Irish Stories and Folklore
Page 31
By the time he and Mr. Taylour were round the corner the hounds had checked fifty yards ahead, and were eagerly hunting to and fro for the lost scent, and a little further down the old road they saw a woman running away from them.
“Hi, ma’am!” bellowed Freddy, “did you see the fox?”
The woman made no answer.
“Did you see the fox?” reiterated Freddy in still more stentorian tones. “Can’t you answer me?”
The woman continued to run without even looking behind her.
The laughter of Mr. Taylour added fuel to the fire of Freddy’s wrath: he put the spurs into Mayboy, dashed after the woman, pulled his horse across the road in front of her, and shouted his question point-blank at her, coupled with a warm inquiry as to whether she had a tongue in her head.
The woman jumped backwards as if she were shot, staring in horror at Freddy’s furious little face, then touched her mouth and ears and began to jabber inarticulately and talk on her fingers.
The laughter of Mr. Taylour was again plainly audible.
“Sure that’s a dummy woman, sir,” explained the butcher’s nephew, hurrying up. “I think she’s one of them tinkers that’s outside the town.” Then with a long screech, “Look! Look over! Tiger, have it! Hulla, hulla, hulla!”
Tiger was already over the wall and into the demesne, neck and neck with Fly, the smith’s half-bred greyhound; and in the wake of these champions clambered the Craffroe Pack, with strangled yelps of ardor, striving and squealing and fighting horribly in the endeavor to scramble up the tall smooth face of the wall.
“The gate! The gate further on!” yelled Freddy, thundering down the turfy road, with the earth flying up in lumps from his horse’s hoofs.
Mr. Taylour’s pony gave two most uncomfortable bucks and ran away; even Patsey Crimmeen and the black mare shared an unequal thrill of enthusiasm, as the latter, wholly out of hand, bucketed after the pony.
*
The afternoon was very cold, a fact thoroughly realized by Mrs. Alexander, on the front seat of Sir George’s motor-car, in spite of enveloping furs, and of Bismarck, curled like a fried whiting, in her lap. The grey road rushed smoothly backwards under the broad tyres; golden and green plover whistled in the quiet fields, starlings and huge missel thrushes burst from the wayside trees as the “Bollée,” uttering that hungry whine that indicates the desire of such creatures to devour space, tore past. Mrs. Alexander wondered if birds’ beaks felt as cold as her nose after they had been cleaving the air for an afternoon; at all events, she reflected, they had not the consolation of tea to look forward to. Barnet was sure to have some of her best hot cakes ready for Freddy when he came home from hunting. Mrs. Alexander and Sir George had been scouring the roads since a very early lunch in search of the hounds, and her mind reposed on the thought of the hot cakes.
The front lodge gates stood wide open, the motor-car curved its flight and skimmed through. Half-way up the avenue they whizzed past three policemen, one of whom was carrying on his back a strange and wormlike thing.
“Janet,” called out Sir George, “you’ve been caught making potheen! They’ve got the worm of a still there.”
“They’re only making a short cut through the place from the bog; I’m delighted they’ve found it!” screamed back Mrs. Alexander.
The “Bollée” was at the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of the house pulled the bell with numbed fingers. There was no response.
“Better go round to the kitchen,” suggested her brother. “You’ll find they’re talking too hard to hear the bell.”
His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the hall door with an extremely perturbed countenance.
“I can’t find a creature anywhere,” she said, “either upstairs or down—I can’t understand Barnet leaving the house empty—”
“Listen!” interrupted Sir George, “isn’t that the hounds?”
They listened.
“They’re hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!”
The motor-car took to flight again; it sped, soft-footed, through the twilight gloom of the back avenue, while a disjointed, travelling clamor of hounds came nearer and nearer through the woods. The motor-car was within a hundred yards of the back lodge, when out of the rhododendron-bush burst a spectral black-and-white dog, with floating fringes of ragged wool and hideous bald patches on its back.
“Fennessy’s dog!” ejaculated Mrs. Alexander, falling back in her seat.
Probably Bismarck never enjoyed anything in his life as much as the all too brief moment in which, leaning from his mistress’s lap in the prow of the flying “Bollée,” he barked hysterically in the wake of the piebald dog, who, in all its dolorous career had never before had the awful experience of being chased by a motor-car. It darted in at the open door of the lodge; the pursuers pulled up outside. There were paraffin lamps in the windows, the open door was garlanded with evergreens; from it proceeded loud and hilarious voices and the jerky strains of a concertina. Mrs. Alexander, with all, her most cherished convictions toppling on their pedestals, stood in the open doorway and stared, unable to believe the testimony of her own eyes. Was that the immaculate Barnet seated at the head of a crowded table, in her—Mrs. Alexander’s—very best bonnet and velvet cape, with a glass of steaming potheen punch in her hand, and Willy Fennessy’s arm round her waist?
The glass sank from the paragon’s lips, the arm of Mr. Fennessy fell from her waist; the circle of servants, tinkers, and country people vainly tried to efface themselves behind each other.
“Barnet!” said Mrs. Alexander in an awful voice, and even in that moment she appreciated with an added pang the feathery beauty of a slice of Barnet’s sponge-cake in the grimy fist of a tinker.
