise and was coming, and someone came and struck the light from her hand. And when we looked in the bed, himself was lying dead and not a mark on him.
There was a woman, Mrs. Leary, had something wrong with her, and she went to Biddy Early. And nothing would do her but to bring my son along with her, and I was vexed. What call had she to bring him with her? And when Biddy Early saw him she said, "You'll travel far, but wherever you go you'll not escape them." The woman he went up with died about six months after, but he went to America, and he wasn't long there when what was said came true, and he died. They followed him as far as he went.
And one day since then I was on the road to Gort, and Madden said to me, "Your son's on the road before you." And I said, "How could that be, and he dead?" But still I hurried on. And at Coole gate I met a little boy and I asked did he[Pg 84] see any one and he said, "You know well who I saw." But I got no sight of him at all myself.
I saw the coach one night near Kiltartan Chapel. Long it was and black, and I saw no one in it. But I saw who was sitting up driving it, and I knew it to be one of the Miskells that was taken before that. (Note 17.)
One day I was following the goat to get a sup of milk from her, and she turned into the field and up into the castle of Lydican and went up from step to step up the stairs to the top, and I followed and on the stairs a woman passed me, and I knew her to be Colum's wife. And when we got to the room at the top, I looked up, and there standing on the wall was a woman looking down at me, long-faced and tall and with grand clothes, and on her head something yellow and slippery, not hair but like marble. (Note 18.) And I called out to ask her wasn't she afraid to be up there, and she said she was not. And a shepherd that used to live below in the castle saw the same woman one night he went up to the top, and a room and a fire and she sitting by it, but when he went there again there was no sign of her nor of the room, nothing but the stones as before.
I never saw them on horses; but when I came to live at Peter Mahony's he used to bring in those red flowers [ragweed] that grow by the[Pg 85] railway, when their stalks were withered, to make the fire. And one day I was out in the road, and two men came over to me and one was wearing a long grey dress. And he said to me, "We have no horses to ride on and have to go on foot, because you have too much fire." So then I knew it was their horses we were burning. (Note 19.)
I know the cure for anything they can do to you, but it's few I'd tell it to. It was a strange woman came in and told it to me, and I never saw her again. She bid me spit and use the spittle, or to take a graineen of dust from the navel, and that's what you should do if any one you care for gets a cold or a shivering, or they put anything upon him.
One time I went up to a forth beyond Raheen to pick up a few sticks, and I was beating one of the sticks on the ground to break it, and a voice said from below, "Is it to break down the house you want?" And a thing appeared that was like a cat, but bigger than any cat ever was. And another time in a forth a man said, "Here's gold for you, but don't look at it till you go home." And I looked and I saw horse-dung and I said, "Keep it yourself, much good may it do you." They never gave me anything did me good, but a good deal of torment I had from them. And they're often walking the road, and if you met them you wouldn't know them from any other person; but I'd know them well enough, but I'd say nothing—and[Pg 86] that's a grand bush we're passing by—whether it belongs to them I don't know, but wherever they get shelter, there they might be—but anyway it's a very fine bush—God bless it.
And when you speak of them you should always say the day of the week. Maybe you didn't notice that I said, "This is Friday" just when we were hardly in at the gate.
It's very weak I am, and took to my bed since yesterday. They've changed now out of where they were near the castle, and it's inside Coole demesne they are. It was an old man told me that, I met him on the road there below. First I thought he was a young man, and then I saw he was not, and he grew very nice-looking after, and he had plaid clothes. "We're moved out of that now," he said, "and it's strangers will be coming in it. And you ought to know me," he said. And when I looked at him I thought I did.
And one day I was down in Coole I saw their house, more like a big dairy, with red tiles and a high chimney and a lot of smoke out of it, and there was a woman at the door and two or three outside. But they'll do you no harm, for the man told me so. "They needn't be afraid," he said, "we're good neighbours, but let them not say too much if the milk might go from the cows now and again."
I was over beyond Raheen one time, and I saw a woman milking and she at the wrong side of the[Pg 87] cow. And when she saw me she got up, and she had a bucket that was like a plate, and it full of milk and she gave it to a man that was waiting there, that I thought first was one of the O'Heas, and they went away. And the cow was a grand fine one, but who it belonged to I didn't know—maybe to themselves.
It's about a week ago one night some one came into the room in the dark, and I saw it was my son that I lost—he that went to America—James. He didn't die, he was whipped away—I knew he wasn't dead, for I saw him one day on the road to Gort on a coach, and he looked down and he said, "That's my poor mother." And when he came in here, I couldn't see him, but I knew him by his talk. And he said, "It's asleep she is," and he put his two hands on my face and I never stirred. And he said, "I'm not far from you now." For he is with the others inside Coole near where the river goes down the swallow hole. To see me he came, and I think he'll be apt to come again before long. And last night there was a light about my head all the night and no candle in the room at all.
Yes, the Sidhe sing, and they have pipers among them, a bag on each side and a pipe to the mouth, I think I never told you of one I saw.
I was passing a field near Kiltartan one time when I was a girl, where there was a little lisheen, and a field of wheat, and when I was passing I[Pg 88] heard a piper beginning to play, and I couldn't but begin to dance, it was such a good tune; and there was a boy standing there, and he began to dance too. And then my father came by, and he asked why were we dancing, and no one playing for us. And I said there was, and I began to search through the wheat for the piper, but I couldn't find him, and I heard a voice saying, "You'll see me yet, and it will be in a town." Well, one Christmas eve I was in Gort and my husband with me, and that night at Gort I heard the same tune beginning again—the grandest I ever heard—and I couldn't but begin to dance. And Glynn the chair-maker heard it too, and he began to dance with me in the street, and my man thought I had gone mad, and the people gathered round us, for they could see or hear nothing. But I saw the piper well, and he had plaid clothes, blue and white, and he said, "Didn't I tell you that when I saw you again it would be in a town?"
I never saw fire go up in the air, but in the wood beyond the tree at Raheen I used often to see like a door open at night, and the light shining through it, just as it might shine through the house door, with the candle and the fire inside, if it would be left open.
Many of them I have seen—they are like ourselves only wearing bracket clothes (Note 20.), and their bodies are not so strong or so thick as ours, and their eyes are more shining than our eyes.[Pg 89] I don't see many of them here, but Coole is alive with them, as plenty as grass; I often go awhile and sit inside the gate there. I saw them make up a house one time near the natural bridge, and I saw them coming over the gap twice near the chapel, a lot of little boys, and two men and a woman, and they had old talk and young talk. One of them came in here twice, and I gave him a bit of bread, but he said, "There's salt in it" and he put it away. (Note 21.)
When Annie Rivers died the other day, there were two funerals in it, a big funeral with a new coffin and another that was in front of them, men walking, the handsomest I ever saw, and they with black clothes about their body. I was out there looking at them, and there was a cow in the road, and I said, "Take care would you drive away the cow." And one of them said, "No fear of that, we have plenty of cows on the other side of the wall." But no one could see them but myself. I often saw them and it was they took the sight of my eyes from me. And Annie Rivers was not in the grand coffin, she was with them a good while before the funeral.
That time I saw the two funerals at Rivers's that I was telling you about, I heard Annie call to those that were with her, "You might as well let me have Bartley; it would be better for the two castles to meet." And since then the mother is[Pg 90] uneasy about Bartley, and he fell on the floor one day and I know well he is gone since the day Annie was buried. And I saw others at the funeral, and some that you knew well among them. And look now, you should send a coat to some poor person, and your own friends among the dead will be covered, for you could see the skin here. [She made a gesture passing her hand down each arm, exactly the same gesture as old Mary Glynn of Slieve Echtge had made yesterday when she said, "Have you a coat you could send me, for my arms are bare?" and I had promised her one.]
Would I have gone among them if I had died last month? I think not. I think that I have lived my time out, since my father was taken.
He was a young man at that time, and one time I was out in the field, and I got a knock on the foot, and a lump rose; there is the mark of it yet. It was after that I was on the road with my father, near Kinvara, and a man came and began to beat him. And I thought that he was going to beat me, and I got in near the wall and my father said, "Spare the girl!" "I will do that, I will spare her," said the man. He went away then, and within a week my father was dead.
And my mother told me that before the burying, she saw the corpse on the bed, sitting on the side of the bed, and his feet hanging down. I saw my father often since then, but not this good while now. He had always a young appearance when I saw him.
A big woman came to the window and looked in at me, the time I was on the bed lately. "Rise up out of that," she said. I saw her another time on the road, and the wind blew her dress open, and I could see that she had nothing at all on underneath it.
In May they are as thick everywhere as the grass, but there's no fear at all for you or for Master Robert. I know that, for one told it to me.
"Tir-nan-og" that is not far from us. One time I was in the chapel at Labane, and there was a tall man sitting next me, and he dressed in grey, and after the Mass I asked him where he came from. "From Tir-nan-og," says he. "And where is that?" I asked him. "It's not far from you," he said; "it's near the place where you live." I remember well the look of him and him telling me that. The priest was looking at us while we were talking together. (Note 22.)
She died some years ago and I am told:
"There is a ghost in Mrs. Sheridan's house. They got a priest to say Mass there, but with all that there is not one in it has leave to lay a head on the pillow till such time as the cock crows."
I was told one day by our doctor, a good fowler an physician, now, alas, passed away, of an old man in Clare who had knowledge of "the Others," and I took Mr. Yeats to see him.
We found him in his hayfield, and he took us to his thatched lime-white house and told us many things. A little later we went there again to verify what I had put down. I remember him as very gentle and courteous, and that a cloth was spread and tea made for us by his daughters, he himself sitting at the head of the table.
Mr. Yeats at that time wore black clothes and a soft black hat, but gave them up later, because he was so often saluted as a priest. But this time another view was taken, and I was told after a while that the curate of the Clare parish had written to the curate of a Connacht parish that Lady Gregory had come over the border with "a Scripture Reader" to try and buy children for proselytizing purposes. But the Connacht curate had written back to the Clare curate that he had always thought him a fool, and now he was sure of it.
The old man I have called Mr. Saggarton said:
Our family diminished very much till at last there were but three brothers left, and they separated. One went to Ennis and another came here and the other to your own place beyond. It was a long time before they could make one another out again. It was my uncle used to go away among them. When I was a young chap, I'd go out in the field working with him, and he'd bid me go away on some message, and when I'd come back it might be in a faint I'd find him. It was he himself was taken; it was but his shadow or some thing in his likeness was left behind. He was a very strong man. You might remember Ger Kelly what a strong man he was, and stout, and six feet two inches in height. Well, he and my uncle had a dispute one time, and he made as if to strike at him, and my uncle, without so much as taking off his coat, gave one blow that stretched him on the floor. And at the barn at Bunahowe he and my father could throw a hundred weight over the collar beam, what no other could do. (Note 23.) My father had no notion at all of managing things. He lived to be eighty years, and all his life he looked as innocent as that little chap turning the hay. My uncle had the same innocent look; I think they died quite happy.
One time the wife got a touch, and she got it again, and the third time she got up in the morning and went out of the house and never said where she was going. But I had her watched, and I told the boy to follow her and never to lose sight of her, and I gave him the sign to make if he'd meet any bad thing. So he followed her, and she kept before him, and while he was going along the road something was up on top of the wall with one leap—a red-haired man it was, with no legs and with a thin face. (Note 24.) But the boy made the sign and got hold of him and carried him till he got to the bridge. At the first he could not lift the man, but after he made the sign he was quite light. And the woman turned home again, and never had a touch after. It's a good job the boy had been taught the sign. Make that sign with your thumbs if ever when you're walking out you feel a sort of a shivering in the skin, for that shows there's some bad thing near, but if you hold your hands like that, if you went into a forth itself, it couldn't harm you. And if you should any time feel a sort of a pain in your little finger, the surest thing is to touch it with human dung. Don't neglect that, for if they're glad get one of us, they'd be seven times better pleased to get the like of you.
Youngsters they take mostly to do work for them, and they are death on handsome people, for they are handsome themselves. To all sorts of work they put them, and digging potatoes and[Pg 95] the like, and they have wine from foreign parts, and cargoes of gold coming in to them. Their houses are ten times more beautiful and ten times grander than any house in this world. And they could build one of them up in that field in ten minutes. Clothes of all colours they wear, and crowns like that one in the picture, and of other shapes. (Note 25.) They have different queens, not always the same. The people they bring away must die some day; as to themselves, they were living from past ages, and they can never die till the time when God has His mind made up to redeem them.
And those they bring away are always glad to be brought back again. If you were to bring a heifer from those mountains beyond and to put it into a meadow, it would be glad to get back again to the mountain, because it is the place it knows.
Coaches they make up when they want to go driving, with wheels and all, but they want no horses. There might be twenty of them going out together sometimes, and all full of them.
They are everywhere around us, and may be within a yard of us now in the grass. But if I ask you, "What day is tomorrow," and you said, "Thursday," they wouldn't be able to overhear us. They have the power to go in every place, even on to the book the priest is using.
There was one John Curran lived over there towards Bunahowe, and he had a cow that died, and they were striving to rear the calf—boiled hay they were giving it, the juice the hay was[Pg 96] boiled in. And you never saw anything to thrive as it did. And one day some man was looking at it and he said, "You may be sure the mother comes back and gives it milk." And John Curran said, "How can that be, and she dead?" But the man said, "She's not dead, she's in the forth beyond. And if you go towards it half an hour before sunrise you'll find her, and you should catch a hold of her and bring her home and milk her, and when she makes to go away again, take a hold of her tail and follow her." So he went out next morning, half an hour before sunrise, up toward the forth, and brought her home and milked her, and when the milking was done she started to go away and he caught a hold of the tail and was carried along with her. And she brought him into the forth, through a door. And behind the door stood a barrel, and what was in the barrel is what they put their finger in, and touch their forehead with when they go out, for if they didn't do that all people would be able to see them. And as soon as he got in, there were voices from all sides. "Welcome, John Curran, welcome, John Curran." And he said: "The devil take you, how well you know my name; it's not a welcome I want, it's my cow to bring home again." So in the end he got the cow and brought her home. And he saw there a woman that had died out of the village about ten years before, and she suckling a child. (Note 26.)
Surely I knew Biddy Early, and my uncle was a[Pg 97] friend of hers. It was from the same power they got the cures. My uncle left me the power, and I was well able to do them and did many, but my stock was all dying and what could I do? So I gave a part of the power to Mrs. Tobin that lives in Gort, and she can cure a good many things. Biddy Early told me herself that where she got it was when she was a servant girl in a house, there was a baby lying in the cradle, and he went on living for a few years. But he was friendly to her and used to play tunes for her and when he went away he gave her the bottle and the power. She had but to look in it and she'd see all that had happened and all that was going to happen. But he made her make a promise never to take more than a shilling for any cure she did, and she would not have taken fifty pounds if you offered it to her, though she might take presents of bread and wine and such things.
The cure for all things in the world? Surely she had it and knew where it was. And I knew it myself too—but I could not tell you of it. Seven parts I used to make it with, and one of them is a thing that's in every house.
There's a lake beyond there, and my uncle one day told us by name of a man that would be drowned there at twelve o'clock that day. And so it happened.
One time I was walking on the road to Galway,[Pg 98] near the sea, and another man along with me. And I saw in a field beside the road a very small woman walking down towards us, and she smiling and carrying a can of water in her hand, and she was dressed in a blue spencer. So I asked the other man did he see her, and he said he did not, and when I came up to the wall she was gone.
One time myself when I went to look for a wife, I went to the house, and there was a hen and some chickens before the door. Well, after I went home one of the chickens died. And what do you think they said, but that it was I overlooked it.
They hate me because I do cures, and they hated Biddy Early too. The priests do them but not in the same way—they do them by the power of Almighty God.
My wife got a touch from them, and they have a watch on her ever since. It was the day after I married and I went to the fair at Clarenbridge. And when I came back the house was full of smoke, but there was nothing on the hearth but cinders, and the smoke was more like the smoke of a forge. And she was within lying on the bed, and her brother was sitting outside the door crying. So I went to the mother and asked her to come in, and she was crying too. And she knew well what had happened, but she didn't tell me, but she sent for the priest. And when he came he sent me for[Pg 99] Geoghegan and that was only an excuse to get me away, and what he and the mother tried to bring her to do was to face death, and they knew I wouldn't allow that if I was there. But the wife was very stout and she wouldn't give in to them. So the priest read more, and he asked would I be willing to lose something, and I said, so far as a cow or a calf I wouldn't mind losing that. Well, she partly recovered, but from that day, no year went by but I lost ten lambs maybe or other things. And twice they took my children out of the bed, two of them I have lost. And the others they gave a touch to. That girl there,—see the way she is, and can't walk. In one minute it came on her out in the field, with the fall of a wall. (Note 27.)
It was one among them that wanted the wife. A woman and a boy we often saw come to the door, and she was the matchmaker. And when we would go out, they would have vanished.
Biddy Early's cure that you heard of, it was the moss on the water of the mill-stream between the two wheels of Ballylee. It can cure all things brought about by them, but not any common ailment. But there is no cure for the stroke given by a queen or a fool. There is a queen in every house or regiment of them. It is of those they steal away they make queens for as long as they live or that they are satisfied with them.
There were two women fighting at a spring of water, and one hit the other on the head with a can[Pg 100] and killed her. And after that her children began to die. And the husband went to Biddy Early and as soon as she saw him she said, "There's nothing I can do for you, your wife was a wicked woman, and the one she hit is a queen among them, and she is taking your children one by one and you must suffer till twenty-one years are up." And so he did.
The stroke of a fool, there's no cure for either. There are many fools among them dressed in strange clothes like one of the mummers that used to be going through the country. But it might be the fools are the wisest after all. There are two classes, the Dundonians that are like ourselves, and another race, more wicked and more spiteful. Very small they are and wide, and their belly sticks out in front, so that what they carry they don't carry it on the back, but in front, on the belly in a bag. (Note 28.)
They were fighting when Johnny Casey died; that's what often happens. Everyone has friends among them, and the friends would be trying to save you when the others would be trying to bring you away. Youngsters they pick up here and there, to help them in their fights and in their work. They have cattle and horses, but all of them have only three legs.
They don't have children themselves, only the women that are brought away among them, they have children, but they don't live for ever, like the Dundonians.
The handsome they like, and the good dancers. And if they get a boy amongst them, the first to touch him, he belongs to her.
There was a boy was a splendid dancer, and straight and firm, for they don't like those that go to right or left as they walk. Well, one night he was going to a house where there was a dance, and when he was about half-way to it, he came to another house, where there was music and dancing going on. So he turned in, and there was a room all done up with curtains and with screens, and a room inside where the people were sitting, and it was only those that were dancing sets that came to the outside room.
As to their treasure, it's best to be without it. There was a man living by a forth, and where his house touched the forth, he built a little room and left it for them, clean and in good order, the way they'd like it. And whenever he'd want money, for a fair or the like, he'd find it laid on the table in the morning. And when he had it again, he'd leave it there, and it would be taken away in the night. But after that going on for a time he lost his son.
There was a room at Crags where things used to be thrown about, and everyone could hear the noises there. They had a right to clear it out and settle it the way they'd like it. You should do that[Pg 102] in your own big house. Set a little room for them—with spring water in it always—and wine you might leave—no, not flowers—they wouldn't want so much as that—but just what would show your good will.
Now I have told you more than I told my wife.
It was on the bounds of Connemara I heard of this healer, and went to see his wife in her little rock-built cabin among the boulders, to ask if a cure could be done for Mr. Yeats, who was staying at a friend's house near, and who was at that time troubled by uncertain eyesight.
One evening later we walked beside the sea to the cottage where we were to meet the healer; a storm was blowing and we were glad when the door was opened and we found a bright turf fire.
He was short and broad, with regular features, and his hair was thick and dark, though he was an old man. He wore a flannel-sleeved waistcoat, and his trousers were much patched on the knees. He sat on a low bench in the wide chimney nook, holding a soft hat in his hands which kept nervously moving. The woman of the house came over now and then to look at the iron tripod on the hearth. She, like the healer, spoke only Irish. The man of the house sat between us and interpreted, holding a dip candle in his hands. A dog growled without ceasing at one side of the hearth, a reddish cat sat at the other. The woman seemed frightened and angry at times as the old man spoke, and clutched the baby to her breast.
I was told by the man of the house, Coneely:
There's a man beyond is a great warrior in this business, and no man within miles of the place will build a house or a cabin or any other thing without him going there to say if it's in a right place.
It was Fagan cured me of a pain I had in my arm, I couldn't get rid of. He gave me a something to drink, and he bid me go to a quarry and to touch some of the stones that were lying outside it and not to touch others of them. Anyway I got well.
And one time down by the hill we were gathering in the red seaweed, and there was a boy there that was leading a young horse, the same way he'd been leading him a year or more. But this day of a sudden he made a snap to bite him, and secondly he reared as if to jump on top of him, and thirdly turned around and made at him with the hoofs. And the boy threw himself to one side and escaped, but with the fright he got he went into his bed and stopped there. And the next day Fagan came and told him everything that had happened, and he said, "I saw thousands on the strand near where it was last night."
Fagan's wife said to me in her house:
Are you right? You are? Then you're my[Pg 106] friend. Come here close and tell me is there anything himself can do for you?
I do the fortunes no more since I got great abuse from the priest for it. Himself got great abuse from the priest too—Father Haverty—and he gave him plaster of Paris,—I mean by that he spoke soft and blathered him, but he does them all the same, and Father Kilroy gave him leave when he was here.
It was from his sister he got the cure. Taken she was when her baby was born. She died in the morning and the baby at night. We didn't tell John of it for a month after, where he was away, caring horses. But he knew of it before he came home, for she followed him there one day he was out in the field, and when he didn't know her she said, "I'm your sister Kate." And she said, "I bring you a cure that you may cure both yourself and others." And she told him of the herb and the field he'd find it growing, and that he must choose a plant with seven branches, the half of them above the clay and the half of them covered up. And she told him how to use it.
Twenty years she's gone, but she's not dead yet, but the last time he saw her he said that she was getting grey. Every May and November he sees her, he'll be seeing her soon now. When her time comes to die, she'll be put in the place of some other one that's taken, and so she'll get absolution. (Note 29.)
He has cured many. But sometimes they are[Pg 107] vexed with him, for some cure he has done, when he interferes with some person they're meaning to bring away. And many's the good beating they gave him out in the fields for doing that.
Myself they gave a touch to, here in the thigh, so that I lost my walk; vexed with me they are for giving up the throwing of the cup.
A nurse she's been all the time among them. And don't believe those that say they have no children. A boy among them is as clever as any boy here, but he must be matched with a woman from earth. And the same way with their women, they must get a husband here. And they never can give the breast to a child, but must get a nurse from here.
One time I saw them myself, in a field and they hurling. Bracket caps they wore and bracket clothes that were of all colours.
Some were the same size as ourselves and some looked like gossoons that didn't grow well. But himself has the second sight and can see them in every place.
There's as many of them in the sea as on the land, and sometimes they fly like birds across the bay.
The first time he did a cure it was on some poor person like ourselves, and he took nothing for it, and in the night the sister came and bid him not to do it any more without a fee. And that time we lost a fine boy.
They'll all be watching round when a person is[Pg 108] dying; and suppose it was myself, there'd be my own friends crying, crying, and themselves would be laughing and jesting, and glad I'd go. (Note 30.)
There is always a mistress among them. When one of us goes among them they would all be laughing and jesting, but when that tall mistress you heard of would tip her stick on the ground, they'd all draw to silence.
Tell me the Christian name of your friend you want the cure for. "William Butler," I'll keep that. (Note 31.) And when himself gathers the herb, if it's for a man, he must call on the name of some other man, and call him a king—Righ—and if it's for a woman he must call on the name of some other woman and call her a queen that is calling on the king or the queen of the plant.
Fagan said to W. B. Yeats and to me:
It's not from them the harm came to your eyes. I see them in all places—and there's no man mowing a meadow that doesn't see them at some time or other. As to what they look like, they'll change colour and shape and clothes while you look round. Bracket caps they always wear. There is a king and a queen and a fool in each house of them, that is true enough—but they would do you no harm. The king and the queen are kind and gentle, and whatever you'll ask them for they'll give it. They'll do no harm at all if you don't injure them. You might speak to them if you'd meet them on[Pg 109] the road, and they'd answer you, if you'd speak civil and quiet and show respect, and not be laughing or humbugging—they wouldn't like that. One night I was in bed with the wife beside me, and the child near me, near the fire. And I turned and saw a woman sitting by the fire, and she made a snap at the child, and I was too quick for her and got hold of it, and she was at the door and out of it in one minute, before I could get to her.
Another time in the field a woman came beside me, and I went on to a gap in the wall and she was in it before me. And then she stopped me and she said: "I'm your sister that was taken; and don't you remember how I got the fever first and you tended me, and then you got it yourself, and one had to be taken and I was the one." And she taught me the cure, and the way to use it. And she told me that she was in the best of places, and told me many things that she bound me not to tell. And I asked was it here she was kept ever since, and she said it was, but she said, "In six months I'll have to move to another place, and others will come where I am now, and it would be better for you if we stopped here, for the most of us here now are your neighbours and your friends." And it was she gave me the second sight. (Note 32.)
Last year I was digging potatoes and a man came by, one of them, and one that I knew well before. And he said, "You have them this year, and we'll have them the next two years." And you know the potatoes were good last year and[Pg 110] you see that they are bad now, and have been made away with. (Note 33.) And the sister told me that half the food in Ireland goes to them, but that if they like they can make out of cow-dung all they want, and they can come into a house and use what they like and it will never be missed in the morning.
The old man suddenly stooped and took a handful of hot ashes in his hand, and put them in his pocket. And presently he said he'd be afraid tonight going home the road. When we asked him why, he said he'd have to tell what errand he had been on.
He said one eye of W. B. Y.'s was worse than the other, and asked if he had ever slept out at nights. We asked if he goes to enquire of them (the Others) what is wrong with those who came to him and he said, "Yes, when it has to do with their business—but in this case it has nothing to do with it." (Note 34.)
Coneely said next day:
I walked home with the old man last night, he was afraid to go by himself. He pointed out to me on the way a graveyard where he had got a great beating from them one night. He had a drop too much taken after being at a funeral, and he went there and gathered the plant wrong. And they came and punished him, that his head is not better of it ever since.
He told me the way he knows in the gathering[Pg 111] of the plant what is wrong with the person that is looking for a cure. He has to go on his knees and say a prayer to the king and the queen and the gentle and the simple among them, and then he gathers it, and if there are black leaves about it, or white ones, but chiefly a black leaf folded down, he knows the illness is some of their business; but for this young man the plant came fresh and green and clean. He has been among them and has seen the king and the queen, and he says that they are no bigger than the others, but the queen wears a wide cap, and the others have bracket caps.
He never would allow me to build a shed there beside the house, though I never saw anything there myself.
Old Deruane lived in the middle island of Aran, Inishmaan, where I have stayed more than once. He was one of the evening visitors to the cottage I stayed in, when the fishers had come home and had eaten, and the fire was stirred and flashed on the dried mackerel and conger eels hanging over the wide hearth, and the little vessel of cod oil had a fresh wick put in it and lighted. The men would sit in a half-circle on the floor, passing the lighted pipe from one to another; the women would find some work with yarn or wheel. The talk often turned on the fallen angels or the dead, for the dwellers in those islands have not been moulded in that dogma which while making belief in the after-life an essential, makes belief in the shadow-visit of a spirit yearning after those it loved a vanity, a failing of the great essential, common sense, and sets down one who believes in such things as what Burton calls in his Anatomy "a melancholy dizzard."
