Irish Stories and Folklore

by Stephen Brennan

  There were some men out fishing in the bay one time, and a man came and held on to the boat, and wanted them to make room for him to get in, and after a time he left them. He was one of those. And there was another of them came up on the rocks one day, and called out to Martin Flaherty that was going out and asked what was his name.

  There’s said to be another island out there that’s enchanted, and there are some that see it. And it’s said that a fisherman landed on it one time, and he saw a little house, and he went in, and a very nice-looking young woman came out and said, “What will you say to me?” and he said, “You are a very nice lady.” And a second came and asked him the same thing and a third, and he made the same answer. And after that they said, “You’d best run for your life,” and so he did, and his curragh was floating along and he had but just time to get into it, and the island was gone. But if he had said “God bless you,” the island would have been saved.

  A Fisherman on Kilronan Pier:

  I don’t give in to these things myself, but they’d make you believe them in the middle island. Mangan, that I lodged with there, told me of seeing a ship when he was out with two other men, that followed them and vanished. And he said one of the men took to his bed from that time and died. And Doran told me about the horse he saw, that was in every way like a horse you’d see on land. And a man on the south island told me how he saw a calf one morning on the strand, and he thought it belonged to a neighbor, and was going to drive it up to his field, when its mother appeared on the sea, and it went off to her.

  They are in the sea as well as on the land. That is well known by those that are out fishing by the coast. When the weather is calm, they can look down sometimes and see cattle and pigs and all such things as we have ourselves. And at nights their boats come out and they can be seen fishing, but they never last out after one o’clock.

  The cock always crows on the first of March every year at one o’clock. And there was a man brought a cock out with him in his boat to try them. And the first time when it crowed they all vanished. That is how they were detected.

  There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and they sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of fishes, for they can take their choice shape.

  Pat O’Hagan:

  There were two fine young women—red-haired women—died in my village about six months ago. And I believe they’re living yet. And there are some have seen them appear. All I ever saw myself was one day I was out fishing with two others, and we saw a canoe coming near us, and we were afraid it would come near enough to take away our fish. And as we looked it turned into a threemasted ship, and people in it. I could see them well, dark-coloured and dressed like sailors. But it went away and did us no harm.

  One night I was going down to the curragh, and it was a night in harvest, and the stars shining, and I saw a ship fully rigged going towards the coast of Clare where no ship could go. And when I looked again, she was gone.

  And one morning early, I and other men that were with me, and one of them a friend of the man here, saw a ship coming to the island, and he thought she wanted a pilot, and put out in the curragh. But when we got to where she was, there was no sign of her, but where she was the water was covered with black gulls, and I never saw a black gull before, thousands and crowds of them, and not one white bird among them. And one of the boys that was with me took a tarpin and threw it at one of the gulls and hit it on the head, and when he did, the curragh went down to the rowlocks in the water—up to that—and it’s nothing but a miracle she ever came up again, but we got back to land. I never went to a ship again, for the people said it was on account of me helping in the Preventive Service it happened, and that if I’d hit at one of the gulls myself, there would have been a bad chance for us. But those were no right gulls, and the ship was no living ship.

  The Old Man in the Kitchen:

  It’s in the middle island the most of them are, and I’ll tell you a thing that I know of myself that happened not long ago. There was a young girl, and one evening she was missing, and they made search for her everywhere and they thought that she was drowned or that she had gone away with some man. And in the evening of the next day there was a boy out in a curragh, and as he passed by a rock that is out in the sea there was the girl on it, and he brought her off. And surely she could not go there by herself. I suppose she wasn’t able to give much account of it, and now she’s after going to America.

  And in Aran there were three boys and their uncle went out to a ship they saw coming, to pilot her into the bay. But when they got to where she was, there was no ship, and a sea broke over the canoe, and they were drowned, all fine strong men. But a man they had with them that was no use or of no account, he came safe to land. And I know a man in this island saw curraghs and curraghs full of people about the island of a Sunday morning early, but I never saw them myself. And one Sunday morning in my time there were scores and scores lying their length by the sea on the sand below, and they saw a woman in the sea, up to her waist, and she racking her hair and settling herself and as clean and as nice as if she was on land. Scores of them saw that.

  There’s a house up there where the family have to leave a plate of potatoes ready every night, and all’s gone in the morning.

  They are said to have all things the same as ourselves under the sea, and one day a cow was seen swimming as if for the headland, but before she got to it she turned another way and went down. And one time I got a small muc-warra (porpoise) and I went to cut it up to get what was good of it, for it had about two inches of fat, and when I cut it open the heart and the liver and every bit of it were for all the world like a pig you would cut up on land.

