Irish Folk and Fairy Tales

by Gordon Jarvie

  ‘’Tis the fairies,’ said he. ‘I see them, and busy crathurs they are.’

  ‘But what are they sawing, Frank?’

  ‘They are makin’ a child’s coffin,’ he replied; ‘they have the body already made, an’ they’re now nailin’ the lid together.’

  That night the child died, and the story goes that on the second evening afterwards, the carpenter who was called upon to make the coffin brought a table out from Thomas’s house to the Fort, as a temporary bench; and, it is said, that the sawing and hammering necessary for the completion of his task were precisely the same which had been heard the evening but one before – neither more nor less. I remember the death of the child myself, and the making of its coffin, but I think the story of the supernatural carpenter was not heard in the village for some months after its interment.

  Frank had every appearance of a hypochondriac about him. At the time I saw him, he might be about thirty-four years of age, but I do not think, from the weakness of his frame and infirm health, that he has been alive for several years. He was an object of considerable interest and curiosity, and often have I been present when he was pointed out to strangers as ‘the man that could see the good people’.

  ‘A Donegal Fairy’ after Letitia McClintock

  Ay, it’s a bad thing to displeasure the wee folk, sure enough – they can be unfriendly if they’re angered, an’ they can be the very best o’ gude neighbours if they’re treated kindly.

  My mother’s sister was all her lone in the house one day, wi’ a big pot o’ water boiling on the fire, and one o’ the wee folk fell down the chimney, and slipped wi’ his leg in the hot water. He let a terrible squeal out o’ him, an’ in a minute the house was full o’ wee crathurs pulling him out o’ the pot, an’ carrying him across the floor.

  ‘Did she scald you?’ my aunt heard them ask him.

  ‘Na, na, it was mysel’ scalded my ain sel’,’ said the wee fellow.

  ‘Ach weel, ach weel,’ says they. ‘If it was your ain fault an’ your ain sel’ scalded yoursel’, we’ll say no more about it, but if she had scalded you, we’d ha’ made her pay for it.’

  ‘The Hill-man and the House-wife’ by Juliana Horatia Ewing

  It is well known that the good people cannot stand mean ways. Now, there once lived a house-wife who had a sharp eye to her own good in this world, and gave alms of what she had no use, for the good of her soul.

  One day a hill-man knocked at her door. ‘Can you lend us a saucepan, good mother?’ said he. ‘There’s a wedding in the hill, and all the pots are in use.’ ‘Is he to have one?’ asked the servant girl who opened the door. ‘Ay, to be sure,’ said the house-wife.

  But when the maid was taking a saucepan from the shelf, the house-wife pinched her arm and whispered sharply, ‘Not that good one, you stupid; get the old one out of the cupboard. It leaks, and the hill-men are so neat and such nimble workers that they are sure to mend it before they send it home. So we can do a good turn to the good people and save sixpence from the tinker.’

  The maid fetched the saucepan, which had been laid by till the tinker’s next visit, and gave it to the dwarf, who thanked her and went away.

  The saucepan was soon returned neatly mended and ready for use. At supper-time the maid filled the pan with milk and set it on the fire for the children’s supper, but in a few minutes the milk was so burnt and smoked that no one could touch it, and even the pigs would not drink the wash into which it was thrown.

  ‘Ah, you good-for-nothing slut!’ cried the house-wife, as she this time filled the pan herself. ‘You would ruin the richest, with your careless ways; there’s a whole quart of good milk spoilt at once.’ ‘And that’s twopence,’ cried a voice from the chimney, a queer whining voice like some old body who was always grumbling over something.

  The house-wife had not left the saucepan for two minutes when the milk boiled over, and it was all burnt and smoked as before. ‘The pan must be dirty,’ cried the house-wife in a rage; ‘and there are two full quarts of milk as good as thrown to the dogs.’ ‘And that’s fourpence,’ said the voice in the chimney.