“Mrs. Fennessy, m’m, if you please,” replied Barnet, with a dignity that, considering the bonnet and cape, was highly creditable to her strength of character.
At this point a hand dragged Mrs. Alexander backwards from the doorway, a barefooted woman hustled past her into the house, slammed the door in her face, and Mrs. Alexander found herself in the middle of the hounds.
“We’d give you the brush, Mrs. Alexander,” said Mr. Taylour, as he flogged solidly all round him in the dusk, “but as the other lady seems to have gone to ground with the fox I suppose she’ll take it!”
*
Mrs. Fennessy paid out of her own ample savings the fines inflicted upon her husband for potheen-making and selling drink in the Craffroe gate lodge without a license, and she shortly afterwards took him to America.
Mrs. Alexander’s friends professed themselves as being not in the least surprised to hear that she had installed the afflicted Miss Fennessy (sister to the late occupant) and her scarcely less afflicted companion, the Fairy Pig, in her back lodge. Miss Fennessy, being deaf and dumb, is not perhaps a paragon lodge-keeper, but having, like her brother, been brought up in a work-house kitchen, she has taught Patsey Crimmeen how to boil stirabout à merveille.
BRENNAN ON THE MOOR
Traditional
T is of a brave young highwayman this story I will tell.
His name was Willie Brennan and in Ireland he did dwell.
It was on the Kilworth mountains he commenced his wild career,
Where many of a wealthy gentleman before him shook with fear.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
A brace of loaded pistols, he carried night and day.
He never robbed a poor man upon the King’s highway.
But what he’d taken from the rich, like Turpin and Black Bess,
He always did divide it with the widow in distress.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
One night he robbed a packman, by name of Pedlar Bawn.
They traveled on together til the day began to dawn.
&nb
sp; The pedlar saw his money gone, likewise his watch and chain,
He at once encountered Brennan and he robbed him back again.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
One day upon the highway, as Willie he went down,
He met the Mayor of Cashel, a mile outside the town.
The mayor he knew his features and he said “Young man” said he,
“Your name is Willie Brennan, you must come along with me.”
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
Now Brennan’s wife had come to town, provisions for to buy,
And when she saw her Willie there, she commenced to weep and cry.
He said, “Give to me that ten-penny.” As soon as Willie spoke,
She handed him a blunderbuss from underneath her cloak.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
Now with this loaded blunderbuss, the truth I will unfold,
He made the Mayor to tremble, and he robbed him of his gold.
One hundred pounds was offered for his apprehension there,
So he with horse and saddle to the mountains did repair.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
Then Brennan being an outlaw, upon the mountains high,
When cavalry and infantry to take they did try,
He laughed at them with scorn, until at last ’tis said,
By a false-hearted young man he basely was betrayed.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
In the county of Tipperary, in a place they call Clonmore,
Willie Brennan and his comrade, that day did suffer sore.
They lay amongst the fern, which was thick upon the field,
And nine deep wounds did he receive, before that he did yield.
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
So they were taken prisoner, in irons they were bound,
And both conveyed to Clonmel jail, strong walls did them surround.
They were tried and there found guilty, the Judge made this reply:
“For robbing on the King’s highway, you’re both condemned to die.”
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
Farewell unto my dear wife, and to my children three.
And to my aged father, he may shed tears for me.
And to my loving mother, who tore her locks and cried,
Saying, “I wish my Willie Brennan in your cradle you had died!”
And it’s Brennan on the Moor, Brennan on the Moor
Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the Moor.
MURTOUGH AND THE WITCH WOMAN
BY ELEANOR HULL
In the days when Murtough Mac Erca was in the High Kingship of Ireland, the country was divided between the old beliefs of paganism and the new doctrines of the Christian teaching. Part held with the old creed and part with the new, and the thought of the people was troubled between them, for they knew not which way to follow and which to forsake. The faith of their forefathers clung close around them, holding them by many fine and tender threads of memory and custom and tradition; yet still the new faith was making its way, and every day it spread wider and wider through the land.
The family of Murtough had joined itself to the Christian faith, and his three brothers were bishops and abbotts of the Church, but Murtough himself remained a pagan, for he was a wild and lawless prince, and the peaceful teachings of the Christian doctrine, with its forgiveness of enemies, pleased him not at all. Fierce and cruel was his life, filled with dark deeds and bloody wars, and savage and tragic was his death, as we shall hear.
Now Murtough was in the sunny summer palace of Cletty, which Cormac, son of Art, had built for a pleasure house on the brink of the slow-flowing Boyne, near the Fairy Brugh of Angus the Ever Young, the God of Youth and Beauty. A day of summer was that day, and the King came forth to hunt on the borders of the Brugh, with all his boon companions around him. But when the high-noon came the sun grew hot, and the King sat down to rest upon the fairy mound, and the hunt passed on beyond him, and he was left alone.
