It might seem to us nowadays that Christian clergy (priests in particular) would give little or no credence to the fairies; that in fact they should be actively discouraging their flocks from belief in such “pagan nonsense,” such superstition. But the reality was often very different from the theory. The clergy had, after all, to live in the real world with people who felt no contradiction between their fairy beliefs and their religious practice. And a great many people credited the priest with power to see the fairies, if not always to control them—as these stories show. The notion that a priest could make a kind of window through which the world of the Good People could be seen by making a circle with his arm and touching his fingers to his hip was very widespread—in the process often confounding and terrifying skeptics.
If (as these three stories hint) priests were vividly aware of the presence of the fairies, is it any wonder that so many of them were reluctant to condemn them publicly, whatever the official Church position might have required? They knew, far more clearly than ordinary people, if we are to credit popular accounts, the results such condemnation might bring on themselves, despite all their power.
“What I’d like to know is, how did they quieten down, that they aren’t appearing now to the people of today? Well, I was doing that questioning in people, an’ d’you know what the people told me? They said all the Masses that’s said now, day an’ night, that quietened ’em down, that they can’t appear like they were appearing years ago.”
LISCANNOR, SEPTEMBER 2, 1999
Holy Water Given As Protection
“ALWAYS MAKE THE CROSS over the grave when you have it opened,” an old man told us here one time, and ’tis always done—to stop them carrying the dead person. I’ll tell you a story about that.
One Sunday at Mass a man stood up at the elevation, and he shouted, “Will the fallen angels be saved?”
The priest looked back, said nothing.
But, before Mass was over, he asked, “The person who asked the question during the elevation, I want to see him in the sacristy after Mass.”
The man didn’t want to go, but the people said, “Go on in. Do what he told you.”
So he went in.
“Why did you inquire?” says he.
“I was told,” says he.
“By whom?”
“I won’t give any names,” he says. ’Twas someone that never went to Mass or had the black art, or something, you know.
“You have put yourself in an awful predicament,” says he. “They’ll come tonight for you.”
“Indeed, they won’t.”
“They will,” says the priest. “I’d advise you now, go and dig your grave. I’ll bless a bottle o’ holy water for you, and when you have the grave dug, put a cross over the grave, and keep the bottle o’ holy water.”
He was there that night, and they came in flocks, thousands of ’em, and they were grabbing for him. But he shook the holy water, and they couldn’t touch him. When daybreak came he was all right. They came no more, then, and he went home. So, he went to the priest again and the priest gave him a blessing.
“Never again,” he said, “do anything o’ the like. I saved you. If you didn’t come to me, you were gone with ’em.”
Several interesting points are raised by this story: Do the fairies (and note, they are never once mentioned directly by name throughout the telling) take the dead, as well as the living? If so, for what purpose?
The priest is seen to be the chief counselor in this society, whose word is the last word and whose power is the ultimate protection against the forces of the unseen. (Note that the bottle of holy water he gives the man to safeguard him has echoes of Biddy Early’s bottles of spring water which she so often dispensed, together with exact instructions as to their use.)
We see also that the power of the creatures that threaten to “carry” the man extends only as far as daylight—a strong hint that it is the fairies who are here rather than the fallen angels, though either might be understood from the text.
Finally, the priest’s parting comment to the foolish man, as said previously, shows the belief of many clergy in the Other Crowd. And however it may be understood by him theologically to mean the fallen angels (though he is careful not to distinguish), in his parishioners’ minds no doubt it is the fairies that would have been understood by that final word “ ’em.”
“’Twas known that children would disappear. They might be seen at the fairy fort in a week after, going into the bushes.”
DRUMLINE, OCTOBER 17, 1992
Girl Carried by the Fairies
I HEARD A STORY from a man over in Lissane about one of his own family a couple o’ generations back. She was a lovely young girl and she died.
But after about twelve months a brother o’ hers started dreaming of her. He had this recurring dream that she’d be passing through the yard on a horse in the middle of a crowd of horsemen.
The dream changed, then, and she spoke to him. She told him she’d be coming on a certain night and if he was there, and if he pulled her off o’ the horse, when her feet’d touch the ground she’d be able to come back. Once her feet touched the ground, that was the thing.
He was worried over it and the night that was fixed was coming near. So, he went to the priest. And he told his story to the priest.
The priest said, “Look, it can happen all right. But for everyone’s good, it can’t be allowed to happen. How can you bring back a person that’s dead twelve months? Wouldn’t it frighten the life out o’ the people in the parish? Look,” he said, “I’ll do something. I’ll say a few prayers, and I’ll guarantee you, she’s better off where she is.”
So, he left it at that. He never dreamt again.
Here we see what today still exercises people most violently: the death of the young, the beautiful. This storyteller’s approach to it leaves us in no doubt that he is part of a tradition that has come to terms in its own way with such an enormity.
The brother’s dream of his dead sister, the supremely important point of her wanting to touch the ground, our physical earth, again if she is to be freed from those who have abducted her, the traditional priest’s admission that such things can happen, all these reactions are normal in their context.
