by Otto Penzler
“The Hanging Jumbee,” replied Mr. Da Silva, in his usual tones.
“Yes! There at the side of the road were three Jumbees. There’s a reference to that in The History of Stewart McCann. Perhaps you’ve run across that, eh?”
Mr. Lee nodded, and Mr. Da Silva quoted:
“ ‘There they hung, though no ladder’s rung
“ ‘Supported their dangling feet.’
“And there’s another line in The History,” he continued, smiling, “which describes a typical group of Hanging Jumbee:
“ ‘Maiden, man-child, and shrew.’
“Well, there were the usual three Jumbees, apparently hanging in the air. It wasn’t very light, but I could make out a boy of about twelve, a young girl, and a shrivelled old woman—what the author of The History of Stewart McCann meant by the word ‘shrew.’ He told me himself, by the way, Mr. Lee, that he had put feet on his Jumbees mostly for the sake of a convenient rhyme—poetic license! The Hanging Jumbee have no feet. It is one of their peculiarities. Their legs stop at the ankles. They have abnormally long, thin African legs. They are always black, you know. Their feet—if they have them—are always hidden in a kind of mist that lies along the ground wherever one sees them. They shift and ‘weave,’ as a full-blooded African does—standing on one foot and resting the other—you’ve noticed that, of course—or scratching the supporting ankle with the toes of the other foot. They do not swing in the sense that they seem to be swung on a rope—that is not what it means; they do not twirl about. But they do—always—face the oncomer. . . .
“I walked on, slowly, and passed them; and they kept their faces to me as they always do. I’m used to that. . . .
“I went up the steps of the house to the front gallery, and found Mrs. Iversen waiting for me. Her sister was with her, too. I remained sitting with them for the best part of an hour. Then two old black women who had been sent for, into the country, arrived. These were two old women who were accustomed to prepare the dead for burial. Then I persuaded the ladies to retire, and started to come home myself.
“It was a little past midnight, perhaps twelve-fifteen. I picked out my own hat from two or three of poor old Iversen’s that were hanging on the rack, took my supplejack, and stepped out of the door onto the little stone gallery at the head of the steps.
“There are about twelve or thirteen steps from the gallery down to the street. As I started down them I noticed a third old black woman sitting, all huddled together, on the bottom step, with her back to me. I thought at once that this must be some old crone who lived with the other two—the preparers of the dead. I imagined that she had been afraid to remain alone in their cabin, and so had accompanied them into the town—they are like children, you know, in some ways—and that, feeling too humble to come into the house, she had sat down to wait on the step and had fallen asleep. You’ve heard their proverbs, have you not? There’s one that exactly fits this situation that I had imagined: ‘Cockroach no wear crockin’ boot when he creep in fowl-house!’ It means: ‘Be very reserved when in the presence of your betters!’ Quaint, rather! The poor souls!
“I started to walk down the steps toward the old woman. That scant halfmoon had come up into the sky while I had been sitting with the ladies, and by its light everything was fairly sharply defined. I could see that old woman as plainly as I can see you now, Mr. Lee. In fact, I was looking directly at the poor creature as I came down the steps, and fumbling in my pocket for a few coppers for her—for tobacco and sugar, as they say! I was wondering, indeed, why she was not by this time on her feet and making one of their queer little bobbing bows—‘cockroach bow to fowl,’ as they might say! It seemed this old woman must have fallen into a very deep sleep, for she had not moved at all, although ordinarily she would have heard me, for the night was deathly still, and their hearing is extraordinarily acute, like a cat’s, or a dog’s. I remember that the fragrance from Mrs. Iversen’s tuberoses in pots on the gallery railing, was pouring out in a stream that night, ‘making a greeting for the moon!’ It was almost overpowering.
“Just as I was putting my foot on the fifth step, there came a tiny little puff of fresh breeze from somewhere in the hills behind Iversen’s house. It rustled the dry fronds of a palm-tree that was growing beside the steps. I turned my head in that direction for an instant.