  After a long scrubbing the saucepan was once more filled and set on the fire, but it was not the least use, the milk was burnt and smoked again, and the house-wife burst into tears at the waste, crying out, ‘Never before did such a thing happen to me since I kept house! Three quarts of milk burnt for one meal!’ ‘And that’s sixpence,’ cried the voice from the chimney. ‘You didn’t save the tinker after all,’ with which the hill-man himself came tumbling down the chimney, and went off laughing through the door. But from that time the saucepan was as good as any other.

  ‘The Fairies’ Revenge’ by Lady Wilde

  The fairies have a great objection to the fairy raths, where they meet at night, being built upon by mortal man. A farmer called Johnstone, having plenty of money, bought some land, and chose a beautiful green spot to build a house on, the very spot the fairies loved best.

  The neighbours warned him that it was a fairy rath; but he laughed and never minded (for he was from the north), and looked on such things as mere old-wives’ tales. So he built the house and made it beautiful to live in; and no people in the country were so well off as the Johnstones, so that the people said the farmer must have found a pot of gold in the fairy rath.

  But the fairies were all the time plotting how they could punish the farmer for taking away their dancing ground, and for cutting down the hawthorn bush where they held their revels when the moon was full. And one day when the cows were milking, a little old woman in a blue cloak came to Mrs Johnstone and asked her for a porringer of milk.

  ‘Go away,’ said the mistress of the house, ‘you shall have no milk from me. I’ll have no tramps coming about my place.’ And she told the farm servants to chase her away.

  Some time after, the best and finest of the cows sickened and gave no milk, and lost her horns and teeth and finally died.

  Then one day as Mrs Johnstone was sitting spinning flax in the parlour, the same little old woman in the blue cloak suddenly stood before her.

  ‘Your maids are baking cakes in the kitchen,’ she said; ‘give me some off the griddle to carry away with me.’

  ‘Go out of this,’ cried the farmer’s wife, angrily; ‘you are a wicked old wretch, and have poisoned my best cow.’ And she bade the farm servants drive her off with sticks.

  Now the Johnstones had one only child; a beautiful bright boy, as strong as a young colt, and as full of life and merriment. But soon after this he began to grow queer and strange, and was disturbed in his sleep; for he said the fairies came round him at night and pinched and beat him, and some sat on his chest and he could neither breathe nor move. And they told him they would never leave him in peace unless he promised to give them a supper every night of a griddle cake and a porringer of milk. So to soothe the child the mother had these things laid every night on a table beside his bed, and in the morning they were gone.

  But still the child pined away, and his eyes got a strange, wild look, as if he saw nothing near or around him, only something far, far away that troubled his spirit. And when they asked him what ailed him, he said the fairies carried him away to the hills every night, where he danced and danced with them till morning, when they brought him back and laid him again in his bed.

  At last the farmer and his wife were at their wits’ end from grief and despair, for the child was pining away before their eyes and they could do nothing for him to help him. And one night he cried out in great agony –

  ‘Mother! Mother! Send for the priest to take away the fairies, for they are killing me; they are here on my chest, crushing me to death,’ and his eyes were wild with terror.

  Now the farmer and his wife believed in no fairies, and in no priest; but to soothe the child they did as he asked and sent for the priest, who prayed over him and sprinkled him with holy water. The poor little fellow seemed calmer as the priest prayed, and he said the fairies were leaving him and going awa
y, and then he sank into a quiet sleep. But when he woke in the morning, he told his parents that he had a beautiful dream and was walking in a lovely garden with the angels; and he knew it was heaven, and that he would be there before night, for the angels told him they would come for him.

  Then they watched by the sick child all through the night, for they saw the fever was still on him, but hoped a change would come before morning; for he now slept quite calmly with a smile on his lips.

  But just as the clock struck midnight he awoke and sat up, and when his mother put her arms round him weeping, he whispered to her – ‘The angels are here, Mother,’ and then he sank back, and so died.