I was told by Old Deruane:
I was born and bred in the North Island, and ten old fathers of mine are buried there.
I can speak English, because I went to earn in England in the hard times, and I was for five quarters in a country town called Manchester; and I have threescore and fifteen years.
I knew two fine young women were brought away after childbirth, and they were seen after in the North Island going about with them. One of them I saw myself there, one time I was out late at night going to the east village. I saw her pattern walking on the north side of the wall, on the road near me, but she said nothing. And my body began to shake, and I was going to get to the south side of the wall, to put it between us; but then I said, "Where is God?" and I walked on and passed her, and she looked aside at me but she didn't speak. And I heard her after me for a good while, but I never looked back, for it's best not to look back at them.
And there was another woman had died, and one evening late I was coming from the schoolmaster, for he and I are up to one another, and he often gives me charity. And then I saw her or her pattern walking along that field of rock you passed[Pg 114] by just now. But I stopped and I didn't speak to her, and she went on down the road, and when she was about forty fathoms below me I could hear her abusing some one, but no one there. I thought maybe it was that she was vexed at me that I didn't question her. She was a young woman too. I'll go bail they never take an old man or woman—what would they do with them? If by chance they'd come among them they'd throw them out again.
Another night I was out and the moon shining, I knew by the look of it the night was near wore away. And when I came to the corner of the road beyond, my flesh began to shake and my hair rose up, and every hair was as stiff as that stick. So I knew that some evil thing was near, and I got home again. This island is as thick as grass with them, or as sand; but good neighbours make good neighbours, and no woman minding a house but should put a couple of the first of the potatoes aside on the dresser, for there's no house but they'll visit it some time or other. Myself, I always brush out my little tent clean of a night before I lie down, and the night I'd do it most would be a rough night. How do we know what poor soul might want to come in?
I saw them playing ball one day when the slip you landed at was being made, and I went down to watch the work. There were hundreds of them in the field at the top of it, about three feet tall, and little caps on them; but the men that were working[Pg 115] there, they couldn't see them. (Note 35.) And one morning I went down to the well to leave my pampooties in it to soak—it was a Sabbath morning and I was going to Mass—and the pampooties were hard and wore away my feet, and I left them there. And when I came back in a few minutes they were gone, and I looked in every cleft, but I couldn't find them. And when I was going away, I felt them about me, and coming between my two sticks that I was walking with. And I stopped and looked down and said, "I know you're there," and then I said, "Gentlemen, I know you're here about me," and when I said that word they went away. Was it they took my pampooties? Not at all—what would they want with such a thing as pampooties? It was some children must have taken them, and I never saw them since.
One time I wanted to settle myself clean, and I brought down my waistcoat and a few little things I have, to give them a rinse in the sea-water, and I laid them out on a stone to dry, and I left one of my sticks on them. And when I came back after leaving them for a little time, the stick was gone. And I was vexed at first to be without it, but I knew that they had taken it to be humbugging me, or maybe for their own use in fighting. For there is nothing there is more fighting among than them. So I said, "Welcome to it, Gentlemen, may it bring you luck; maybe you'll make more use of it than ever I did myself."
One night when I was sleeping in my little tent,[Pg 116] I heard a great noise of fighting, and I thought it was down at Mrs. Jordan's house, and that maybe the children were troublesome in the bed, she having a great many of them. And in the morning as I passed the house I said to her, "What was on you in the night?" And she said there was nothing happened there, and that she heard no noise. So I said nothing but went on; and when I came to the flag-stones beyond her house, they were covered with great splashes and drops of blood. So I said nothing of that either, but went on. What time of the year? Wait till I think, it was this very same time of the year, the month of May.
One time I was out putting seed in the ground, and the ridges all ready and the seaweed spread in them; and it was a fine day, but I heard a storm in the air, and then I knew by signs that it was they were coming. And they came into the field and tossed the seaweed and the seed about, and I spoke to them civil and then they went in to a neighbour's field, and from that down to the sea, and there they turned into a ship, the grandest that ever I saw.
There was a man on this island went out with two others fishing in his curragh, and when they were about a mile out they saw a ship coming towards them, and when they looked again, instead of having three masts she had none, and just when they were going to take up the curragh to bring it ashore, a great wave came and turned it[Pg 117] upside down. And the man that owned her got such a fright that he couldn't walk, and the other two had to hold him under the arms to bring him home. And he went to his bed, and within a week after, he was dead.
One night I heard a crying down the road, and the next day, there was a child of Tom Regan's dead. And it was a few months after that, that I heard a crying again. And the next day another of his children was gone.
There was a fine young man was buried in the graveyard below, and a good time after that, there was work being done in it, and they came on his coffin, and the mother made them open it, and there was nothing in it at all but a broom, and it tied up with a bit of a rope.
There was a man was passing by that Sheoguy place below, "Breagh" we call it. And he saw a man come riding out of it on a white horse. And when he got home that night there was nothing for him or for any of them to eat, for the potatoes were not in yet. And in the morning he asked the wife was there anything to eat, and she said a neighbour had sent in a pan of meal. So she made that into stirabout, and he took but a small bit of it out of her hand to leave more for the rest. And then he took a sheet, and bid her make a bag of it, and he got a horse and rode to the place where he saw the man ride out, for he knew he was the master of them. And he asked for the full of the bag of meal, and said he'd bring it back again[Pg 118] when he had it. And the man brought the bag in, and filled it for him and brought it out again. And when the oats were ripe, the first he cut, he got ground at the mill and brought it to the place and gave it in. And the man came out and took it, and said whatever he'd want at any time, to come to him and he'd get it.
In a bad year they say they bring away the potatoes and that may be so. They want provision, and they must get them at one place or another.
Mr. McArdle joins in and says:
This I can tell you and be certain of, and I remember well that the man in the third house to this died after being sick a long time. And the wife died after, and she was to be buried in the same place, and when they came to the husband's coffin they opened it, and there was nothing in it at all, neither brooms nor anything else.
There's a boy, I know him well, that was up at that forth above the house one day, and a blast of wind came and blew the hat off him. And when he saw it going off in the air he cried out, "Do whatever is pleasing to you, but give me back my cap!" And in the moment it was settled back again on to his head.
Old Deruane goes on:
There are many can do cures, because they have something walking with them, what one may call a[Pg 119] ghost from among the Sheogue. A few cures I can do myself, and this is how I got them. I told you that I was for five quarters in Manchester, and where I lodged were two old women in the house, from the farthest end of Mayo, for they were running from Mayo at the time because of the hunger. And I knew that they were likely to have a cure, for St. Patrick blessed the places he was not in more than the places he was in, and with the cure he left and the fallen angels, there are many in Mayo can do them.
Now it's the custom in England never to clean the table but once in the week and that on a Saturday night. And on that night all is set out clean, and all the crutches of bread and bits of meat and the like are gathered together in a tin can, and thrown out in the street, and women that have no other way of living come round then with a bag that would hold two stone, and they pick up all that's thrown out in the street, and live on it for a week. And often I didn't eat the half of what was before me, and I wouldn't throw it out, but I'd bring it to the two old women that were in the house, so they grew very fond of me.
Well, when the time came that I thought to draw towards home, I brought them one day to a public-house and made a drop of punch for them, and then I picked the cure out of them, for I was wise in those days.
Those that get a touch I could save from being brought away, but I couldn't bring back a man[Pg 120] that's away, for it's only those that have been living among them for a while that can do that. There was a neighbour's child was sick, and I got word of it, and I went to the house, for the woman there had showed me kindness. And I went in to the cradle and I lifted the quilt off the child's face and you could see by it, and I knew the sign, that there was some of their work there. And I said, "You are not likely to have the child long with you, Ma'am." And she said, "Indeed I know I won't have him long." So I said nothing but I went out, and whatever I did, and whatever I got there, I brought it again and gave it to the child, and he began to get better. And the next day I brought the same thing again, and gave it the child, and I looked at it and I said to the mother, "He'll live to comb his hair grey." And from that time he got better, and now there's no stronger child in the island, and he the youngest in the house.
After that the husband got sick, and the woman said to me one day, "If there's anything you can do to cure him, have pity on me and on my children, and I'll give you what you'll wish." But I said, "I'll do what I can for you, but I'll take nothing from you except maybe a grain of tea or a glass of porter, for I wouldn't take money for this, and I refused £2 one time for a cure I did." So I went and I brought back the cure, and I mixed it with flour and made it into three little pills that it couldn't be lost, and gave them to him, and from that time he got well.
There's a woman lived down the road there, and one day I went in to the house, when she was after coming from Galway town, and I asked charity of her. And it was in the month of August when the bream fishing was going on, and she said, "There's no one need be in want now, with fresh fish in the sea and potatoes in the gardens"; and gave me nothing. But when I was out the door she said, "Well, come back here." And I said, "If you were to offer me all you brought from Galway, I wouldn't take it from you now."
And from that time she began to pine and to wear away and to lose her health, and at the end of three years, she walked outside her house one day, and when she was two yards from her own threshold she fell on the ground, and the neighbours came and lifted her up on a door and brought her into the house, and she died.
I think I could have saved her then—I think I could, when I saw her lying there. But I remembered that day, and I didn't stretch out a hand and I spoke no word.
I'm going to rise out of the cures and not to do much more of them, for they have given me a touch here in the right leg, so that it's the same as dead. And a woman of my village that does cures, she is after being struck with a pain in the hand.
Down by the path at the top of the slip from there to the hill, that's the way they go most[Pg 122] nights, hundreds and thousands of them. There are two old men in the island got a beating from them; one of them told me himself and brought me out on the ground, that I'd see where it was. He was out in a small field, and was after binding up the grass, and the sky got very black over him and very dark. And he was thrown down on the ground, and got a great beating, but he could see nothing at all. He had done nothing to vex them, just minding his business in the field.
And the other was an old man too, and he was out on the roads, and they threw him there and beat him that he was out of his mind for a time.
One night sleeping in that little cabin of mine, I heard them ride past, and I could hear by the feet of the horses that there was a long line of them.
This is a story was going about twenty years ago. There was a curate in the island, and one day he got a call to the other island for the next day. And in the evening he told the servant maid that attended him to clean his boots good and very good, for he'd be meeting good people where he was going. And she said, "I will, Holy Father, and if you'll give me your hand and word to marry me for nothing, I'll clean them grand." And he said "I will; whenever you get a comrade I'll marry you for nothing, I give you my hand and word." So she had the boots grand for him in the morning. Well, she got a sickness after, and after[Pg 123] seven months going by, she was buried. And six months after that, the curate was in his parlour one night and the moon shining, and he saw a boy and a girl outside the house, and they came to the window, and he knew it was the servant girl that was buried. And she said, "I have a comrade now, and I came for you to marry us as you gave your word." And he said, "I'll hold to my word since I gave it," and he married them then and there, and they went away again. (Note 36.)
"Some friendly Teyâmena, sorry to see my suffering plight, said to me: 'This is because thou hast been eye-struck—what! you do not understand 'eye-struck'? Certainly they have looked in your eyes, Khalîl. We have lookers (God cut them off!) among us, that with their only (malignant) eye-glances may strike down a fowl flying; and you shall see the bird tumble in the air with loud shrieking kâk-kâ-kâ-kâ-kâ. Wellah their looking can blast a palm-tree so that you shall see it wither away. These are things well ascertained by many faithful witnesses."—Doughty's Travels in the Arabian Desert.
There is one visit I have always been a little remorseful about. It was in Mayo where I had gone to see the broken walls and grass-grown hearthstone that remain of the house where Raftery the poet was born. I was taken to see an old woman near, and the friend who was with me asked her about "Those." I could see she was unwilling to speak, and I would not press her, for there are some who fear to vex invisible hearers; so we talked of America where she had lived for a little while. But presently she said,[Pg 128] "All I ever saw of them myself was one night when I was going home, and they were behind in the field watching me. I couldn't see them but I saw the lights they carried, two lights on the top of a sort of dark oak pole. So I watched them and they watched me, and when we were tired watching one another the lights all went into one blaze, and then they went away and it went out." She told also one or two of the traditional stories, of the man who had a hump put on him, and the woman "taken" and rescued by her husband, who she had directed to seize the horse she was riding with his left hand.
Then she gave a cry and took up her walking stick from the hearth, burned through, and in two pieces, though the fire had seemed to be but a smouldering heap of ashes. We were very sorry, but she said "Don't be sorry. It is well it was into it the harm went." I passed the house two or three hours afterwards; shutters and door were closed, and I felt that she was fretting for the stick that had been "to America and back with me, and had walked every part of the world," and through the loss of which, it may be, she had "paid the penalty."
I told a neighbour about the doctor having attended a man on the mountains—and how after some time, he found that one of the children was sick also, but this had been hidden from him, because if one had to die they wanted it to be the child.
"That's natural," he said. "Let the child pay the penalty if it has to be paid. That's a thing that might happen easy enough."
I was told by M. McGarity:
There was a boy of the Cloonans I knew was at Killinane thatching Henniff's house. And a woman passed by, and she looked up at him, but she never said, "God bless the work." And Cloonan's mother was in the road to Gort and the woman met her and said, "Where did your son learn thatching?" And that day he had a great fall and was brought home hurt, and the mother went to Biddy Early. And she said, "Didn't a red-haired woman meet you one day going into Gort and ask where did your son learn thatching? And didn't she look up at him as she passed? It was then it was done." And she gave a bottle and he got well after a while. (Note 37.)
Some say the evil eye is in those who were baptized wrong, but I believe it's not that, but if, when a woman is carrying, some one that meets her says, "So you're in that way," and she says, "The devil a fear of me," as even a married woman might say for sport or not to let on, the devil gets possession of the child at that moment, and when it is born it has the evil eye.
Margaret Bartly:
There was a woman below in that village where I lived to my grief and my sorrow, and she used to be throwing the evil eye, but she is in the poor-house now—Mrs. Boylan her name is. Four she threw it on, not children but big men, and they lost the walk and all, and died. Maybe she didn't know she had it, but it is no load to any one to say "God bless you." I faced her one time and told her it would be no load to her when she would see the man in the field, and the horses ploughing to say "God bless them," and she was vexed and she asked did I think she had the evil eye, and I said I did. So she began to scold and I left her. That was five years ago, and it is in the poor-house in Ballyvaughan she is this two years; but she can do no harm there because she has lost her sight.
Mrs. Nelly of Knockmogue:
There was a girl lived there near the gate got sick. And after waiting a long time and she getting no better the mother brought in a woman that lived in the bog beyond, that used to do cures. And when she saw the girl, she knew what it was, and that she had been overlooked. And she said, "Did you meet three men on the road one day, and didn't one of them, a dark one, speak to you and give no blessing?" And she said that was so. And she would have done a cure on her, but we had a very good priest at that time, Father Hayden, a curate, and he used to take a drop of liquor and[Pg 131] so he had courage to do cures. And he said this was a business for him, and he cured her, and the mother gave him money for it.
It was by herbs that woman used to do cures, and whatever power she got in the gathering of them, she was able to tell what would happen. But she was in great danger all her life from gathering the herbs, for they don't like any one to be cured that they have put a touch on.
Mrs. Clerey:
I can tell you what happened to two sons of mine. A woman that passed by them said, "You've often threatened me by night, and my curse is on you now." And the one answered her back but the other didn't. And after that they both took sick, but the one that didn't answer her was the worst. And they pined a long time. And I brought the one that was so bad over to Kilronan to the priest and he read over him. It was a lump in his mouth he had, that you could hardly put down a spoonful of milk, and there was a good doctor there and he sliced it, and he got well. But the priest often told me that but for what he did for him he would never have got well. For there's no doubt there's some in the world it's not well to talk with.
The time my son got the pain, he came in roaring and said he got a stab in the knee. It was surely some evil thing that put it on him. There are some that have the evil eye, and that don't know[Pg 132] it themselves. Father McEvilly told me that. He said a woman that was carrying, and that was not married, but that got married while she was carrying, she might put the evil eye on you, and not know it at all. And he said anyway it would be no great load to say "God bless you" to any one you might meet.
The priests can do cures if they like, but those that have stock don't like to be doing it, Father Folan won't do it, but Father McEvilly would.
One time my brother got a great pain, and my father sent me to Father Gallagher, to ask could he cure and read the Mass of the Holy Ghost over him. But when I asked him he called out, "I won't do that, I won't read for any one." He was afraid to go as far as that for fear it might fall on his stock, that he had a great deal of.
James Fahey:
Do you think the drohuil is not in other places besides Aran? My mother told me herself that she was out at a dance one evening, and there was a fine young man there and he dancing till he had them all tired; and a woman that was sitting there said "He can do what he likes with his legs," and at that instant he fell dead. My mother told me that herself, and she heard the woman say it, and so did many others that were there.
Frank McDaragh:
There's none can do cures well in this island like Biddy Early used to do. I want to know of[Pg 133] some good man or woman in that line to go to, for that little girl of my own got a touch last week. Coming home from Mass she was, and she felt a pain in her knee, and it ran down to the foot and up again, and since then the feet are swelled, you might see them.
Mrs. Meade:
And about here they all believe in the faeries—and I hear them say—but I don't give much heed to it—that Mrs. Hehir the butcher's sister that died last week—but I don't know much about it. But anyhow she was married three years, and had a child every year, and this time she died. And when the coffin was leaving the house, the young baby began to scream, and to go into convulsions, for all the world as if it was put on the fire.
Another says about this same woman, Mrs.
Hehir:
It's overlooked she was when she went out for a walk with a scholar from the seminary that is going to be a priest, and she without a shawl over her head. It's then she was overlooked; they seeing what a fine handsome woman she was, she was took away to be nurse to themselves.
Mrs. Quade:
A great pity it was about Mrs. Hehir and she leaving three young orphans. But sure they do be saying a great big black bird flew into the house[Pg 134] and around about the kitchen—and it was the next day the sickness took her.
The Doctor:
Mrs. Hehirs was a difficult case to diagnose, and I could not give it a name. At the end she was flushed and delirious; and when one of the women attending her said, "She looks so well you wouldn't think it was herself that was in it at all," I knew what was in their minds. Afterwards I was told that the day the illness began she had been churning, and a strange woman came in and said, "Give me a hold of the staff and I'll do a bit of the churning for you." But she refused and the woman said, "It's the last time you'll have the chance of refusing anyone that asks you" and went out, and she was not seen again, then or afterwards.
J. Madden:
There's one thing should never be done, and that's to say "That's a fine woman," or such a thing and not to say "God bless her." I never believed that till a man that lives in the next holding to my own told me what happened to a springer he had. She was as fine a creature as ever you seen, and one day a friend of his came in to see him, and when he was going away, "That's a grand cow," says he, but he didn't say "God bless it." Well, the owner of the cow went into the house and he sat down by the fire and lit a pipe, and when he had the pipe smoked out he[Pg 135] came out again, and there she was lying down and not able to stir. So he remembered what happened and he went after his friend, and found him in a neighbour's house. And he brought him back with him, and made him go into the field and say, "God bless it," and spit on the cow. And with that she got up and walked away as well as before.
John McManus:
They can only take a child or a horse or such things through the eye of a sinner. If his eye falls on it, and he speaks to praise it and doesn't say "God bless it," they can bring it away then. But if you say it yourself in your heart, it will do as well.
There was a man lived about a mile beyond Spiddal, and he was one day at a play, and he was the best at the hurling and the throwing and every game. And a woman of the crowd called out to him, "You're the straightest man that's in it." And twice after that a man that was beside him and that heard that said, saw him pass by with his coat on before sunrise. And on the fifth day after that he was dead.
He left four or five sons and some of them went to America and the eldest of them married and was living in the place with his wife. And he was going to Galway for a fair, and his wife was away with her father and mother on the road to Galway and[Pg 136] she bid him to come early, that she'd have some commands for him to do. So it was before sunrise when he set out, and he was going over a little side road through the fields, and he came on the biggest fair he ever saw, and the most people in it. And they made a way for him to pass through and a man with a big coat and a tall hat came out from them and said, "Do you know me?" And he said, "Are you my father?" And the man said, "I am, and but for me you'd be sorry for coming here, but I saved you, but don't be coming out so early in the morning again." And he said, "It was a year ago that Jimmy went to America. And that was time enough." And then he said, "And it was you that drove your sister away, and gave her no fortune." And that was true enough.
One time there was two brothers standing in a gap in that field you're looking at. And a woman passed by, I wouldn't like to tell you her name, for we should speak no evil of her and she's dead now,—the Lord have mercy on her. And when she passed they heard her say in Irish, "The devil take you," but whether she knew they were there or not, I don't know. And the elder of the brothers called out, "The devil take yourself as well." But the younger one said nothing. And that night the younger one took sick, and through the night he was calling out and talking as if to people in the room. And the next day the mother went to a woman that gathered herbs, the mother of the[Pg 137] woman that does cures by them now, and told her all that happened.
And she took a rag of an old red coat, and went down to the last village, and into the house of the woman that had put it, the evil eye, on him. And she sat there and was talking with her, and watched until she made a spit on the floor, and then she gathered it up on the rag and came to the sick man in the bed and rubbed him with it, and he got well on the minute.
It was hardly ever that woman would say "God bless the work" as she passed, and there were some would leave the work and come out on the road and hold her by the shoulder till she'd say it.
A Man on the Boat:
There are many can put on the drohuil. I knew a child in our village and a neighbour came in and said, "That's a fine child"; and no sooner was he gone than the child got a fit. So they brought him back and made him spit on the child and it got well after. Those that have that power, I believe it's born with them, and it's said they can do it on their own children as well as on ours.
There was a boy called Faherty, nephew to Faherty that keeps the licensed house, and he was a great one for all games, and at every pattern, and whenever anything was going on. And one time he went over to Kilronan where they had some sports, and it the 24th of June. And they were[Pg 138] throwing the weight, and he took it up and he threw it farther than the police or any that were there; and the second time he did the same thing. And when he was going to throw it the third time, his uncle came to him and said "It's best for you to leave it now; you have enough done." But he wouldn't mind him, and threw it the third time, and farther than they all.
And the next year at that time on the 24th of June, he was stretched on his bed, and he died. And some one was talking about the day he did so much at Kilronan, and the father said: "I remember him coming into the house after that, and he put up his arm on the dresser as if there was something ailed him." And the boy spoke from his bed and said, "You ought to have said 'God bless you' then. If my mother had been living then she'd have said it, and I wouldn't be lying here now."
There were two other fine young men died in the same year, and one night after, the three of them appeared to a sick man, Jamsie Power, on the south island, and talked with him. But they didn't stay long because, they said, they had to go on to the coast of Clare.
My own first-born child wasn't spared. He was born in February and all the neighbours said they never saw so fine a child. And one night towards the end of March, I was in the bed, and the child[Pg 139] on my arm between me and the wall, sleeping warm and well, and the wife was settling things about the house. And when she got into bed, she wanted to take the child, and I said, "Don't stir him, where he's so warm and so well"; but she took him in her own arm. And in the morning he was dead. And up to the time he was buried, you'd say he wasn't dead at all, so fresh and so full in the face he looked.
There was a neighbour about the same time had a child and it was in the bed with them, but it was sick. And one night he was sure he heard some one say outside the house, "It's time he should be stretched out to me." So he got up and opened the window, and he threw a vessel of dirty water over whatever was outside, and he heard no more, and his child got well and grew up strong.
An Island Woman:
And there's some people the fishermen wouldn't pass when they are going to the boats, but would turn back again if they'd meet them. One day two boys of mine, Michael and Danny, were down on the rocks, bream-fishing with lines, and I had a job of washing with the wife of the head coast-guard. But when it came to one o'clock something came over me, and I thought the boys might have got the hunger, and I went to Mrs. Patterson and said I must leave work for that day, and I went and bought a three-halfpenny loaf and brought it down to where they were fishing, and[Pg 140] when I got there I saw that Michael the younger one was limping, and I said, "It must be from the hunger you're not able to walk." "Oh, no," he said, "but it's a pain I got in my heel, and I can't put it to the ground." And when we got home he went into his bed, and he didn't leave it for three months. And one day I said to him, "What was it happened you, did you meet any one on the road that day that said anything to you?" And he said, "I did, I met a woman of the village and she said, 'It's good to be you and to have a fine basket of bream,' and she said no more than that, and that very minute the pain came on my heel. But I won't tell you her name, for fear there'd be a row." But I made him tell me, and I promised never to say a word to her and I never did; but he's not the first she did that to.
An Old Man with a Basket:
They can put the drohuil here and I suppose in all parts, and you should watch not to let any one meet you unless they would say, "God bless you," and spit.
There was a woman in this island lost her walk for a year and a half, till they went to Galway to a woman that throws the cups, and she bid them go into the next house where there was a black man living, and give him tobacco to be smoking, and take up the spit and rub his leg. And she got well after that.
There was another man in that island besides that neighbour of mine that would give the drohuil—the evil eye. Tom Griffith his name was. There was one Flanagan came back from Clare one day with three bonifs he bought there. And Griffith came out as he passed and said, "No better bonifs than those ever came into the island." And when Flanagan came home, there was a little hill in the front of his house and two of them fell down against it on their side. And when Mrs. Flanagan came out to see the bonifs, there was only one of them living before her.
There's a man in this island now puts the evil eye—the drohuil. It's about four years since I heard of him doing it last. There was a nice young woman he passed and he said, "You're the best walker in Aran." And that day she got a pain in her leg and she took to her bed, and there she lay for six months, and then she sent for him, and he was made—with respects to you—to throw a spit on her. And after that she got well and got up again. And there was a child died about the same time, and the friends said it was he did it. Ned Buckley is his name. Devil a foot he ever goes to a wedding or such like; they wouldn't ask him, they'd be afraid of him. But he goes to Mass—at least he did in his bloom—but he's an old man now. Does the priest know about him? It's not likely he does. There's no one would like to go and make an attack on him like that. And anyway the[Pg 142] priests don't like any one to speak to them of such things, they'd sooner not hear about them.
Mrs. Folan:
There was one of my brothers overlooked, no doubt at all about that. He was the best rower of a canoe that ever was, and there was a match at Kinvara today and he won it, and there was a match at Ballyvaughan tomorrow and he was in it, and the foam was as high as mountains, that the hooker could hardly stand, and he won there. And when he was come to the pier and the people all running to carry him in their arms, the way the jockey is carried after a race, he was ruz up his own height off the ground, and no one could see what did it.
He was wrong in the head after that, and he would sit by the hearth without speaking. My mother that would be out binding the wheat would say to me now and again "There he is coming across to us," and she put it on me to think it, but I could see nothing, for it is not everyone can see those things. Then she would ask the father when we went in, did he stir from the fireside, and when he said he never stirred she knew it was his shadow she saw and that he had not long to live, and it was not long till he was gone.
Mr. Stephens:
There was a man coming along the road from Gort to Garryland one night, and he had a drop[Pg 143] taken, and before him on the road he saw a pig walking. And having a drop in, he gave a shout and made a kick at it and bid it get out of that.
And from the time he got home, his arm had swelled from the shoulder to be as big as a bag, and he couldn't use his hand with the pain in it. And his wife brought him after a few days to a woman that used to do cures at Rahasane.
And on the road all she could do would hardly keep him from lying down to sleep on the grass. And when they got to the woman, she knew all that happened, and says she: "It's well for you that your wife didn't fall asleep on the grass, for if you had done that but for an instant, you'd be a gone man."
Mrs. Casey:
There was a woman lived near Ballinasloe and she had two children, and they both died, one after the other. And when the third was born, she consulted an old woman, and she said to watch the cradle all day where it was standing by the side of the fire. And so she did, and she saw a sort of a shadow come into it, and give the child a touch. And she came in, and drove it away. And the second day the same thing happened, and she was afraid that the third time the child would go, the same as the others. So she went to the old woman again, and she bid her take down the hanger from the chimney, and the tongs and the waistcoat of the child's father and to lay them across the cradle,[Pg 144] with a few drops of water from a blessed well. So she did all this and laid these three things in the cradle, but she saw the shadow or whatever it was come again, and she ran in and drove it away.
