Irish Folk and Fairy Tales

by Gordon Jarvie

  In due course, they married one another, and that was one fine wedding. And I heard from a little bird that there was neither want nor woe, sickness nor sorrow, mishap nor misfortune on them till the hour of their death, and may the same be with me, and with us all!

  PART TWO: THE PHOUKA AND THE RED MAN

  ‘The Phouka’ by Lady Wilde

  The Phouka is a friendly being, and often helps the farmer at his work if he is treated well and kindly. One day a farmer’s son was minding cattle in the field, when something rushed past him like the wind; but he was not frightened, for he knew it was the Phouka on his way to the old mill by the moat where the fairies met every night. So he called out, ‘Phouka, Phouka! show me what you are like, and I’ll give you my big coat to keep you warm.’ Then a young bull came to him lashing his tail like mad; but Phadrig threw the coat over him, and in a moment he was quiet as a lamb, and told the boy to come to the mill that night when the moon was up, and he would have good luck.

  So Phadrig went, but saw nothing except sacks of corn all lying about on the ground, for the men had fallen asleep, and no work was done. Then he lay down also and slept, for he was very tired; and when he woke up early in the morning there was all the meal ground, though certainly the men had not done it, for they still slept. And this happened for three nights, after which Phadrig determined to keep awake and watch.

  Now there was an old chest in the mill, and he crept into this to hide, and just looked through the keyhole to see what would happen. And exactly at midnight six little fellows came in, each carrying a sack of corn on his back; and after them came an old man in tattered rags of clothes, and he bade them turn the mill, and they turned and turned it till all was ground.

  Then Phadrig ran to tell his father, and the miller determined to watch the next night with his son, and both together saw the same thing happen.

  ‘Now,’ said the farmer, ‘I see it is the Phouka’s work, and let him work if it pleases him, for the men are idle and lazy and only sleep. So I’ll pack the whole set off tomorrow, and leave the grinding of the corn to this excellent old Phouka.’

  After this the farmer grew so rich that there was no end to his money, for he had no men to pay, and all his corn was ground without his spending a penny. Of course the people wondered much over his riches, but he never told them about the Phouka, or their curiosity would have spoiled the luck.

  Now Phadrig went often to the mill and hid in the chest that he might watch the fairies at work; but he had great pity for the poor old Phouka in his tattered clothes, who yet directed everything and had hard work of it sometimes, keeping the little Phoukas in order. So Phadrig, out of love and gratitude, bought a fine suit of cloth and silk and laid it one night on the floor of the mill just where the old Phouka always stood to give his orders to the little men, and then he crept into the chest to watch.

  ‘How is this?’ said the Phouka when he saw the clothes. ‘Are these for me? I shall be turned into a fine gentleman.’

  And he put them on, and then began to walk up and down admiring himself. But suddenly he remembered the corn, and went to grind as usual, then stopped and cried out – ‘No, no. No more work for me. Fine gentlemen don’t grind corn. I’ll go out and see a little of the world and show my fine clothes.’ And he kicked away the old rags into a corner, and went out.

  No corn was ground that night, nor the next, nor the next; all the little Phoukas ran away, and not a sound was heard in the mill. Then Phadrig grew very sorry for the loss of his old friend, and used to go out into the fields and call out, ‘Phouka, Phouka! come back to me. Let me see your face.’ But the old Phouka never came back, and all his life long Phadrig never looked on the face of his friend again. However, the farmer had made so much money that he wanted no more help; and he sold the mill and reared up Phadrig to be a great scholar and a gentleman, who had his own house and land and servants. And in time he married a beautiful lady, so beautiful that the people said she must be daughter to the king of the fairies.

  A strange thing happened at the wedding, for when they all stood up to drink the bride’s health, Phadrig saw beside him a golden cup filled with wine. And no one knew how the golden cup had come to his hand; but Phadrig guessed it was the Phouka’s gift, and he drank the wine without fear and made his bride drink also. And ever after their lives were happy and prosperous, and the golden cup was kept as a treasure in the family, and the descendants of Phadrig have it in their possession to this day.

