West of Ireland Folk Tales for Children

by Rab Fulton

  ‘Yes, sir. Most of the staff had finished for the day. There was only me and the boy left. He was finishing the sweeping and I was getting hampers prepared for your journey. Then we heard a scratching and a clattering noise and saw, oh it was awful, hundreds of insects pouring through the back door. The boy turned white with the shock of it. Oh it makes me ill to think of it, beetles, earwigs, ants and saints-know-what other little monsters, all scuttling up the table legs and up on to the stove and everywhere.

  ‘I slammed the hampers shut, sir, and sent the boy to go tell his mistress that I might not be able to get the hampers filled as there was a plague in the kitchen like the one that bedevilled the Egyptians. Well, the boy returned with the mistress and she was all efficiency and unperturbedness, sir. “Nothing a good sweeping and a good cleaning won’t fix,” she said, sir, without a blink and the beetles scuttling over her shoes as she stood there. Magnificent she was, sir, made orders like a general. Told the boy and me to go fetch wood and water. “We’ll boil them,” she said, “then sweep out their remains and clean the kitchen from top to bottom. If the three of us work hard it’ll be done in no time.”

  ‘Well, I did as I was ordered, went with the boy to fetch wood and water, but I did not think it proper that her ladyship should do the work with us. So I went to wake the scullery maid, sir, and then I had to explain what had happened, and then the boy, who was still in a state, shaking like a newborn lamb in a winter storm, well, he spilled the water and had to go fetch more. What with one thing and another it was twenty minutes before we all returned to the kitchen. And what a wonder to see, sir. All the insects were gone and the kitchen spick and span as if nothing had ever happened. Well, I said a prayer of thanks to God that we have been blessed with such an efficient mistress.’

  ‘And what did Lady Kirwan do then?’

  ‘Oh, her ladyship was not in the kitchen, sir. I presumed she had gone to finish her packing, sir.’

  Lord Kirwan looked around the clean kitchen. The back door was open and the blackness beyond was deep and terrible. ‘Wait here,’ he said, and walked slowly to the darkness. With a deep breath and a silent prayer he stepped through the doorway.

  No stars lit the sky. No moonlight broke through the thick clouds. The trees could scarcely be seen, reduced to black shapes on a black canvas. Fearful now, the lord almost cried out when something tugged at his sleeve. Looking down, he saw an old woman standing beside him, her face lined with age, her thin body wrapped in filthy rags.

  ‘I have witnessed a crime, sir,’ she wailed. ‘A terrible crime. Finnbheara himself I’ve seen this night, riding for Knockma on a great black steed, and the Lady Kirwan thrown on the horse before him like a sack of turnips, sir. You must rescue her, rescue her quick, before the sun rises or she will never be able to leave his palace beneath the hill, sir.’

  Lord Kirwan did not hesitate. He sent word to every house within his estate, ordering every man and boy to look out digging tools and come immediately to Knockma. Likewise his own staff were roused from their beds. Valet, butler, coachman and gardener; the boy who polished the shoes and the boy who cleaned the stables, all were roused up and sent out to Knockma. And not a man nor a boy complained once they learned of the terrible blow that had befallen the mistress of Castle Hackett House.

  Like an army, the men and boys assembled at the foot of Knockma. Many were fearful, for it was no light thing to make war against immortals, but when the order came, on they marched with pickaxes and shovels to begin the dirty business of hacking into the living soil of Knockma. Within an hour and a half, a massive hole had been dug into the hill. Lord Kirwan ordered a brief rest. The warriors rested, drank water and eagerly vowed Lady Kirwan would be freed before the sun rose. But when they returned to their campaign a terrible confusion assailed them, for the hole that they had dug had vanished.

  Lord Kirwan grabbed a pickaxe and attacked the hill again. ‘No fairy dare defy me!’ roared he, as his weapon rose and fell, rose and fell, and broke up the stone and soil of that devilish hill. Inspired by their leader, and fortified with a shot of brandy, the men and boys set to once more, but to no avail. The new hole they dug was deeper than the last, but the exhaustion was greater. This time they rested only a few minutes, but when they turned again to their assault, the found the second hole had likewise vanished.