  There’s a house in the village close by this that’s haunted. My sister was sitting near it one day, and it empty and locked, and some other little girls, and they heard a noise in it, and at the same time the flags they were sitting on grew red-hot, that they had to leave them. And another time the woman of the house was sick, and a little girl that was sitting by the fire in the kitchen saw standing in the door the sister of the woman that was sick, and she a good while dead, and she put up her arm, as if to tell her not to notice her. And the poor woman of that house, she had no luck, nothing but miscarriages or dead babies. And one child lived to be nine months old, and there was less flesh on it at the end of the nine months than there was the day it was born. She has a little girl now that’s near a year old, but her arm isn’t the size of that, and she’s crabbed and not like a child as she should be. Many a one that’s long married without having a child goes to the fortune-teller in Galway, and those that think anything of themselves go to Roundstone.

  A Man near Loughmore:

  I know a woman was washed and laid out, and it went so far that two half-penny candles were burned over her. And then she sat up, came back again, and spoke to her husband, and told him how to divide his property, and to manage the children well. And her step-son began to question her, and he might have got a lot out of her but her own son stopped him and said to let her alone. And then she turned over on her side and died. She was not to say an old woman. It’s not often the old are taken. What use would there be for them? But a woman to be taken young, you know there’s demand for her. It’s the people in the middle island know about these things. There were three boys from there lost in a curragh at the point near the lighthouse, and for long after their friends were tormented when they came there fishing, and they would see ships there when the people of this island that were out at the same time couldn’t see them. There were three or four out in a curragh near the lighthouse, and a conger-eel came and upset it, and they were all saved but one, but he was brought down and for the whole day they could hear him crying and screeching under the sea. And they were not the only ones, but a fisherman that was there from Galway had to go away and leave it, because of the screeching.

  There was a coast-guard’s wife there was all but gone, but she was saved after. And there’s a boy here
now was for a long time that they’d give the world he was gone altogether with the state he was in, and now he’s as strong as any boy in the island; and if ever any one was away and came back again, it was him. Children used often to be taken, but there’s a great many charms in use in these days that saves them. A big sewing-needle you’ll see the woman looking for to put with a baby, and as long as that’s with it, it’s safe. But anyway they’re always put back again into the world before they die in the place of some young person. And even a beast of any consequence if anything happens to it, no one in the island would taste it; there might be something in it, some old woman or the like.

  There were a few young men from here were kept in Galway for a day, and they went to a woman there that works the cards. And she told them of deaths that would come in certain families. And it wasn’t a fortnight after that five boys were out there, just where you see the curragh now, and they were upset and every one drowned, and they were of the families that she had named on the cards.

  My uncle told me that one night they were all up at that house up the road, making a match for his sister, and they stopped till near morning, and when they went out, they all had a drop taken. And he was going along home with two or three others and one of them, Michael Flaherty, said he saw people on the shore. And another of them said that there were not, and my uncle said, “If Flaherty said that and it not true, we have a right to bite the ear off him, and it would be no harm.” And then they parted, and my uncle had to pass by the beach, and then he saw whole companies of people coming up from the sea, that he didn’t know how he’d get through them, but they opened before him and let him pass.

  There were men going to Galway with cattle one morning from the beach down there, and they saw a man up to his middle in the sea—all of them saw it.

  There was a man was down early for lobsters on the shore at the middle island, and he saw a horse up to its middle in the sea, and bowing its head down as if to drink. And after he had watched it awhile it disappeared.

  There was a woman walking over by the north shore—God have mercy on her—she’s dead since—and she looked out and saw an island in the sea, and she was a long time looking at it. It’s known to be there, and to be enchanted, but only few can see it.

  There was a man had his horse drawing seaweed up there on the rocks, the way you see them drawing it every day, in a basket on the mare’s back. And on this day every time he put the load on, the mare would let its leg slip and it would come down again, and he was vexed and he had a stick in his hand and he gave the mare a heavy blow. And that night she had a foal that was dead, not come to its full growth, and it had spots over it, and every spot was of a different color. And there was no sire on the island at that time, so whatever was the sire must have come up from the sea.

  A Man Watching the Weed-gatherers:

  There’s no doubt at all about the sea-horses. There was a man out at the other side of the island, and he saw one standing on the rocks and he threw a stone at it and it went off in the sea. He said it was grand to see it swimming, and the mane and the tail floating on the top of the water.

  A Woman from the Connemara Side:

  I was told there was a mare that had a foal, and it had never had a horse. And one day the mare and foal were down by the sea, and a horse put up its head and neighed, and away went the foal to it and came back no more.

  And there was a man on this island watched his field one night where he thought the neighbours’ cattle were eating his grass, and what he saw was horses and foals coming up from the sea. And he caught a foal and kept it, and set it racing, and no horse or no pony could ever come near it, till one day the race was on the strand, and away with it into the sea, and the jockey along with it, and they never were seen again.

  Mrs. O’Dea and Mrs. Daly:

  There was a cow seen come up out of the sea one day and it walked across the strand, and its udder like as if it had been lately milked. And Tommy Donohue was running up to tell his father to come down and see it, and when he looked back it was gone out to sea again.

  There was a man here was going to build a new house, and he brought a wise woman to see would it be in the right place. And she made five heaps of stones in five places, and said, “Whatever heap isn’t knocked in the night, build it there.” And in the morning all the heaps were knocked but one, and so he built it there.