  ‘The Red Man in Donegal’ by Letitia McClintock

  Pat Diver, the tinker, was a man well accustomed to a wandering life, and to strange shelters; he had shared the beggar’s blanket in smoky cabins; he had crouched beside the still in many a nook and corner where poteen was made on the wild Inishowen mountains; he had even slept on the bare heather, or on the ditch, with no roof over him but the vault of heaven; yet all his nights of adventure were tame and commonplace when compared with one especial night.

  During the day preceding that night, he had mended all the kettles and saucepans in Moville and Greencastle, and was on his way to Culdaff, when night overtook him on a lonely mountain road.

  He knocked at one door after another asking for a night’s lodging, while he jingled the halfpence in his pocket, but was everywhere refused.

  Where was the boasted hospitality of Inishowen, which he had never before known to fail? It was of no use to be able to pay when the people seemed so churlish. Thus thinking, he made his way towards a light a little farther on, and knocked at another cabin door.

  An old man and woman were seated one at each side of the fire.

  ‘Will you be pleased to give me a night’s lodging, sir?’ asked Pat respectfully.

  ‘Can you tell a story?’ returned the old man.

  ‘No, then, sir, I canna say I’m good at story-telling,’ replied the puzzled tinker.

  ‘Then you maun just gang farther, for none but them that can tell a story will get in here.’

  This reply was made in so decided a tone that Pat did not attempt to repeat his appeal, but turned away reluctantly to resume his weary journey.

  ‘A story, indeed,’ muttered he. ‘Auld wives’ fables to please the weans!’

  As he took up his bundle of tinkering implements, he observed a barn standing rather behind the dwelling-house, and, aided by the rising moon, he made his way towards it.

  It was a clean, roomy barn, with a piled-up heap of straw in one corner. Here was a shelter not to be despised; so Pat crept under the straw and was soon asleep.

  He could not have slept very long when he was awakened by the tramp of feet, and, peeping cautiously through a crevice in his straw covering, he saw four immensely tall men enter the barn, dragging a body which they threw roughly upon the floor.

  They next lighted a fire in the middle of the barn, and fastened the corpse by the feet with a great rope to a beam in the roof. One of them began to turn it slowly before the fire. ‘Come on,’ said he, addressing a gigantic fellow, the tallest of the four – ‘I’m tired; you be to tak’ your turn.’

  ‘Faix an’ troth, I’ll no’ turn him,’ replied the big man. ‘There’s Pat Diver in under the straw, why wouldn’t he tak’ his turn?’

  With hideous clamour the four men called the wretched Pat, who, seeing there was no escape, thought it was his wisest plan to come forth as he was bidden.

  ‘Now, Pat,’ said they, ‘you’ll turn the corpse, but if you let him burn you’ll be tied up there and roasted in his place.’

  Pat’s hair stood on end, and the cold perspiration poured from his forehead, but there was nothing for it but to perform his dreadful task.

  Seeing him fairly embarked in it, the tall men went away.

  Soon, however, the flames rose so high as to singe the rope, and the corpse fell with a great thud upon the fire, scattering the ashes and embers, and extracting a howl of anguish from the miserable cook, who rushed to the door, and ran for his life.

  He ran on until he was
ready to drop with fatigue, when, seeing a drain overgrown with tall, rank grass, he thought he would creep in there and lie hidden till morning.

  But he was not many minutes in the drain before he heard the heavy tramping again, and the four men came up with their burden, which they laid down on the edge of the drain.

  ‘I’m tired,’ said one, to the giant; ‘it’s your turn to carry him a piece now.’

  ‘Faix and troth, I’ll no’ carry him,’ replied he, ‘but there’s Pat Diver in the drain, why wouldn’t he come out and tak’ his turn?’

  ‘Come out, Pat, come out,’ roared all the men, and Pat, almost dead with fright, crept out.

  He staggered on under weight of the corpse until he reached Kiltown Abbey, a ruin festooned with ivy, where the brown owl hooted all night long, and the forgotten dead slept around the walls, under dense, matted tangles of brambles and ben-weed.

  No one was ever buried there now, but Pat’s tall companions turned into the wild graveyard, and began digging a grave.

  Pat, seeing them thus engaged, thought he might once more try to escape, and climbed up into a hawthorn tree in the fence, hoping to be hidden in the boughs.

