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
_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 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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account