Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
History
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
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 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 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:_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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