Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series
General
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, Second Series
Atlantic Coast (Ireland) -- Social life and customs; Folklore -- Ireland; Ireland -- Social life and customs
Yes, they say blacksmiths have something about them, and if there's a
seventh blacksmith in succession, from generation to generation, he
can do many things, and if he gave you his curse you wouldn't be the
better of it. There was one near the cliffs, Pat Doherty, but he did
no harm to any one, but was as quiet as another. He is dead now and
his son is a blacksmith too. (_Note_ 2.)
* * * * *
There was a man one time that was a blacksmith, and he used to go
every night playing cards, and for all his wife could say he wouldn't
leave off doing it. So one night she got a boy to go stand in the old
churchyard he'd have to pass, and to frighten him. So the boy did
so, and began to groan and to try to frighten him when he came near.
But it's well known that nothing of that kind can do any harm to a
blacksmith. So he went in and got hold of the boy, and told him he
had a mind to choke him, and went his way.
But no sooner was the boy left alone than there came about him
something in the shape of a dog, and then a great troop of cats. And
they surrounded him and he tried to get away home, but he had no power
to go the way he wanted but had to go with them. And at last they came
to an old forth and a faery bush, and he knelt down and made the sign
of the cross and said a great many "Our Fathers," and after a time they
went into the faery bush and left him. And he was going away and a
woman came out of the bush, and called to him three times, to make him
look back. And he saw that it was a woman that he knew before, that was
dead, and so he knew that she was amongst the faeries.
And she said to him, "It's well for you that I was here, and worked
hard for you, or you would have been brought in among them, and be
like me." So he got home. And the blacksmith got home too and his
wife was surprised to see he was no way frightened. But he said, "You
might know that there's nothing of that sort could harm me."
For a blacksmith is safe from all, and when he goes out in the night
he keeps always in his pocket a small bit of wire, and they know him
by that. So he went on playing, and they grew very poor after.
* * * * *
And I knew a woman from the County Limerick had been _away_, and she
could tell you all about the forths in this place and how she was
recovered. She met a man she knew on the road, and she out riding with
them all on horseback, and told him to bring a bottle of forge-water
and to throw it on her, and so he did, and she came back again.
* * * * *
Blacksmiths surely are safe from these things. And if a blacksmith
was to turn his anvil upside down and to say malicious words, he
could do you great injury.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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