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 was a smith, and a man called on him late one evening, and asked
him to shoe a horse for him and so he did. And then he offered him pay
but he would take none. And the man took him out behind the house, and
there were three hundred horses with riders on them, and a hundred
without, and he said, "We want riders for those," and they went on.
_An Aran Man:_
A man that came over here from Connemara named Costello told me that
one night he was making poteen, and a man on a white horse came up,
and the horse put his head into the place they were making it, and
then they rode away again. So he put a bottle of the whiskey outside
the place, and in a little time he went and looked and it was empty.
And then he put another bottle out, and in a little time he looked
again, and it was empty. And then he put a third, but when he looked
the whiskey in it had not been stirred. And he told me he never did
so much with it or made so much profit as he did in that year.
* * * * *
They are everywhere. Tom Deruane saw them down under the rocks
hurling and they were all wearing black caps. And sometimes you'd
see them coming on the sea, just like a barrel on the top of the
water, and when they'd get near you, no matter how calm the day,
you'd have a hurricane about you. That is when they are taking their
diversions. And one evening late I was down with the wife burning
kelp on the rocks, where we had a little kiln made. And we heard a
talking and a whispering about us on the rocks, and my wife thought
it was the child that the sister was bringing down to her, and she
said, "God bless the son!" but no one came, and the talking went on
again, and she got uneasy, and at last we left the kelp and came
home; and we weren't the first that had to leave it for what they
heard in that place.
Fallen angels they are said to be. God threw a third part of them
into Hell with Lucifer, and it was Michael that interceded for the
rest, and then a third part was cast into the air and a third on the
land and the sea. And here they are all about us as thick as grass.
_A Needlewoman from North Galway Working at Coole:_
Myself and Anne (one of the maids) went up the middle avenue after
dark last night and we got a fright, seeing what we thought to be
faeries. They were men dressed in black clothes like evening clothes,
wearing white ruffles round their necks and high black hats without
brims. Two walked in front and one behind, and they seemed to walk
or march stiff like as if there was no bend in the leg. They held
something in each hand and they stopped before the gate pier where
there is a sort of cross in white like paint, then they disappeared
and we turned and ran.
(_When they were going up to bed, I am told, "Anne suddenly stopped
under the picture of Mary Queen of Scots and called out, 'That is like
the frill they wore' and sank down on the stairs in a kind of faint."_)
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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