But then, a jarring, foreign note is introduced: the rational voice of modernity: “It can’t be allowed to happen.” The amazing thing is that the priest does not believe that the dead can be allowed to rise! Yet his intentions are well meant.
His solution seems somehow tawdry, though: “I’ll say a few prayers.” And the “better off” place where the girl is? We are never told where that place is, whether Heaven, Tír na nÓg (The Land of Youth), or somewhere else. Perhaps, ultimately, it matters not at all.
“Always good-looking people were taken by ’em.”
CULLANE, TULLA, FEBRUARY 15, 1982
The Girl Saved from the Good People
ISN’T IT A FUNNY thing how there’s some forts and we know nothing at all about ’em. They’re there, and that’s all. Maybe there was stories about ’em one time, but the people that knew ’em are all dead and gone. I often thought about that, once a story is gone from a place, how it’ll never again come back. And that’s wronging that place. ’Tis taking away a part of it. That’s why I always liked to listen to old people talking about history, especially when they’d be talking about places I knew. I could go to them places myself and see if they were right in the way they described ’em. And once I’d see the place o’ the story I’d always remember the story then.
One story I heard I could never forget it ’cause I went after to the place, and nearly everything was the way he described it, except for one thing.
I’ll tell you about it.
The place I’m talking about is Corbally fort, on the road down to Quin. You couldn’t miss it. ’Tis up on a small hill there on your right-hand side down from the main road to Ennis, about a field in.
All that place, in the old days, belonged to the M
ahons. They weren’t big landlords at all. More like gentlemen farmers. But they were well-liked people.
Now, there was a young fellow, John O’ Brien was his name, working for Mr. Mahon—a yard hand you’d call him, I s’pose, a kind of a general laborer. This November Eve, he had all done and the supper ate, and he was just smoking his pipe before he went to bed. But when he looked over towards Corbally fort, he saw a light, about halfway up the hill.
“By the Lord,” says he, “that’s strange. Who’s up there at this hour?”
He thought ’twas someone with a lamp, you see.
He watched it, anyway, for a while, but there was no stir. He didn’t know what to do. But at the same time, if something was gone wrong in the morning . . . well, he didn’t like not to go, just in case. So he said to himself that he might as well investigate it.
Off with him—out along the avenue, across the road, in the field, and up the hill. But he wasn’t gone far when he saw that there was no one there with any lamp. What was there above him was a kind of a door in the hill. ’Twas open, and the light was shining out of it.
Begod, that put him thinking a bit. But he was a plucky young lad, and he said once he came that far he might as well go farther. So he went up and put in his head. No one there—only a kind of a passageway going in under the hill, and that’s where the light was coming from.
“Begod, since I’m here I’ll go in. You’d never know what’d be inside.”
So he did, went in along, until he came to this doorway. And the light was coming from beyond it. He crept up to the door and peeped in. There inside was a big room with a table in the middle of it. At the two ends o’ the table there was two old hags, gray hair and whiskers on ’em, and they were talking.
“Oh, she’s coming, and when they bring her, that’s the time we’ll have the dancing! And ’tis about time, too, for ’em to get someone. I’m crippled here sitting down doing nothing.”
“True for you,” says the other one. “And which horse are they bringing her on this time?”
“The white one, o’ course.”
“And the same way in, I s’pose.”
“The very same. The southern side o’ the hill. Like every one before her.” And she took a slug out of a jug that was there on the table—poitín, maybe, or something stronger.
Begod, John was listening to this, taking it all in. O’ course, he often heard o’ people being carried but he never believed it until now.
So he says to himself, “We’ll see about that. You’ll wait a while longer for the dance if I can help it.”
He crept out again, out along, and there was no sign of anyone coming. Nothing moving, only a grand moonlight night. He made his way down to the southern side o’ the hill, to a gap there, and kept watch. And he was only there a small while when he saw the crowd o’ horsemen coming. And when they came nearer he saw that all of ’em were on black horses, all except one. There was one white horse and on that horse was the girl.
He hid down behind the bushes and didn’t stir while they went in the gap only a couple o’ feet from where he was. One by one they passed, and the girl was the last to cross in. And just as she passed, John jumped up and pulled her out o’ the saddle. The minute he did it, the rest o’ the crowd stopped. Oh, he thought he was dead, that they’d attack him, for sure. But all they did was to turn around slowly and stare at him. They went on up towards the fort then and he saw ’em no more.
Anyway, he had enough to be thinking about now.
“Come on,” says he to the girl. “Come out o’ this place, quick.”
He brought her on down along and across the road to Mr. Mahon’s place, and took her in. They were all gone to bed, o’ course. All he could do was give her something to eat—but not a word o’ talk could he knock out o’ her.
’Twas the same the following day—no talk! She hadn’t a word, whatever was wrong. He asked Mr. Mahon could she stay and help around the house, a kind of a maid, and he said she could.
