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
And I knew a boy met the coach and four one time. Drawn by four
horses it was, and lights about it and music, and the horses dressed
with flowers. And in it were sitting ladies, very clever-looking and
wild, and their hair twisted up on their heads, and when they went
on a little way they called to some man on the road to come with
them, and he refused, and they laughed at that and ridiculed him.
I never saw the coach and four with these two eyes; but one time I
heard it pass by, about 11 o'clock at night, when I was sitting up
mending the sole of a boot. Surely it passed by, but I would not look
out to see what it was like.
For there was a woman I knew was walking with a man one night from
Kilcolgan to Oranmore. And as they were sitting by the roadside they
heard the coach and four coming. And the man stood up and looked at
it, but he had no right to do that, he should have turned his head
away. And there were grand people in it, ladies, and flowers about
them. But no sooner did he look at it than he was struck blind and
never had his eyesight since.
It's best not to look at them if they pass. And when you go along the
road and a storm comes in the calm and raises all the dust of the road
up in the air, turn your head another way, for it's they that are
passing. In the month of May is the most time they do be travelling.
And it's best not to go near water then, near a river or a lake.
When my father was dying my mother was sitting with him, and she
heard a car pass the door, going light and quick, but when it passed
down the road again it went heavy, and that was the coach and four.
There was Sully had the forge one time, and passing one night down
the road towards Nolan's gate, he saw a brake pass full of ladies
and gentlemen, as he thought, and he believed it to be St. George's
carriage. But at Nolan's gate, it turned and came up again, and
whatever he saw, when he got home he took to his bed for some days
with the fright he got.
Kelly told me one time he saw the coach and four driving through the
field above Dillon's, with four horses. And wasn't that a strange
place for it to be driving through all the rocks?
* * * * *
There was boys used to be stealing apples from the orchard at Tyrone,
and something in white with a candle used to come after them, and then
change to something in red. So they went to a forth, and they went to
the side of it where the sun rises and there they made the mark of the
cross, but after all they had to leave going after the apples.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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