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 Ellen used to be going to milk the cow for the nuns morning and
evening, and there's a place she had to pass, a sort of enchanted
place, I forget the name of it. And when she came home one evening
she said she'd go there no more, for when she was passing that place
she saw a small little woman, with a little cloak about her, and her
face not the size of a doll's face. And with the one look of her she
got a fright and ran as fast as she could, and sat down to milk the
cow. And when she was milking she looked up, and there was the small
little woman coming along by the wall. And she said she'd never like
to go up there again. So to move the thought out of her mind I said
"Sure that's the little woman is stopping up at Shamus Mor's house."
"Oh, it's not, Mother," said she; "I know well by her look she was no
right person." "Then my poor girl you're lost," says I, "for I know
it was the same woman that my husband saw." And sure enough, it was
but a few weeks after that she died. There wasn't much change in them
before their death, but there was a great change after.
And Martin, the last that went, was stout and strong and nothing
ailed him, but he was drowned. He'd go down sometimes to bathe in the
sea and one day he said he was going, and I said, "Do not, for you
have no swim."
But a boy of the neighbours came after that and called to him, and I
was making the little dinner for him, and I didn't see him from the
door. And I never knew he was gone till when I went out of the house
the girl from next door looked at me someway strange, and then she
told me two boys were drowned, and then she told me one of them was
my own. Held down he was, they said, by something under water. _They_
had him followed there.
It wasn't long after he died I woke one night and I felt some one
near, and I struck the light and then I saw his shadow. He was
wearing his little cap, but under it I knew his face and the colour
of his hair. And he never spoke and he was going out the door and I
called to him and said "Oh, Martin, come back to me and I'll always
be watching for you." And every night after that I'd hear things
thrown about the house outside, and noises. So I got afraid to stop
in it, and went to live in another house, and I told the priest I
knew Martin was not dead but that he was living. And about eight
weeks after Catherine dying, I had what I thought was a dream. I
thought I dreamt that I saw her sweeping out the floor of the room,
and I said, "Catherine, why are you sweeping? Sure you know I sweep
the floor down and the hearth every night." And I said "Tell me where
you are now?" And she said, "I'm in the forth beyond." And she said
"I have a great deal of things to tell you, but I must look out and
see are they watching me"; now wasn't that very sharp for a dream?
And she went to look out the door, but she never came back again.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account