She was a grand girl in every way, except for the one thing: that she had no word. No matter what they did they could get no talk out o’ her.
So, all that year John was thinking about this, that a fine girl like her couldn’t explain herself.
And when ’twas coming up to November Eve again he said to himself, “If that light is above there again at the fort tonight, I’ll find out once and for all what’s going on here.”
The night came, anyway, and he kept a lookout. Sure enough, close to the time, he saw the light above on the side o’ the hill.
Out with him, and off up, until he came to the same place where the passage was. He looked in. ’Twas the very same. He went in, as quiet as a mouse, until he came to the door where the light was coming out.
When he peeped in, the same room was there, and the same table, with the same two old hags. He knew by the way they were talking, though, that there was something wrong. So he listened.
“Oh, that thief, John O’Brien,” says one of ’em. “That he may rot alive.”
“True for you,” says the other one. “Only for him we’d have a fine dance last November Eve.”
“What right had he to steal our grand girl, anyway? What business of his was she?”
The other old lady laughed—if you could call it a laugh! “Sure, what good is she to him? She’ll be like she is the rest o’ her days—as dumb as a stick o’ timber. Ha-hah!”
“True for you. Just as well they don’t know that this is the stuff that’d give her talk enough for twenty—ha-haaaa!”
And she took a slug out o’ the jug that was on the table.
As soon as John heard that, he didn’t wait one second, only jumped in the door, snapped the jug off o’ the table before they hardly knew he was there, and off with him, out, and down the hill holding on to that jug like ’twas gold.
When they got up in the morning, he told Mr. Mahon about where he was and what happened.
“You better call her in,” says he.
They did, and gave her a drink out o’ the jug. She smiled at ’em. But she had no talk. They gave her a second sup out of it. She laughed. But still no talk. So they gave her a third drop out o’ the jug. And that was the time she found her tongue. ’Twas like a waterfall! She couldn’t stop, maybe even if she wanted to. But I s’pose after a whole year with no word she was entitled!
Anyway, when she had enough said about whatever she was talking about, she says to John, “What you have done for me, I can’t repay you for or thank you enough for. But there’s one other thing I’ll ask of you, if you’ll do it for me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” says he. “If I can, I will. What is it?”
“ ’Tis this. I want to go home, but I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?” says he.
“How could I? Below, in Castleconnell in County Limerick where I come from, all my people think I’m dead. ’Tis so I was carried by the Good People last November Eve, up to that fort over there, where you saved me. But when they carried me they left a thing instead o’ me at home that looked like me, and that thing died away and away and was buried. If you go back there now and tell ’em I’m here alive and that you saved me, they’ll think you’re cracked, fit for the madhouse.”
“What’ll I do, so?” says John.
“If you’ll follow my advice, now,” says she, “everything might end well yet. When I was at home, my father bought a pony for me so I could ride out with him on the hunt. We went everywhere together, me and that pony. Now that he thinks I’m dead, he wouldn’t part with that animal for any money. But if you’ll go down to my father’s place, get a job there, and bring back my pony here, he’ll follow you sooner or later. When he finds me here, safe and sound, everything’ll be fine. Will you do that for me?”
“O’ course I will,” says he.
The following morning he got permission from Mr. Mahon and set out for Castleconnell. She gave him directions and he made out the place easy enough. He got a job, too,
in the stables, and he was working away there for a week or two. The little pony was there, getting the very same attention as a person would—maybe even better. And ’twas no time before the father was telling him all about his daughter that was dead and gone, how he used to come out several times in the day to talk to that pony, and every time he looked at him, he thought of her.
“All the better,” says John to himself. “He’s sure to follow me if I take him.”
And that’s just what he did, a few mornings after, early, before anyone was stirring. Tackled up and headed off for Corbally, and was gone a good few miles before anyone noticed he was missing.
But when they did, there was murder! The father was fit to be tied. His daughter’s pony gone!
“I’ll kill him! He’s a dead man when I get up to him. After I trusting him, and all.”
John brought the pony back to Corbally, anyway, and ’twas only a short time after when her father came in the avenue, still in a temper. Oh, for sure, he was going to do damage! He was savage, man.
But he was just passing the front room window when he looked in and saw his daughter looking out at him.
The poor man collapsed. Fell off o’ his horse there in the yard, with shock.
There was fierce commotion! They brought him in and revived him. But, sure, he nearly passed out again when he saw his daughter standing in front o’ him. They talked to him, anyway, and told him as much as they knew. The poor man was listening and half listening. You wouldn’t know if he understood half of what they were saying. But when he came around right, and Mr. Mahon told him ’twas all true, he had to believe it. Moreover, when his own daughter was holding his hand, the girl he thought was dead.
When things settled down, anyway, and they had a bite to eat, the father says to John, “You have done me a great service, John O’Brien. But for you, my daughter was gone. The least I can do is put no obstacle in front o’ her if she wants to marry you.”
Want to! Anyone’d know by the way they were looking at each other that they were made for each other.
Meeting the Other Crowd Page 22