But when she told the old woman she said "You need trouble yourself no more about it being touched or not, for no harm will come to it if you keep those three things on it for twelve days." So she did that, and reared eight children after, and never lost one.
An Old Woman from Kinvara:
Did I know any one was taken? My own brother was, and no mistake about it. It was one day he was out following two horses with the plough, and it was about five o'clock, for a gentleman was passing when he got the touch, and one of his tenants asked him the time, and he said five o'clock. And what way it came I don't know, but he fell twice on the stones—God bless the hearers and the place I'm telling it in. And at ten o'clock the next morning he was dead in his bed. Young he was, not twenty year, and nothing ailed him when he went out, but the place he was ploughing in that day was a bad pass. Sure and certain I am it's by them he was taken. I used often to hear crying in the field after, but I never saw him again.
A Connemara Woman:
There was a boy going to America, and when he was going he said to the girl next door "Wherever[Pg 145] I am, when you are married I'll come back to the wedding"; and not long after he went to America he died. And when the girl was married and all the friends and neighbours in the house, he appeared in the room, but no one saw him but his comrade he used to have here, and the girl's brother saw him too, but no one else. And the comrade followed him and went close to him and said, "Is it you indeed?" And he said, "It is, and from America I came tonight." And he asked, "How long did that journey take?" and he said, "Three-quarters of an hour," and then he went away. And the comrade was never the better of it, or he got the touch or the other called him, very true friends as they were, and he soon died. But the girl is now middle-aged and is living in that house we are just after passing and is married to one Kelly.
Whether all that die go among them I can't say, but it is said they can take no one without the touch of a Christian hand, or the want of a blessing from a Christian that would be noticing them.
A North Galway Woman:
There are many young women taken in childbirth. I lost a sister of my own in that way.
There's a place in the river at Newtown where there's stepping-stones in the middle you can get over by, and one day she was crossing, and there in the middle of the river, and she standing on a stone, she felt a blow on the face. And she looked[Pg 146] round to see who gave it and there was no one there, so then she knew what had happened, and she came to the mother's house, and she carrying at the time. I was a little slip at that time, with my books in my hand coming from school, and I ran in and said to my mother, "Here's Biddy coming," and she said, "What would bring her at this time of day?" But she came in and sat down on a chair and she opened the whole story, and my mother said to quiet her, "It was only a pain in the ear you got, and you thought it was a blow." And she said, "I never got a blow that hurted me like that." And the next day, and every day after that, the ear would swell a little in the afternoon, and then she began to eat nothing, and five minutes after her baby was born she died. And my mother used to watch for her for three or four years after, thinking she'd come back, but she never did.
There was a forth near our house in Meath, and when I was a baby a woman was carrying me in her arms, and she walked down the four steps that led into it, and there was a nice garden around it, and she slipped and fell, and my cheek struck against one of the steps—you can see the mark yet that I got there. And the woman told my mother and said, "It's a wonder the child wasn't taken altogether then and there."
One day I was out digging in the field for my brothers, and there was a sort of a half-ditch between the oats and the potatoes, and I was[Pg 147] digging it down, and of a sudden a sleep came on me and I lay down. And I suppose I had been asleep about twenty minutes when I was waked with a hard clout on the face. And I thought it was one of my brothers and I called out, "You have no right to give me a clout like that." But my brother was away down the field, and came when he heard me calling. And I felt a pain in my side as well, and I went into the house and didn't leave it for two months after with pleurisy, and the pain never left me till after I was married. I suppose I must have been on some way of theirs, or some place that belonged to them and that was known to be an enchanted place, and my father used often to see it lighted up with candles.
A Man Herding Sheep:
I'll tell you now what happened to a little one of my own. She was just five years. And the day I'm speaking of she was running to school down the path before me, as strong and as funny as the day she was born, and laughing and looking back at me. And that night she went to bed as well as ever she was. And it was about eleven o'clock in the night she awoke and gave a great cry, and she said there was a great pain in her knee, and it was in no other part of her. And in the morning she had it yet, and her walk had gone, and I lifted her and brought her out into the street, and she couldn't walk one step if you were to give her the[Pg 148] three isles of Aran. And she lived for two nights after that.
When the doctor came and I told him, he said it was the strangest case he ever heard of, and the schoolmistress said, "I thought if I'd brought that child to the hill beyond and threw her down into the sea it would do her no harm, she was that strong."
But if such things happen, it happened to her, and touched she was. It was not death, it was being took away.
An Old Woman in an Aran village:
I'll tell you what happened a son of my own that was so strong and so handsome and so good a dancer, he was mostly the pride of the island. And he was that educated that when he was twenty-six years, he could write a letter to the Queen. And one day a pain came in the thigh, and a little lump came inside it, and a hole in it that you could hardly put the point of a pin in, and it was always drawing. And he took to his bed and was there for eleven months. And every night when it would be twelve o'clock, he would begin to be singing and laughing and going on. And what the neighbours said was, that it was at that hour there was some other left in his place. I never went to any one or any witchcraft, for my husband wouldn't let me but left it to the will of God; and anyway at the end of the eleven months he died.
And his sister was in America, and the same[Pg 149] thing came to her there, a little lump by the side of the face, and she came home to die. But she died quiet and was like any other in the night.
And a daughter-in-law of mine died after the second birth, and even the priest said it was not dead she was, he that was curate then. I was surprised the priest to say that, for they mostly won't give in to it, unless it's one that takes a drop of drink.
An Old Man in the Kitchen:
I had a son that it was mostly given in to in Aran to be the best singer to give out a couple of verses, so that he'd hardly go out of the house but some one would want to be bringing him into theirs. And he took sick of a sudden, with a pain in the shoulder. I went to the doctor and he says, "Does your wife take tea?" "She does when she can get it;" says I, and he told me then to put the spout of the kettle to where the pain was. And after that he went to Galway Hospital, but he got no better there and a Sister of Mercy said to him at last, "I'm thinking by the look of you, your family at home is poor." "That's true enough," says he. Then says she: "It's best for you to stop here, and they'll be free from the cost of burying you." But he said he'd sooner go die at home, if he had but two days to live there. So he came back and he didn't last long. It's always the like of him that's taken, that are good for singing or dancing or for any good thing at all. And young[Pg 150] women are often taken in that way, both in the middle island and in this.
Patrick Madden:
I'll tell you how I lost the first son I had. He was just three years old and as fine and as strong as any child you'd see. And one day my wife said she'd bring the child to her mother's house to stop the evening with her, for I was going out. And there was a neighbour of ours, a man that lived near us, and no one was the better of being spoken to by him. And as they were passing his house he came out, and he said, "That's the finest child that's in the island." And a woman that was passing at the same time stopped and said, "It was the smallest that ever I saw the day it was born, God bless it." And the mother knew what she meant, and she wanted to say "God bless him," but it was like as if a hand took and held her throat, and choked her that she couldn't say the words. And when I came to the mother's house, and began to make fun with the child, I saw a round mark on the side of his head, the size of a crown piece. And I said to the wife, "Why would you beat the child in the head, why don't you get a little rod to beat him if he wants it?" And she said that she had never touched him at all.
And at that time I was very much given to playing cards, and that night I went out to a friend's house to play. And the wife before she went to bed broiled a bit of fish and put it on a[Pg 151] plate with potatoes, and put it in a box in the room, for fear it might be touched by a cat or a rat or such like. But I was late coming in and didn't mind to eat it. And the next night I was out again. And when we were playing cards we'd play first with tobacco and we'd go on to tea, and we'd end up with whiskey. And the next morning when the wife opened the box she laughed and she said "You didn't drink your tea when you were out last night, for I see you have your dinner eaten." And I said, "Why should you say that? I never touched it." And she held up the plate and showed me that the potatoes were taken off it; but the fish wasn't touched, for it was a bit of a herring and salty.
Well, the child was getting sick all the day, and I didn't go out that evening. And in the night we could hear the noise as if of scores of rats, going about the room. And every now and again I struck a light, but so soon as the light was in it we'd hear nothing. But the noise would begin again as soon as it was dark, and sometimes it would seem as if they came up on the bed, and I could feel the weight of them on my chest as if they would smother me.
And in the morning I chanced to open the box where the dinner used to be put, and it as big a box as any in Aran, and when I opened it I saw it was all full of blood, up the sides and to the top, that you couldn't put your hand in without it getting bloody. I said nothing but shut the lid down again.[Pg 152] But after, when I came into the house, I saw the wife rubbing at it with a thing they call flannel they got at Killinny, and I asked her what was she doing, and she said, "I'm cleaning the box, where it's full of blood." And after that I gave up the child and I had no more hope for its life. But if they had told me that about the neighbour speaking to him, I'd have gone over, and I'd have killed him with my stick, but I'd have made him come and spit on him. After that we didn't hear the noise the same again, but we heard like the sound of a clock all through the night and every night. And the child got a swelling under the feet, and he couldn't put a foot to the ground. But that made little difference to him, for he didn't hold out a week.
I lost another son after—but he died natural, there was nothing of that sort. And I have one son remaining now, and one day he went to sleep out in a field and that's a bad thing to do. And the sister found him there, and when she woke him he couldn't get up hardly, or move his hand, and she had to help him to the house.
Pat Doherty:
I know a gentleman too got the touch, one of the Butlers. It was on a day he made a great leap he got it. And he went to the bed and for three or four days he couldn't stir, and red marks came out over him shaped like a bow. And then I went[Pg 153] for the priest and brought him to see him, and when he heard of the marks, "I'm as bad as that myself," he said, making fun; "for I'm after making a journey in a curragh." But when the clothes were stripped back and he saw his skin, "Oh, murder!" he said, and he put on his stole and got out a book. And he said, "Did you hear what I did to the man at Iona? He went to the well with a tin can for water, and when he got to the well, a few yards away from it, it was spilled. And he went back and filled it again, and the second time at the well it was spilled, and he fell along with it, and he got a little cut in the fall, and he began to bleed, and all the people said as much blood as would be in three men came away from him. And they sent for me, and the minute I came the bleeding stopped, and he was all right again and the cut closed up."
And then he put his head down and what he read I don't know, but he hardly got to the turn of the road outside the house, when the boy stood up from the bed and asked for something to eat.
Another time I was drawing turf that came in the boats from Connemara to Kilronan pier. And of a sudden there came a swelling in my arm, and it was next day the size of an egg, and it turned black. And I couldn't lift the arm, and Healy the coast-guard said to me to go to Doctor Lydon. And I said I would, but in the way I met with Father Jordan and I showed it to him. And he said; "What do you want with your Healy and[Pg 154] your Lydons? Let me see it." And he pressed his hand on it two or three times like that, and the swelling began to go, and when I got home they were clearing weed on the shore, and I was able to go down and to give them a hand with it.
A Piper:
There was a cousin of my own used to feel some heavy thing coming on him in the bed in the night time. And he went to the friars at Esker to take it off of him, and they took it off. But Father Williams said, "If this is gone from you some other thing will be put on you." And sure enough it wasn't a twelvemonth after, he was carting planks and the horse fell, and the planks fell on his foot and broke it in two pieces. And after that again he got a fall, over some stones, and he died with throwing off blood.
I had a fall myself in Galway the other day that I couldn't move my arm to play the pipes if you gave me Ireland. And a man said to me—and they are very smart people in Galway—that two or three got a fall and a hurt in that same place. "There is places in the sea where there is drowning," he said, "and places on the land as well where there do be accidents, and no man can save himself from them, for it is the Will of God."
Mrs. Scanlon:
Some people call Mrs. Tobin "Biddy Early." She has done a good many cures. Her brother was away for a while and it was from him[Pg 155] she got the knowledge. I believe that it's before sunrise that she gathers the herbs, anyway no one ever saw her gathering them. (Note 38.) She has saved many a woman from being brought away when their child was born, by whatever she does. She told me herself that one night when she was going to the lodge gate to attend the woman there, three magpies came before her and began roaring into her mouth, to try to drive her back. Father Folan must know about her, but he is a dark man and says nothing, and anyway the priests know as much, and are as much in dread as any one else.
I wish I had sent for her for my own little boy. It's often he asked me to bring him to the friars at Loughrea. But he never would tell how or where he got the touch. It came like a lump in the back, and he got weaker and smaller till you could put him into a tin can, and he twenty years. Often I asked him about it, but he'd say nothing. I believe that they are afraid to tell or they would be worse treated. I asked him was it at the jumping, for they used to be jumping over a pole, and he said it was not, and that he never took a jump that was too much for him.
But some that saw his back said he had been beat. And when the Doctor came in to see him, he was lying on the bed, and he turned him over and looked at him and said, "If he had all Lady Gregory's estate he couldn't live a week." And sure enough within five days he died. And many[Pg 156] of the neighbours said they never heard such a storm of wind as rose about the house that night. I never saw him since, and I went late and early, in the mill and down by the river. But it's maybe a hundred or two hundred miles he was brought away.
Tom Flatley:
There is a priest now, a curate down in Cloughmore, is doing great cures. There is often silence between him and the parish priest, Father Rock, for he wouldn't like him to be doing them. There was a little chap went to bed one night as well as yourself, and in the morning he rose up with one of his ears as deaf as that he wouldn't hear you if he died. And the mother brought him to Father Dolan and he came out as well as ever he was. It was but a fortnight ago that happened, and I didn't hear did the misfortune fall on any of the stock.
But wherever there is a cure something will go, and what would a sheep or a heifer be beside a misfortune on a child?
There was a priest near Ennis, a woman I knew went to for a cure, and he wouldn't do it. "Tha me bocht," he said, "I am poor, but I will not do it." "I will pay you well," said the woman. "I will not do it," said he, "for my heart was killed two years ago with one I did. And it isn't money I'd ask of you if I did it," he said, "but to offer you my blessing and the blessing of God."
Mrs. Casey:
There was a woman down by the sea that had a very severe time when her baby was born, and they did not think she or the baby would live after. So the husband went and brought Father Rivers and he said, "Which would you sooner lose—the wife or the child—for one must go?" And the husband said, "If the wife is taken I might as well close the door." And then Father Rivers said, "She's going up and down like the swinging of a clock, but for all that I'll strive to keep her for you, but maybe you must lose two or more." So he read some prayers over her, and the next day the baby died, and a fine cow out in the field, but the woman recovered and is living still. But Father Rivers died within two years. They never live long when they do these cures, because that they say prayers that they ought not to say.
There's Father Heseltine of Killinan has lost his health and no person knows where he is. They say he's gone abroad because he did a cure on one of his sisters.
Mrs. Cassilis:
A young mare I lost. It was on the 15th August, something came on it in the field, and it did no good, and the son was tending it. And on S. Colman's Day he was taken with a weakness in the chapel that they had to bring him home, and he did not go fasting to the chapel. He got well,[Pg 158] but the mare died. I didn't mind that, I knew something must go, and it was better the mare to go than the son.
There were many said, the mare not to have died there would be no chance for him. So I am well content, for whatever way we'll struggle we might get another mare. But a person to go, there is no one for you to get in his place.
A County Galway Magistrate:
That time I was laid up at Luke Manning's they sent for Father Heseltine to "read a gospel" over me. He said when he came in, "You'll lose something tonight." I heard him say this, but what he read over me I don't know, it seemed a sort of muttering. At all events I got well after it, and the next morning, a sheep was found dead.
Pat Hayden:
My father was gardener here at Coole in the time of Mr. Robert's grandfather. He was sick one time, and he thought to go to the friars at Esker for a cure, and he asked Mr. Gregory for the loan of a horse, and he bade him to take it. So he saddled and bridled the horse, and he set out one morning and went to the friars, and whatever they did they cured him, and he came back again. But in the morning the horse was found dead in the stable. I suppose whatever they took off him they put upon the horse. And when Mr. Gregory came out in the morning, "How is Pat?" he says[Pg 159] to one of the men. "Pat is well," says he, "but the horse he brought with him is dead in the stable." "So long as Pat is well," said Mr. Gregory, "I wouldn't mind if five horses in the stable were dead."
Mrs. Manning:
There was a friar in Esker could do cures. Many I've seen brought to him tied in a cart, and able to walk home after. Father Callaghan he was. There was one man brought to him, wrong in his head he was, and he cured him and he gave him some sort of a Gospel rolled up, and bid him to put it about his neck, and never to take it off. Well, he went to America after that and was as well as another and got work, and sent home £10 one time to Father Callaghan he was that grateful to him.
But one day in America he was shaving, and whether he cut the string or that he took it off I don't know, but he laid the charm down on a table. And when he looked for it again, if he was to burn the house down he couldn't find it. And it all came back on him again, and he was as bad as he was before.
So the wife wrote home to Father Callaghan, and he sent out another thing of the same sort; and bid him wear it, and from the time he put it on, he got well again. A priest has the power to do cures, but if he does he can keep nothing, one thing will die after another.
Biddy Early could do the same thing, she had to cast the sickness on some other thing—it might be a dog or a goat or a bird.
Priests can do cures if they will, but they are afraid to do them because their stock will die, and because they are afraid of loss in the other world as well as in this. There's a neighbour of your own lost his milch cow the other day for a small one he did,—Father Mulhall that is.
There was Father Rivers was called in to a woman that was bad, between Roxborough and Dunsandle. And he said to the father, "Which would you sooner keep, the wife or the child?" And he said, "Sure I'd sooner have the wife than all the children of the world." So Father Rivers went in and cured her so that she got well, but he put whatever she had on the son, so that he grew up an idiot. Harmless he used to be, not doing much. Well, when he came to twenty years, the mother said, "Come outside into the field, and cut the eyes of a few stone of potatoes for me." But he took up the graip that was at the door and made at her to kill her. And she ran in and shut the door, and then he made for the window and broke it. And at that time Mr. Singleton from Ceramina was passing by, and he stopped and called some men and they took him and took the graip from him, and he was brought away to Ballinasloe Asylum, but he didn't live more than six months after. Waiting all that[Pg 161] time he was to do his revenge, but hadn't the power to do it till the twenty years were up.
There is a man that is living strong and well in the village of Lochlan and that has sixteen or seventeen children, and one time something came on him and he wore away till there was no more strength in him than in that thraneen. And there was an old woman used to be doing cures with herbs, and he sent for her, and she went out into the field and she picked two or three leaves of a plant she knew of. And as she was carrying it through the fields to the house she fell dead.
And his strength came back to him when the death fell on her and he was as well and as strong as ever he was. I will bring you three of those leaves if I have to walk two miles—three-cornered leaves they are (penny royal). No harm will come upon me, for I am nothing but an old hag. Before sunrise they must be picked, and the best day to do it is a Friday.
An Old Army Man:
I knew a man had charms for headache and for toothache and other things, and he did a great many cures, but all his own children began to die. So then he put away the charms, and made a promise not to do cures for others again; and after that he lost no more children.
Priests can do cures as well as Biddy Early did, and there was a man of the neighbours digging[Pg 162] potatoes in that field beyond, and a woman passed by, and she never said anything. And presently the top of his fingers got burned off, and he called out with the pain, a blast he got from her as she passed. Often he'd come into this house, and crying out with the hurt of the pain. And at last he went to the priests at Esker, and they cured him, but they said, "Your own priests could have done the same for you." And when he came back there were two cows dead.
And the same thing when Carey's wife—that is a tenant of your own—was sick, they called in Father Gardiner and he cured her, and he told them to watch by her for two or three days. And then the priest went out to see the stabling, and Carey with him, for Carey had always a pair of good horses. And when they went into the stable, the horses were dead before them.
It was Flaherty gave his life for my sister that was his wife. When she fell sick he brought her to Biddy Early in the mountains beyond. And she cured her the first time. But she said, "If you bring her again, you'll pay the penalty." But when she fell sick again he brought her, but he stopped a mile from the house. But she knew it well, and told the wife where he was, and that time the horse died. But the third time she fell sick he went again, knowing full well he'd pay the penalty; and so he did and died. But she was cured; and married one O'Dea afterwards.
The priests know well about these things, but they won't let on to have seen them, and the people don't much like to be telling them about them. But there was Father Gallagher that did cures by means of them, and at last he got a touch himself, and was sent for a while to an asylum, and now he has promised to leave them alone. Fallen angels some say they are. I know a man that saw them hurling up there in Hanlon's field. Red caps they wore and looked very diminutive, but they were hurling away like Old Boots.
The way the bad luck came on Tom Hurley was when a cow fell sick on him and lay like dead. He had a right to leave it or to kill it; but the father-in-law cut a bit off the leg of it and it rose again, and they sold it for seven pounds at the fair of Tubber. But he had no luck since then, but lost four or five head of cattle, near all that he owned.
There was a man did a cure on his son that came from America sick. He didn't like to see him ailing, and one night he did the cure. But before sunrise the sight of one of his eyes was gone.
A Mountainy Man:
There's some people living about three miles from here on Slieve-Mor, and they came from the North at the time of the famine, and they can do cures, but they don't like to say much about it—for the people of the North all have it. Their[Pg 164] names are natural, McManus, and Irwin and Taylor. There's one of them gave a cure for a man that was sick, and he grew better, but a calf died. And the son was going to him again, but the mother said: "Let him alone, let him die, or we'll lose all the stock"; for she'd sooner have the husband die than any other beast. So the son was out and he met the man, and he said, "It is to me you're coming?" And the son said it was, for he didn't like to tell about what his mother said or about the death of the calf. So the man got him a bottle, and said he'd come home with him, but when they were on the road they met some one that spoke of the death of the calf. So when the man heard that, he was angry and he said, "If I knew that I wouldn't have helped you," and he broke the bottle against the wall. So the father died, and the wife kept the stock—a very unkind woman she was.
There was a woman of my village never put a shoe on her feet from the time of her birth till the time of her death. Doing a penance she said she was. And she never married and would never eat meat.
As to cures, there's none can do them like the priests can, if they will. There was a woman I knew, and her little boy was sick and couldn't move. And she got the priest to come and do a cure on him, but no one knew what he did. And[Pg 165] often he said to the woman: "You have a horse and a pony, and which do you value the most?" And she said she valued the pony the most. And next day the horse had died, but the little boy got well.
A Man of the Islands:
There's an old woman here now—there she is passing the road—that does cures with herbs. But last year she got a sore hand and she had to go to the hospital, and before she came back they took two fingers off her. And there's no luck about bone-setters either. There's one here on the island and a good many go to him. But he had but one son and he never did any good, and now he's gone away from him.
John Curtis:
When Father Callan was a curate he did a cure for me one time for my cattle, and I gave him half a sovereign in his hand for it, in this road. It was the time I had so much trouble, and my brothers trying to rob me, and but for our landlord I wouldn't have kept the farm. And all my stock began to die. There was hardly a day I'd come out but I'd see maybe two or three sheep lying there in the field with froth at their mouths, and they turning black. The same thing was happening Tommy Hare's stock, and he went to Father Callan and he came to the house and read some sort of a Mass and took the sickness off them. So then I went to him myself, and he said he'd read a Mass[Pg 166] in the chapel for me, and so he did. And the stock were all right from that time, and the day he came to see them and that I gave him the money, there ran a dog out of Roche's house and came behind the priest and gave him a bite in the leg, that he had to go to Dublin to cut it out. Why did the dog do it? He did it because he was mad when he saw the stock getting well. And weren't the Roches queer people that they wouldn't kill the dog when the priest wanted it, the way he'd be in no danger if the dog would go mad after?
Pwyll, Prince of Dyved ... let loose the dogs in the wood and sounded the horn and began the chase. And as he followed the dogs he lost his companions; and while he listened to the hounds he heard the cry of other hounds, a cry different from his own, and coming in the opposite direction.... And he saw a horseman coming towards him on a large light-grey steed with a hunting horn round his neck, and clad in garments of grey woollen in the fashion of a hunting garb, and the horseman drew near and spoke to him thus:... "A crowned King I am in the land whence I come.... There is a man whose dominions are opposite to mine, who is ever warring against me, and by ridding me of this oppression which thou can'st easily do, shalt thou gain my friendship." "Gladly will I do this," said he. "Show me how I may." "I will show thee. Behold, thus it is thou mayest. I will send thee to Annwyvn in my stead, and I will give thee the fairest lady thou didst ever behold to be thy companion, and I will put my form and semblance upon thee, so that not a page of the chamber nor an officer nor any other man that[Pg 170] has always followed me shall know that it is not I. And this shall be for the space of a year from tomorrow and then we will meet in this place." ... "Verily," said Pwyll, "what shall I do concerning my kingdom?" Said Arawn: "I will cause that no one in all thy dominions, neither man nor woman, shall know that I am not thou, and I will go there in thy stead."—"The Mabinogion."
I was told by a Man of Slieve Echtge:
That girl of the Cohens that was away seven year, she was bid tell nothing of what she saw, but she told her mother some things and told of some she met there. There was a woman—a cousin of my own—asked was her son over there, and she had to press her a long time, but at last she said he was. And he was taken too with little provocation, fifty years ago. We were working together, myself and him and a lot of others, making that trench you see beyond, to drain the wood. And it was contract work, and he was doing the work of two men and was near ready to take another piece. And some of them began to say to him, "It's a shame for you to be working like that, and taking the bread out of the hands of another," and I standing there. And he said he didn't care, and he took the spade and sent the scraws out flying, to the right and to the left. And he never put a spade into the ground again, for that night he was taken ill, and died shortly after. Watched he was, and taken by them.
As to the woman brought back again, it was told me by a boy going to school there at the[Pg 172] time, so I know there's no lie in it. It was one of the Taylors, a rich family in Scariff. His wife was sick and pining away for seven years, and at the end of that time one day he came in he had a drop of drink taken, and he began to be a bit rough with her. And she said, "Don't be rough with me now, after bearing so well with me all these seven years. But because you were so good and so kind to me all that time," says she, "I'll go away from you now and I'll let your own wife come back to you." And so she did, for it was some old hag she was, and the wife came back again and reared a family. And before she went away, she had a son that was reared a priest, and after she came back, she had another son that was reared a priest, so that shows a blessing came on them. (Note 39.)
A Man on the Beach:
I remember when a great many young girls were taken, it is likely by them. And two year ago two fine young women were brought away from Aranmor one in a month and one in a week after the birth. And lately I heard that her own little girl and another little girl that was with her saw one of them appear in a cabin outside when she came to have a look at the child she left, but she didn't want to appear herself.
John Flatley:
There was a man I knew, Andy White, had a little chap, a little summach of four years. And one[Pg 173] day Andy was away to sell a pig in the market at Mount Bellew, and the mother was away someplace with the dinner for the men in the field, and the little chap was in the house with the grandmother, and he sitting by the fire. And he said to the grandmother: "Put down a skillet of potatoes for me, and an egg." And she said: "I will not; what do you want with them, sure you're not long after eating." And he said, "Take care but I'll throw you over the roof of the house." And then he said, "Andy"—that was his father—"is after selling the pig to a jobber, and the jobber has it given back to him again, and he'll be at no loss by that, for he'll get a half-a-crown more at the end." So when the grandmother heard that she wouldn't stop in the house with him but ran out, and he only four years old.
When the mother came back and was told about it she went out and she got some of the leaves of the Lus-Mor, and she brought them in and put them on him; and he went, and her own child came back again. They didn't see him going or the other coming, but they knew it by him. But if her child had died among them, and they can die there as well as in this world, then he wouldn't come back, but that shape in his place would take the appearance of death.