  ‘I’m tired,’ said the man who was digging the grave; ‘here, take the spade,’ addressing the big man, ‘it’s your turn.’

  ‘Faix an’ troth, it’s no’ my turn,’ replied he, as before. ‘There’s Pat Diver in the tree, why wouldn’t he come down and tak’ his turn?’

  Pat came down to take the spade, but just then the cocks in the little farmyards and cabins round the abbey began to crow, and the men looked at one another.

  ‘We must go,’ said they, ‘and well is it for you, Pat Diver, that the cocks crowed, for if they had not, you’d just ha’ been bundled into that grave with the corpse.’

  Two months passed, and Pat had wandered far and wide over the county Donegal, when he chanced to arrive at Raphoe during a fair.

  Among the crowd that filled the Diamond he came suddenly on the big man.

  ‘How are you, Pat Diver?’ said the big man, bending down to look into the tinker’s face.

  ‘You’ve the advantage of me, sir, for I havna’ the pleasure of knowing you,’ faltered Pat.

  ‘Do you not know me, Pat?’ Whisper – ‘When you go back to Inishowen, you’ll have a story to tell!’

  ‘Daniel O’Rourke’ by Thomas Crofton Croker

  People may have heard of the renowned adventures of Daniel O’Rourke, but how few are there who know that the cause of all his perils, above and below, was neither more nor less than having slept under the walls of the Phouka’s tower. I knew the man well. He lived at the bottom of Hungry Hill, just at the right-hand side of the road as you go towards Bantry. He was an old man at the time he told me the story, with grey hair and a red nose; and it was on the 25th of June 1813 that I heard it from his own lips, as he sat smoking his pipe under the old poplar tree, on as fine an evening as ever shone from the sky. I was going to visit the caves in Dursey Island, having spent the morning at Glengariff.

  ‘I am often axed to tell it, sir,’ said he, ‘so that this is not the first time. The master’s son, you see, had come from beyond foreign parts in France and Spain, as young gentlemen used to go before Bonaparte or any such was heard of; and sure enough there was a dinner given to all the people on the ground, gentle and simple, high and low, rich and poor. The ould gentlemen were the gentlemen after all, saving your honour’s presence. They’d swear at a body a little, to be sure, and, maybe, give one a cut of a whip now and then, but we were no losers by it in the end; and they were so easy and civil, and kept such rattling houses, and thousands of welcomes; and there was no grinding for rent, and there was hardly a tenant on the estate that did not taste of his landlord’s bounty often and often in a year; but now it’s another thing. No matter for that, sir, for I’d better be telling you my story.

  ‘Well, we had everything of the best, and plenty of it; and we ate, and we drank, and we danced, and the young master by the same token danced with Peggy Barry, from the Bohereen – a lovely young couple they were, though they are both low enough now. To make a long story short, I got, as a body may say, the same thing as tipsy almost, for I can’t remember ever at all, no ways, how it was I left the place; only I did leave it, that’s certain. Well, I thought, for all that, in myself, I’d just step to Molly Cronohan’s, the fairy woman, to speak a word about the bracket heifer that was bewitched; and so as I was crossing the stepping-stones of the ford of Ballyasheenogh, and was looking up at the stars and blessing myself – for why? it was Lady-day – I missed my foot, and souse I fell into the water. “Death alive!” thought I, “I’ll be drowned now!” However, I began swimming, swimming away for the dear life, till at last I got ashore, somehow or other, but never the one of me can tell how, upon a dissolute island.