  The bravery of Lord Kirwan’s battalions began to crumble; whispered doubts and fears echoed through the night air. As the mortals faced defeat, Lord Kirwan spied beyond the lights of the lanterns the old ragged woman. She stepped forward and declared, ‘Make haste, Lord Kirwan, the sun will rise soon and your wife will be trapped beneath the hill for all eternity.’

  ‘We dig,’ explained the weary lord. ‘But no matter how deep and wide, the hole fills up again.’

  ‘Fool!’ spat the old woman. ‘How can you be so lacking in knowledge and your family living here for generations?’

  ‘What is it that I do not know?’ asked Lord Kirwan, humbly.

  ‘Salt, my dear,’ replied the old woman in a kinder voice. ‘Mark with salt the boundary of the place you want to dig up. No magic will be able to stop you then.’

  The lord sent his steward to fetch salt. ‘Hurry, man,’ he ordered. ‘The night is growing old.’ The steward returned forty minutes later. A boundary was marked out with salt and the call went up again. ‘Dig, men! Dig! Dig with no rest. Dig before the sun rises and my wife is lost forever.’

  They dug, grunting and sweating, blades breaking the hill, soil clods and stony splinters bursting all around, the air shaking from the ding and crack of this last desperate assault. When the hole was twenty feet wide and twenty feet deep a cry came from the bottom of the pit. ‘Stop before you bring my roof in.’

  Lord Kirwan scrambled into the hole, the mud as thick and heavy on him as a suit of armour. He bent down and called out, ‘Is it yourself, Finnbheara?’

  ‘It is. Now stop your nonsense before you break through the ceiling of my palace.’

  ‘We’ll stop if you return my wife.’

  ‘Ah, now, sure she’s having a great time here. Dancing, feasting …’

  Lord Kirwan raised his pickaxe.

  ‘Stop!’ called the king of the Connacht immortals. ‘I’ll return your wife if you cease digging.’

  ‘Do you give your word?’ demanded Lord Kirwan.

  ‘I do,’ said Finnbheara.

  Lord Kirwan and his little army left the hill and returned in triumph to Castle Hackett House. The young lord made his way to the kitchen to order food and drink for his fine warriors. There, standing in the darkness before the kitchen door, he saw his wife. He grasped her and wept for joy, but his wife did not respond. Kirwan, weighed down with filth and exhaustion, did not realise at first what had befallen his wife. He gave her into the care of her lady’s maid and went to clean and refresh himself. When he called into his wife’s chamber he saw her sitting on a chair. Beside her stood the maid, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘My mistress does not respond,’ she whispered. ‘She will not speak, eat or sup the wine I offer her.’

  Lord Kirwan, fear and anger shivering in his belly, knelt before his wife and kissed her hand. There was no response. Lady Kirwan’s expression was blank and her body stiff and motionless. The maid, weeping freely now, declared, ‘She is trapped by a spell, sir. Her body is here but her mind is elsewhere. Oh, sir, I fear it is the work of Finnbheara.’

  ‘Don’t speak his name,’ hissed the lord of Castle Hackett House. Senseless with rage, he ran from the room. Down the stairs and out into the night he went, his only thought to run to Knockma and smash his way through the roof of the palace of the vile fairy king. But his way was barred by the old woman in her rags. ‘You will not get there before the sun rises, sir,’ said she. ‘And by then it will be far too late.’

  ‘What then can I do to save my wife?’

  ‘You must remove the spell.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘There will be a fairy pin on her. Remov
e the pin and bring it to me. But do it quickly, for the dawn is almost on us.’

  Lord Kirwan hurried back to his wife’s room and gave quick instruction to the lady’s maid. ‘There is a pin. It is magic. We must find it and remove it.’

  His hands were clumsy as he tugged at the folds of his wife’s garments. Less than a minute passed and with a whoop of joy he pulled out a pin. The maid shook her head. ‘A lady’s attire has many pins, sir. That is one of her own. Let me look, sir. I will know the false pin when I see it.’

