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
"_It's in his head I think it does be, and when he stood in the door
last night I said 'the wind does be always in my ears and the sound of
it never stops,' to make him think it was the same with him. But he
said, 'I hear them singing and making music all the time, and one of
them's after bringing out a little flute, and it's on it he's playing
to them.' Sure he has half his chimney pulled down, where they used to
be sitting and singing to him day and night. But those that are born
in the daytime never have power to see or hear them all their life._"
_Another neighbour talked to me of him and said, "One night he was
walking across the bog, and a lurcher, a bastard hound, with him. And
something ran across the path in the shape of a white cat, and the
lurcher went after him, and Barrett went home and to bed and left the
door open for the lurcher to come in. And in the morning they found it
there, lying under the table, and it paralysed and not able to stir.
But after a few months it got better, and one night they were crossing
the bog again and the same thing ran across their path, and this time
in the form of a deer. But the dog wouldn't follow it again, but shrank
behind Barrett until such time as it had passed by."_
_My spinning woman, coming another time with chickens to sell, said,
"Barrett is after telling me this morning that they were never so bad
as these last two nights. 'Friday fine-day' is what they say now, in
Irish, and he got no sleep till he threatened to throw dirty water
over them. The poor man, they do say they are mostly in his head now,
but sure he was a fine fresh man twenty years ago, the night he saw
them all linked in two lots, like slips of girls walking together.
And it was that very same day that Hession's little girl got a touch
from them. She was as fine a little girl as ever you saw, and her
mother sent her into Gort to do a message. And on the road she met a
red-haired woman, with long wisps of hair as bright as silver, and
she said, 'Where are you going and who are you?' 'I'm going to Gort
on a message,' says she, 'and I'm Mrs. Hession's daughter of such a
place.' Well, she came home, and that very night she got a pain in
her thigh, with respects to you, and she and her mother have half the
world walked since then, trying to get relief for her; but never a
bit better did she ever get. And no doubt at all but that's the very
same day Michael Barrett saw them in the field near Hession's house."_
_I asked Mr. Yeats to come with me to see the old man, and we walked
up the long narrow lane, from which we could see Slieve Echtge and
the Burren hills, to the little cabin with its broken chimney where
Michael Barrett told us of those that had disturbed his rest. This
was the first time we went together to enquire into the Hierarchy of
the Sidhe, of which by degrees we have gathered so much traditional
and original knowledge._
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