Mrs. Cooke:
There's a man in Kildare that lost his wife. And every night at twelve o'clock she came back,[Pg 174] to look at her child. And it was told the husband that if he had twelve men with him with forks when she came in, they would be able to stop her from going out again.
So the next night he was there, and with him his twelve friends with forks. And when she came in they shut the door, and when she could not get out she sat down and was quiet.
And one night she was sitting by the hearth with them all, she said to her husband, "It's a strange thing that Lenchar would be sitting there so quiet, with the bottom after being knocked out of his churn."
So the husband went to Lenchar's house, and he found it was true what she had said, and the bottom was after being knocked out of his churn. But after that he left her, and lived in the village and wouldn't go near her any more.
Myself, I saw when I was but a child a woman come to the door that had been seven years with the good people, but do you think that could be true? And she had two strong girls with her. My brother was ill at the time, where he had his hip hurt with the shaft of a cart he was backing into the shed, and my father asked her could she cure him. And she said, "I will, if you will give me the reward I ask for." "What is that?" said he. And she stooped down and pointed at a little kettle that stood below the dresser, and it was the last thing my mother had bought in this world[Pg 175] before she died. So he was vexed because she cast her eye on that, and he bid her go out of the house for she wouldn't get it, and so she went away.
But I remember well her being there and telling us that while the seven years were going by, she was often glad to come outside the houses in the night-time, and pick a bit of what was in the pigs' troughs. And she bid us always to leave a bit somewhere about the house for them that couldn't come in and ask for it. And though my father was a cross man and didn't believe in such things, to the day of his death he never dared to go up to bed without leaving a bit of food outside the door. (Note 40.)
A Herd:
The McGarritys in the house beyond, they have plenty of money. It was money they got out, buried money, and they are after them.
There is one of them—Ned—is rather silly; I meet him often on the farm stretched by the side of the wall. He met with something one night and he is not the same since then.
There is another of them was walking one evening by the brink of the bushes and he met with two fillies—he thought them to be fillies—and one of them called out, "How are you, John?" and he legged it home as fast as he could. It is likely it was the father or the uncle.
Sure leaving town one time he was brought away to the railway station, and some of the people[Pg 176] brought him hither again and set him towards home and he was brought back to the very same place. They had a right to have got the priest to say a few Masses in that house before they went to live in it at all.
It was the time their uncle was dying there was a whistle heard outside and the man in the bed answered it, and it was that very night he died. To keep money you would get out like, that is not right unless you might give the first of it in a few Masses. It was the man the money was took from gave that whistle.
Mrs. Donnely:
My mother told me that when she was a young girl, and before the time of side-cars, a man that was living in Duras married a girl from Ardrahan side. And it was the custom in those days for a newly married girl to ride home on a horse, behind her next-of-kin.
And she was sitting behind her uncle on the horse, and when they were passing by Ardrahan churchyard he felt her to shiver and nearly to slip off the horse, and he put his hand behind for to support her, and all he could feel in his hand was for all the world like a piece of tow. So he asked her what ailed her, and she said that she thought of her mother when she was passing by the churchyard. A year after that when her baby was born, then she died. But everyone said the night she was taken was on her wedding-night.
And sure a sister-in-law of my own was taken the same way that poor Mrs. Hehir was. It was a couple of days after her baby was born, and I went to see her, and she Fardy's daughter and niece to Johnson that has the demesne land. And she was sitting up on the bed and so well and so strong that her mother says to me, "Catherine, try could you get a chicken any place; I think she'll be able to eat it tomorrow." "Chicken's is scarce, ma'am," says I, "but anyway I'll do my best and someway or other I'll find one."
Well, after that we left, and her husband being tired with the nights he'd been sitting up came with us to sleep at the house of his uncle, Johnson. And hardly had he got to the house when bad news followed him. And when he got home his wife was dead before him. Hardly were we out of the house when she said to her mother "Take off my boots." "Sure, you have no boots on," said the mother. "Well," says she, "lay me at the foot of the bed." And presently she says, "Send in to the McInerneys and ask them if the coffin they have is a better one than mine." And the mother saw she was going, and sent for the husband, but she was gone before he could come. And she so well and sitting up in the bed. But Hehir's wife was out of bed altogether, and brought her husband his tea in the hayfield before she was took.
And now I'll tell your ladyship a story that's all truth and no lie. There was an uncle of my own[Pg 178] living near Kinvara, and one night his wife was coming home from Kinvara town, and she passed three men that were lying by the roadside. And the first of them said to her in Irish, "Go home, my poor woman." And the second said, "Go home if you can." And when she got home and told the story, she said the voice of the second was like the voice of her brother that was dead.
And from that day she began to waste away, and was wasting for seven year, until she died. And at the last some person said to her husband, "It's time for you to ask her what way she's been spending these seven years."
So he went into the room where she was on the bed, and said, "I believe it's time to ask you now what way have you been spending these seven years." And she said, "I'll tell you presently when you come in again, but leave me now for a while." And he went back into the kitchen and took his pipe for to have a smoke before he'd go back and ask her again. And the servant girl that was in the house was the first to go into the room, and found her cold and dead before her.
They had her took away before she had the time to tell what she had been doing all those seven years.
J. Kenny:
I was in a house one night with a man used to go away with the faeries. He got up in the night and opened the house door and went out. About[Pg 179] four hours he was away, and when he came back he seemed to be very angry. I saw him putting off his clothes.
Nora Whelan:
Indeed Moneen has a great name for things that do be going on there beside that big forth. Sure there's many can hear them galloping, galloping all the night. You know Stephen's house at the meadow? Well, his daughter got a touch from them one night when she heard them going past with horses and with carriages, and she the only one in the house that felt them. She got silly like for a bit, but she's getting better now.
An old woman from Loughrea told me that a woman, I believe it was from Shragwalla close to the town, was taken away one time for fourteen years when she went out into the field at night with nothing on but her shift. And she was swept there and then, and an old hag put into the bed in her place, and she suckling her young son at the time.
It was a great many years after that, there was a pedlar used to be going about, and in his travels he went to England. And up in the north of England he saw a rich house and went into the kitchen of it, and there he saw that same woman, in a corner working. And he went up to her and said, "I know where you come from." "Where's that?" says she, and he gave her the name of her own village. Well, she laughed and she went out of the kitchen, and I don't know did she buy[Pg 180] anything from him. But anyhow not long after that she come back and walked into her own house.
The husband never knew her, but the boy that was then fourteen year come up and touched her, and the father cried out, "Leave off putting your hand to that fine dress," for she had very rich clothes on. But she stood up and said, "I'm no other than your wife come back again, and the first thing you have to do is to bring in all you can carry of turf, and to make a big fire here in the middle of the floor."
Well, the old hag was in the room within, in the bed where she'd been lying a long time, and they thinking she was dying. And when the smoke of the fire went in at the door she jumps up and away with her out of the house, and tale or tidings of her they never had again.
My mother often told me about her sister's child—my cousin—that used to spend the nights in the big forth at Moneen. Every night she went there, and she got thin and tired like. She used to say that she saw grand things there, and the horses galloping and the riding. But then she'd say, "I must tell no more than that, or I'll get a great beating." She wasted away, but one night they were so sure that she was dead they had the pot boiling full of water to wash her. But she recovered again and lived five years after that.
Sure there was a faery in the house out beyond fourteen years. Katie Morgan she was called. She[Pg 181] never kept the bed, but she'd sit in the corner of the kitchen on a mat, and from a good stout lump of a girl that she was she wasted to nothing, and her teeth grew as long as your fingers and then they dropped out. And she'd eat nothing at all only crabs and sour things. And she'd never leave the house in the day-time, but in the night she'd go out and pick things out of the fields she could eat. And the hurt she got or whatever it was touched her, it was one day that she was swinging on the corner gate just there by the forth. She died as quiet as another. But you wouldn't like to be looking at her after the teeth fell out.
Martin Rabitt:
There's some people it's lucky to meet and others it's unlucky, and if you set off to go to America or around the world, and one of the unlucky ones comes and speaks to you on the boat, you might as well turn back and come home again.
My own sister was taken away, she and her husband within twenty-four hours, and not a thing upon them, and she with a baby a week old. Well, the care of that child fell on me, and sick or sorry it never was but thriving always.
And a friend of mine told me the same thing. His wife was taken away in child-birth—and the five children she left that did be always ailing and sickly—from that day there never was a hap'orth ailed them.
Did the mother come back to care them? Sure[Pg 182] and certain she did, and I'm the one can tell that. For I slept in the room with my sister's child after she dying; and as sure as I stand here talking to you, she was back in the room that night.
Walking towards nightfall myself, I've seen the shadows dancing before me, but I wasn't afeared, no more than I am of you. And I've felt them other times crying and groaning about the house.
As to the faeries, up beyond Ballymore there's a woman that was said to be with them for seven years. But she came back after that and had an impediment in her speech ever since.
Martin King:
There's a little forth on this side of Clough behind Glyn's house, and there was a boy in Clough was said to have passed a night and a day in it. I often saw him, and he was dull looking, but for cleverness there was no one could touch him. I saw a picture of a train he drew one time, with not a bolt nor a ha'porth left out; and whatever he put his hand to he could do it, and he with no more teaching than any other poor boy in the town. I believe that he went to America afterwards.
And I remember a boy was about my own age over at Annagh at the other side of the water, and it's said that he was away for two years. Anyway for all that time he was sick in bed, and no one ever saw bit or sup cross his lips in all that time,[Pg 183] though the food that was left in the room would disappear, whatever happened it. He recovered after and went to America.
There was a girl near taken, in the Prestons' house. I saw her myself in the bed, near gone. But of a sudden she sat up and looked on the floor and began to curse, and then they left her for they can't bear curses. They have the hope of Heaven or they wouldn't leave one on the face of the earth, and they are afraid of God. They'll not do you much harm if you leave them alone; it's best not to speak to them at all if you should meet them. If they bring any one away they'll leave some old good-for-nothing thing in its place, and the same way with a cow or a calf or such things. But a sheep or a lamb it's beyond their power to touch, because of our Lord.
An Old Butcher:
I was born myself by daylight, and my mother often told me that I'd never see anything worse than myself. There's some can see those things and some that can't.
But one time I went up by the parish of Killisheen to look for half-beef, I having at the time a contract for the workhouse. And I went astray on the mountains, and near Killifin I came to a weaver's house and went in. And there was sitting in the corner such a creature as I never saw before, with nothing on him but a shirt, and eyes that[Pg 184] would go through you. And I wouldn't stop in the house but went out again. And the weaver followed me and says he, "Is it afraid of him you are?" "It is," says I. "I thought you would be," says he, "and would you believe that he's my own son, and as fine a young chap as ever you seen until seven year ago when I sent him to Clough on a message, and he fell going over a wall, and it's then he got the touch, and it's like this he's been ever since." "Does he ask to eat much?" says I. "He'd eat the whole world," says he. "Then it's not your son that's in it, you may be sure of that," says I, and I turned and went away and never went back there again.
And it's not many year ago that such a lot of fine women were taken from Clough, very sudden, after childbirth—fine women—I knew them all myself. And I'll tell you a thing I heard of in the country. There was a woman died, and left her child. And every night at twelve o'clock she'd come back, and brought it out of the bed to the fire, and she'd comb it and wash it. And at last six men came and watched and stopped her at the door, and she went very near to tear them all asunder. But they got the priest, and he took it off her. Well, the husband had got another wife, and the priest came and asked him would he put her away, and take the first again. And so he did, and he brought her to the chapel to be married to her again, and the whole congregation saw her there. That was rather hard on the second wife?[Pg 185] Well, but wasn't it a great thing for the first poor creature to be brought back? Sure there's many of those poor souls wandering about.
Sure enough, some are brought away and kept for years, but sometimes they come back again. There was a woman beyond at Cahirmacun was away for a year, and came back and reared a family after. They know well what happened them, but they don't speak of it. There was a young fellow got a touch there near Ballytown, and a little chap met him wandering in the field. And he bid him put out food for him every night, for he had none of their food ate yet, and so they hadn't got full power over him. So food was left for him, and after a time he came back as well as another.
A Connemara man:
There are many that die and don't go out of the world at all. The priests know that. There was a boy dying in a house up the road, and the priest came to him and he was lying as if dead, that he could not speak nor hear, and the priest said, "The boys have a hand in this." He meant by that, the faeries. I was outside the house myself at the time, for the boy was a friend of mine, and I didn't like him to die. And you never saw such a storm as arose when the priest was coming to the house, a storm of wind, and a cloud over the moon. But after a while the boy died, and the storm went down and the moon shone out as bright as before.
There was a man was said to go away of nights with them. When he got the call, away he must go if he liked it or not.
And one day he was out in the bay with some others, and all of a sudden he said, "Let me go home, my horse is like to die." And they wouldn't mind him for a time, but at last they turned and rowed home, and they found his horse that was well when he went out, stretched on the field.
Another time he was with a man that had a grand three-year-old filly and was showing it to him. And he said, "You won't have her long"; and it wasn't long after that she died.
Mrs. Feeney:
There was a man died and his wife died, and an uncle took charge of the children. The man had a shop but the uncle lived a little way from the shop, and he would leave the children alone through the night. There were two men making a journey, and a storm rose up, and they asked could they have a part of the night in the house where the shop was, and the uncle said they could, and he went to his own house.
The men were sitting up by the fire and the children were sleeping at the other side of the room. And one of the men said to the other "God rest the soul of the man that died here. He was a good man." And the other said, "The wife wasn't so good." And just then they heard a noise below, and they saw the wife that had died coming into[Pg 187] the room and she went across and lay down on the bed where the baby was. And the baby that was crying before got quiet then and made no sound at all.
But as to the two men, bad as the storm was outside, they thought better to be out in it than to stop in the room where the woman was, so they went away. It was to quiet the baby she used to come back.
There was an old woman I remember, Mrs. Sheridan, and she had to go with them for two or three hours every night for a while, and she'd make great complaints of the hardship she'd meet with, and how she'd have to spend the night going through little boreens or in the churchyard at Kinvara, or they'd bring her down to the seashore. They often meet with hardships like that, those they bring with them, so it's no wonder they're glad to get back. This world's the best.
There was a woman living over there near Aughsulis, and a few years ago she lost a fine young milch cow, with its first calf. And she and the three boys in the house salted it down and they ate the half of it and they couldn't eat the other half, it was too hard or too tough, and they put it under the dung that was in the yard, the way it would melt into it. And when the springtime came, they turned up the dung, and in the place it was buried they found nothing but three planks[Pg 188] of the wood that's cut in Connemara—deal they call it. So the cow never died, but was brought away with themselves. For many a young boy and young woman goes like that, and there's no doubt at all that Mary Hynes was taken. There's some living yet can remember her coming to the pattern was there beyond, and she was said to be the handsomest girl in Ireland. (Note 41.)
There's a man now living between this place and Kinvara, Fannen his name is, and he goes away with them, and he's got delicate and silly like. One night he was in that bad place that's near the chapel of Kinvara, and he found a great crowd of them about him and a man on a white horse was with them, and tried to keep him, and he cried and struggled and they let him go at last. But now the neighbours all say he does be going with them, and he told me himself he does. I wouldn't be afraid of him when I'd meet him on the road, but many of the neighbours would be afraid.
And two of his sons have got silly. They found a bar of gold one time out playing in the field, and the money they got for it they put it in the bank. But I believe it's getting less now, and what good did it do them when they went like that? One of the boys was to be a priest, but they had to give that up when he got silly. It was no right money. And they'd best not have touched it.
Mrs. Finnegan:
Dreams, we should not pay too much attention to, and we should judge them well, that is, if a dream is bad or good, we should say "It's a good dream"; and we should never tell a dream to anyone fasting; and it's said if you tell your dream to a tree fasting, it will wither up. And it's better to dream of a person's downfall than of him being up. When the good people take a cow or the like, you'll know if they did it by there being no fat on what's left in its place and no eyes in it. When my own springer died so sudden this year, I was afraid to use it. But Pat Hevenor said, "It's a fool you are, and it might save you the price of a bag of meal to feed the bonifs with a bit of it." And he brought the cart and brought it home to me. So I put down a bit to boil for the bonifs to try it, for I heard that if it was their work, it would go to water. But there was fat rising to the top, that I have enough in the shed to grease the cart wheels for a year. So then I salted a bit of it down.
If they take any one with them, yourself or myself it might be, they'll put some old spent man in his place, that they had with them a long time, and the father and the mother and the children will think it is the child or the father or the mother that is in it. And so it may be he'd get absolution. But as for the old faeries that were there from the beginning, I don't know about them. (Note 42.)
It's said that if we know how to be neighbourly with them, they'd be neighbourly and friendly with[Pg 190] us. It's said it was they brought away the potatoes in the bad time, when all the potatoes turned black. But it wasn't for spite, it was because they wanted them themselves.
Mrs. Casey:
There was a woman in Ballinamore died after the baby being born. And the husband took another wife and she very young, that everyone wondered she'd like to go into the house. And every night the first wife came to the loft, and looked down at her baby, and they couldn't see her; but they'd know she was there by the child looking up and smiling at her.
So at last some one said that if they'd go up in the loft after the cock crowing three times they'd see her. And so they did, and there she was, with her own dress on, a plaid shawl she had brought from America, and a cotton skirt with some edging at the bottom.
So they went to the priest, and he said Mass in the house, and they didn't see so much of her after that. But after a year, the new wife had a baby. And one day she bid the first child to rock the cradle. But when she sat down to it, a sort of a sickness came over her, and she could do nothing, and the same thing always happened, for her mother didn't like to see her caring the second wife's baby.
And one day the wife herself fell in the fire and got a great many burns, and they said that it was she did it.
So they went to the blessed well Tubbermacduagh near Kinvara, and they were told to go there every Friday for twelve weeks, and they said seven prayers and gathered seven stones every time. And since then she doesn't come to the house, but the little girl goes out and meets her mother at a faery bush. And sometimes she speaks to her there, and sometimes in her dreams. But no one else but her own little girl has seen her of late.
There was one time a tailor, and he was a wild card, always going to sprees. And one night he was passing by a house, and he heard a voice saying, "Who'll take the child?" And he saw a little baby held out, and the hands that were holding it, but he could see no more than that. So he took it, and he brought it to the next house, and asked the woman there to take it in for the night.
Well, in the morning the woman in the first house found a dead child in the bed beside her. And she was crying and wailing and called all the people. And when the woman from the neighbouring house came, there in her arms was the child she thought was dead. But if it wasn't for the tailor that chanced to be passing by and to take it, we know very well what would have happened it.
That's a thing happens to many, to have faery children put upon them.
A Man at Corcomroe:
There was one Delvin, that lies under a slab yonder, and for seven years he was brought away every night, and into this abbey. And he was beat and pinched, and when he'd come home he'd faint; but he used to say that the place that he went to was grander than any city. One night he was with a lot of others at a wake, and they knew the time was coming for him to go, and they all took hold of him. But he was drawn out of the door, and the arms of those that were holding him were near pulled out of their sockets.
Mischievous they are, but they don't do much harm. Some say they are fallen angels, and hope yet to be saved.
A Slieve Echtge Woman:
I knew another was away for seven years—and it was in the next townland to this she lived. Bridget Clonkelly her name was. There was a large family of them, and she was the youngest, and a very fine-looking fair-haired girl she was. I knew her well, she was the one age with myself.
It was in the night she used to go to them, and if the door was shut, she'd come in by the key-hole. The first time they came for her, she was in bed between her two sisters, and she didn't want to go, And they beat her and pinched her, till her brother called out to know what was the matter.
She often told me about them, and how she was badly treated because she wouldn't eat their food.[Pg 193] She got no more than about three cold potatoes she could eat all the time she was with them.
All the old people about here put out food every night, the first of the food before they have any of it tasted themselves. And she said there was a red-haired girl among them, that would throw her into the river she got so mad with her. But if she'd had their food ate, she'd never have got away from them at all.
She married a serving-man after, and they went to Sydney, and if nothing happened in the last two years they're doing well there now.
Mrs. Casey:
Near my own house by the sea there was a girl went out one day to get nuts near the wood, and she heard music inside the wood. And when she went home she told her mother. But the next day she went again, and the next, and she stopped so long that the mother sent the other little girl to look for her, but she could see no one. But she came in after a time, and she went inside into the room, and while she was there the mother heard music from the room; but when the girl came out she said she heard nothing. But the next day after that she died.
The neighbours all came in to the wake, and there was tobacco and snuff there, but not much, for it's the custom not to have so much when a young person dies. But when they looked at the bed, it was no young person they saw in it, but an[Pg 194] old woman with long teeth that you'd be frightened, and the face wrinkled, and the hands. So they didn't stop but went away, and she was buried the next day. And in the night the mother would hear music all about the house, and lights of all colours flashing about the windows.
She was never seen again except by a boy that was working about the place. He met her one evening at the end of the house, dressed in her own clothes. But he could not question her where she was, for it's only when you meet them by a bush you can question them there.
A Man of Slieve Echtge:
There was a man, and he a cousin of my own, lost his wife. And one night he heard her come into the room, where he was in bed with the child beside him, and he let on to be asleep, and she took the child and brought her out to the kitchen fire and sat down beside it and suckled it.
And then she put it back into the bed again, and he lay still and said nothing. The second night she came again, and he had more courage and he said, "Why have you got no boots on?" For he saw that her feet were bare. And she said, "Because there's iron nails in them." So he said, "Give them to me," and he got up and drew all the nails out of them, and she brought them away.
The third night she came again, and when she was suckling the child he saw that she was still barefoot, and he asked why didn't she wear the[Pg 195] boots. "Because," says she, "you left one sprig in them, between the upper and the lower sole, But if you have courage," says she, "you can do more than that for me. Come tomorrow night to the gap up there beyond the hill, and you'll see the riders going through, and the one you'll see on the last horse will be me. And bring with you some fowl droppings and urine, and throw them at me as I pass, and you'll get me again." Well he got so far as to go to the gap, and to bring what she told him, and when they came riding through the gap, he saw her on the last horse, but his courage failed him, and he let it drop, and he never got the chance to see her again.
Why she wanted the nails out of her boots? Because it's well known they will have nothing to do with iron. And I remember when every child would have an old horse nail hung round its neck with a bit of straw, but I don't see it done now.
There was another man though, one of the family of the Coneys beyond there, and his wife was away from him four years. And after that he put out the old hag was in her place, and got his wife back and reared children after that, and one of them was trained a priest.
There was a drunken man in Scariff, and one night he had drink taken he couldn't get home, and fell asleep by the roadside near the bridge. And in the night he awoke and heard them at work with[Pg 196] cars and horses. And one said to another, "This work is too heavy, we'll take the white horse belonging to so and so"—giving the name of a rich man in the town. So as soon as it was light he went to this man, and told him what he had heard them say. But he would only laugh at him and say, "I'll pay no attention to what a drunkard dreams." But when he went out after to the stable, his white horse was gone.
That's easy understood. They are shadows, and how could a shadow move anything? But they have power over mankind that they can bring them away to do their work.
There was a woman used to go out among them at night, and she said to her sister, "I'll be out on a white horse and I'll stop and knock at your door," and so she would do sometimes.
And one day there was a man asked her for a debt she owed, and she said, "I have no money now." But then she put her hand behind her and brought it back filled with gold. And then she rubbed it in her hand, and when she opened the hand there was nothing in it but dried cow-dung. And she said, "I could give you that but it would be no use to you."
An Old Woman Talking of Cruachmaa:
I remember my father being there, and telling me of a girl that was away for seven years,[Pg 197] and all thought she was dead. And at the end of the seven years she walked back one day into her father's house, and she all black-looking. And she said she was married there and had two children, but they died and then she was driven away. And she stopped on at her father's house, but the neighbours used to say there was never a day but she'd go up the hill and be there crying for one or two hours.
An Old Woman who only Speaks Irish:
I remember a young man coming to the island fourteen years ago that had never been in it before and that knew everything that was in it, and could tell you as much as to the stones of the chimney in every house. And after a few days he was gone and never came again, for they brought him about to every part. But I saw him and spoke to him myself.
Mr. Sullivan:
There was a man had buried his wife, and she left three children. And then he took a second wife, and she did away with the children, hurried them off to America, and the like. But the first wife used to be seen up in the loft, and she making a plan of revenge against the other wife.
The second one had one son and three daughters; and one day the son was out digging the field, and presently he went into what is called a faery hole. And there was a woman came before him, and,[Pg 198] says she, "what are you doing here trespassing on my ground?" And with that she took a stone and hit him in the head, and he died with the blow of the stone she gave him. And all the people said it was by the faeries he was taken.
Peter Henderson:
There was a first cousin of mine used sometimes to go out the house, that none would see him going, And one night his brother followed him, and he went down a path to the sea, and then he went into a hole in the rocks, that the smallest dog wouldn't go into. And the brother took hold of his feet and drew him out again. He went to America after that, and is living there now; and sometimes in his room they'll see him kicking and laughing as if some were with him.
One night when some of the neighbours from these islands were with him, he told them he'd been back to Inishmaan, and told all that was going on. And some would not believe him. And he said, "You'll believe me next time." So the next night he told them again he had been there, and he brought out of his pocket a couple of boiled potatoes and a bit of fish and showed them, so then they all believed it.
An Old Man from the State of Maine says, hearing
this:
I knew him in America, and he used often to visit this island, and would know about all of them were[Pg 199] living, and would bring us word of them, and all he'd tell us would turn out right. He's living yet in America.
An Aran Woman:
There was a woman in Killinny was dying, and it was she used to be minding the Lodge over there, and when she was near death her own little girl went out, and she saw her standing, and a black-haired woman with her. And she came back and said to her father "Don't be fretting, my mother's not there in the bed, I saw her up by the Lodge and a black woman with her, that took her in with her." And there was a man from Arklow there, and he said, "That's not your wife at all that's in the bed—that's not Maggie Mulkair. That is a black woman and Maggie Mulkair is red-haired." And the husband looked in the bed, and so it wasn't Maggie Mulkair that was in it, but at that minute she died. It's well known they bring back the old to put in the place of the young.
There was a girl in the County Clare, and she went to get married, and she and the husband were riding back on the one horse and it slipped and fell. And when she got to the house, she sat quiet and not a word out of her. And everybody said she used to be a pleasant, jolly girl, but this was like an old woman.
And she sat there by the hob for three days and she didn't turn her face to the people. But the[Pg 200] husband said, "Let her alone, maybe she's shy yet." But his mother got angry at last and she said, "I'd sooner be rubbing stones on the clothes than watching an idle woman." And she went out to the flax and she said to the girl, "You'd best get the dinner ready before the men come in." But when she came in there was nothing done; and she gave her a blow with some pieces of the flax that were in her hand, and said, "Get out of this for a good-for-nothing woman!" And with that she went up the chimney and was gone. And the mother got the dinner ready, and then she went out, not knowing in the world how to tell the husband what she had done. But when she got to the field where they were working, there was the girl walking down the hill, and she took the two hands of the mother and said, "It's well for me you hadn't patience to last two days more or I'd never have got back, but I never touched any of the food while I was with them."
Mrs. Casey:
There was a girl one time, and a boy wanted to marry her, but the father and mother wouldn't let her have him, for he had no money. And he died, and they made a match for her with another. And one day she was out going to her cousins' house, and he came before her and put out his hand and said, "You promised yourself to me, and come with me now." And she ran, and when she got to the house she fell on the floor. And the[Pg 201] cousins thought she had taken a drop of drink, and they began to scold her.
