Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, First Series — John Shaqi
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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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