  The maid slowly and carefully began to examine her mistress’s clothes. Lord Kirwan paced the room, looked at the clock, turned to the maid, and bit his tongue. A few more long thin aching minutes stretched by. Lord Kirwan continued pacing back and forth, back and forth, all the while stopping himself from screaming ‘Hurry up, you fool!’

  Then the maid turned round. ‘Here it is, sir.’ She smiled and held out her hand, and there was a golden pin as small and sharp as a thorn. The lord laughed, kissed the blushing maid on the top of her head and hurried back down the stairs. Outside the sky was lighter, his estate stretched before him in the pale morning gloom. Speechless he handed the magic pin to the old wrinkled woman. ‘Your wife is saved,’ said she, ‘and just in time.’

  Lord Kirwan watched as the sun peeped over the horizon, paused for a moment, then rose in a great red ball of fire. When he looked at the old woman again he saw that he had been joined by a great black horse. As the sun rose higher, so the old woman began to change. Her rags turned to the finest silks, her figure grew taller as her wrinkled skin softened. Soon a tall, beautiful woman stood before the awestruck lord. ‘Take care of your spouse, Lord Kirwan,’ she laughed. ‘And I’ll take care of mine.’ And with that the Lady Oonagh leapt on to her horse and in a blink she and it vanished completely.

  When Lady Kirwan awoke that afternoon, she had no memory of what had befallen her. As for Lord Kirwan, he never again showed disrespect to the immortal majesties who live under that magical hill.

  11

  The Pooka and the Boy

  There once was a boy called Finn who, being very poor, was small for his age. He lived in a little house with his mother out in the Galway countryside. There were farms nearby and woodlands, and though the boy was very poor the world around him was filled with a richness of scents, sounds, tastes and textures. The dry roughness of tree bark, the soft song of birds; the impatient rattle of autumn winds; the scent of the dark soil conjured up by the touch of rain in summer.

  It was a magical place, though the boy did not understand how truly magical it was. He knew he should never be in the nearby woods alone at night, for that was when the daoine maithe and other magical creatures came out to play. Their favourite spot was the rickety wooden bridge that crossed the stream that went through the middle of the woods. Even in bright daylight the bridge was a little spooky; on more than one occasion Finn was sure he had seen strange eyes peering out from the shadows underneath it.

  His mother would often leave a little gift for these magical beings outside the back door. Sometimes she put out a thimble of milk, and Finn put beside it a feather he had found, or shiny stone. ‘It’s not much,’ said his mother, ‘but it shows our respect.’

  Another household ritual took place at meal times, when his mother would ask the boy to leave a little bit of food on his plate as a gift for the Good Folk. She would insist on this, even if he only had a little food on his plate. But he did not complain, for there were evenings when his mother sat at the table with no plate in front of her at all. So Finn left a morsel on his plate, and on those occasions when his mother had no food herself he left more than a morsel, for as he grew older he began to suspect that it was his mother who was eating the portions put aside for the daoine maithe.

  Indeed, as he grew older Finn began to have doubts about whether strange and fantastical beings truly haunted the woods at night. Perhaps his mother only told him such a thing because she was worried that he could become lost or have an accident in the dark.

  The boy was good-natured and helpful. He worked as hard as his mother to clean the house and do piecemeal work in the farms around. But, like all children, he had his wilful streak. One Christmas he went into the local village just before dawn, broke into the priest’s house – it helped that he was small enough to squeeze through the open window – and stole the goose that was hanging up in the holy man’s kitchen.

  At first he felt delighted at his prize but when he got home he felt guilty and ashamed. He also felt foolish, for what could he do with a stolen goose? How could he cook it without his crime being found out? As he stood outside his home, upset and unsure of what to do, his mother came out. She looked at him, looked at the goose, and her eyes sparked with sudden anger. Then, to the boy’s amazement, the anger vanished. His mother burst out laughing. ‘Would you look at that?’ she said. ‘The fairies have left us a gift this time – how very kind of them.’

  The boy tried to tell her the truth but she just laughed more and tousled his hair, and soon the boy found himself laughing as well. The goose was cooked for lunch and it tasted wonderful. He would remember the soft moist creamy taste of it for a long time afterwards. The goose incident convinced him once and for all that there was no such things as fairies. That was, of course, until the night he met a pooka.