  ‘I wandered and wandered about there, without knowing where I wandered, until at last I got into a big bog. The moon was shining as bright as day, or your fair lady’s eyes, sir (with your pardon for mentioning her), and I looked east and west, and north and south, and every way, and nothing did I see but bog, bog, bog – I could never find out how I got into it; and my heart grew cold with fear, for sure and certain I was that it would be my berrin place. So I sat down upon a stone which, as good luck would have it, was close by me, and I began to scratch my head, and sing the Ullagone – when all of a sudden the moon grew black, and I looked up, and saw something for all the world as if it was moving down between me and it, and I could not tell what it was. Down it came with a pounce, and looked at me full in the face; and what was it but an eagle? as fine a one as ever flew from the kingdom of Kerry. So he looked at me in the face, and says he to me, ‘Daniel O’Rourke,’ says he, ‘how do you do?’ ‘Very well, I thank you, sir,’ says I; ‘I hope you’re well’; wondering out of my senses all the time how an eagle came to speak like a Christian. ‘What brings you here, Dan?’ says he. ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ says I; ‘only I wish I was safe home again.’ ‘Is it out of the island you want to go, Dan?’ says he. ‘’Tis, sir,’ says I: so I up and told him how I had taken a drop too much, and fell into the water; how I swam to the island; and how I got into the bog and did not know my way out of it. ‘Dan,’ says he, after a minute’s thought, ‘though it is very improper for you to get drunk on Lady-day, yet as you are a decent sober man, who ‘tends Mass well, and never flings stones at me or mine, nor cries out after us in the fields – my life for yours,’ says he; ‘so get up on my back, and grip me well for fear you’d fall off, and I’ll fly you out of the bog.’ ‘I am afraid,’ says I, ‘your honour’s making game of me; for whoever heard of riding a horseback on an eagle before?’ ‘’Pon the honour of a gentleman,’ says he, putting his right foot on his breast, ‘I am quite in earnest: and so now either take my offer or starve in the bog – besides, I see that your weight is sinking the stone.’

  ‘It was true enough as he said, for I found the stone every minute sinking under me. I had no choice; so thinks I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and this is a fair chance. “I thank your honour,” says I, “for the loan of your civility; and I’ll take your kind offer.” I therefore mounted upon the back of the eagle, and held him tight enough by the throat, and up he flew in the air like a lark. Little I knew the trick he was going to serve me. Up – up – up, God knows how far up he flew. “Why then,” said I to him – thinking he did not know the right road home – very civilly, because why? I was in his power entirely; “Sir,” says I, “please your honour’s glory, and with humble submission to your better judgment, if you’d fly down a bit, you’re now just over my cabin, and I could be put down there, and many thanks to your worship.”

  ‘“Arrah, Dan,” said he, “do you think me a fool? Look down in the next field, and don’t you see two men and a gun? By my word it would be no joke to be shot this way, to oblige a drunken blackguard that I picked up off of a cold stone in a bog.” “Bother you,” said I to myself, but I did not speak o
ut, for where was the use? Well, sir, up he kept, flying, flying, and I asking him every minute to fly down, and all to no use. “Where in the world are you going, sir?” says I to him. “Hold your tongue, Dan,” says he: “mind your own business, and don’t be interfering with the business of other people.” “Faith, this is my business I think,” says I. “Be quiet, Dan,” says he: so I said no more.

  ‘At last where should we come to, but to the moon itself. Now you can’t see it from this, but there is, or there was in my time, a reaping-hook sticking out of the side of the moon.

  ‘‘Dan,’ said the eagle, ‘I’m tired with this long fly; I had no notion ‘twas so far.’ ‘And my lord, sir,’ said I, ‘who in the world axed you to fly so far – was it I? did not I beg and pray and beseech you to stop half an hour ago?’ ‘There’s no use talking, Dan,’ said he; ‘I’m tired bad enough, so you must get off, and sit down on the moon until I rest myself.’ ‘Is it sit down on the moon?’ said I; ‘is it upon that little round thing, then? why, then, sure I’d fall off in a minute, and be kilt and spilt, and smashed all to bits; you are a vile deceiver – so you are.’ ‘Not at all, Dan,’ said he; ‘you can catch fast hold of the reaping-hook that’s sticking out of the side of the moon, and ‘twill keep you up.’ ‘I won’t then,’ said I. ‘Maybe not,’ said he, quite quiet. ‘If you don’t, my man, I shall just give you a shake, and one slap of my wing, and send you down to the ground, where every bone in your body will be smashed as small as a drop of dew on a cabbage in the morning.’ ‘Why, then, I’m in a fine way,’ said I to myself, ‘ever to have come along with the likes of you’; and so giving him a hearty curse in Irish, for fear he’d know what I said, I got off his back with a heavy heart, took hold of the reaping-hook, and sat down upon the moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that.