  Now after this calamity the farmer never held up his head. He ceased to mind his farm, and the crops went to ruin and the cattle died, and finally before a year and a day were over he was laid in the grave by the side of his little son; and the land passed into other hands, and as no one would live in the house it was pulled down. No one, either, would plant on the rath; so the grass grew again all over it, green and beautiful, and the fairies danced there once more in the moonlight as they used to do in the old time, free and happy; and thus the evil spell was broken for evermore.

  But the people would have nothing to do with the childless mother, so she went away back to her own people, a broken-hearted, miserable woman – a warning to all who would arouse the vengeance of the fairies by interfering with their ancient rights and possessions and privileges.

  ‘The Stolen Child’ by W.B. Yeats

  Where dips the rocky highland

  Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

  There lies a leafy island

  Where flapping herons wake

  The drowsy water-rats.

  There we’ve hid our fairy vats

  Full of berries,

  And of reddest stolen cherries.

  Come away, O human child!

  To the woods and waters wild,

  With a fairy hand in hand,

  For the world’s more full of weeping than

  you can understand.

  Where the wave of moonlight glosses

  The dim grey sands with light,

  Far off by farthest Rosses

  We foot it all the night,

  Weaving olden dances,

  Mingling hands, and mingling glances,

  Till the moon has taken flight;

  To and fro we leap,

  And chase the frothy bubbles,

  While the world is full of troubles

  And is anxious in its sleep.

  Come away! O human child!

  To the woods and waters wild,

  With a fairy hand in hand,

  For the world’s more full of weeping than

  you can understand.

  Where the wandering water gushes

  From the hills above Glen-Car,

  In pools among the rushes

  That scarce could bathe a star,

  We seek for slumbering trout

  And whispering in their ears

  Give them unquiet dreams,

  Leaning softly out

  From ferns that drop their tears

  Of dew on the young streams.

  Come away, O human child!

  To the woods and waters wild,

  With a fairy hand in hand,

  For the world’s more full of weeping than

  you can understand.

  Away with us, he’s going,

  The solemn-eyed;

  He’ll hear no more the lowing

  Of the calves on the warm hill-side.

  Or the kettle on the hob

  Sing peace into his breast;

  Or see the brown mice bob

  Round and round the oatmeal chest.

  For he comes, the human child,

  To the woods and waters wild,

  With a fairy hand in hand,

  From a world more full of weeping than

  he can understand.

  ‘Guleesh’ after Douglas Hyde

  There was once a boy in the county Mayo; Guleesh was his name. There was a ruined fort just by the gable of his house, and he often sat on the grassy bank that surrounded it. One night he stood, half leaning against the gable of the house, and looked up into the sky, watching the beautiful bright moon. After standing that way for some time, he said to himself: ‘I wish I could get away from this place once in a while. I’d sooner be anywhere than here. Och, it’s all right for you, old moon,’ says he, ‘that can turn around and move through the sky, and no man to say boo to you. I wish I was as free as you.’

  Hardly was the word out of his mouth when he heard a great commotion like the sound of many people running together, and talking, and laughing, and joking, and the noise went past him like a whirl of wind, and he listened to it dying away into the ruined fort. ‘Dear gracious, by my soul,’ says he, ‘that’s a merry noise to follow.’

  Inside the whirlwind was nothing less than the fairy host, though of course Guleesh did not realise it, and he followed them into the ruins of the fort. There he caught up with their hullabaloo, every man of them crying out as loud as he could: ‘My horse, my bridle, and saddle! My horse, my bridle, and saddle!’

  ‘Dear gracious!’ said Guleesh, ‘I can shout like that too,’ and he cried out as loud as they: ‘My horse, my bridle, and saddle! My horse, my bridle, and saddle!’ And immediately a fine horse with a bridle of gold, and saddle of silver, was standing before him. Guleesh leapt up on it, and the moment he was mounted, he saw that the whole ruin was full of horses, and of little people mounted on them.