Another day after that she was walking with her husband and her brother, and a little white dog with them, and they came to a little lake. And he appeared to her again, and the husband and the brother didn't see him, but the dog flew at him, and began barking at him and he was hitting at the dog with a stick, and all the time trying to get hold of the girl's hand. And the husband and the brother wondered what the dog was barking at and why it drew down to the lake in the end, and out into the water. For it was into it that he was wanting to draw the girl.
It's a strange thing that you'll see a man in his coffin and buried; and maybe a fortnight after, the neighbours will tell you they saw him walking about. There was one Flaherty lived up at Johnny Reed's and he died. And a few days later Johnny Reed's sister and another woman went out with baskets of turnips to the field where the sheep were, to throw them out for them. And when they got to the field they could see Flaherty walking, just in the same clothes he had before he died, long skirts and a jacket, and frieze trousers. So they left the turnips and came away.
There was a man up there near Loughrea, one of the Mahers, was away for seven years. In the[Pg 202] night he'd be taken, and sometimes in the daytime when he was in the bed sick, that's the time he'd be along with them; riding out and going out across the bay, going as fast as the wind in the sky. Did he like to be with them? Not at all, he'd sooner be at home; and it is bad for the health too to be going out these rough nights. There were three men near him that had horses, Daniel O'Dea and Farragher and Flynn, and he told them they should sell their horses. And Daniel O'Dea and Farragher sold theirs, but the other man wouldn't mind him. And after a few days his horse died. Of course they had been with him at night riding their own horses, and that's how he knew what would happen and gave the warning.
The Spinning Woman:
There was a man got married, and he began to pine away, and after a few weeks the mother asked him what ailed him. And he opened his coat and showed her his breast inside, that it was all torn and bloody. And he said: "That's the way I am; and that's what she does to me in the nights." So the mother brought her out and bid her to pick the green flax, and she was against touching it, but the mother made her. And no sooner had she touched three blades of it but she said, "I'm gone now," and away with her. And when they went back to the room they found the daughter lying in a deep sleep, where she had just been put back.
An Old Woman at Kinvara:
There was a woman put in her coffin for dead, but a man that was passing by knew that she wasn't dead, and he brought her away and married her and lived with her for seven years, and had seven children by her. And one day he brought her to a fair near the place she came from, and the people that saw her said: "If that woman that died ever had a sister, that would be her sister." So he let it out to them then about her. But his mother always minded her, that she wouldn't wet her hands. But one day the mother was hurried, and the woman made a cake. And after making it she washed her hands, and with that they had her again and she went from the husband and from her children.
A Herd:
One time I was tending this farm for Flaherty, and I came in late one evening after being out with cattle, and I sent my wife for an ounce of tobacco, and I stopped in the house with the child. And after a time I heard the rattle of the door, and the wife came in half out of her mind. She said she was walking the road and she met four men, and she knew that they were not of this world, and she fell on the road with the fright she got, but she thought one of them was her brother, and he put his hand under her head when she fell, so that she got no hurt. And for a long time after she wasn't in her right mind, and she'd bring the child out in[Pg 204] the field, to see her brother. And at last I brought her to the priest, and when we were on the way there she called out that those fields of stones were full of them, and they all dressed in tall hats and black coats. But the priest read something over her and she's been free from them since then.
There were three women died within a year, one here, John Harragher's wife, and two at Inishmaan. And the year after they were all seen together, riding on white horses at the other side of the island.
There were two young women lived over in that village you see there, and they were not good friends, for they were in two public houses. And one of them died in January, after her baby being born. Some said it was because of her mother or the nurse giving her strong tea, but it wasn't that, it was because her time had come. And when the other woman heard it she said to her husband, "Give me the concertina, and I'll play till you dance for joy that Mrs. Considine is gone." But in April her own child was born, and though the doctor tried to save her he couldn't and she died.
And since then they're often seen to appear walking together. People wonder to see them together, and they not friends while they lived. But it's bad to give way to temper, and who is nearer to us than a neighbour?
A Young Woman:
I know a girl that lost her mother soon after she was born. And surely the mother came back to her every night and suckled her, for she'd lie as quiet as could be, without a bottle or a hap'orth and they'd hear her sucking. And one night the grandmother felt her daughter that was gone lying in the clothes, and made a grab at her, but she was gone. Maybe she'd have kept her if she'd taken her time, for there's charms to bring such back. But the little girl grew, that she was never the same in the morning that she was the night before, and there's no finer girl in the island now. I call to my own mother sometimes when things go wrong with me, and I think I'm always the better of it. And I often say those that are gone are troubled with those they leave behind. But God have mercy on all the mothers of the world!
Mrs. Maher:
There was a woman with her husband passing by Esserkelly, and she had left her child at home. And a man came and called her in, and promised to leave her on the road where she was before. So she went, and there was a baby in the place she was brought to, and they asked her to suckle it. And when she had come out again she said, "One question I'll ask. What were those two old women sitting by the fire?" And the man said, "We took the child today, and we'll have the mother tonight and one of them will be put in her place, and the[Pg 206] other in the place of some other person." And then he left her where she was before.
But there's no harm in them, no harm at all.
Tom Hislop:
Scully told me he was by the hedge up there by Ballinamantane one evening and a blast came, and as it passed he heard something crying, crying, and he knew by the sound that it was a child that they were carrying away.
And a woman brought in at Esserkelly heard a baby crying and a woman singing to it not to fret, for such a woman would die that night or the next and would come to mind her. And the very next night the woman she heard the name of died in childbirth.
At Aughanish there were two couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the new-married women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the island. And a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some blessed Aves that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.
Peter Hanrahan:
No, I never went to Biddy Early. What would they want with the like of me? It's the good and the pious they come for.
I remember fourteen years ago how eleven[Pg 207] women were taken in childbirth from this parish. But as to the old, what business would they have with them? They'd be nothing but a bother to them. There was a woman living by the road that goes to Scahanagh, and one day a carriage stopped at her door, and a grand lady came out of it, and asked would she come and give the breast to her child, and she said she couldn't leave her own children. But the lady said no harm would happen her, and brought her away to a big house, but when she got there she wouldn't stop, but went home again. And in the morning the woman's cow was dead. And the husband that had a card for carding flax looked through it; and in the place of the cow, there was nothing but an old man.
And there was a man and a girl that gave one another a hard promise he never to marry any other woman, and she never to marry any other man. But he broke his promise and married another. And the girl died, and one night he saw a sort of a shadow coming across the grass, and she spoke to him, and it was the girl he had promised to marry, and she kept him in talk till midnight. And she came every night after that, and would stop till midnight, and he began to waste away and to get thin, and his wife asked him what was on him, and she picked out of him what it was. And after that the girl asked him to come and save her, and she would be on the second first[Pg 208] horse going through a gap. And he went, and when he got there his courage failed, and he did nothing to save her, but after that he never saw her again.
Mrs. Roche:
There was a woman used to go away with them, and they'd leave her at the doorstep in the morning, and she wouldn't be the better for a long time of all she'd gone through. She got out of it after, and was a fine woman when I knew her.
My mother told me of a woman that used to go with them, and one night they were passing by a house, and there was no clean water in it, and it was readied up. And they said, "We'll have the blood of the man of the house." And there was a big pot of broth on the fire for the morning, for the poor people had no tea in those days; and the woman said, "Won't broth do you?" And they took the broth. And in the morning early, the woman after she was left back went to the house, and there was the woman of the house getting ready the broth, for it looked just like it did before. And she said, "Throw it out before you lose your husband." For she knew that the first that would taste it would die, and that it's to the man of the house that the first share is always given.
My mother was always wanting to call one of her children Pat, the name of her own father, but[Pg 209] my father always made her give them some different name. But when one of the youngest was born he said, "Give him what name you like." So they gave him the name of her father; and he was like the apple of her eye, she was so fond of him. But a sickness came on him and he wasted away, and she went to a strange forge and brought forge water away, for she wouldn't take it from our own forge, and gave him a drink of it. And I saw her and I said to her, "I'll tell my father you're giving forge water to Paddy." And she said, "If you do I'll kill you," so I said nothing. And she gave him a second drink of it and not a third, for he was gone before he could get it. If it had been her own child, it would have saved him, but she told me after she knew it was another, his kneecaps were so big and other parts of his body.
There was another little one she lost. She was sitting one time nursing it outside the door, and a lady and a gentleman came up the road, and the lady said, "Who are you nursing the child for?" And she said, "For no one in the world but God and myself." And then the lady and the gentleman were gone and no sign of them, though it was a straight road, you know that long straight road in Galway that goes by Prospect, and it wasn't many days after that when the child got ill, and in a few days it was dead. And when it was lying there stretched out on two chairs, the lady came in again and looked at it and said, "What a pity!" And then she said, "It's gone to a better place."[Pg 210] "I hope it may be so," said my mother, stiff like that; and she went away.
I was delicate one time myself, and I lost my walk, and one of the neighbours told my mother it wasn't myself that was there. But my mother said she'd soon find that out, for she'd tell me that she was going to get a herb that would cure me, and if it was myself I'd want it, but if I was another I'd be against it. So she came in and she said to me, "I'm going to Dangan to look for the lus-mor, that will soon cure you." And from that day I gave her no peace till she'd go to Dangan and get it; so she knew that I was all right. She told me all this afterwards.
M. Cushin:
It is about the forths they are, not about the churchyards. The Amadán is the worst of them all.
They say people are brought away by them. I knew a girl one time near Ballyvaughan was said to be with them for nine months. She never eat anything all that time, but the food used to go all the same.
There was a man called Hession died at that time and after the funeral she began to laugh, and they asked her what was she laughing at, and she said, "You would all be laughing yourselves if you could open the coffin and see what it is you were carrying in it." The priest heard of her saying that and he was vexed.
Did they open the coffin? They did not, where would be the use, for whatever was in it would be in the shape of some person, young or old. They would see nothing by looking at that.
There was a woman near Feakle, Mrs. Colman, brought away for seven years; she was the priest's sister. But she came back to her husband after, and she cured till the day of her death came every kind of sores, just putting her hand on them and saying, "In the Name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
There was a man in Gort was brought for a time to Tir-ran-og, that is a part of heaven.
A North Galway Woman:
There was a woman died near this after her baby being born, and there was only the father to mind it. And a girl of the neighbours that came in to watch it one night said that surely she saw the mother come back to it, and stoop down to the cradle and give it the breast. And anyway she grew and throve better than any other child around. And there was a woman died near Monivea, and sometimes in the daytime they'd see her in the garden combing the children's hair.
There was a Connemara man digging potatoes in that field beyond, and he told us that back in Connemara there was a woman died, and a few nights after she came back and the husband saw[Pg 212] her. And she said, "Let you not put a hand on me yourself, but I'll come back tomorrow night and others with me, and let me not cross the threshold when we are going out, but let your brother be there that has the strength of six men in him, and let him hold me." And so they did, and she reared four children after.
There was a woman died two houses from this, and it wasn't many days after she being buried the woman in the next house, Sibby her name is, came in here in the morning, and she told me she saw her coming in here the night before. And the sweat was on Sibby's face and she said, "God knows I am speaking the truth. Why would I put a lie on that poor woman?" And why would she indeed?
And she said that in the night when she was in her bed, and two or three children along with her, the woman that had died came beside the bed and called her, and then she went out and said, "I'll come again and I'll bring my company with me."
And so she did, for she came back and her company with her, and they with umbrellas and hats in their hands, dressed grand, just now like the servants at Newtown. And she stooped over the bed again, and she said, "It was through Thomas I was lost." For there was one of her sons was called Thomas, and coming home one day he got a little turn of his foot, that the mother was doing what she could for with herbs and the like for a[Pg 213] long time, so that he got well all but a little limp. So that's why she said that it was through Thomas she was lost. And she said, "There'll be a station at Athenry on such a day, and send three of the children"—and she named the three—"to do it for me." And so they did, and she was seen no more. And I'm sure it was no lie Sibby was telling. And she told the priest about what she saw and all he said was, "Well, if you saw that you're happy."
There was a woman died, and every night she'd come back and bring the baby to the fire, and dress it and suckle it. And the brother got to speak with her one night, and she said, "Oh why wasn't I put in the coffin with my own dress on that I was wearing? It's ashamed I was to go into such a crowd and such a congregation with nothing about me but a white sheet. And if it wasn't that I saw a boy of the neighbours among them that I knew before, I would have been very lonely."
There were two boys that were comrades, and if you'd see Dermot you'd say, "Where is Pat?" And if you'd see Pat you'd say, "Where is Dermot?" And one of them died, and everybody wondered at the comrade not being all the day to the corpse-house. And when he came in the evening he took a pinch of snuff, and he held it to the nose of the boy that was laid out on the table and he saw it sniff a little. So he made up the fire and he called another boy, and they laid the body down[Pg 214] behind the fire; and if they did away with it, the boy himself came walking in at the door.
There was a girl I heard of brought away among them—and there was the finest of eating to be had. But there's always a friend in such places, and she got warning not to eat a bit of the food without she'd get salt with it. So when they put her down to eat, she asked a grain of salt, but not a grain was to be had. So she would eat nothing. But I believe they did away with her after.
John Phelan:
Mike Folan was here the other day telling us newses, and he told the strangest thing ever I heard—that happened to his own first cousin. She died and was buried, and a year after, her husband was sitting by the fire, and she came back and walked in. He gave a start, but she said, "Have no fear of me, I was never in the coffin and never buried, but I was kept away for the year." So he took her again and they reared four children after that. She was Mike Folan's own first cousin and he saw the four children himself.
An Old Army Man:
My family were of the Glynns of Athenry. I had an aunt that married a man of the name of Roche, and their child was taken. So they brought it to the Lady Well near Athenry, where[Pg 215] there's patterns every fifteenth of August, to duck it. And such a ducking they gave it that it walked away on crutches, and it swearing. And their own child they got back again, but he didn't live long after that.
There was a man I know, that was my comrade often, used to be taken away for nights, and he'd speak of the journeys he had with them. And he got severe treatment and didn't want to go, but they'd bring him by force. He recovered after, and joined the army, and I was never so surprised as I was the day he walked in when I was in India.
Mrs. Brown:
There was a woman in Tuam, Mrs. Shannon knew her well, was said to be away for seven years. And she was always sitting in the corner by the fire, not speaking, but a kind of a sound like moaning she'd make to herself; and they'd always bring her her dinner over in the corner, and if any one came in to see her—and many came hearing she was away—she'd draw the shawl over her face. And at the end of the seventh year she began to get a little life and strength coming in to her, and within a week she was strong and well, and lived a good many years after. And it's not long since some one that had a falling out with her daughters said to them, "It's well known your mother was away in Cruachmaa." And the poor girls when they heard that said cried a great deal.
Mrs. Casey:
Some people from Lismara I was talking to told me there was a girl the mother thought to be away, and she'd go out in the evening. And the mother followed her one time, and after she went a bit into the fields she saw her with an old woman very strangely dressed, with a white cap with an edging, and a green shawl and a black apron and a red petticoat. And the woman was smoking, and she gave the girl a smoke of the pipe. And the mother went home, and by and by the girl came in, and she smelling of tobacco. And the mother asked where was she? And she said, in some neighbour's house; and the mother knew she wasn't there, but that she was going with the faeries. And two or three days after that, they had her taken altogether; and the clergy that attended her said it was some old hag that was put in her place.
Mrs. Oliver:
There was Farly Folan's wife going, going, and all the night they thought that she was at the last puff. But the minute the cock crew, she sat up straight and strong. "I had a hard fight for it," she said, "but care me well now ye have me back again." And she lived a bit, but not long, after that.
That child of the Latteys that is silly, she was walking about today shaking hands with everyone that would come into the house. And the reason she's like that is, when she was born the[Pg 217] breath had left her and the mother began to cry and to scream and to roar, and then the breath came back. She had a right to have let her go and not to have brought her back.
There's a girl of Fardy Folan's is said to be away. Anyway she's a fool, and a blow from her would kill you, it is always like that with a fool. And it was her mother I told you of that was as they thought gone, and that sat up again and said, "Take care of me now, I had a hard fight for it." But indeed she didn't live long after that.
Mrs. Feeney:
When one is taken, the body is taken as well as the spirit, and some good-for-nothing thing left in its place. What they take them for is to work for them, and to do things they can't do themselves. You might notice it's always the good they take. That's why when we see a child good for nothing we say, "Ah, you little faery."
There was a man lost his wife and a hag was put in her place, and she came back and told him to come out at night where she'd be riding with the rest, and to throw something belonging to her after her—he'd know her by her being on a white horse. And so he did and got her back again. And when they were going home he said, "I'll have the life of that old hag that was put in your place." But when they got to the house, she was out of it before him, and was never heard of again.
There was a man telling me it was in a house where the woman was after a youngster, and she died, that is, we'll call it died, but she was taken, that the husband saw her coming back to give the breast to the child and to wash it. And the second night he got hold of her and held her until morning, and when the cock crowed she sat down again and stayed; they had no more power over her.
Surely some go among them for seven years. There was Kitty Hayes lived at Kilcloud, for seven years she had everything she could want, and music and dancing could be heard around her house every night, and all she did prospered; but she ate no food all that time, only she took a drink of the milk after the butter being churned. But at the end of the seven years all left her, and she was glad at the last to get Indian meal.
There was a man driving cattle from Craughwell to Athenry for a fair. And it was before sunrise and dark, and presently he saw a light by the side of the road, and he was glad of it, for he had no matches and he wanted to light his pipe to smoke it. So he turned aside, and there were some people sitting there, and they brought him in, through a sort of a door and asked him to sit down. And so he did, and he saw that they were all strangers, not one he knew among them. And there was a fire and they put food and drink on the table, and asked him what would he have. And there opposite[Pg 219] him he saw his own cows that were brought in too, and he knew that he was in a faery place. But in all these places there's always one well-wisher, so while he was sitting there, an old woman came to him and whispered in his ear, "Don't for your life eat a bit or drink a drop of what they give you, or you'll never go away again." So he would take nothing. If it hadn't been for the old woman, he might have taken something, just not to vex them. And at sunrise they let him out, and he was on the road again and his cattle before him.
Well, when he was coming back from the fair, there were two men with him, and he pointed them out the place where all this happened, for when three persons are together, there's no fear of anything and they can say what they like. And the others told him it was a faery place and many strange things had happened there. And they told him how there was a woman had a baby lived close by there, and before it was a week old her husband had to leave her because of his brother having died. And no sooner was she left alone than she was taken, and they sent for the priest to say Mass in the house, but she was calling out every sort of thing they couldn't understand, and within a few days she was dead.
And after death the corpse began to change, and first it looked like an old woman, and then like an old man, and they had to bury it the next day. And before a week was over she began to appear. They always appear when they leave a child like[Pg 220] that. And surely she was taken to nurse the faery children, just like poor Mrs. Raynor was last year.
There's a well near Kinvara, Tubbermacduagh it's called, and it's all hung with rags, and piles of seven stones about it, for it's a great place to bring children to, to get them back when they've been changed by the faeries. Nine days they should be going to it, and saying prayers each day. And you'll see the child that's coming back will be like itself one day and like an old person another day and sometimes it will feel a picking, picking at it and it in its mother's arms. McCullagh's daughter that was taken is often to be seen there.
When any one is taken something is put in their place—even when a cow or the like goes. There was one of the Simons used to be going about the country skinning cattle and killing them, even for the country people if they were sick. One day he was skinning a cow that was after dying by the roadside, and another man with him. And Simon said, "It's a pity he can't sell this meat to some butcher, he might get something for it." But the other man made a ring of his fingers like this, and looked through it and then bade Simon to look, and what he saw was an old piper; and when he thought he was skinning the cow, what he was doing was cutting off his leather breeches. So it's very dangerous to eat beef you buy from any of[Pg 221] those sort of common butchers. You don't know what might have been put in its place.
A Man at Corcomroe:
There was Shane Rua that was away every night for seven years. He told his brother-in-law that told me that in that hill behind the abbey there is the most splendid town that was ever seen. Often he was in it, and ought not to have been talking about it, but he said he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of it, he didn't care what they did to him. But he fainted that night they took him from the wake, and you know what a strong man Peter Nestor was, and he couldn't hold him.
Buried he is now beside that wall.
Cloran the plumber's mother was taken away, it's always said. The way it's known is, it was not long after her baby was born but she was doing well. And one morning very early a man and his wife were going in a cart to Loughrea one Thursday for the market, and they met some of those people and they asked the woman that had her own child with her, would she give a drink to their child that was with them, and while she was doing it they said, "We won't be in want of a nurse tonight, we'll have Mrs. Cloran of Cloon." And when they got back in the evening, Mrs. Cloran was dead before them.
They said it of Glynn's wife last year. And[Pg 222] anyway, her mother was taken in the same way before her.
There was a boy I know lived between our house and Clough, and his hand was lame all his life from a burn he got when he was a child. And one evening in winter he walked out of the house and was never heard of or seen again, or any account of him. And it was not the time of year to go look for work, and anyway, he could never make a living with his lame hand.
Mrs. Casey:
My sister told me that near Tyrone or Cloughballymore there was a man walking home one night late, and he had to pass by a smith's forge where one Kinealy used to work. And when he came near, he heard the noise of the anvil, and he wondered Kinealy would be working so late in the night. But when he went in he saw that they were strange men that were in it. So he asked them the time, and they told him, and he said, "I won't be home this long time yet." And one of the men said, "You'll be home sooner than what you think." And another said, "There's a man on a grey horse gone the road, you'll get a lift from him." And he wondered that they'd know the road he was going to his home. But sure enough as he was walking he came up with a man on a grey horse, and he gave him a lift. But when he got home his wife saw that he looked strange-like, and she asked what[Pg 223] ailed him, and he told her all that happened. And when she looked at him she saw that he was taken. So he went into the bed, and the next evening he was dead. And all the people that came in knew by the appearance of the corpse that it was an old man had been put in his place, and that he was taken when he got on the grey horse. For there's something not right about a grey horse or a white horse, or about a red-haired woman.
There was a girl buried in Kilisheen, one of the Shaws, and when she was laid out on the bed a woman that went in to look at her saw that she opened her eyes, and made a sort of a face at her. But she said nothing, but sat down by the hearth. But another woman came in after that and the same thing happened, and she told the mother, and she began to cry and to roar that they'd say such a thing of her poor little girl. But it wasn't the little girl that was in it at all but some old person. And the man that nailed down the coffin left the nails loose, and when they came to Kilisheen churchyard he looked in, and not one thing was inside it but the sheet and a bundle of shavings.
There was a man lived beyond on the Kinvara road, and his child died and he buried it. But he was passing the place after, and he asked a light for his pipe in some house, and after lighting it he threw the sod, and it glowing, just where he buried the child, and what do you think but it came back[Pg 224] to him again, and he brought it to its mother. For they can't bear fire.
There was a tailor working in a house one time, and the woman of the house was near wore out with a baby that was always petting and crying for the breast-milk and never quiet, and he as thin as the tongs. Well, one day she made a big fire, and went out for a can of water to put in the pot. And the tailor had taken notice of the child and knew he was a lad. So no sooner was the woman gone than he took hold of him and said, "I know well what you are, and I'll put you at the back of the fire unless you'll give me a tune." So when he felt the fire he said he would; and where did he bring his bagpipes from but down from the rafters, and played them till the woman came back again. So when she had the fire well settled up round the pot, he told her what the child was that had her wore out screeching for the breast. And he made as though to put him on the fire. And with that it made one leap and was out of the door, and brought the bagpipes with it and was never seen again. Aren't they the schemers now to do such things as that?
Honor Whelan:
There is a boy now of the Egans, but I wouldn't for the world let them think I spoke of him, but it's two years since he came from America. And since that time he never went to Mass or to church or to[Pg 225] market or to stand on the cross-roads or to the hurling or to nothing. And if any one comes into the house, it's into the room he'll slip not to see them. And as to work, he has the garden dug to bits, and the whole place smeared with cow-dung, and such a crop as was never seen, and the alders all plaited that they look grand.
One day he went as far as Castle Daly church, but as soon as he got to the door he turned straight round again as if he hadn't power to pass it. I wonder he wouldn't get the priest to read a Mass for him or some such thing. But the crop he has is grand, and you may know well that he has some that help him.
There was a boy in the bed for seven years, and when the seven years were at an end there was a tailor working in the house, and he kept his eye on him, and sat working where he could see into the room. And so all of a sudden he got up, and walked out into the kitchen and called to his mother for his breeches. For it was himself come back again.
There was a man used to disappear every night, and no one knew where he went. But one morning a boy that was up saw him on the side of the mountain beyond, putting on his boots. So then it was known he had been at these hurlings.
There was a sister of my own went away among[Pg 226] them in a trance. She went to America after, but didn't live long.
Mrs. Hayden of Slieve Echtge:
There was a woman one time travelling here with my sister from Loughrea, and she had her child in the cart with her. And as they went along the road, a man came out of a sort of a hollow with bushes beside the road, and he asked the woman to come along with him for a minute. And she reddened, but my sister bid her go, and so she went. And the man brought her into a house, and there lying on a bed was a baby, and she understood she was to give suck to it and so she did, and came away; and when she was away out, she saw that the man that brought her was her brother that was dead, and that is the reason she was chosen.
There was another woman, my husband knew her, was taken and an old hag put in her place, that keeps to her bed all the time. And when the seven years were at an end, she got restless like, for they must change every seven years.
So she told the husband the way he should redeem his wife, and where he'd see her with the riders if he'd go out to some place at night. And so he did, and threw what he had at her and she sitting on a horse behind a young man. And when they came home, the old hag was gone. She said the young man was very kind to her and had never done anything to offend her. And she had two[Pg 227] or three children and left them behind. But for all that she was glad to come back to her own house. When children are left like that, the mother being brought back again, it's then they want a nurse for them, to give them milk and to attend them.
I know a man was away among them. Every night he would be taken and his wife got used to it after some time; at first she didn't like him to be taken out of the bed beside her. And in harvest, to see that man reap—he'd reap three times as much as any other help he had—of course that's well known.
One Dempsey:
There was a girl at Inniskill in the east of the country, of the same name as my own, was lying on a mat for eight years. When she first got the touch the mother was sick, and there was no room in the bed, so they laid a mat on the floor for her, and she never left it for the eight years; but the mother died soon after.
She never got off the mat for any one to see. But one night there was a working-man came to the house, and they gave him lodging for the night, and he watched from the other room, and in the night he saw the outer door open, and three or four boys come in, and a piper with them or a fiddler—I'm not sure which—and he played to them and they danced, and the girl got up off the[Pg 228] mat and joined them. And in the morning when he was sitting at breakfast he looked over to her where she was lying and said, "You were the best dancer among them last night."
There was a priest came when she had been about two years lying there and said something should be done for her, and he came to the house and read Masses, and then he took her by the hand and bid her stand up. But she snatched the hand away and said, "Get away you devil." At last Father Lahiff came to Inniskill, and he came and whatever he did, he drove away what was there, and brought the girl back again, and since then she walks and does the work of the house as well as another. And Father Lahiff said in the Chapel it was a shame for no priest to have done that for her before.
(Later.)
Sibby Dempsey of my own name that lives in the next house to me is away still. Every time I go back she can tell me if anything happened me, and where I was or what I did. And more than that, she can tell the future and what will happen you. But there's not many like to go to her, for the priest is against her, and if he'd hear you went to her house he'd be speaking against you at the altar on Sundays. But she has a good many cured. Some she cured that were going to be brought to the asylum in Ballinasloe. By charms she does it, wherever she gathers herbs, she that never left the[Pg 229] bed these ten years. Twenty years she was when she got the touch, and it's on her ten years now.