  A pooka, for those who do not know, is a magical shapeshifter who can bring good fortune or ill depending on how it is feeling and how it is treated. There are many in the west of Ireland where Finnbheara and Oonagh are the rulers of the fairy kingdom. But it is hard to say whether pookas recognise the authority of these immortal majesties. Being tricksters, they are not known for straight talking (I have tried talking to one myself and, believe me, it was an incredibly frustrating business). They may have arrived in Ireland with the angels who were cast out of Heaven, or they may have already have been here. They could even have been in Ireland a long, long, fadó fadó ago when the Cailleach was hammering the mountains, rivers and coastlines into shape with her hammer.

  But, I hear you ask, how did Finn come to meet a pooka, and what came of this encounter? Well, it’s like this. As I was explaining, Finn and his mother were very poor and often hungry. There were a number of heirlooms that could have been sold for a fair bit of money, but Finn’s mother refused: ‘These are our heritage, no price can be put on them.’ One of these heirlooms was a set of uillean pipes that had belonged to Finn’s grandfather. Finn found the instrument fascinating and would often take it out to press the bellows or blow a peep from the chanter. But it was only after he turned ten years of age that he began to think about playing the pipes himself. His grandfather had made money travelling around playing his tunes. Why shouldn’t Finn do the same?

  ‘I will be a piper,’ he declared to his mother. ‘I will be the greatest piper that ever lived and make us rich.’

  His mother though for a moment. ‘I have a cousin married to a man that plays the pipes a little,’ she said. ‘If you help them out with the turf cutting I’m sure he’ll give you a few lessons.’

  An arrangement was made and Finn began his lessons, but there was a problem. Finn wanted so desperately to be a piper, the greatest piper that ever lived no less, that he did not have the patience to listen to his instructor. ‘Some say it takes a year to learn,’ his tutor explained. ‘Some say twenty-one years or more. But the truth is, Finn, that you never finish learning.’

  ‘Never finish!’ the boy blurted out. ‘That is terrible.’

  ‘Not at all. That is the joy of playing the pipes. Once you get to know your pipes, you will fall in love with them and dream about them every night you sleep and every moment you walk and wake and work. Because you love them you will always be looking for new tunes to play or new techniques to try with them. You will never finish learning and you will always want to know more.’

  But Finn did not want to spend a lifetime learning. He wanted to play the pipes and play them now, this minute, this second, and
play them better than any man, woman or child had ever played them.

  His mother’s cousin’s husband’s instructions made Finn ever more irate.

  ‘The secret is simplicity itself,’ explained the tutor. ‘While your upper arms do the hard work with the bellows and bag, your fingers play lightly on the chanter. Practise slowly and practise often to do this, and then we can start playing tunes.’

  Seeing the doubt in Finn’s eyes, his tutor assured him. ‘Treat the pipes with kindness and patience and you will be rewarded with beauty and peace.’

  But Finn had no patience. Instead he grappled and fought the uillean pipes, like a wrestler in a circus pounding his opponent into submission, or an Amazon explorer struggling heroically against the mighty coils of a savage boa constrictor. Instead of loving the pipes, he waged war against them. His instructor shook his head and advised him that ‘The pipes need peace and patience. That’s the way to get them playing.’ But the boy’s anger and stubbornness grew with every lesson until finally with a roar he ran out from one, vowing never to return.

  It was daylight when Finn ran outside. He ran and ran until there was no more breath to be squeezed out of his lungs. He stood gasping for air with the pipes clenched against his body and his eyes clenched against any tears. When he calmed down he looked around. The day was bright and he had nothing to do. He should have gone home to his mother to help her in her chores, but he did not want to explain what had happened at his lesson.

  Instead, he took himself for a walk. He wandered along the edge of fields of barley, scratched the noses of cows in meadows, threw stones at crows and picked apples from an orchard. He sat down now and then to enjoy the sun. His instrument rested beside him and sometimes he would look at it or touch it lightly. ‘Will I ever become a piper?’ he asked, but the uillean pipes were silent. Perhaps they were too busy enjoying the sunshine.