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
We don't give in to such things here as they do in the middle island;
but I wouldn't doubt that about the dog. For they can see what we
can't see. And there was a man here was out one night and the dog
ran on and attacked something that was in front of him--a faery it
was--but he could see nothing. And every now and again it would do
the same thing, and seemed to be fighting something before him,
and when they got home the man got safe into the house, but at the
threshold the dog was killed.
And a horse can see many things, and if ever you're out late, and the
horse to stop as if there was something he wouldn't pass, make the
sign of the cross between his ears, and he'll go on then. And it's
well to have a cock always in the house, if you can have it from a
March clutch, and the next year if you can have another cock from a
March clutch from that one, it's the best. And if you go late out of
the house, and that there is something outside it would be bad to
meet, that cock will crow before you'll go out.
* * * * *
I'm sorry I wasn't in to meet you surely, knowing as much as I do
about the faeries. One night I went with four or five others down by
the mill to hunt rabbits. And when we got to the field by the river
there was the sound of hundreds, some crying and the other part
laughing, that we all heard them. And something came down to the
river, first I thought he was a dog and then I saw he was too big and
strange looking. And you'd think there wouldn't be a drop of water
left in the river with all he drank. And I bid the others say nothing
about it, for Patrick Green was lying sick at the mill, and it might
be taken for a bad sign. And it wasn't many days after that he died.
* * * * *
My father told me that one night he was crossing this road, and
he turned to the wall to close his shoe. And when he turned again
there was something running through the field that was the size of a
yearling calf, and black, and it ran across the road, and there was
like the sound of chains in it. And when it came to that rock with
the bush on it, it stopped and he could see a red light in its mouth.
And then it disappeared. He used often to see a black dog in this
road, and it used to be following him, and others saw it too. But one
night the brother of the priest, Father Mitchel, saw it and he told
the priest and he banished it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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