“Mr. Lee, when I looked back, down the steps, after what must have been a fifth of a second’s inattention, that little old black woman who had been huddled up there on the lowest step, apparently sound asleep, was gone. She had vanished utterly—and, Mr. Lee, a little white dog, about the size of a French poodle, was bounding up the steps toward me. With every bound, a step at a leap, the dog increased in size. It seemed to swell out there before my very eyes.
“Then I was really frightened—thoroughly, utterly frightened. I knew if that animal so much as touched me, it meant death, Mr. Lee—absolute, certain death. The little old woman was a ‘sheen’—chien, of course. You know of lycanthropy—wolf-change—of course. Well, this was one of our varieties of it. I do not know what it would be called, I’m sure. ‘Canicanthropy,’ perhaps. I don’t know, but something—something, first-cousin-once-removed from lycanthropy, and on the downward scale, Mr. Lee. The old woman was a were-dog!
“Of course, I had no time to think, only to use my instinct. I swung my supplejack with all my might and brought it down squarely on that beast’s head. It was only a step below me then, and I could see the faint moonlight sparkle on the slaver about its mouth. It was then, it seemed to me, about the size of a medium-sized dog—nearly wolf-size, Mr. Lee, and a kind of deathly white. I was desperate, and the force with which I struck caused me to lose my balance. I did not fall, but it required a moment or two for me to regain my equilibrium. When I felt my feet firm under me again, I looked about, frantically, on all sides, for the ‘dog.’ But it, too, Mr. Lee, like the old woman, had quite disappeared. I looked all about, you may well imagine, after that experience, in the clear, thin moonlight. For yards about the foot of the steps, there was no place—not even a small nook—where either the ‘dog’ or the old woman could have been concealed. Neither was on the gallery, which was only a few feet square, a mere landing.
“But there came to my ears, sharpened by that night’s experiences, from far out among the plantations at the rear of Iversen’s house, the pad-pad of naked feet. Someone—something—was running, desperately, off in the direction of the centre of the island, back into the hills, into the deep ‘bush.’
“Then, behind me, out of the house onto the gallery rushed the two old women who had been preparing Iversen’s body for its burial. They were enormously excited, and they shouted at me unintelligibly. I will have to render their words for you.
“ ‘O, de Good Gahd protec’ you, Marster Jaffray, sir—de Joombie, de Joombie! De “Sheen,” Marster Jaffray! He go, sir?’
“I reassured the poor old souls, and went back home.” Mr. Da Silva fell abruptly silent. He slowly shifted his position in his chair, and reached for, and lighted, a fresh cigarette. Mr. Lee was absolutely silent. He did not move. Mr. Da Silva resumed, deliberately, after obtaining a light.
“You see, Mr. Lee, the West Indies are different from any other place in the world, I verily believe, sir. I’ve said so, anyhow, many a time, although I have never been out of the islands except when I was a young man, to Copenhagen. I’ve told you exactly what happened that particular night.”
Mr. Lee heaved a sigh.
“Thank you, Mr. Da Silva, very much indeed, sir,” said he, thoughtfully, and made as though to rise. His service wristwatch indicated six o’clock.
“Let us have a fresh swizzel, at least, before you go,” suggested Mr. Da Silva. “We have a saying here in the island, that a man can’t travel on one leg! Perhaps you’ve heard it already.”
“I have,” said Mr. Lee.
“Knud, Knud! You hear, mon? Knud—tell Charlotte to mash up another bal’ of ice—you hear? Quickly now,” command
ed Mr. Da Silva.
PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS (1943– ) was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, the son a Cork-born journalist whose family can be traced back in the area to 1288. Ellis, most of whose fiction has been published under the Peter Tremayne pseudonym, took his B.A. and master’s degrees in Celtic studies, then followed his father’s footsteps to become a journalist. His first book, Wales: A Nation Again (1968), was a history of the Welsh struggle for independence, followed by popular titles in Celtic studies. He has served as international chairman of the Celtic League (1988–1990) and is the honorary life president of the Scottish 1820 Society and honorary life member of the Irish Literary Society.
