Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry Part 43

Conn-eda planted the three golden apples in his garden, and instantly a great tree, bearing similar fruit, sprang up. This tree caused all the district to produce an exuberance of crops and fruits, so that it became as fertile and plentiful as the dominions of the Firbolgs, in consequence of the extraordinary powers possessed by the golden fruit.

The hound Samer and the steed were of the utmost utility to him; and his reign was long and prosperous, and celebrated among the old people for the great abundance of corn, fruit, milk, fowl, and fish that prevailed during this happy reign. It was after the name Conn-eda the province of Connaucht, or _Conneda_, or _Connacht_, was so called.

[Footnote 70: Printed first in the _Cambrian Journal_, 1855; reprinted and re-edited in the _Folk-Lore Record_, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 71: _Innis Fodhla_--Island of Destiny, an old name for Ireland.]

[Footnote 72: The Firbolgs believed their elysium to be under water.

The peasantry still believe many lakes to be peopled.--See section on _T'yeer na n-Oge_.]

[Footnote 73: _Draoidheacht_, _i.e._, the Druidic wors.h.i.+p; magic, sorcery, divination.]

NOTES.

G.o.dS OF THE EARTH.--Par. 2, Page 2.

Occultists, from Paracelsus to Elephas Levi, divide the nature spirits into gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, undines; or earth, air, fire, and water spirits. Their emperors, according to Elephas, are named Cob, Paralda, Djin, Hicks respectively. The gnomes are covetous, and of the melancholic temperament. Their usual height is but two spans, though they can elongate themselves into giants. The sylphs are capricious, and of the bilious temperament. They are in size and strength much greater than men, as becomes the people of the winds. The salamanders are wrathful, and in temperament sanguine. In appearance they are long, lean, and dry. The undines are soft, cold, fickle, and phlegmatic. In appearance they are like man. The salamanders and sylphs have no fixed dwellings.

It has been held by many that somewhere out of the void there is a perpetual dribble of souls; that these souls pa.s.s through many shapes before they incarnate as men--hence the nature spirits. They are invisible--except at rare moments and times; they inhabit the interior elements, while we live upon the outer and the gross. Some float perpetually through s.p.a.ce, and the motion of the planets drives them hither and thither in currents. Hence some Rosicrucians have thought astrology may foretell many things; for a tide of them flowing around the earth arouses there, emotions and changes, according to its nature.

Besides those of human appearance are many animal and bird-like shapes. It has been noticed that from these latter entirely come the familiars seen by Indian braves when they go fasting in the forest, seeking the instruction of the spirits. Though all at times are friendly to men--to some men--"They have," says Paracelsus, "an aversion to self-conceited and opinionated persons, such as dogmatists, scientists, drunkards, and gluttons, and against vulgar and quarrelsome people of all kinds; but they love natural men, who are simple-minded and childlike, innocent and sincere, and the less there is of vanity and hypocrisy in a man, the easier will it be to approach them; but otherwise they are as shy as wild animals."

SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON.--Pages 13 and 38.

Many in Ireland consider Sir Samuel Ferguson their greatest poet. The English reader will most likely never have heard his name, for Anglo-Irish critics, who have found English audience, being more Anglo than Irish, have been content to follow English opinion instead of leading it, in all matters concerning Ireland.

CUSHEEN LOO.--Page 33.

Forts, otherwise raths or royalties, are circular ditches enclosing a little field, where, in most cases, if you dig down you come to stone chambers, their bee-hive roofs and walls made of unmortared stone. In these little fields the ancient Celts fortified themselves and their cattle, in winter retreating into the stone chambers, where also they were buried. The people call them Dane's forts, from a misunderstanding of the word Danan (Tuath-de-Danan). The fairies have taken up their abode therein, guarding them from all disturbance. Whoever roots them up soon finds his cattle falling sick, or his family or himself.

Near the raths are sometimes found flint arrow-heads; these are called "fairy darts," and are supposed to have been flung by the fairies, when angry, at men or cattle.

LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON.--Page 40.

Moat does not mean a place with water, but a tumulus or barrow. The words _Da Luan Da Mort agus Da Dardeen_ are Gaelic for "Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday too." Da Hena is Thursday. Story-tellers, in telling this tale, says Croker, sing these words to the following music--according to Croker, music of very ancient kind:--

[Music:

Da Lu-an, da Mort, da Lu-an, da Mort, da Lu-an, da Mort, au-gus da Dar-dine. Da Lu-an, da Mort, da Lu-an, da Mort, da Lu-an, da Mort, au-gus da Dar-dine.

Mr. Douglas Hyde has heard the story in Connaught, with the song of the fairy given as "Peean Peean daw feean, Peean go leh agus leffin"

[_pighin, pighin, da phighin, pighin go ieith agus leith phighin_], which in English means, "a penny, a penny, twopence, a penny and a half, and a halfpenny."

