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 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 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, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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