He has produced eighty-eight full-length books, a similar number of short stories, and numerous scholarly pamphlets. As Tremayne, he has written eighteen worldwide bestselling novels about the seventh-century Irish nun-detective, Sister Fidelma, which has more than three million copies in print. As Peter MacAlan, he produced eight thrillers (1983–1993). In the horror field, he has written more than two dozen novels, mostly inspired by Celtic myths and legends, including Dracula Unborn (1977), The Revenge of Dracula (1978), and Dracula, My Love (1980).
“Marbh Bheo” was originally published in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Zombies, edited by Stephen Jones (London: Robinson Publishing, 1993).
IT WAS DARK when I reached the old cottage. The journey had been far from easy. I suppose a city-bred person such as myself would find most rural journeys difficult. I had certainly assumed too much. As the crow flies, I had been told that the cottage was only some twenty-one miles from the centre of Cork City. But in Ireland the miles are deceptive. I know there is a standard joke about “the Irish mile” but there is a grain of truth in it. For the Boggeragh Mountains, in whose shadows the cottage lay, are a brooding, windswept area where nothing grows but bleak heather, a dirty stubble which clings tenaciously to the grey granite thrusts of the hills, where the wind whistles and sings over a moonscape of rocks pricking upwards to the heavens. To walk a mile in such terrain, among the heights and terrible grandeur of the wild, rocky slopes and gorse you have to allow two hours. A mile on a well-kept road is not like a mile on a forgotten track amidst these sullen peaks.
What was I doing in such an inhospitable area in the first place? That is the question which you will undoubtedly ask.
Well, it was not through any desire on my part. But one must live and my livelihood depended on my job with RTÉ. I am a researcher with Telefís Éireann, the Irish state television. Initially it was the idea of some bright producer that we make a programme on Irish folk customs. So that was the initial impetus which found me searching among dusty tomes in an old occult bookstore, in a little alley off Sheares Street on the nameless island in the River Lee which constitutes the centre of the city of Cork. The area is often mentioned in the literature of Cork as the place where once the fashionable world came to see and be seen. That era of glory has departed and now small artisans’ houses and shops crowd upon it claustrophobically.
I had been told to research the superstitions connected with the dead and I was browsing through some volumes when I became aware of an old woman standing next to me. She was peering at the book that I was examining with more than a degree of interest.
“So you are interested in the Irish customs and superstitions relating to the dead, young man?” she observed in an imperious tone, her voice slightly shrill and sharp.
I looked at her. She was of small stature, the shoulders bent, but she wore a long black dress, with matching large hat and veil, almost like a figure out of a Victorian drama. From such a guise it was hard to see her features but she gave the air of a world long gone, of a time almost forgotten.
“I am,” I replied courteously.
“An interesting subject. There are many stories of the dead who come to life again in West Cork. If you travel round the rural communities you will hear some quite incredible stories.”
“Really?” I inquired politely. “You mean zombies?”
She sniffed disparagingly.
“Zombies! That is a voodoo superstition originating in Africa. You are in Ireland, young man. No, I mean the marbh bheo.”
She pronounced this as “ma’rof vo.”
“What’s that?” I demanded.
“A corpse that lives,” she replied. “You will find many a tale about the marbh bheo in rural Ireland.”
She sniffed again. It seemed a habit.
“Yes, really, young man. There are many stories that will make your hair curl. Stories that are fantastic and terrible. Tales of being buried alive. The tale of Tadhg Ó Catháin who, in punishment for his wicked life, was condemned to be ridden every night by a hideous living corpse, a marbh bheo, who demanded burial and drove him from churchyard to churchyard as the dead rose up in each one to refuse the corpse burial. There are the corpses who wait in haunted lakes to devour the drowned ones, and the unholy undead creatures who haunt the raths. Oh yes, young man, there are many fantastic tales to be heard and some not a mile or so from this very spot.”
An idea crossed my mind as she spoke.
“Do you know any local people who are experts in such tales?” I inquired. “You see, I am working on a television programme and want to speak to someone . . .”
She sniffed yet again.
“You wish to speak to someone who has knowledge about the marbh bheo?”
I smiled. She made it sound so natural as if I were merely asking to speak to someone who could advise me on bee-keeping. I nodded eagerly.
