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 in the morning when I told it to a few respectable people they
said "Take care but it might have been no dream, but herself that
came back and talked to you." And I think it was, and that she came
back to see me, and to keep the place well swept.
* * * * *
Sure we know there were some in the forths in the old times, for my
aunt's husband was brought away into one, and why wouldn't they be
there now? He was sent back out of it again; a girl led him home, and
she told him he was brought away because he answered to the first call
and that he had a right only to answer to the third. But he didn't want
to come home. He said he saw more people in it than he ever saw at a
hurling, and that he'd ask no better place than it in high heaven.
* * * * *
The Banshee always cries for the O'Briens. And Anthony O'Brien was a
fine man when I married him, and handsome, and I could have had great
marriages if I didn't choose him, and many wondered at me. And when
he was took ill and in the bed, Johnny Rafferty came in one day, and
says he "Is Anthony living?" and I said he was. "For," says he, "as I
was passing, I heard crying, crying, from the hill where the forths
are, and I thought it must be for Anthony, and that he was gone."
And then Ellen, the little girl, came running in, and she says, "I
heard the mournfullest crying that ever you heard just behind the
house." And I said "It must be the Banshee." And Anthony heard me say
that where he was lying in the bed, and he called out, "If it's the
Banshee it's for me, and I must die today or tomorrow." And in the
middle of the next day, he died.
* * * * *
One time I was passing by a forth down there, and I saw a thick smoke
coming out of it, straight up it went and then it spread at the top.
And when it was clearing away I saw two rows of birds, one on the one
side and one on the other, and I stopped to look at them. They were
white, and had shoulders and heads like dogs, and there was a great
noise like a rattling, and a man that was passing by looked up and
said "God speed you," and they flew away.
_A Seaside Man:_
There were five boys of the Callinans, and they rich and well-to-do,
were out in a boat, and a ship came out from the shore and touched it
and it sank, and the ship was seen no more. And one of the boys held
on to the boat, and some men came out and brought him to land. But
the second time after that he went out, he was swept.
_An Old Man in Gort Workhouse:_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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