  Said one of the little people to him: ‘Are you coming with us tonight, Guleesh?’

  ‘I am surely,’ said Guleesh.

  ‘Well, come along then,’ said the little man, and out they all trooped together, riding like the wind, faster than the fastest horse you ever saw a-hunting, and faster than the fox with the hounds at his tail. Faster than the cold winter’s wind they went, and rushed along until they came to the brink of the sea.

  Then every one of them cried: ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ and then they were far up in the air, and before Guleesh had time to think about it, they were down on dry land again, still going like the wind. At last they halted, and one of them said to Guleesh: ‘Guleesh, do you know where you are?’

  ‘No idea at all,’ says Guleesh.

  ‘You’re in France, Guleesh,’ said he. ‘The daughter of the king of France is to be married tonight, the loveliest woman in the kingdom, and we are going to try and bring her away with us, if we can; and you must come with us, so that we can put her up behind you on your horse, for we cannot put her astride a fairy horse. But you’re flesh and blood, and she can get a good grip of you, and she won’t fall off your horse. Will you do that for us, Guleesh?’

  ‘Happy to oblige a lady, I’m sure,’ said Guleesh.

  So then they got off their horses, and one of the fairy men said a word that Guleesh did not understand, and all at once Guleesh found himself and his little companions transported into the royal palace. There was a great feast going on there, and all the nobility and gentlefolk of the kingdom were there, dressed in their finest, and the night was as bright as the day with all the lamps and candles that were lit, and Guleesh had to shut his eyes at the brightness. When he opened them again and looked around him, he had never seen such an amazing sight. There were a hundred tables spread out, each one of them groaning with flesh-meat, and cakes and sweetmeats, and wine and ale, and every drink that ever a man saw. The musicians were at both ends of the great hall, playing the sweetest music that ever a person heard, and there were young men and women in the middle of the hall, dancing and turning and going round so quickly and lightly, that Guleesh got quite light-headed watching them. It was the biggest feast seen in France for twenty years, because the old king had no other children, and his daughter’s wedding to the son of a neighbouring king was to take place that very night. Three days the feasting had been going on, but this was the night of the wedding, and the nig
ht that Guleesh and the little folk came, hoping, if they could, to carry off with them the king’s young daughter.

  Guleesh and his companions were standing together at the head of the hall, where a fine altar had been set up, with two bishops behind it waiting to marry the girl when the right moment came. Now none of the court could see the little people, for they had said a word as they came in, and that word made them all invisible, as if they had never been there.

  ‘Tell me, which of them is the king’s daughter?’ asked Guleesh when he had got used to the noise and the bright lights.

  ‘Don’t you see her, over there?’ asked the little man that he was talking to.

  Guleesh looked over to where the little man was pointing, and there he saw the loveliest woman that ever moved on the ridge of the world. Her face was rose-bright and lily-smooth, her mouth as red as a strawberry, her foot as small as a person’s hand, her hair like buckles of gold, and her form was slim and slender. Her garments and dress were woven with silver and gold, and the bright stone of the ring on her hand shone like the sun.

  Guleesh was nearly blinded by the beauty of her; but when he looked again, he saw that she was crying and there were tears in her eyes. ‘It can’t be right,’ said Guleesh to himself. ‘Why is she so sad when all the folk around her are full of merriment and sport?’

  ‘Dear gracious, she’s sorely grieved,’ said the little man; ‘for it’s against her will she is being married, and she has no love for the husband she is to marry. The king was going to marry her off three years ago, when she was only fifteen, but she begged him for a year’s grace. Now she’s had three years’ grace, and the king will give her no longer – she must marry tonight, according to him. But I’ll tell you this, Guleesh,’ said the little man, ‘it’s no king’s son she’ll marry, if I can help it.’