There was a woman had a little girl, and her side got paralysed that she couldn't stir, and she went to the priest, Father Dwyer—he's dead since. For the priests can do all cures, but they wouldn't like to be doing them, to bring themselves into danger. And she asked him to do a cure on the little girl, but what he said was, "Do you ask me to take God's own mercy from Himself?" So when she heard that, she went away, and she went to Sibby Dempsey. And she is the best writer that ever you saw, and she got a pen and wrote some words on a bit of paper, and gave them to the old woman to put on the little girl's arm, and so she did, and on the moment she was cured.
We don't talk much to her now, we don't care to meddle much with those that have been brought back, so we keep out of her way. She'll most likely go to America.
To bring any one back from being in the faeries you should get the leaves of the lus-mor and give them to him to drink. And if he only got a little touch from them and had some complaint in him at the same time, that makes him sick-like, that will bring him back. But if he is altogether in the faeries, then it won't bring him back, for he'll know what it is and he'll refuse to drink it.
In a trance the soul goes from the body, but to[Pg 230] be among the Sheogue the body is taken and something left in its place.
(Later.)
That girl I was telling you about in my own village, Sibby Dempsey, I had a letter about her the other day when I was in Cashel, and she that had been in her bed seventeen years is walking out and going to Mass, a nice respectable woman. They told me no more than that in the letter, but Tom Carden the policeman that had been there for his holiday told that there had come a wandering woman—one of her own sort, it's likely—to the house one night, and asked a lodging in the name of God. Sibby called out, and asked Maggie, the girl, who was that? And the woman stopped the night, and whatever they did was between themselves, and in the morning the wandering woman went away, and Sibby got up out of the bed, that she never had left for seventeen years. Now she never was there all that time in my belief, for if it was an oak stick was lying there through all those years wouldn't it be rotten? It is in the faeries she was, and it not herself used to be in it in the night-time. (Note 43.)
(Later.) Sibby Dempsey is getting ready now for her wedding. She is all right now; she has gone through her years.
But what do you say to what happened her father shortly after she being brought back? His[Pg 231] horse fell with him coming home one evening and both his legs were broke, and the horse was killed. That is the revenge they took for the girl being taken away from them.
One Lanigan:
My own mother was away for twenty-one years, and at the end of every seven years she thought it would be off her, but she never could leave the bed. She could not sit up and make a little shirt or such a thing for us. It was of the fever she died at last.
The way she got the touch was one day after we left the place we used to be in. And we got our choice place in the estate, and my father chose Cahirbohil, but a great number of the neighbours went to Moneen. And one day a woman that had been our neighbour came over from Moneen, and my mother showed her everything and told her of her way of living. And she walked a bit of the way with her, and when they were parting the woman said, "You'll soon be the same as such a one," and as she turned away she felt a pain in her hand. And from that day she lost her health. My father went to Biddy Early, but she said it was too late, she could do nothing, but she would take nothing from him.
There was a man out at Roxborough, Colevin was his name, was known to be away with them. And one day there were a lot of the people footing turf, and a blast of wind came and passed by.[Pg 232] And after it passed a joking fellow that was among them called out, "Is Colevin with you?" And the blast turned and knocked an eye out of him, that he never had the sight of it again.
J. Joyce:
There was a little chap I used to go to school with was away. He was in bed for three or four years, and then he could only walk on two sticks, till one day his father was going into Clough and he wanted to go, and the father said, "They'll be laughing at you going on your two sticks." So then he said, "Well, I'll go on one," and threw one away and after that he got rid of the other as well—and got all right. He never would tell anything about where he was, but if any one asked him he'd begin to cry. He was very smart at his books, and very handy, so that when he got well he got a good offer of work and went to America.
An Islander:
There was a girl on the middle island used to be away every night, and they never missed her, for there was something left in her place, but she got thin in the face and wasted away. She told the priest at last, and he bid her go and live in some other place, and she went to America, and there she is still. And she told them after, it was a comrade she had among them used to call her and to bring her about to every place, and that if she took a bit of potato off the skib in the house, it[Pg 233] might be on Black Head she'd be eating it. And to parties the other girl would bring her, and she'd be sitting on her lap at them.
But those that are brought away would be glad to be back. It's a poor thing to go there after this life. Heaven is the best place, Heaven and this world we're in now.
A Man whose Son is Said to be Away:
I don't know what's wrong with my son unless that he's a real regular Pagan. He lies in the bed the most of the day and he won't go out till evening and he won't go to Mass. And he has a memory for everything he ever heard or read. I never knew the like. Most people forget what they read in a book within one year after.
A Travelling Man:
A man I met in America told me that one time before they left this country they were working in a field. And in the next field but one they saw a little funeral, a very little one, and it passed into a forth. And there was a child sick in the house near by; and that evening she died. But they had her taken away in the daytime.
Mr. Feeney:
It's a saying that the Sheogue take away the blackberries in the month of November; anyway we know that when the potatoes are taken it's[Pg 234] by the gentry, and surely this year they have put their fancy on them.
I know the brothers of a man that was away for seven years, and he was none the better for it and had no riches after. It was in that place beyond—where you'd see nothing but hills and hollows—but when he was brought in, he saw what was like a gentleman's avenue, and it leading to a grand house. He didn't mind being among them, when once he got used to it and was one of the force. Of course they wouldn't like you to touch a bush that would belong to them. They might want it for shelter; or it might only be because it belongs to them that they wouldn't like it touched.
There was one of the Readys, John, was away for seven years lying in the bed, but brought away at nights. And he knew everything. And one Kearney up in the mountains, a cousin of his own, lost two hoggets and came and told him. And he saw the very spot where they were and bid him to bring them back again. But they were vexed at that and took away the power, so that he never knew anything again, no more than another.
Surely I believe that any woman taken in childbirth is taken among them. For I knew of a woman that died some years ago and left her young child. And the woman that was put to look after it neglected it. And one night the two doors were blown open, and a blast of wind came in and[Pg 235] struck her, and she never was the better of it after.
A Herd:
There was a house I stopped in one night near Tallaght where I was going for a fair, and there was a sick girl in the house, and she lying in a corner near the fire.
And some time after, I was told that no one could do anything for her, but that one evening a labouring man that was passing came in and asked a night's lodging. And he was sitting by the fire on a stool and the girl behind him.
And every now and again when no one was looking he'd take a coal of fire and throw it under the stool on to where she was lying till he had her tormented. And in the morning there was the girl lying, and her face all torn and scarred. And he said, "It's not you that was in it these last few months." And she said, "No, but I wouldn't be in it now but for you. And see how the old hag that was in it treated me, she was so mad with the treatment that you gave her last night."
There was one Cronan on the road to Galway, I knew him well, was away with them seven years. It was at night he used to be brought away, and when they called him, go he should. They'd leave some sort of a likeness of him in his place. He had a wart on his back, and his wife would rub her hand down to feel was the wart there, before[Pg 236] she'd know was it himself was in it or not. He told some of the way he used to be brought riding about at night, and that he was often in that castle below at Ballinamantane. And he saw then a great many of his friends that were dead.
And Mrs. Kelly asked him did ever he see her son Jimmy that died amongst them. And he told her he did, and that mostly all the people that he knew, that had died out of the village, were amongst them now.
Himself and his pony would go up to the sky.
And if his wife had a clutch of geese, they'd be ten times better than any other ones, and the wheat and the stock and all they had was better and more plentiful than what any one else had. Help he got from them of course. And at last the wife got the priest in to read a Mass and to take it off him. But after that all that they had went to flitters.
A Hillside Woman:
Surely there are many taken; my own sister that lived in the house beyond, and her husband and her three children, all in one year. Strong they were and handsome and good—the best—and that's the sort that are taken. They got in the priest when first it came on the husband, and soon after a fine cow died and a calf. But he didn't begrudge that if he'd get his health, but it didn't save him after. Sure Father Andrews in Kilbrennan said not long ago in the chapel that no one had gone to heaven for the last ten years.
But whatever life God has granted them, when it's at an end go they must, whether they're among them or not. And they'd sooner be among them than to go to Purgatory.
There was a little one of my own taken. Till he was a year old he was the stoutest and the best and the finest of all my children, and then he began to pine till he wasn't thicker than that straw; but he lived for about four years.
How did it come on him? I know that well. He was the grandest ever you saw, and I proud of him, and I brought him to a ball in this house and he was able to drink punch. And I was stopped one day at a house beyond, and a neighbouring woman came in with her child and she says, "If he's not the stoutest he's the longest," and she took off her apron and the string to measure them both. I had no right to let her do that but I thought no harm at the time. But it was from that night he began to screech and from that time he did no good. He'd get stronger through the winter, and about the Pentecost, in the month of May, he'd always fall back again, for that's the time they're at the worst.
I didn't have the priest in. It does them no good, but harm, to have a priest take notice of them when they're like that.
It was in the month of May at the Pentecost he went at last. He was always pining, but I didn't think he'd go so soon. At the end of the bed he was lying with the others, and he called to me and[Pg 238] put up his arms. But I didn't want to take too much notice of him or to have him always after me, so I only put down my foot to where he was. And he began to pick straws out of the bed and to throw them over the little sister beside him, till he had thrown as much as would thatch a goose. And when I got up, there he was dead, and the little sister asleep beside him all covered with straws.
Mrs. Madden:
There were three women living at Ballinakill—Mary Grady, the mother, and Mary Flanagan the daughter, and Ellen Lydon that was a by-child of hers; and they had a little dog called Floss that was like a child to them. And the grandmother went first and then the little dog, and then Mary Flanagan within a half year. And there was a boy wanted to marry Ellen Lydon that was left alone. But his father and mother wouldn't have her, because of her being a by-child. And the priest wouldn't marry them not to give offence. So it wasn't long before she was taken too, and those that saw her after death knew that it was the mother that was there in place of her. And when the priest was called the day before she died he said, "She's gone since twelve o'clock this morning, and she'll die between the two Masses tomorrow," for it was Father Hubert, that had understanding of these things. And so she did.
There was a man had a son, and he was lying in the bed a long time. And one day, the day of the races, he asked the father and mother were they going to them, and they said they were not. "Well," says he, "I'll show you as good sport as if you went."
And he had a dog, and he called to it and said something to it, and it began to make a run and to gallop and to jump backwards and forwards over the half-door, for there was a very high half-door to the house. "So now," says he, "didn't you see as good sport as if you were in the Newtown race-course?"
There was my own uncle that lived where the shoemaker's shop is now, and two of his children were brought away from him. And the third he was determined he'd keep, and he put it to sleep between the wife and himself in the bed. And one night a hand came at the window and tried to take the child, and he knew who the hand belonged to, and he saw it was a woman of the village that was dead. So he drove her away and held the child, and he was never troubled again after that.
H. Henty:
There was an old man on the road one night near Burren and he heard a cry in the air over his head, the cry of a child that was being carried away.[Pg 240] And he called out some words and the child was let down into his arms and he brought it home. And when he got there he was told that it was dead. So he brought in the live child, and you may be sure that it was some sort of a thing that was good for nothing that was put in its place.
It's the good and the handsome they take, and those that are of use, or whose name is up for some good action. Idlers they don't like, but who would like idlers?
There is a forth away in County Clare, and they say it's so long that it has no end. And there was a pensioner, one Gavornan, came back from the army, and a soldier has more courage than another, and he said he'd go try what was in it, and he got two other men to go with him, and they went a long, long way, and saw nothing. And then they came to where there was the sound of a woman beetling. And then they began to meet people they knew before, that had died out of the village, and they all told them to go back, but still they went on.
And then they met the parish priest of Ballyvaughan, Father Cregan that was dead. And he told them to go back and so they turned and went. They were just beginning to come to the grandeur when they were turned away. Those that are brought away among them never come back, or if they do they're not the same as they were before.
Honor Whelan:
There was a woman beyond at Ardrahan died, and she came back one night and her husband saw her at the dresser, looking for something to eat. And she slipped away from him that time, but the next time she came he got hold of her, and she bid him come for her to the fair at some place, and watch for her at the Customs' gap and she'd be on the last horse that would pass through. And then she said, "It's best for you not come yourself but send your brother." So the brother came and she dropped down to him and he brought her to his house. But in a week after he was dead and buried. And she lived a long time, and never would speak three words to any one that would come into the house, but working, working all the day. I wouldn't have liked to live in the house with her after her being away like that. I don't think the old go among them when they die, but believe me, it's not many of the young they spare, but bring them away till such time as God sends for them. It's about fourteen years since so many young women were brought away after their child being born—Peter Roche's wife, and James Shannan's wife, and Clancy's wife of Lisdaragh—hundreds were carried off in that year—they didn't bring so many since then. I suppose they brought enough then to last them a good time.
All go among them when they die except the old people. And it's better to be there than in the pains of Purgatory. As to Purgatory, I don't[Pg 242] think it is after being with them we have to go there. But I know we're told to give some clothing to the poor, and it will be thrown down afterwards to quench the flames for us.
A Policeman's Wife:
There was a girl in County Clare was away, and the mother used to hear horses coming about the door every night. And one day the mother was picking flax in the house, and of a sudden there came in her hand an herb with the best smell and the sweetest that ever was smelt (Note 44). And she closed it with her hand, and called to the son that was making up a stack of hay outside "Come in, Denis, for I have the best smelling herb that ever you saw." And when he came in she opened her hand, and the herb was gone clear and clean. She got annoyed at last with the horses coming about the door, and some told her to gather all the fire into the middle of the floor and to lay the little girl upon it, and to see could she come back again. So she did as she was told, and brought the little girl out of the bed and laid her on the coals. And she began to scream and to call out, and the neighbours came running in, and the police heard of it, and they came and arrested the mother and brought her to the Court-house before the magistrate, Mr. MacWalter, and my own husband was one of the police that arrested her. And when the magistrate heard all, he said she was an ignorant woman, and that she did what she thought right,[Pg 243] and he would give her no punishment. And the girl got well and was married. It was after she was married I knew her.
An Old Woman at Chiswick:
There was a woman went to live in a house where the faeries were known to be very much about. And the first day she was there one of them came in and asked her for the loan of a pot, and she gave it. And the next day she came in again and asked for the loan of some meal, and when she got it the woman said, "I hope you'll find it to be fine enough." "It is," she said, "and to show you I think it fine and good, I'll mix it here and boil the stirabout and we'll eat it together." And so they did. And she said "We'll always be your friends; and what you may miss in the morning, never grudge it, for you'll have more than what you lost before night." And her tribe was going away, and when she was going out the door, she made a hole with her heel in the stone, and she filled it up with mud and earth, and she said "If we die or if anything happens to us, blood will come in this hole and fill it."
There was a girl used to be away with them, you'd never know when it was she herself that was in it or not till she'd come back, and then she'd tell she had been away. She didn't like to go, but she had to go when they called to her. And she told her mother always to treat kindly whoever[Pg 244] was put in her place, sometimes one would be put, and sometimes another, for she'd say "If you are unkind to whoever's there, they'll be unkind to me."
Three of my uncles were taken by them, young men; some sort of a little cold they got between them, and there wasn't more than two months before the first of them going and the last. They were seen after by a man that lived in the house between there and the school, and that used often to see them, and to bring them in to dinner with him.
Ireland was not separated from general European speculation when much of that was concerned with the supernatural. Dr. Adam Clarke tells in his unfinished autobiography how, when he was at school in Antrim towards the end of the eighteenth century, a schoolfellow told him of Cornelius Agrippa's book on Magic and that it had to be chained or it would fly away of itself. Presently he heard of a farmer who had a copy and after that made friends with a wandering tinker who had another. Lady Gregory and I spoke of a friend's visions to an old countryman. He said "he must belong to a society"; and the people often attribute magical powers to Orangemen and to Freemasons, and I have heard a shepherd at Doneraile speak of a magic wand with Tetragramaton Agla written upon it. The visions and speculations of Ireland differ much from those of England and France, for[Pg 248] in Ireland, as in Highland Scotland, we are never far from the old Celtic mythology; but there is more likeness than difference. Lady Gregory's story of the witch who in semblance of a hare, leads the hounds such a dance, is the best remembered of all witch stories. It is told, I should imagine, in every countryside where there is even a fading memory of witchcraft. One finds it in a sworn testimony given at the trial of Julian Cox, an old woman indicted for witchcraft at Taunton in Somersetshire in 1663 and quoted by Joseph Glanvill. "The first witness was a huntsman, who swore that he went out with a pack of hounds to hunt a hare, and not far from Julian Cox her house he at last started a hare: the dogs hunted her very close, and the third ring hunted her in view, till at last the huntsman perceiving the hare almost spent and making towards a great bush, he ran on the other side of the bush to take her up and preserve her from the dogs; but as soon as he laid hands on her, it proved to be Julian Cox, who had her head grovelling on the ground, and her globes (as he expressed it) upward. He knowing her, was so affrighted that his hair on his head stood an end; and yet spake to her, and ask'd her what brought her there; but she was so far out of breath that she could not make him any answer; his dogs also came up full cry to recover the game, and smelled at her and so left off hunting any further. And the huntsman with his dogs went home presently sadly affrighted." Dr. Henry[Pg 249] More, the Platonist, who considers the story in a letter to Glanvill, explains that Julian Cox was not turned into a hare, but that "Ludicrous Dæmons exhibited to the sight of this huntsman and his dogs, the shape of a hare, one of them turning himself into such a form, another hurrying on the body of Julian near the same place," making her invisible till the right moment had come. "As I have heard of some painters that have drawn the sky in a huge landscape, so lively, that the birds have flown against it, thinking it free air, and so have fallen down. And if painters and jugglers, by the tricks of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of the sight, it is no wonder that these aerie invisible spirits have far surpassed them in all such prestigious doings, as the air surpasses the earth for subtlety." Glanvill has given his own explanation of such cases elsewhere. He thinks that the sidereal or airy body is the foundation of the marvel, and Albert de Rochas has found a like foundation for the marvels of spiritism. "The transformation of witches," writes Glanvill, "into the shapes of other animals ... is very conceivable; since then, 'tis easy enough to imagine, that the power of imagination may form those passive and pliable vehicles into those shapes," and then goes on to account for the stories where an injury, say to the witch hare, is found afterwards upon the witch's body precisely as a French hypnotist would account for the stigmata of a saint. "When they feel the hurts[Pg 250] in their gross bodies, that they receive in their airy vehicles, they must be supposed to have been really present, at least in these latter; and 'tis no more difficult to apprehend, how the hurts of those should be translated upon their other bodies, than how diseases should be inflicted by the imagination, or how the fancy of the mother should wound the fœtus, as several credible relations do attest."
All magical or Platonic writers of the times speak much of the transformation or projection of the sidereal body of witch or wizard. Once the soul escapes from the natural body, though but for a moment, it passes into the body of air and can transform itself as it please or even dream itself into some shape it has not willed.
One of their favourite stories is of some famous man, John Haydon says Socrates, falling asleep among his friends, who presently see a mouse running from his mouth and towards a little stream. Somebody lays a sword across the stream that it may pass, and after a little while it returns across the sword and to the sleeper's mouth again. When he awakes he tells them that he has dreamed of himself crossing a wide river by a great iron bridge.
But the witch's wandering and disguised double was not the worst shape one might meet in the fields or roads about a witch's house. She was[Pg 251] not a true witch unless there was a compact (or so it seems) between her and an evil spirit who called himself the devil, though Bodin believes that he was often, and Glanvill always, "some human soul forsaken of God," for "the devil is a body politic." The ghost or devil promised revenge on her enemies and that she would never want, and she upon her side let the devil suck her blood nightly or at need.
When Elizabeth Style made a confession of witchcraft before the Justice of Somerset in 1664, the Justice appointed three men, William Thick and William Read and Nicholas Lambert, to watch her, and Glanvill publishes an affidavit of the evidence of Nicholas Lambert. "About three of the clock in the morning there came from her head a glistering bright fly, about an inch in length which pitched at first in the chimney and then vanished." Then two smaller flies came and vanished. "He, looking steadfastly then on Style, perceived her countenance to change, and to become very black and ghastly and the fire also at the same time changing its colour; whereupon the Examinant, Thick and Read, conceiving that her familiar was then about her, looked to her poll, and seeing her hair shake very strangely, took it up and then a fly like a great miller flew out from the place and pitched on the table board and then vanished away. Upon this the Examinant and the other two persons, looking again in Style's poll, found it very red and like raw beef. The Examinant[Pg 252] ask'd her what it was that went out of her poll, she said it was a butterfly, and asked them why they had not caught it. Lambert said, they could not. I think so too, answered she. A little while after, the informant and the others, looking again into her poll, found the place to be of its former colour. The Examinant asked again what the fly was, she confessed it was her familiar and that she felt it tickle in her poll, and that was the usual time for her familiar to come to her." These sucking devils alike when at their meal, or when they went here and there to do her will or about their own business, had the shapes of pole-cat or cat or greyhound or of some moth or bird. At the trials of certain witches in Essex in 1645 reported in the English state trials a principal witness was one "Matthew Hopkins, gent." Bishop Hutchinson, writing in 1730, describes him as he appeared to those who laughed at witchcraft and had brought the witch trials to an end. "Hopkins went on searching and swimming poor creatures, till some gentlemen, out of indignation of the barbarity, took him, and tied his own thumbs and toes as he used to tie others, and when he was put into the water he himself swam as they did. That cleared the country of him and it was a great pity that they did not think of the experiment sooner." Floating when thrown into the water was taken for a sign of witchcraft. Matthew Hopkins's testimony, however, is uncommonly like that of the countryman who told Lady Gregory that he had seen his[Pg 253] dog and some shadow fighting. A certain Mrs. Edwards of Manintree in Essex had her hogs killed by witchcraft, and "going from the house of the said Mrs. Edwards to his own house, about nine or ten of the clock that night, with his greyhound with him, he saw the greyhound suddenly give a jump, and run as she had been in full course after a hare; and that when this informant made haste to see what his greyhound so eagerly pursued, he espied a white thing, about the bigness of a kitlyn, and the greyhound standing aloof from it; and that by and by the said white imp or kitlyn danced about the greyhound, and by all likelihood bit off a piece of the flesh of the shoulder of the said greyhound; for the greyhound came shrieking and crying to the informant, with a piece of flesh torn from her shoulder. And the informant further saith, that coming into his own yard that night, he espied a black thing proportioned like a cat, only it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry bed, and fixing the eyes on this informant, and when he went towards it, it leaped over the pale towards this informant, as he thought, but ran through the yard, with his greyhound after it, to a great gate, which was underset with a pair of tumble strings, and did throw the said gate wide open, and then vanished; and the said greyhound returned again to this informant, shaking and trembling exceedingly." At the same trial Sir Thomas Bowes, Knight, affirmed "that a very honest man of Manintree, whom he knew would not speak an[Pg 254] untruth, affirmed unto him, that very early one morning, as he passed by the said Anne West's door" (this is the witch on trial) "about four o'clock, it being a moonlight night, and perceiving her door to be open so early in the morning, looked into the house and presently there came three or four little things, in the shape of black rabbits, leaping and skipping about him, who, having a good stick in his hand, struck at them, thinking to kill them, but could not; but at last caught one of them in his hand, and holding it by the body of it, he beat the head of it against his stick, intending to beat out the brains of it; but when he could not kill it that way, he took the body of it in one hand and the head of it in another, and endeavoured to wring off the head; and as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of wool; yet he would not give over his intended purpose, but knowing of a spring not far off, he went to drown it; but still as he went he fell down and could not go, but down he fell again, so that he at last crept upon his hands and knees till he came at the water, and holding it fast in his hand, he put his hand down into the water up to the elbow, and held it under water a good space till he conceived it was drowned, and then letting go his hand, it sprung out of the water up into the air, and so vanished away." However, the sucking imps were not always invulnerable for Glanvill tells how one John Monpesson, whose house was haunted by such a[Pg 255] familiar, "seeing some wood move that was in the chimney of a room, where he was, as if of itself, discharged a pistol into it after which they found several drops of blood on the hearth and in divers places of the stairs." I remember the old Aran man who heard fighting in the air and found blood in a fish-box and scattered through the room, and I remember the measure of blood Odysseus poured out for the shades.
The English witch trials are like the popular poetry of England, matter-of-fact and unimaginative. The witch desires to kill some one and when she takes the devil for her husband he as likely as not will seem dull and domestic. Rebecca West told Matthew Hopkins that the devil appeared to her as she was going to bed and told her he would marry her. He kissed her but was as cold as clay, and he promised to be "her loving husband till death," although she had, as it seems, but one leg. But the Scotch trials are as wild and passionate as is the Scottish poetry, and we find ourselves in the presence of a mythology that differs little, if at all, from that of Ireland. There are orgies of lust and of hatred and there is a wild shamelessness that would be fine material for poets and romance writers if the world should come once more to half-believe the tale. They are divided into troops of thirteen, with the youngest witch for leader in every troop, and though they complain that the embraces of the devil are as cold as ice, the young witches prefer him to their[Pg 256] husbands. He gives them money, but they must spend it quickly, for it will be but dry cow dung in two circles of the clock. They go often to Elfhame or Faeryland and the mountains open before them and as they go out and in they are terrified by the "rowtling and skoylling" of the great "elf bulls." They sometimes confess to trooping in the shape of cats and to finding upon their terrestrial bodies when they awake in the morning the scratches they had made upon one another in the night's wandering, or should they have wandered in the images of hares the bites of dogs. Isobell Godie who was tried at Lochlay in 1662 confessed that "We put besoms in our beds with our husbands till we return again to them ... and then we would fly away where we would be, even as straws would fly upon a highway. We will fly like straws when we please; wild straws and corn straws will be horses to us, and we put them betwixt our feet and say horse and hillock in the devil's name. And when any see these straws in a whirlwind and do not sanctify themselves, we may shoot them dead at our pleasure."[1] When they kill people, she goes on to say, the souls escape them "but their bodies remain with us and will fly as horses to us all as small as straws." It is plain that it is the "airy body" they take possession of; those "animal spirits" perhaps which Henry More thought to be the link between[Pg 257] soul and body and the seat of all vital function. The trials were more unjust than those of England, where there was a continual criticism from sceptics; torture was used again and again to distort confessions, and innocent people certainly suffered; some who had but believed too much in their own dreams and some who had but cured the sick at some vision's prompting. Alison Pearson who was burnt in 1588 might have been Biddy Early or any other knowledgeable woman in Ireland today. She was convicted "for haunting and repairing with the Good Neighbours and queen of Elfhame, these divers years and bypast, as she had confessed in her depositions, declaring that she could not say readily how long she was with them; and that she had friends in that court who were of her own blood and who had great acquaintance of the queen of Elfhame. That when she went to bed she never knew where she would be carried before dawn." When they worked cures they had the same doctrine of the penalty that one finds in Lady Gregory's stories. One who made her confession before James I. was convicted for "taking the sick party's pains and sicknesses upon herself for a time and then translating them to a third person."
There are more women than men mediums today; and there have been or seem to have been[Pg 258] more witches than wizards. The wizards of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries relied more upon their conjuring book than the witches whose visions and experiences seem but half voluntary, and when voluntary called up by some childish rhyme:
More often than not the wizards were learned men, alchemists or mystics, and if they dealt with the devil at times, or some spirit they called by that name, they had amongst them ascetics and heretical saints. Our chemistry, our metallurgy, and our medicine are often but accidents that befell in their pursuit of the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life. They were bound together in secret societies and had, it may be, some forgotten practice for liberating the soul from the body and sending it to fetch and carry them divine knowledge. Cornelius Agrippa in a letter quoted by Beaumont has hints of such a practice. Yet, like the witches, they worked many wonders by the power of the imagination, perhaps one should say by their power of calling up vivid pictures in the mind's eye. The Arabian philosophers have taught, writes Beaumont, "that the soul by the power of the imagination can perform what it pleases; as penetrate the heavens, force[Pg 259] the elements, demolish mountains, raise valleys to mountains, and do with all material forms as it pleases."