  One time I was out over by that island with another man, and we saw three women standing by the shore, beating clothes with a beetle. And while we looked, they vanished, and then we heard the cry of a child passing over our heads twenty feet in the air.

  I know they go out fishing like ourselves, for Father Mahony told me so; and one night I was out myself with my brother, beyond where that ship is, and we heard talk going on, so we knew that a boat was near, and we called out to let them know we heard them, and then we saw the boat and it was just like any other one, and the talk went on, but we couldn’t understand what they were saying. And then I turned to light my pipe, and while I lighted it, the boat and all in it were gone.

  Mrs. Casey:

  I got a story from an old man down by the sea at Tyrone. He says there was a man went down one night to move his boat from the shore where it was to the pier. And when he had put out, he found it was going out to sea, instead of to touch the pier, and he felt it very heavy in the water, and he looked behind him and there on the back of the boat were six men in shiny black clothes like sailors, and there was one like a harvest-man dressed in white flannel with a belt round his waist. And he asked what they were doing, and the man in white said he had brought the others out to make away with them there, and he took and cut their bodies in two and threw them one by one over the boat, and then he threw himself after them into the sea. And the boat went under water too, and the poor man himself lost his wits, but it came up again and he said he had never seen as many people as he did in that minute under the water. And then he got home and left the boat, and in the morning he came down to it, and there was blood in it; and first he washed it and then he painted it, but for all he could do, he couldn’t get rid of the blood.

  Peter Donohue:

  There was a woman, a friend of this man’s, living out in the middle island, and one day she came down to where a man of this island was putting out his curragh to come back, and she said, “I just saw a great crowd of them—that’s the Sheogue—going over to your island like a cloud.” And when he got home he went up to a house there beyond, where the old woman used to be selling poteen on the sly. And while he was there her little boy came running in and cried, “Hide away the poteen, for the police are on the island! Such a man called to me from his curragh to give warning, for he saw the road full of them with the crowd of them and they with their guns and cutlasses and all the rest.” But the man was in the house first knew well what it was, after what he heard from the woman on the other island, and that they were no right police, and sure enough no other one ever saw them. And that same day, my mother had put out wool to dry in front of where that house is with the three chimneys, near the Chapel. And I was there talking to some man, one on each side of the yard, and the wall between us. And the day was as fine as this day is and finer, and not a breath of air stirring. And a woman that lived near by had her wool out drying too. And the wool that was in my mother’s yard began to rise up, as if something was under it, and I called to the other man to help me to hold it down, but for all we could do it went up in the air, a hundred feet and more, till we could see it no more. And after a couple of hours it began to drop again, like snow, some on the thatch and some on the rocks and some in the gardens. And I think it was a fortnight before my mother had done gathering it. And one day she was spinning it, I don’t know what put it in my mind, but I asked her did she lose much of that wool. And what she said was, “If I didn’t get more than my own, I didn’t get less.” That’s true and no lie, for I never told a lie in my life—I think. But the wool belonging to the neighboring woman was never st
irred at all.

  And the woman that had the wool that wasn’t stirred, she is the woman I married after, and that’s now my wife.

  There was a man, one Power, died in this island, and one night that was bright there was a friend of his going out for mackerel, and he saw these sands full of people hurling, and he well knew Power’s voice that he heard among them.

  There was a cousin of my own built a new house, and when they were first in it and sitting round the fire, the woman of the house that was singing for them saw a great blot of blood come down the chimney on to the floor, and they thought there would be no luck in the house and that it was a wrong place. But they had nothing but good luck ever after.

  Peter Dolan:

  There was a man that died in the middle island, that had two wives. And one day he was out in the curragh he saw the first wife appear. And after that one time the son of the second wife was sick, and the little girl, the first wife’s daughter, was out tending cattle, and a can of water with her and she had a waistcoat of her father’s put about her body, where it was cold. And her mother appeared to her in the form of a sheep, and spoke to her, and told her what herbs to find, to cure the step-brother, and sure enough they cured him. And she bid her leave the waistcoat there and the can, and she did. And in the morning the waistcoat was folded there, and the can standing on it. And she appeared to her in her own shape another time, after that. Why she came like a sheep the first time was that she wouldn’t be frightened. The girl is in America now, and so is the step-brother that got well.

  A Galway Woman:

  One time myself, I was up at the well beyond, and looking into it, a very fine day, and no breath of air stirring, and the stooks were ripe standing about me. And all in a minute a noise began in them, and they were like as if knocking at each other and fighting like soldiers all about me.

  Mary Moran:

  There was a girl here that had been to America and came back, and one day she was coming over from Liscannor in a curragh, and she looked back and there behind the curragh was the “Gan ceann” the headless one. And he followed the boat a great way, but she said nothing. But a gold pin that was in her hair fell out, and into the sea, that she had brought from America, and then it disappeared. And her sister was always asking her where was the pin she brought from America, and she was afraid to say. But at last she told her, and the sister said, “It’s well for you it fell out, for what was following you would never have left you, till you threw it a ring or something made of gold.” It was the sister herself that told me this.