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
There are more of the Sheogue in America than what there are here, and
more of other sort of spirits. There was a man from there told me that
one night in America he had brought his wife's niece that was sick back
from the hospital, and had put her in an upper room. And in the evening
they heard a scream from her and she called out "The room is full of
them, and my father is with them, and my aunt." And he drove them away
and used the devil's name and cursed them. And she was left quiet that
night, but the next day she said "I'll be destroyed altogether tonight
with them." And he said he'd keep them out, and he locked the door of
the house. And towards midnight he heard them coming to the door and
trying to get in, but he kept it locked and he called to them by way
of the keyhole to keep away out of that. And there was talking among
them, and the girl that was upstairs said that she could hear the laugh
of her father and of her aunt. And they heard the greatest fighting
among them that ever was, and after that they went away, and the girl
got well. That's what often happens, crying and fighting for one that's
sick or going to die.
_Mrs. Meagher:_
There was an old woman the other day was telling me of a little girl
that was put to bake a cake, for her mother was sick in the room. And
when she turned away her head for a minute the cake was gone. And
that happened the second day and the third, and the mother was vexed
when she heard it, thinking some of the neighbours had come and taken
it away.
But the next day an old man appeared, and she knew he was the
grandfather, and he said "It's by me the cake was taken, for I was
watching the house these three nights when I knew there was some one
sick in it. And you never heard such a fight as there was for her last
night, and they would have brought her away but for me that had my
shoulder to the door." And the woman began to recover from that time.
_Tom Smith:_
There does often be fighting when a person is dying. John Madden's
wife that lived in this house before I came to it, the night she died
there was a noise heard, that all the village thought that every wall
of every garden round about was falling down. But in the morning
there was no sign of any of them being fallen.
And Hannay that lived at Cahir, the bonesetter, when I went to him
one time told me that one night late he was walking the road near
Ardrahan. And they heard a great noise of fighting in the castle he
was passing by, and no one living in it and it open to the sky. And
he turned in and was going up the stairs, and a lady in a white dress
stopped him and wouldn't let him pass up. But the next day he went to
look and he found the floor all covered with blood.
* * * * *
And before John Casey's death, John Leeson asked me one day were we
fighting down at our place, for he heard a great noise of fighting
the night before.
_A Farmer:_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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