There was a witch woman in that country whose name was “Sigh, Sough, Storm, Rough Wind, Winter Night, Cry, Wail, and Groan.” Star-bright and beautiful was she in face and form, but inwardly she was cruel as her names. And she hated Murtough because he had scattered and destroyed the Ancient Peoples of the Fairy Tribes of Erin, her country and her fatherland, and because in the battle which he fought at Cerb on the Boyne her father and her mother and her sister had been slain. For in those days women went to battle side by side with men.
She knew, too, that with the coming of the new faith trouble would come upon the fairy folk, and their power and their great majesty would depart from them, and men would call them demons, and would drive them out with psalm-singing and with the saying of prayers, and with the sound of little tinkling bells. So trouble and anger wrought in the witch woman, and she waited the day to be revenged on Murtough, for he being yet a pagan, was still within her power to harm.
So when Sheen (for Sheen or “Storm” was the name men gave to her) saw the King seated on the fairy mound and all his comrades parted from him, she arose softly, and combed her hair with her comb of silver adorned with little ribs of gold, and she washed her hands in a silver basin wherein were four golden birds sitting on the rim of the bowl, and little bright gems of carbuncle set round about the rim. And she donned her fairy mantle of flowing green, and her cloak, wide and hooded, with silvery fringes, and a brooch of fairest gold. On her head were tresses yellow like to gold, plaited in four locks, with a golden drop at the end of each long tress. The hue of her hair was like the flower of the iris in summer or like red gold after the burnishing thereof. And she wore on her breasts and at her shoulders marvelous clasps of gold, finely worked with the tracery of the skilled craftsman, and a golden twisted torque around her throat. And when she was decked she went softly and sat down beside Murtough on the turfy hunting mound. And after a space Murtough perceived her sitting there, and the sun shining upon her, so that the glittering of the gold and of her golden hair and the bright shining of the green silk of her garments, was like the yellow iris-beds upon the lake on a sunny summer’s day. Wonder and terror seized on Murtough at her beauty, and he knew not if he loved her or if he hated her the most; for at one moment all his nature was filled with longing and with love of her, so that it seemed to him that he would give the whole of Ireland for the loan of one hour’s space of dalliance with her; but after that he felt a dread of her, because he knew his fate was in her hands, and that she had come to work him ill. But he welcomed her as if she were known to him and he asked her wherefore she was come. “I am come,” she said, “because I am beloved of Murtough, son of Erc, King of Erin, and I come to seek him here.” Then Murtough was glad, and he said, “Dost thou not know me, maiden?” “I do,” she answered, “for all secret and mysterious things are known to me and thou and all the men of Erin are well known.”
After he had conversed with her awhile, she appeared to him so fair that the King was ready to promise her anything in life she wished, so long as she would go with him to Cletty of the Boyne. “My wish,” she said, “is that you take me to your house, and that you put out from it your wife and your children because they are of the new faith, and all the clerics that are in your house, and that neither your wife nor any cleric be permitted to enter the house while I am there.”
“I will give you,
” said the King, “a hundred head of every herd of cattle that is within my kingdom, and a hundred drinking horns, and a hundred cups, and a hundred rings of gold, and a feast every other night in the summer palace of Cletty. But I pledge thee my word, oh, maiden, it were easier for me to give thee half of Ireland than to do this thing that thou hast asked.” For Murtough feared that when those that were of the Christian faith were put out of his house, she would work her spells upon him, and no power would be left with him to resist those spells.
“I will not take thy gifts,” said the damsel, “but only those things that I have asked; moreover, it is thus, that my name must never be uttered by thee, nor must any man or woman learn it.”
“What is thy name,” said Murtough, “that it may not come upon my lips to utter it?”
And she said, “Sigh, Sough, Storm, Rough Wind, Winter Night, Cry, Wail, Groan, this is my name, but men call me Sheen, for ‘Storm’ or Sheen is my chief name, and storms are with me where I come.”
Nevertheless, Murtough was so fascinated by her that he brought her to his home, and drove out the clerics that were there, with his wife and children along with them, and drove out also the nobles of his own clan, the children of Niall, two great and gallant battalions. And Duivsech, his wife, went crying along the road with her children around her to seek Bishop Cairnech, the half-brother of her husband, and her own soul-friend, that she might obtain help and shelter from him.
But Sheen went gladly and light-heartedly into the House of Cletty, and when she saw the lovely lightsome house and the goodly nobles of the clan of Niall, and the feasting and banqueting and the playing of the minstrels and all the joyous noise of that kingly dwelling, her heart was lifted within her, and “Fair as a fairy palace is this house of Cletty,” said she.
“Fair, indeed, it is,” replied the King; “for neither the Kings of Leinster nor the Kings of mighty Ulster, nor the lords of the clans of Owen or of Niall, have such a house as this; nay, in Tara of the Kings itself, no house to equal this house of mine is found.” And that night the King robed himself in all the splendor of his royal dignity, and on his right hand he seated Sheen, and a great banquet was made before them, and men said that never on earth was to be seen a woman more goodly of appearance than she. And the King was astonished at her, and he began to ask her questions, for it seemed to him that the power of a great goddess of the ancient time was in her; and he asked her whence she came, and what manner was the power that he saw in her. He asked her, too, did she believe in the God of the clerics, or was she herself some goddess of the older world? For he feared her, feeling that his fate was in her hands.