STOLEN CHILD.--Page 59.

The places mentioned are round about Sligo. Further Rosses is a very noted fairy locality. There is here a little point of rocks where, if anyone falls asleep, there is danger of their waking silly, the fairies having carried off their souls.

SOLITARY FAIRIES.--Page 80.

The trooping fairies wear green jackets, the solitary ones red. On the red jacket of the Lepracaun, according to Mca.n.a.lly, are seven rows of b.u.t.tons--seven b.u.t.tons in each row. On the western coast, he says, the red jacket is covered by a frieze one, and in Ulster the creature wears a c.o.c.ked hat, and when he is up to anything unusually mischievous, leaps on to a wall and spins, balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in the air. Mca.n.a.lly tells how once a peasant saw a battle between the green jacket fairies and the red.

When the green jackets began to win, so delighted was he to see the green above the red, he gave a great shout. In a moment all vanished and he was flung into the ditch.

BANSHEE'S CRY.--Page 108.

Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall give the following notation of the cry:--

[Music]

OMENS.--Page 108.

We have other omens beside the Banshee and the Dullahan and the Coach-a-Bower. I know one family where death is announced by the cracking of a whip. Some families are attended by phantoms of ravens or other birds. When McMa.n.u.s, of '48 celebrity, was sitting by his dying brother, a bird of vulture-like appearance came through the window and lighted on the breast of the dying man. The two watched in terror, not daring to drive it off. It crouched there, bright-eyed, till the soul left the body. It was considered a most evil omen.

Lefanu worked this into a tale. I have good authority for tracing its origin to McMa.n.u.s and his brother.

A WITCH TRIAL.--Page 146.

The last trial for witchcraft in Ireland--there were never very many--is thus given in MacSkimin's _History of Carrickfergus_:--"1711, March 31st, Janet Mean, of Braid-island; Janet Latimer, Irish-quarter, Carrickfergus; Janet Millar, Scotch-quarter, Carrickfergus; Margaret Mitchel, Kilroot; Catharine M'Calmond, Janet Liston, alias Seller, Elizabeth Seller, and Janet Carson, the four last from Island Magee, were tried here, in the County of Antrim Court, for witchcraft."

Their alleged crime was tormenting a young woman, called Mary Dunbar, about eighteen years of age, at the house of James Hattridge, Island Magee, and at other places to which she was removed. The circ.u.mstances sworn on the trial were as follows:--

"The afflicted person being, in the month of February, 1711, in the house of James Hattridge, Island Magee (which had been for some time believed to be haunted by evil spirits), found an ap.r.o.n on the parlour floor, that had been missing some time, tied with _five strange knots_, which she loosened.

"On the following day she was suddenly seized with a violent pain in her thigh, and afterwards fell into fits and ravings; and, on recovering, said she was tormented by several women, whose dress and personal appearance she minutely described. Shortly after, she was again seized with the like fits, and on recovering she accused five other women of tormenting her, describing them also. The accused persons being brought from different parts of the country, she appeared to suffer extreme fear and additional torture as they approached the house.

"It was also deposed that strange noises, as of whistling, scratching, etc., were heard in the house, and that a sulphureous smell was observed in the rooms; that stones, turf, and the like were thrown about the house, and the coverlets, etc., frequently taken off the beds and made up in the shape of a corpse; and that a bolster once walked out of a room into the kitchen with a night-gown about it! It likewise appeared in evidence that in some of her fits three strong men were scarcely able to hold her in the bed; that at times she vomited feathers, cotton yarn, pins, and b.u.t.tons; and that on one occasion she slid off the bed and was laid on the floor, as if supported and drawn by an invincible power. The afflicted person was unable to give any evidence on the trial, being during that time dumb, but had no violent fit during its continuance."

In defence of the accused, it appeared that they were mostly sober, industrious people, who attended public wors.h.i.+p, could repeat the Lord's Prayer, and had been known to pray both in public and private; and that some of them had lately received communion.

Judge Upton charged the jury, and observed on the regular attendance of accused at public wors.h.i.+p; remarking that he thought it improbable that real witches could so far retain the form of religion as to frequent the religious wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, both publicly and privately, which had been proved in favour of the accused. He concluded by giving his opinion "that the jury could not bring them in guilty upon the sole testimony of the afflicted person's visionary images." He was followed by Judge Macarthy, who differed from him in opinion, "and thought the jury might, from the evidence, bring them in guilty,"

which they accordingly did.

This trial lasted from six o'clock in the morning till two in the afternoon; and the prisoners were sentenced to be imprisoned twelve months, and to stand four times in the pillory of Carrickfergus.

Tradition says that the people were much exasperated against these unfortunate persons, who were severely pelted in the pillory with boiled cabbage stalks and the like, by which one of them had an eye beaten out.

T'YEER-NA-N-OGE.--Page 200.