“Go to Musheramore Mountain and ask for ‘Teach Droch-Chlú.’ At ‘Teach Droch-Chlú’ you will find Father Nessan Doheny. He will speak with you.”
I put down the book that I had been examining, turned to reach for my attaché case and took out my notebook. I turned back to the old lady but much to my amazement she had gone. I looked round the bookstore. The owner was upstairs and I asked him if he had seen or knew her but he had not. With a shrug, I jotted down the names that she had given me. After all, in an occult bookstore you are apt to meet the weirdest people. But I was pleased with the meeting. Here was a more interesting lead than spending days browsing through books. A good television programme relies on personalities, raconteurs, and not the recitation of dry and dusty facts by a narrator.
Musheramore is the largest peak in the Boggeragh Mountains, not far from Cork. I checked the phone book and found no listing for Father Nessan Doheny nor for “Teach Droch-Chlú.” But the place was so near, and city dweller that I am, I thought I would be able to ride the twenty-one miles to Musheramore and back in one evening. I should explain that I am the proud possessor of a vintage Triumph motorcycle. Motorbikes are a hobby of mine. I thought that I could have a chat with the priest and then be back in Cork long before midnight.
I rode out of Cork on the Macroom road, which is a good straight and wide highway, and then turned north on a small track towards the village of Ballynagree with Musheramore a black dominating peak in the distance. That was easy. I stopped at a local garage, just north of Ballynagree, filled up with petrol and asked the way to “Teach Droch-Chlú.” The garage man, whose name-badge on his overalls pronounced him to be “Manus,” gave me an old fashioned glance, as though I had said something which secretly amused him. His face assumed a sort of knowing grin as he gave me some directions.
That was when the real journey began.
It took me an hour to negotiate the directions and reach the place. Though it shames me to say it, my Irish is not particularly good. In a country which is reputedly bilingual, but where English is more widely spoken than Irish, one can get by with little use of the language. Therefore, while I knew that “Teach” meant a house, I had no idea of the full meaning of the name. And the cottage, for such it proved to be, was harder to find than I would ever have thought.
It lay in a scooped out hollow of the mountain, surrounded by dark trees and shrubs which formed a hedgerow. It looked old, dank and depressing. And when I eventual
ly found the place, darkness had spread its enveloping cloak all around.
I parked my motorbike and walked along a winding path, with the sharp barbs of pyracantha bushes scratching my hands and snagging my jacket. I finally reached the low lintelled door.
When I knocked on its paint-peeling panels, a reedy voice bade me enter.
Father Nessan Doheny, or so I presumed the gaunt figure to be, sat in a high-backed chair by a smouldering turf fire; his hair was white, the eyes colourless and pale, seeming without animation, and his skin was like yellow parchment. His thin, claw-like hands were folded on his lap. I would have placed his age more towards ninety than younger. He was clad in a dark, shining suit with only his white Roman collar to throw it into relief. There was a chilly atmosphere in the room in spite of the smouldering fire.
“The dead?” he piped shrilly, after I had explained my purpose. His thin bloodless lips cracked upwards. It might have been a smile. “Have the living so little to interest them that they need to know of the dead?”
“It’s for a television programme on folklore, Father,” I humoured him.
“Folklore, is it?” he cackled. “Now the dead are reduced to folklore.”
He fell silent for such a long while that I thought maybe the ancient priest had grown senile in his ageing and had fallen asleep, but he eventually raised his face to mine and shook his head.
“I could tell you many tales about the dead. They are as real as the living. Why, not far from here is a farmstead. It is the custom in these parts that when throwing away water at night, for you will find many a house that has still to draw its water from wells, that the person casting out the water should cry: ‘Tóg ort as uisce!’ Meaning—away with yourself from the water.”
I knew this to be a rural expression better rendered into English as “look out for the water.”
“Why would they say this, Father?”
“Because the belief is that water falling on a corpse burns it, for water is purity. Well, there came a night when a woman of a farm not far from here, threw out a jug of water and forgot the warning cry. Instantly, she heard a shriek of a person in pain. No one was seen in the darkness. Around midnight, the door came open and a black lamb entered the house, having its back scalded. It lay down moaning by the hearth and died before the farmer and his wife knew what to do.