One has not as careful a record as one has of the works of witches, for but few English wizards came before the court, the only society for psychical research in those days. The translation, however, of Cornelius Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia in the seventeenth century, with the addition of a spurious fourth book full of conjurations, seems to have filled England and Ireland with whole or half wizards. In 1703, the Reverend Arthur Bedford of Bristol who is quoted by Sibley in his big book on astrology wrote to the Bishop of Gloucester telling how a certain Thomas Perks had been to consult him. Thomas Perks lived with his father, a gunsmith, and devoted his leisure to mathematics, astronomy, and the discovery[Pg 260] of perpetual motion. One day he asked the clergyman if it was wrong to commune with spirits, and said that he himself held that "there was an innocent society with them which a man might use, if he made no compacts with them, did no harm by their means, and were not curious in prying into hidden things, and he himself had discoursed with them and heard them sing to his great satisfaction." He then told how it was his custom to go to a crossway with lantern and candle consecrated for the purpose, according to the directions in a book he had, and having also consecrated chalk for making a circle. The spirits appeared to him "in the likeness of little maidens about a foot and a half high ... they spoke with a very shrill voice like an ancient woman" and when he begged them to sing, "they went to some distance behind a bush from whence he could hear a perfect concert of such exquisite music as he never before heard; and in the upper part he heard something very harsh and shrill like a reed but as it was managed did give a particular grace to the rest." The Reverend Arthur Bedford refused an introduction to the spirits for himself and a friend and warned him very solemnly. Having some doubt of his sanity, he set him a difficult mathematical problem, but finding that he worked it easily, concluded him sane. A quarter of a year later, the young man came again, but showed by his face and his eyes that he was very ill and lamented that he had[Pg 261] not followed the clergyman's advice for his conjurations would bring him to his death. He had decided to get a familiar and had read in his magical book what he should do. He was to make a book of virgin parchment, consecrate it, and bring it to the cross-road, and having called up his spirits, ask the first of them for its name and write that name on the first page of the book and then question another and write that name on the second page and so on till he had enough familiars. He had got the first name easily enough and it was in Hebrew, but after that they came in fearful shapes, lions and bears and the like, or hurled at him balls of fire. He had to stay there among those terrifying visions till the dawn broke and would not be the better of it till he died. I have read in some eighteenth-century book whose name I cannot recall of two men who made a magic circle and who invoked the spirits of the moon and saw them trampling about the circle as great bulls, or rolling about it as flocks of wool. One of Lady Gregory's story-tellers considered a flock of wool one of the worst shapes that a spirit could take.
There must have been many like experimenters in Ireland. An Irish alchemist called Butler was supposed to have made successful transmutations in London early in the eighteenth century, and in the Life of Dr. Adam Clarke, published in 1833, are several letters from a Dublin maker of stained glass describing a transmutation and a conjuration into a tumbler of water of large lizards. The[Pg 262] alchemist was an unknown man who had called to see him and claimed to do all by the help of the devil "who was the friend of all ingenious gentlemen."
W. B. Y.
1914.
Note 1. The Faery People. The first detailed account of the Faery People of the Gaelic race was made by the Reverend Robert Kirk in 1691. His book which remained in manuscript till it was discovered by Sir Walter Scott in 1815 was called The Secret Commonwealth, an essay "of the nature of the subterranean (and for the most part invisible people) heretofore going under the names of elves, fays, and faeries." Kirk was a Gaelic scholar, a translator into Gaelic of the Psalms. He is described upon his tomb as Lignæ hibernæ lumen, for in his day little distinction was made between the Irish and the Scottish-Irish among whom he lived and whose words he has recorded. He died a year after he had finished his manuscript or, as the people of his parish say, was taken by the faeries. The Reverend William Taylor, the present incumbent of Abberfoyle, Kirk's old living, told Mr. Wentz that it was generally believed at the time of Kirk's death, that the faeries had carried him off because he had looked too deeply into their secrets. He seems to have fainted while walking upon a faery knoll, a little way from his own door, and to have died immediately. Mr. Wentz found one old Gaelic speaker who believed that his spirit had been taken, but others who said there was nothing in the grave but a coffin full of stones, for body and soul had been taken. Mr. Lang prints a tradition that Kirk appeared to his cousin Graham of Ducray and could have been saved if the cousin had dared to throw a knife over the apparition's head.
Kirk describes "the subterranean people" or "the abstruse people," as he sometimes calls them, much as they are described today in Galway or in Mayo. He is clear that they are not demons and like Father Sinistrari, a Catholic theologian of Padua, quotes the Scriptures in support of this opinion. The "abstruse people" are not indeed, without sin though midway[Pg 266] between men and angels, but being in no way "drenched into so gross and dredgy bodies as we, are especially given to the more spiritual and haughty sins." "Whatever their own laws, be sure according to ours and equity natural civil and revealed" they do wrong by "their stealing of nurses to their children and that other sort of Plaginism in catching our children away (may seem to heir some estate in those invisible dominions) which never return. For the inconvenience of their succubi who tryst with men it is abominable, but for swearing and intemperance they are not observed so subject to this irregularity as to envy, spite, hypocrisy, lying, and simulation." Some have thought the spirit controls of our best mediums no better. "They are not subject to sore sickness, but dwindle and decay at a certain period all about ane age" and "they pass after a long healthy life into one orb and receptacle fitted to their degree till they come under the general cognism at the last day." They are the "Sleagh Math or the good people" being called so by the "Irish" ... "to prevent the dint of their ill-attempts" and being "of a middle nature betwixt man and angel" have "intelligent, studious spirits, and light changeable bodies (like those called astral) somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud and best seen in twilight. Their bodies are so pliable through the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure. Some have bodies or vehicles so spongeous, thin, and desiccate, that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquors that pierce like pure air and oil; others feed more gross on the foisone or substance of corns and liquors or corn itself that grows upon the surface of the earth which these faeries steal away, partly invisible, partly preying on the grain as do crows and mice." Lady Gregory has a story of the crying of new dropped lambs of faery in November and some evidence that there is a reversal of the seasons, our winter being their summer, and some such belief was known to Kirk for "when we have plenty they have scarcity at their homes; and on the contrary (for they are empowered to catch as much prey everywhere as they please)." "Their bodies of congealed air are sometimes carried aloft, other whiles grovel in different shapes and enter into any cranny or cleft of the earth where air enters to their ordinary dwellings, the earth being full of cavities and cells and there being no place nor creature but is supposed to have other animals greater or lesser, living in or upon it as inhabitants, and no such[Pg 267] thing as a pure wilderness in the whole universe" and we must always "labour for that abstruse people as well as for ourselves." Unless Kirk is in error, as seems probable, they are unlike the Irish faeries who shift but twice a year in May and in November, when the ancient Irish perhaps shifted from their winter houses to summer pastures or home again, for they have formed the custom to "remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the year, so traversing till doomsday some being impudent [impotent?] of staying in one place and finding some ease by so purning [turning] and changing habitations," and at these times they are much seen when "their chameleon-like bodies swim in the air near the earth with bag and baggage." He is evidently puzzled how to place them among the orders and admits that it is uncertain "what at the last revolution will become of them when they are locked up into ane unchangeable condition." He even believes that they are so beset with anxiety upon this subject that have they "any frolic fits of mirth 'tis as the confirmed grinning of a mort head."
Many of the second-sighted men about him would have nothing of this doctrine and still believed, it seems, the old Celtic theory of the rebirth of the soul, a Manichæan and gnostic doctrine, for being "unwary in their observations" they believed what the "abstruse people" themselves declared "one averring those subterranean people to be departed souls attending awhile in this inferior state and clothed with bodies procured through their alms deeds in this life; fluid, active ethereal vehicles to hold them that they may not scatter or wander or be lost in the totum or the first nothing; but if any were so impious as to have given no alms they say when the souls of such do depart, they sleep in an uncertain state till they resume the terrestrial body." These bodies, come at by the giving of alms, suggest to one that body of Christ which, as Boehme taught, alone enables the shade to escape from turba magna the great wrath and dream-like transformation into the shape of beasts. One remembers also the celestial body of the seventeenth century Platonists. The power attributed to almsgiving calls to mind those tales of clothes given to the poor in some ghost's name thereby enabling the ghost to be decked out in their double. Lady Gregory has found the idea of rebirth in Aran, but in what seems the Cabalistic form not the Celtic; and it occurs again and again in the Gaelic romances. Cuchulain was the rebirth of Lug; and Mongan who was killed[Pg 268] by Arthur of Britain was the rebirth of Finn Mac Cool. Here and there through the seventeenth century Platonists, Kirk's contemporaries, one finds some story that might have been in Lady Gregory's book. Glanvill in the second part of his Sadducismus Triumphatus published in 1674 has an Irish tale where the dead and the faeries are associated as in Galway today. "A gentleman in Ireland near to the Earl of Orrery's seat sending his butler one afternoon to buy cards; as he passed a field, he, to his wonder, espied a company of people sitting round a table, with a deal of good cheer before them in the midst of a field. And he going up towards them, they all arose and saluted him, and desired him to sit down with them." But one of them said these words in his ear: "Do nothing this company invites you to." "He therefore refused to sit down at the table, and immediately the table and all that belonged to it were gone; and the company are now dancing and playing upon musical instruments, and the butler being desired to join himself to them; but he refusing this also, they fall all to work, and he not being to be prevailed with to accompany them in working, any more than in feasting and dancing, they all disappeared, and the butler is now alone." For some days attempts are made to carry away the butler. During one of these he is levitated in the presence of the Earl of Orrery and certain of his guests. Then the man who warned him to do nothing he was bid, came to his bedside. "'I have been dead,' said the spectre or ghost, 'seven years and you know that I lived a loose life. And ever since have been hurried up and down in a restless condition with the company you saw and shall be till the Day of Judgment.'"
Throughout the Middle Ages, there must have been many discussions upon those questions that divided Kirk's Highlanders. Were these beings but the shades of men? Were they a separate race? Were they spirits of evil? Above all, perhaps, were they capable of salvation? Father Sinistrari in De Dæmonialitate et Incubis, et Succubis, reprinted in Paris with an English translation in 1879, tells a story which must have been familiar through the Irish Middle Ages, and the seed of many discussions. The Abbot Anthony went once upon a journey to visit St. Paul, the first hermit. After travelling for some days into the desert, he met a centaur of whom he asked his road and the centaur, muttering barbarous and unintelligible words, pointed to the road with his outstretched hand and galloped away and hid himself in a wood.[Pg 269] St. Anthony went some way further and presently went into a valley and met there a little man with goat's feet and horns upon his forehead. St. Anthony stood still and made the sign of the cross being afraid of some devil's trick. But the sign of the cross did not alarm the little man who went nearer and offered some dates very respectfully as it seemed to make peace. When the old Saint asked him who he was, he said: "I am a mortal, one of those inhabitants of the desert called fauns, satyrs, and incubi, by the Gentiles. I have come as an ambassador from my people. I ask you to pray for us to our common God who came as we know for the salvation of the world and who is praised throughout the world." We are not told whether St. Anthony prayed but merely that he thought of the glory of Christ and thereafter of Christ's enemies and turning towards Alexandria said: "Woe upon you harlots worshipping animals as God." This tale so artfully arranged as it seems to set the pious by the ears may have been the original of a tale one hears in Ireland today. I heard or read that tale somewhere before I was twenty, for it is the subject of one of my first poems. But the priest in the Irish tale, as I remember it, tells the little man that there is no salvation for such as he and it ends with the wailing of the faery host. Sometimes too, one reads in Irish stories of hoof-footed creatures, and it may well be that the Irish theologians who read of St. Anthony in Sinistrari's authority, St. Hieronymus, thought centaur and homunculus were of like sort with the shades haunting their own raths and barrows. Father Sinistrari draws the moral that those inhabitants of the desert called "fauns and satyrs and incubi by the Gentiles" had souls that could be shrived, but Irish theologians in a country full of poems very upsetting to youth about the women of the Sidhe who could pass, it may be even monastic walls, may have turned the doubtful tale the other way. Sometimes we are told following the traditions of the eleventh-century poems that the Sidhe are "the ancient inhabitants of the country" but more often still they are fallen angels who, because they were too bad for heaven and not bad enough for hell, have been sent into the sea and into the waste places. More probably still the question was never settled, sometimes Christ was represented as throwing them into hell till someone said he would empty the whole paradise, and thereupon his hand slackened and some fell in this place and some in that other, as though providence itself were undecided. Father Sinistrari is[Pg 270] conscious of weighty opponents but believes that Scripture is upon his side. He quotes St. John, Chapter x., verse 16: "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." He argues that the commentators are wrong who say that the fold is the synagogue and the other sheep the Gentiles, because the true church has been from the beginning of the world, and has had nothing to do with Jewish observances, for its revelations were made to the first man and Jews and Gentiles have belonged to it. If the Gentiles were not also of Christ's fold, he would not have sent them prodigies to announce his birth, the star of the Magi, the silencing of their oracle, a miraculous spring of oil at Rome, the falling down of the images of Egyptian gods and so on. The other fold should therefore, he thinks, refer to those "rational animals" who sent their ambassador to St. Anthony and who were to hear Christ's voice "either directly through Himself or through His apostles." He argues that they are a race superior to the human and must not be confused with angels and devils who are pure spirits being in a final state of salvation or of judgment. He has written his book as a guide to confessors who have frequently, it seems, to protect men and women, often nuns or monks, who are plagued by spirits or tempted by spirit lovers, and to apportion penalties to those who have fallen. It is a great sin should they confuse their lovers with devils, for then they "sin through intention," but otherwise it is a venal sin, and seeing that incubi and succubi by reason of their "rational and immortal" spirits are the equal of man and by reason of their bodies being "more noble because more subtle," "more dignified than man," a commerce that does not "degrade but rather dignify our nature" (et hoc homo jungens se incubo non vilificat, immo dignificat suam naturam). The incubus, (or succuba) however, does, he holds, commit a very great sin considering that we belong to an inferior species. It is difficult to drive them away, for unlike devils they are no more subject to exorcism than we are ourselves, but just as we cannot breathe in the higher peaks of the Alps because of the thinness of the air, so they cannot come near to us if we make certain conditions of the air. They are of different kinds but always one or other of the four elements predominates, and those who are predominantly fiery cannot come if we make the air damp, and those that are watery cannot come if we use hot fumigations and so on. You[Pg 271] can generally judge the kind by remembering that a man attracts spirits according to his own temperament, the sanguine, the spirits of fire, and the lymphatic, those of watery nature, and those of a mixed nature, mixed spirits; but it is easy to make mistakes. He tells of the case that came into his own experience. He was asked to drive a spirit away that was troubling a young monk and advised hot fumigations because it was by their means "a very erudite theologian" drove away a spirit who made passionate love in the form of "a very handsome young man to a certain young nun" after holy candles burning all night and "a crowd of relics and many exorcisms" had proved of but as little value as her own vows and fasts. A vessel made of "glass-like earth" containing "cubeb seed, roots of both aristolochies, great and small cardamon, ginger, long pepper, caryophylias, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, calamite, storax, benzoin, aloes wood root, one ounce of triasandates and three pounds of half brandy and water," was set upon hot ashes to make it fume, and the door and window of the cell were closed. The young friar, a deacon of the great Carthusian priory of Padua, was further advised to carry about with him perfumes of musk, amber, chive, peruvian bark, and the like, and to smoke tobacco and drink brandy perfumed with musk. All was to no purpose for the spirit appeared to him in many forms such as "a skeleton, a pig, an ass, an angel, a bird" or "in the figure of one or other of the friars." These appearances seem to have had no object except that like the Irish faeries the spirit was pleased to make game of somebody. Presently it came in the likeness of the abbot and heard the young deacon's confession and recited with him the psalms Exsurgat Deus and Qui habitat and the Gospel according to St. John, and bent its knee at the words Verbum caro factum est, and then after sprinkling with holy water and blessing bed and cell and commanding the spirit to come there no more, it vanished. Presently in the likeness of the young friar, it called at the vicar's room and asked for some tobacco and brandy perfumed with musk of which it was, it said, extremely fond, and having received them "disappeared in the twinkling of an eye." Sinistrari, however, having decided that the demon must be igneous or "at the very least aërial, since he delighted in hot substances" and since the monk's temperament seemed "choleric and sanguine," advised the vicar to direct his penitent to strew about the cell and hang by the window and door bundles of "water-lily, liverwort,[Pg 272] spurge, mandrake, house-leek, plantain," and henbane and other herbs of a damp nature which drove the spirit away though it came once to the cell door to speak of Sinistrari all the evil it could. He has other like stories; one to show the uselessness of mere sacred places and objects, describes a woman followed to the steps of the Cathedral altar and there stripped by invisible hands.
One remembers a passage in Plutarch: "But to believe the gods have carnal knowledge, and do delight in the outward beauty of creatures, that seemeth to carry a very hard belief. Yet the wise Egyptians think it probable enough and likely, that the spirit of the gods hath given original of generation to women, and does beget fruits of their bodies; howbeit they hold that a man can have no corporal company with any divine nature."
One hears today in Galway, stories of love adventures between countrywomen or countrymen and the People of Faery—there are several in this book and these adventures have been always a principal theme to Gaelic poets. A goddess came to Cuchulain upon the battlefield, but sometimes it is the mortal who must go to them. "Oh beautiful woman, will you come with me to the wonderful country that is mine? It is pleasant to be looking at the people there: beautiful people without any blemish; their hair is of the colour of the flag flower, their fair body is as white as snow, the colour of the foxglove is on every cheek. The young never grow old there, the fields and the flowers are as pleasant to be looking at as the blackbird's eggs; warm and sweet streams of mead and wine flow through that country; there is no care and no sorrow upon any person; we see others, but we ourselves are not seen." Did Dame Kettler, a great lady of Kilkenny who was accused of witchcraft early in the fifteenth century, find such a lover when she offered up the combs of cocks and the bronzed tail feathers of nine peacocks; or had she indeed, as her enemies affirmed at the trial, been enamoured with "one of the meaner sort of hell"?
Note 2. This light occurs again and again in modern spiritism as in old legends. It shows in some form in almost every dark séance. Grettir the Strong saw it over buried treasure. It surrounded the head of Hereward the Wake in childhood, and in the middle of the nineteenth century, Baron Reichenbach called it "odic light" and published much evidence taken down[Pg 273] from his "sensitives" who saw it about crystals, magnets, and one another, and over new-made graves. Holman Hunt represents in his Flight into Egypt the souls of the Innocents encircled by creeping and clinging fire. When this fire encircles a good spirit it is generally described as white and brilliant, but about the evil as lurid and smoky.
Note 3. When I was a boy, there was a countryman in a Sligo madhouse who was sane in all ways except that he saw, in pools and rivers, beings who called and beckoned. I have myself known a landscape painter who after painting a certain stagnant pool was nightly afflicted by a dream of strange shapes, bidding him to drown himself there. The obsession was so strong that he could not throw it off during his waking hours, and for some days struggled with the temptation. I was with him at the time and had noticed his growing gloom and had questioned him about it.
Note 4. Bran, in the Voyage of Bran when sailing, meets Manannan the sea-god. "And Manannan spoke to him in a song, and it is what he said:
"It is what Bran thinks, he is going in his curragh over the wonderful, beautiful, clear sea; but to me, from far off in my chariot, it is a flowery plain he is riding on.
"What is a clear sea to the good boat Bran is in, is a happy plain with many flowers to me in my two-wheeled chariot.
"It is what Bran sees, many waves beating across the clear sea; it is what I myself see, red flowers without any fault.
"The sea-horses are bright in summer-time, as far as Bran's eyes can reach; there is a wood of beautiful acorns under the head of your little boat.
"A wood with blossom and with fruit, that has the smell of wine; a wood without fault, without withering, with leaves of the colour of gold." (Gods and Fighting Men, by Lady Gregory.)
Note 5. Swedenborg describes these colours and I have a note of similar visions as seen by a fellow-student of mine at the Dublin Art School. Mrs. Besant in her Ancient Wisdom and other writers of the Modern Theosophical School describe them and moralize about them.
Note 6. There are constant stories in the history of modern spiritism of people carried through the air often for considerable distances. It is not my business to weigh the evidence at this moment, for I am concerned only with similarity of belief. The medium, Mrs. Guppy, somewhere in the "sixties" was believed to have been carried from Hampstead, a pen in one hand and an account book in the other, and dropped on to the middle of a table in South Conduit Street. Lord Dunraven was one of a number of witnesses who testified to having seen the medium Hume float out of one window of the upper room, where they were sitting, and in at another window. I read the other day in a spiritistic paper, of two boys carried through the air in Italy and dropped in front of a bishop who immediately handed them over to the police. And of course the folk-lore of all countries and the legends of the saints are full of such tales.
Note 7. The offering to the Sidhe is generally made at Hallowe'en, the old beginning of winter, and upon that night I was told when a boy the offering was still made in the slums of Dublin.
Note 8. Father Sinistrari speaks of a like commerce between beasts and spirits. "Et non solum hoc evenit cum mulieribus, sed etiam cum equabus, cum quibus commicetur; quæ si libenter coitum admittunt, ab eo curantur optime, ac ipsarum jubæ varie artificiosis et inextricabilibus nodis texuntur; si autem illum adversentur, eas male tractat, percutit, macras reddit, et tandem necat, ut quotidiana constat experienta."
Note 9. Houses built upon faery paths are thought to be unlucky. Often the thatch will be blown away, or their inhabitants die or suffer misfortune.
Note 10. The number of quotations I can find to prove the universality of the thought that the dead and other spirits change their shape as they please is but lessened by the fewness of the books that are near my hand in the country where I am writing. John Heydon, "a servant of God and secretary of nature," writing in 1662 in The Rosie Cross Uncovered which is the last book of his Holy Guide says that a man may become one of the heroes: "A hero," he writes, "is a dæmon, or good genius, and a[Pg 275] genius a partaker of divine things and a companion of the holy company of unbodied souls and immortal angels who live according to their vehicles a versatile life, turning themselves proteus-like into any shape."
And Mrs. Besant, a typical writer of the modern Theosophical School, insists upon these changes of form, especially among those spirits that are most free from the terrestrial body and explains it by saying that, "astral matter takes form under every impulse of thought." Swedenborg I have already quoted in my long essay, but to prove that the shape-changer is a part of general literature—I have but Wordsworth and Milton under my hand. When the white doe of Rylstone shows itself at the church door according to its Sunday custom, one has one tale to tell, another another, but an Oxford student will have it that it is the faery that loved a certain "shepherd-lord."
And Milton writes like any Platonist of his time:
Note 11. The seers and healers in this section differ but little from clairvoyants and spirit mediums of the towns, and explain their powers in much the same way. Indeed one of Lady Gregory's story-tellers will have it that America is more full than Ireland of faeries, and describes the mediums there to prove it. It is often through some virtue in these country seers and healers that the faeries or spirits are able to affect men and women and natural objects. Mrs. Sheridan says that a child could not have been taken if she had not been looking on, and one hears again and again that even when the faeries fight among themselves or play at hurley, there must be a man upon either side. We are all in a sense mediums, if the village seer speaks truth, for through any[Pg 276] unsanctified emotion, love, affection, admiration, the spirits may attain power over a child or horse or whatever is before our eyes, and perhaps, as the controls of mediums will sometimes say, they can only see the world through our eyes. Albert de Rochas, borrowing a theory from the seventeenth century, has suggested with the general assent of spiritists that the fluidic or sidereal body of the medium, the mould upon which the physical body is, it may be, built up, is more detachable than in persons who are not mediums, and that the spirits make themselves visible by transforming it into their own shape or into what shape they please and attain by its means a power over physical objects. (See L'Extériorisation de la Motricité.) Instead of the expensive crystal of the Bond Street clairvoyant, Biddy Early gazed into her bottle, but that is almost the whole difference. If the dreams and visions of Connacht have more richness and beauty than those of Camberwell, it is that Connacht, having no doubts as to our survival of death, is not always looking for but one sort of evidence, and so can let things happen as they will. The brother or sister or the like who comes to the knowledgeable man or woman after death is but the "guide" that has been so common in England and America, since the Rochester rappings, and a country form of Plutarch's "dæmon." At other moments, however, "seer" or "healer" resembles a witch or wizard rather than a modern medium.
In one thing, however, they always resemble the medium and not the witch. They seem to have no dealings with the devil. The Irish Trials for witchcraft of the English and continental type took place among the English settlers. I have never come across a case of a "compact" nor has Lady Gregory, nor have I read of one.
Note 12. It is almost unthinkable to Lady Gregory and myself, who know Mrs. Sheridan, that she can ever have seen a drawbridge in a picture or heard one spoken of. Nor does this instance stand alone. I have had in my own family what seemed the accurate calling up of an unknown past but failing a link of difficult evidence still unfound, coincidence, though exceedingly unlikely, is still a possible explanation. I have come upon a number of other cases which are, though no one case is decisive, a powerful argument taken altogether. In The Adventure (MacMillan),[Pg 277] an elaborate vision of this kind is recorded in detail and, accepting the record as accurate, the verification is complete. Two ladies found themselves in the garden of the Petit Trianon in the midst of what seemed to be the court of Marie Antoinette, in just the same sudden way in which some countryman finds himself among ladies and gentlemen dressed in what seem the clothes of a long passed time. The record purports to have been made in November and December 1901, whereas the vision occurred in August. This lapse of time does not seem to me to destroy the value of the evidence, if the record was made before its corroboration by long and difficult research.[2] Accepting the good faith of the narrators, both well-known women and of established character, its evidence for some more obscure cause than unconscious memory can only be weakened by the discovery in some book or magazine accessible to the visionaries before their visit to the Trianon, of historical information on such minute points as the dress Marie Antoinette wore in a particular month, and the position of ornamental buildings and rock work not now in existence. There is a great mass of similar evidence in Denton's Soul of Things though its value is weakened by his not sufficiently allowing for thought transference from his own mind to that of his sensitives.
A "theosophist" or "occultist" of almost any modern school explains such visions by saying they are "pictures in the astral light" and that all objects and events leave their images in the astral light as upon a photographic plate, and that we must distinguish between spirits and these unintelligent pictures. I was once at Madame Blavatsky's when she tried to explain predestination, our freedom and God's full knowledge of the use that we should make of it. All things past and to come were present to the mind of God and yet all things were free. She soon saw that she had carried us out of our depth and said to one of her followers with a mischievous, mocking voice: "You with your impudence and your spectacles will be sitting there in the Akasa[Pg 278] to all eternity" and then in a more meditative voice, "No, not to all eternity for a day will come when even the Akasa will pass away and there will be nothing but God, chaos, that which every man is seeking in his heart." Akasa, she was accustomed to explain as some Indian word for the astral light. Perhaps that theory of the astral pictures came always from the despair of some visionary to find understanding for a more metaphysical theory. It is, however, ancient. To Cornelius Agrippa it is the air that reflects, but the air is something more than what the word means for us. "It is a vital spirit passing through all beings giving life and substance to all things ... it immediately receives into itself the influences of all celestial bodies, and then communicates them to the other elements as also to all mixed bodies. Also it receives into itself as if it were a divine looking-glass the species of all things, as well natural as artificial," it enters into men and animals "through their pores" and "makes an impression upon them as well when they sleep as when they awake and affords matter to divers strange dreams and divinations.... Hence it is that a man passing by a place where a man was slain and the carcase newly laid is moved by fear and dread; because the air in that place being full of the dread species of man-slaughter does being breathed in, move and trouble the spirit of the man with a like species ... whence it is that many philosophers were of the opinion that the air is the cause of dreams." Henry More is more precise and philosophical and believes that this air which he calls Spiritus Mundi contains all forms, so that the parents when a child is begotten, or a witch when the double is projected as a hare, but as it were, call upon the Spiritus Mundi for the form they need. The name "Astral Light" was given to this air or spirit by the Abbé Constant who wrote under the pseudonym of Élephas Lévi and like Madame Blavatsky, claimed to be the voice of an ancient magical society. In his Dogma et Rituel de la Haute Magie published in the fifties, he described in vague, eloquent words, influenced perhaps by the recent discovery of the daguerreotype these pictures which we continually confuse with the still animate shades. A more clear exposition of a perhaps always incomprehensible idea is that of Swedenborg who says that when we die, we live over again the events that lie in all their minute detail in our memory, and this is the explanation of the authors of The Adventure who believe, as it seems, that they were entangled[Pg 279] in the memory of Marie Antoinette. I have met students who claimed to have had knowledge of Lévi's sources and who believed that when at last a spirit has been, as it were, pulled out of its coil, other spirits may use its memory, not only of events but of words and of thoughts. Did Cornelius Agrippa identify soul with memory when, after quoting Ovid to prove that the flesh cleaves to earth, the ghost hovers over the grave, the soul sinks to Oxos, and the spirit rises to the stars, he explains that if the soul has done well it rejoices with the almost faultless spirit, but if it has done ill, the spirit judges it and leaves it for the devil's prey and "the sad soul wanders about hell without a spirit and like an image?" Remembering these writings and sayings, I find new meaning in that description of death taken down by Lady Gregory in some cottage: "The shadow goes wandering and the soul is tired and the body is taking a rest."
I was once talking with Professor James of experiences like to those in The Adventure and said that I found it easiest to understand them by believing in a memory of nature distinguished from individual memory, though including and enclosing it. He would, however, have none of my explanation and preferred to think the past, present, and future were only modes of our perception and that all three were in the divine mind, present at once. It was Madame Blavatsky's thought, and Shelley's in the Sensitive Plant:
Note 13. The ancient Irish had quadrilateral houses built of logs, and round houses of clay and wattles. O'Sullivan, in his introduction to O'Curry's Manners and Customs, writes: "The houses built in Duns and in stone caiseal, and those surrounded by mounds of earth, were, probably in all cases round houses." A Bo Aires, or farmer with ten cows was supposed to have a house[Pg 280] at least twenty-seven feet wide but the houses of better off men must have made one room of considerable size, a whole household sleeping on beds, sometimes with low partitions between, raying out from the wall like spokes of a wheel. Petrie thought the great quadrilateral banqueting hall of Tara was once ninety feet wide.
Note 14. In The Roman Ritual, there is an exorcism for evil spirits and a ceremony for the succour of the sick (cura infirmorum). And in the beginning of the chapter containing this ceremony (Caput IV., verse 12), it is stated that images of Christ, the Virgin, and of saints especially in veneration of the sick man, may cure him if brought into the room. In the ceremony of exorcism, the priest is directed to make numerous signs of the cross over the possessed person (sic. rubric: Tres cruces sequentes fiant in pectore dæmoniaci). The spirit is commanded to be gone in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The ceremony with psalms covers twenty-six pages of my copy. The exorcism is described as a driving out of the "most unclean spirit" of every phantasm and every legion. It commands the "most evil dragon, in the name of the immaculate lamb who walked upon the asp and the basilisk and cast down the lion and the dragon" to "go down out of this man."
In the ceremony for the sick, the priest places his hand on the head of the sick man and says:
"Let them place their hands on the sick and they shall be well [Super ægros manus imponent, et bene habebunt]. May Christ Son of Mary, Saviour of the world and Lord, by the merits and intercession of his holy apostles Peter and Paul and of all the saints be clement and propitious to you."
The ceremony is ten pages and contains various psalms and selections from the Gospels.
Round these two ceremonies have gathered in the minds of the country people, at least, many traditional ideas. When any one is cured, there is a victim, some other human being or some animal will die. If one remembers that diseases were very commonly considered to be the work of demons, one sees how the story of the Gadarene swine would support the tradition. I know not into what subtlety the dreaming mind may not carry the thought, for some few months ago in France, an excommunicated miracle-working priest said in my hearing: "There is always a victim;[Pg 281] so-and-so was the victim for France," naming a holy Italian nun who had just died. "And so-and-so," naming a living holy woman, "is the victim for my own village." Various medieval saints, and even certain witches, cured sick persons by taking the disease upon themselves.
Christian Scientists and Mental Healers are often afraid of themselves acquiring the disease which they drive out of their patient; they sometimes speak of the effort that it costs them to shake it off. I was told a story the other day, which I have proved not to be true, but which is evidence of the belief. A woman said to me some such words as these: "My friend so-and-so, who is a Mental Healer, was staying in the country. She saw a woman there with a strange look. She asked what was wrong, and found that this woman was expecting a periodical fit of madness. She offered to undertake her cure, and brought her to her own house. The patient became violent, but my friend was able by faith and prayer to soothe her till she fell asleep. My friend went downstairs exhausted, and lay upon the sofa. Presently she saw strange shadows coming into the room and knew they had come from the patient upstairs, and these shadows, taking the form of swine, threw themselves upon her and only after a long struggle could she throw them off." The swine and their attack were all moonshine, but the healer, whom I found and questioned, did believe that she saw shadows leaving the patient.
The transference of disease was a generally recognized part of medieval and ancient medicine; and Albert de Rochas gives considerable space to it in his L'Extériorisation de la Sensibilité, Paris, 1909. He quotes from a seventeenth-century writer, Abbé de Vellemort, many examples from medical and scientific writers of that time who believed themselves to have transferred diseases from their patients to animals and to trees and to various substances, "Mumia" as they called them, which absorb des esprits qui résident dans le sang and then describes various experiments made in 1885 by Dr. Babinski "Chef de Clinique de M. Charcot" in transferring now by magnets, now by suggestion various forms of nervous disease from one patient to another. Where these diseases were produced in the first instance by suggestion, the patient from whom the disease was transferred, was freed from it, but where the disease was natural and the cause of the patient being at the hospital, there was no cure although in one case there was improvement. Albert de Rochas then quotes as[Pg 282] follows from a lecture given by Dr. Luys to La Société de Biologie in 1894.
"M. D'Arsonval has, according to a communication from an English physician, given an account at the last meeting of the Société de Biologie, of the persistent action in a magnetized iron bar of the magnetic fluid, which to a certain extent, kept a memory of its former state.
"My researches of the same kind have given me proofs some time since of analogous phenomena with the help of magnetized crowns placed on the head of a subject in an hypnotic state.
"In this case, it is a question not only of storing vibrations of magnetic nature, but of really living nature, of real cerebral vibrations through the coating of the brain, stored in a magnetic crown, in which they remain for a greater or less length of time.
"To arrive at this phenomenon, instead of using an unresponsive physical instrument, I use a reacting living being—an hypnotized subject, who has thus become sensitive to living magnetic vibrations. I am presenting to the Society the magnetized crown, like several other models which I have already shown. It is adapted to the head by means of a system of straps, encircles it and leaves the frontal region free.
"It also forms a bent magnet with a positive and a negative pole. This crown was put, more than a year ago, on the head of a woman suffering from melancholia with ideas of persecution, agitation, and a tendency to suicide, etc. The application of the crown lead to the patient's getting slowly better after five or six séances; and at the end of ten days I thought I could send her back to the hospital without any danger. At the end of a fortnight, the crown having been isolated, the idea came to me quite empirically of placing it on the head of the 'subject' now before you.
"He is a male, hypnotizable, hystérique, given to frequent fits of lethargy. What was my surprise to see this subject, put into the somnambulistic state, complaining in exactly the same terms as those the cured patient had used a fortnight before.
"He first of all took on the sex of the patient; he spoke in the feminine gender; he complained of violent headache; he said he was going mad, that his neighbours came into his room to do him harm. In a word, the hypnotic subject had, thanks to the magnetized crown, taken on the cerebral state of the melancholic patient. The magnetized crown had been powerful enough to[Pg 283] draw off the morbid cerebral influx of the patient (who got well), which had persisted, like a memory, in the intimate (or innermost) texture of the magnetic strip of metal.
"This is a phenomenon we have produced many times, for several years; not only with the subject now present, but with others.
"This communication is, amongst physiological phenomena, on a line with M. D'Arsonval's on the persistence of certain anterior states in inorganic bodies; it will no doubt cause much astonishment and scepticism amongst those who are not accustomed to hypnologic research.
"Doubts will be cast on the sincerity of the subject, on his tendency to produce wonders, to being carried away, and also on what may perhaps seem too easy an acquiescence on the part of the operator.
"To all these objections I will only answer: that this phenomenon of the transmission of the psychical states of a subject by means of a magnetized crown which keeps given impressions is quite in the order of the phenomena formerly communicated by M. D'Arsonval. And, further, the first time I made this experiment, it was done without my knowing, in an entirely empirical way. The impregnated crown was put on the head of the hypnotic subject about a fortnight after it had been put on the patient's head. There has therefore necessarily been a first operation, of which I did not foreknow the results; for we did not know any more than the hypnotized subject, what was going to happen, and the subject reacted, motu proprio, without any excitant other than the magnetic crown.
"So one can assert, without trying to draw any other conclusions, that certain vibratory states of the brain, and probably of the nervous system, are capable of storing themselves in a magnetized bent strip of metal, as the magnetic fluid is stored in the soft bar of iron, and of leaving persistent traces; still further, that one can only destroy this persistent magnetic property by fire. The crown has to be red-hot before it ceases to act, as M. D'Arsonval found to be the case with the iron bar."
Albert de Rochas makes this notable comment:
"The same phenomenon would certainly have been produced had the patient been dead, and so one might by this means have a sort of evocation of a personality no longer of this world."
Note 15. As late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Irish were accustomed to leave their houses on the plains and valleys in spring and live with their cattle on the uplands, returning to the valleys and plains in time to reap the harvest. Before tillage became general they may not have returned till the chill of autumn. From this perhaps came the faery flittings of May and November.
Note 16. The pictures shown were drawings of spirits "A. E." made from his own visions. The yellow thing upon the head was, I suppose, some sort of crown. These countrywomen have seen so little gold that they do not describe anything as "of gold" or "like gold." They will say of yellow hair that it is "bright like silver."
Note 17. The death-coach or more properly coiste-bodhar or "deaf-coach," so called from its rumbling sound. It is usually an omen of death.
Note 18. The thing "yellow and slippery, not hair but like marble" is evidently a crown of gold. Are these spirits in dress of ancient authority the shepherds of the more recent dead?
Note 19. I have read somewhere, but cannot remember where, that ragweed was once used to make some medicine for horses. This would account for its association with them in the half-fantasy, half-vision of the country seers. In the same way, the mushroom ring of the faeries is, it seems, a memory of some intoxicating liquor made of mushrooms, when intoxication was mysterious. The storyteller speaks of "those red flowers," showing how vague her sense of colour, or her knowledge of English, for ragweed is, of course, yellow.
Note 20. "Bracket" is Irish for "speckled" and seems to me a description of the plaids and stripes of medieval Ireland.
Note 21. Bodin in his De Magorum Dæmonomania speaks of salt as a spell against spirits because a "symbol of eternity."
Note 22. Tir-na-n-og, the country of the young, the paradise of the ancient Irish. It is sometimes described as under the[Pg 285] earth, sometimes as all about us, and sometimes as an enchanted island. This island paradise has given rise to many legends; sailors have bragged of meeting it. A Dutch pilot settled in Dublin in 1614, claimed to have seen it off the coast of Greenland in 61° of latitude. It vanished as he came near, but sailing in an opposite direction he came upon it once more, but Giraldus Cambrensis claimed that shortly before he came to Ireland such a phantom island was discovered off the west coast of Ireland and made habitable. Some young men saw it from the shore; when they came near it, it sank into the water. The next day it reappeared and again mocked the same youths with the like delusion. At length, on their rowing towards it on the third day, they followed the advice of an older man, and let fly an arrow, barbed with red-hot steel, against the island; and then landing, found it stationary and habitable.
Note 23. Supernatural strength is often spoken of by the people as a sign of faery power. It is also enumerated in The Roman Ritual among the signs of possession. I have read somewhere that the priests of Apollo showed it in their religious transports.
Note 24. "Materializations" are generally imperfect. The spirit makes just enough of mind and form for its purpose. Even when the form is only visible to the clairvoyant there may still be materialization, though not carried far enough to affect ordinary sight.
Note 25. The picture was made by "A. E." of one of the forms he sees in vision.
Note 26. The barrel which contained a brew that made the spirits invisible is probably the cauldron of the god Dagda, called "The Undry" "because it was never empty." The Tuatha-de-Danaan, the old Irish divine race, brought with them to Ireland four talismans, the sword, the spear, the stone, and the cauldron. Rhys, in his Celtic Heathendom, compares it with the Irish well of wisdom, overhung by nine hazels, and the Welsh "Cauldron of the Head of Hades," set over a fire, blown into a flame by the breath of nine young girls. Girls and hazels were alike, he thinks, symbols of time because of the nine days of the old Celtic week, and comparable with the nine Muses,[Pg 286] daughters of Memory. Nutt thought the Celtic cauldron the first form of the Holy Grail.
Note 27. In my record of this conversation I find a sentence that has dropped out in Lady Gregory's. The old man used these words: "And I took down a fork from the rafters and asked her was it a broom and she said it was," and it was that answer that proved her in the power of the faeries. She was "suggestible" and probably in a state of trance.
Note 28. The Dundonians are, of course, the Tuatha-de-Danaan, and those with the bag are the "firbolg" or "bag-men," we have now, it may be, a true explanation of a name Professor Rhys has interpreted with intricate mythology. I wonder if these bags are related to the Sporran of the Highlanders.
Note 29. Here though maybe but in seeming, spiritism and folk-lore are at issue with one another. The spirit of the séance room is described as growing to maturity and remaining in that state. In Swedenborg it moves toward "the day-spring of its youth." Among the country people too, one sometimes hears of the dead growing to the likeness of thirty years in heaven and remaining so. Thirty years, I suppose, because at that age Christ began his ministry. The idea that underlies Mrs. Fagan's statement seems to be that we have a certain measure of life to live out on earth or in some intermediate state. Are the inhabitants of this "intermediate state" the "earthbound" of the spiritists?
Note 30. Professor Lombroso quotes from Professor Faffofer the following description of how he received news of the death of Carducci: "On the 18th of February, in the evening, our spirit-friends did not at once give us notice of their presence at our sitting, and we waited for them about half an hour. 'Remigo,' on being asked the reason why they had delayed, replied: 'We are in a state of agitation and confusion here. We have just come from a festival—of grief for you and joy for us. We have been present at the death-bed of Carducci." He had died that day and in that very hour and the news had not yet arrived by the ordinary channels.
Note 31. I was the patient; it seemed to be the only way of coming to intimate speech with the knowledgeable man.
Note 32. The ghosts of "spiritism" are constantly changing place or state. Sometimes for this reason they must say "goodbye" to a medium. That they are passing to a "higher state" seems to be the usual phrase. See for instance the account signed by A. I. Smart and a number of witnesses, published in The Medium and Daybreak, of June 15, 1877.
Note 33. I have been several times told that a great battle for the potatoes preceded the great famine. What decays with us seems to come out, as it were, on the other side of the picture and is spirits' property.
Note 34. This is true but he might have guessed it from the difference of my glasses; one is plain glass.
Note 35. They are only small when "upon certain errands," but when small, three feet or thereabouts seems to be the almost invariable height. Mary Battle, my uncle George Pollexfen's second-sighted servant told me that "it is something in our eyes makes them big or little." People in trance often see objects reduced. Mrs. Piper when half awakened will sometimes see the people about her very small.
Note 36. The same story as that in one of the most beautiful of the "Noh" plays of Japan. I tell the Japanese story in my long terminal essay.
Note 37. Mediums have often said that the spirits see this world through our eyes. John Heydon, upon the other hand, calls good spirits "The eyes and ears of God."
Note 38. The herbs were gathered before dawn, probably that the dew might be upon them. Dew, a signature or symbol of the philosopher's stone, was held once to be a secretion from dawning light.
Note 39. The most puzzling thing in Irish folk-lore is the number of countrymen and countrywomen who are "away." A[Pg 288] man or woman or child will suddenly take to the bed, and from that on, perhaps for a few weeks, perhaps for a lifetime, will be at times unconscious, in a state of dream, in trance, as we say. According to the peasant theory these persons are, during these times, with the faeries, riding through the country, eating or dancing, or suckling children. They may even, in that other world, marry, bring forth, and beget, and may when cured of their trances mourn for the loss of their children in faery. This state generally commences by their being "touched" or "struck" by a spirit. The country people do not say that the soul is away and the body in the bed, as a spiritist would, but that body and soul have been taken and somebody or something put in their place so bewitched that we do not know the difference. This thing may be some old person who was taken years ago and having come near his allotted term is put back to get the rites of the church, or as a substitute for some more youthful and more helpful person. The old man may have grown too infirm even to drive cattle. On the other hand, the thing may be a broomstick or a heap of shavings. I imagine that an explanatory myth arose at a very early age when men had not learned to distinguish between the body and the soul, and was perhaps once universal. The fact itself is certainly "possession" and "trance" precisely as we meet them in spiritism, and was perhaps once an inseparable part of religion. Mrs. Piper surrenders her body to the control of her trance personality but her soul, separated from the body has a life of its own, of which, however, she is little if at all conscious.
There are two books which describe with considerable detail a like experience in China and Japan respectively: Demon Possession and Allied Themes, by the Rev. John L. Nevius, D.D. (Fleming H. Revell & Co., 1894); Occult Japan, by Percival Lowell (Houghton, Mifflin, 1895). In both countries, however, the dualism of body and soul is recognized, and the theory is therefore identical with that of spiritism. Dr. Nevius is a missionary who gradually became convinced, after much doubt and perplexity, of the reality of possession by what he believes to be evil spirits precisely similar to that described in the New Testament. These spirits take possession of some Chinese man or woman who falls suddenly into a trance, and announce through their medium's mouth, that when they lived on earth they had such and such a name, sometimes if they think a false name will make them more pleasing they will give a false name and history. They demand[Pg 289] certain offerings and explain that they are seeking a home; and if the offerings are refused, and the medium seeks to drive them from body and house they turn persecutors; the house may catch fire suddenly; but if they have their way, they are ready to be useful, especially to heal the sick. The missionaries expel them in the name of Christ, but the Chinese exorcists adopt a method familiar to the west of Ireland—tortures or threats of torture. They will light tapers which they stick upon the fingers. They wish to make the body uncomfortable for its tenant. As they believe in the division of soul and body they are not likely to go too far. A man actually did burn his wife to death, in Tipperary a few years ago, and is no doubt still in prison for it. My uncle, George Pollexfen, had an old servant Mary Battle, and when she spoke of the case to me, she described that man as very superstitious. I asked what she meant by that and she explained that everybody knew that you must only threaten, for whatever injury you did to the changeling the faeries would do to the living person they had carried away. In fact mankind and spiritkind have each their hostage. These explanatory myths are not a speculative but a practical wisdom. And one can count perhaps, when they are rightly remembered, upon their preventing the more gross practical errors. The Tipperary witch-burner only half knew his own belief. "I stand here in the door," said Mary Battle, "and I hear them singing over there in the field, but I have never given in to them yet." And by "giving in" I understood her to mean losing her head.
The form of possession described in Lowell's book is not involuntary like that the missionary describes. And the possessing spirits are believed to be those of holy hermits or of the gods. He saw it for the first time on a pilgrimage to the top of Mount Ontaké. Close on the border of the snow he came to a rest house which was arranged to enclose the path, that all, it would seem, might stop and rest and eat and give something to its keeper. Presently he saw three young men dressed in white who passed on in spite of the entreaties of the keeper. He followed and presently found them praying before a shrine cut in the side of a cliff. When the prayer was finished one of them took from his sleeve a stick that had hanging from it pieces of zigzag paper, and sat himself on a bench opposite the shrine. One of the others sat facing upon another bench, clasping his hands over his breast and closing his eyes. Then the first young man began a long[Pg 290] evocation, chanting and twisting and untwisting his fingers all the time. Presently he put the wand with the zigzag paper into the other's hands and the other's hands began to twitch, and that twitching grew more and more. The man was possessed. A spirit spoke through his mouth and called itself the God, Hakkai.
Now the evoker became very respectful and asked if the peak would be clear of clouds, and the pilgrimage a lucky one, and if the god would take care of those left at home. The god answered that the peak would be clear until the afternoon of the day following and all else go well. The voice ceased and the evoker offered a prayer of adoration. The entranced man was awakened by being touched on the breast and slapped upon the back and now another of the three took his place. And all was gone through afresh; and when that was over the third young man was entranced in his turn.
Mr. Lowell made considerable further investigation and records many cases, and was told that the god or spirit would sometimes speak in a tongue unknown to the possessed man, or gave useful medical advice. He is one of the few Europeans who have witnessed what seems to be an important right of Shinto religion. Shintoism, or the Way of the Gods, until its revival in the last half of the nineteenth century remained lost and forgotten in the roots of Japanese life. It had been superseded by Buddhism, if Mr. Lowell was correctly informed, as completely as this old faery faith of Ireland has been superseded by Christianity. Buddhism, however, having no Christian hostility to friendly spirits, does not seem to have done anything to discourage a revival which was one of the causes that brought Japan under the single rule of the Mikado. It had always indeed in certain of its sects practised ceremonies that had for their object the causing of possession.
There is a story in The Book of the Dun Cow which certainly describes a like experience, though Prof. Rhys interprets it as a solar myth. I will take the story from Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne. The people of Ulster were celebrating the festival of the beginning of winter, held always at the beginning of November. The first of November is still a very haunted day and night. A flock of wild birds lit upon the waters near to Cuchulain and certain fair women. "In all Ireland there were not birds to be seen that were more beautiful."
One woman said: "'I must have a bird of these birds on each of my two shoulders.' 'We must all have the same,' said the other women. 'If any one is to get them, it is I that must first get them,' said Eithne Inguba, who loved Cuchulain. 'What shall we do?' said the women. 'It is I will tell you that,' said Levarcham, 'for I will go to Cuchulain from you to ask him to get them.'"
So she went to Cuchulain and said: '"The women of Ulster desire that you will get these birds for them.' Cuchulain put his hand upon his sword as if to strike her, and he said: 'Have the idle women of Ulster nothing better to do than to send me catching birds today?' 'It is not for you,' said Levarcham, 'to be angry with them; for there are many of them are half blind today with looking at you, from the greatness of their love for you.'"
After this Cuchulain catches the birds and divides them amongst the women, and to every woman there are two birds, but when he comes to his mistress, Eithne Inguba, he has no birds left. '"It is vexed you seem to be,' he said, 'because I have given the birds to the other women.' 'You have good reason for that,' she said, 'for there is not a woman of them but would share her love and her friendship with you; while as for me no person shares my love but you alone.'" Cuchulain promises her whatever birds come, and presently there come two birds who are linked together with a chain of gold and "singing soft music that went near to put sleep on the whole gathering." Cuchulain went in their pursuit, though Eithne and his charioteer tried to dissuade him, believing them enchanted. Twice he casts a stone from his sling and misses, and then he throws his spear but merely pierces the wing of one bird. Thereupon the birds dive and he goes away in great vexation, and he lies upon the ground and goes to sleep, and while he sleeps two women come to him and put him under enchantment. In the Connacht stories the enchantment begins with a stroke, or with a touch from some person of faery and it is so the women deal with Cuchulain. "The woman with the green cloak went up to him and smiled at him and she gave him a stroke of a rod. The other went up to him then and smiled at him and gave him a stroke in the same way; and they went on doing this for a long time, each of them striking him in turn till he was more dead than alive. And then they went away and left him there." The men of Ulster found him and they carried him to a house and to a bed and there he[Pg 292] lay till the next November came round. They were sitting about the bed when a strange man came in and sat amongst them. It was the God, Ængus, and he told how Cuchulain could be healed. A king of the other world, Labraid, wished for Cuchulain's help in a war, and if he would give it, he would have the love of Fand the wife of the sea god Manannan. The women who gave him the strokes of the rods were Fand and her sister Liban, who was Labraid's wife. They had sought his help as the Connacht faeries will ask the help of some good hurler. Were they too like our faeries "shadows" until they found it? When the god was gone, Cuchulain awoke, and Conahar, the King of Ulster, who had been watching by his bedside, told him that he must go again to the rock where the enchantment was laid upon him. He goes there and sees the woman with the green cloak. She is Liban and pleads with him that he may accept the love of Fand and give his help to Labraid. If he will only promise, he will become strong again. Cuchulain will not go at once but sends his charioteer into the other world. When he has his charioteer's good report, he consents, and wins the fight for Labraid and is the lover of Fand. In the Connacht stories a wife can sometimes get back her husband by throwing some spell-breaking object over the heads of the faery cavalcade that keeps him spellbound. Emir, in much the same way, recovers her husband Cuchulain, for she and her women go armed with knives to the yew tree upon Baile's strand where he had appointed a meeting with Fand and outface Fand and drive her away.
We have here certainly a story of trance and of the soul leaving the body, but probably after it has passed through the minds of story-tellers who have forgotten its original meaning. There is no mention of any one taking Cuchulain's place, but Prof. Rhys in his reconstruction of the original form of the story of "Cuchulain and the Beetle of Forgetfulness," a visit also to the other world, makes the prince who summoned him to the adventure take his place in the court of Ulster. There are many stories belonging to different countries, of people whose places are taken for a time by angels or spirits or gods, the best known being that of the nun and the Virgin Mary, and all may have once been stories of changelings and entranced persons. Pwyll and Arawyn in the Mabinogion change places for a year, Pwyll going to the court of the dead in the shape of Arawyn to overcome his enemies, and Arawyn going to the court of Dyved. Pwyll overcomes Arawyn's[Pg 293] enemies with one blow and the changeling's rule at Dyved was marvellous for its wisdom. In all these stories strength comes from men and wisdom from among gods who are but shadows. I have read somewhere of a Norse legend of a false Odin that took the true Odin's place, when the sun of summer became the wintry sun. When we say a man has had a stroke of paralysis or that he is touched we refer perhaps to a once universal faery belief.
Note 40. I suppose this woman who was glad to "pick a bit of what was in the pigs' trough" had passed along the roads in a state of semi-trance, living between two worlds. Boehme had for seven days what he called a walking trance that began by his gazing at a gleam of light on a copper pot and in that trance truth fell upon him "like a bursting shower."
Note 41. A village beauty of Bally Lee. Raftery praised her in lines quoted in my Celtic Twilight, and Lady Gregory speaks of her in her essay on Raftery in Poets and Dreamers.
Note 42. An old, second-sighted servant to an uncle of mine used to say that dreams were no longer true "when the sap began to rise" and when I asked her how she knew that, she said; "What is the use of having an intellect unless you know a thing like that."
Note 43. "In the faeries" is plainly a misspeaking of the old phrase "in faery" that is to say "in glamour" "under enchantment." The word "faery" as used for an individual is a modern corruption. The right word is "fay."
Note 44. The sudden filling of the air by a sweet odour is a common event of the Séance room. It is mentioned several times in the "Diary" of Stanton Moses.
[1] I have modernized the old lowland Scotch in these quotations from Pitcairn's Criminal Trials.
[2] Since writing the above the authors of An Adventure have shown me a mass of letters proving that they spoke of the visions to various correspondents before the corroboration, and showing the long and careful research that the corroboration involved.
W. B. Y.
October, 1918.