I suppose we will never know what happened to Jack when he disappeared with the strange woman and one can only assume that she was his own dear mother, Moll Anthony.
After that there is not much known about the legacy of the illustrious Moll Anthony. However, I myself remember that some twenty years ago, when my father was terminally ill with cancer and all the medical wonders of modern science were rendered useless against his condition, it was suggested that my father go and see a wise woman somewhere in a remote part of Kildare where he was given a strange concoction that was kept in an old milk bottle in the fridge. I remember it stank like hell and I am sure it tasted worse. It seemed to ease my father’s pain, but unfortunately could not save him. Still I wonder who this person was who administered the strange concoction and whether they are still alive and maybe even descended from Moll Anthony? Well, that will be another story to tell.
16
POLL THE PISHOGUE
After writing about Moll Anthony of the Red Hills I was introduced to another enigmatic Kildare character who went under the name of Poll the Pishogue.
A pishogue is an old Irish word for a spell or witchcraft. It was very much associated with the concept of creating a spell to cure or even cause illness to both beasts and humans. Now the name Poll could be derived from the Irish for hole. In old Ireland it was greatly believed that ‘the good people’ or ‘the fairies’ lived below the earth in holes. In fact, there is a place in County Wicklow called Pollaphouca, and translated means ‘hole of the pooka’.
The pooka was a solitary and sinister fairy who has most likely never appeared in human form. His shape is usually that of a horse, bull, goat, eagle or donkey. But most commonly he takes the form of a horse and he enjoys throwing unwary riders onto their backs on the ground, as well as taking them over ditches, rivers and mountains, and shakes them off in the early grey-light of the morning.
So one might say that Poll the Pishogue was, at the very least, an unusual character. I found this story from Con Costello’s book Kildare: Saints, Soldiers and Horses, published by the Leinster Leader in 1919. This is her story.
In 1840 Mr and Mrs C.S. Hall, in their Ireland – Its Scenery & Character, magazine gave a detailed description of their visit to Poll the Pishogue, who lived in a hut made of turf in the Bog of Allen: ‘Nothing could exceed in misery the appearance of her hovel raised something in the form of a cone’.
Her goat grazed on the grass that sprang from the roof as on the herbage by which it was surrounded. A deep trench encircled this turf edifice on all sides and a narrow log of bog oak was laid across it, opposite the door, which enabled Poll’s visitors to ‘Pass and repass with all the comfort and ease of life’ as she would say. The inside of this strange, almost otherworldly abode consisted of one room and when the interior was not so full of smoke, and a stranger could both see and breathe, it was not so bad and it was warm and dry, for while the rain could enter in one or two places, it could run out as quickly as it came in. Poll had a bed and plenty of wooden stools and bosses (small straw stools). But what was quite impressive was the fact that she had managed to install a glass window and a cupboard containing crockery and two strange-looking green bottles. In these Poll had what she referred to as, ‘Only a sup of eye-water, a wash for the hives and a cure (god bless it) for the chincough.’
The bottles’ contents smelt of whiskey and when asked about the contents Poll replied, ‘Hard for them to help it, when the spirits is the foundation of every cure. Herbs dear! Sent by the grace of God, which I gather fasting under bames [beams] of the full moon and steeps [soaked or marinated] – oh, nothing else, only according to knowledge’.
As Poll’s hut was near the canal it was common for people to come by boat or barge to visit her in order to get some relief from whatever was ailing them. People who did not have this means of transport would walk or travel by horse and cart for miles to get to see Poll the Pishogue. She was indeed a well-renowned wise woman and both revered and feared by those who knew her.
There are many tales about Poll and what she did but one that stands out is about a young woman and a baby who was terribly sick. In fact, there was a good chance that the poor little child was going to die. So the young mother brought the child to see Poll in her hut out in the middle of the Bog of Allen.
Poll told her to sit down on one of the wee stools in her hovel. The young woman told Poll that she nailed a horse-shoe to her door and put plenty of salt about the place to keep it safe from evil spirits and unwanted visits from the fairy folk, but her child was still wasting away and the skin was hanging from its bones. She was sure that the child was a changeling left behind by the fairies, and it was not her own babe at all. Poll comforted the woman by telling her that the child was not a changeling and the woman gave Poll a few half-pence for her help. Poll then asked if her baby had been kept away from the ‘shop-doctors’ (meaning the dispensary or local general practice doctor). The woman assured Poll that she had every faith in her cure and would not be going to any quacks. She had a charm around the baby’s neck and said that all was well other than her husband had no regular work for the past two months and they had to halve their rations of food, but their neighbours were no better off than them. But she also told Poll that the poor cat had died from starvation as there was no milk. It was quite obvious for anyone looking in at that bizarre encounter that the poor little infant too was dying from starvation. The woman, however, seemed pretty satisfied that whatever was wrong with the baby, Poll’s cure would surely rectify it.
Now Poll was a bit annoyed with the woman because she had not brought a bottle with her to carry home the potion. Poll, reluctantly, gave her a small jar containing the cure and told the mother to cross the baby’s breast with the liquid every evening while the sun was getting ready to set. What happened to the family is not known, but one would like to think that the woman’s husband did some work, and that there was food coming into the house and one would like to believe that the faith the woman had brought fortune. One might argue why did the woman not use the money she spent on the cure for food for her child, but we have to remember that many rural people were of a very primitive nature in old Ireland and superstition and belief in otherworldly powers carried more weight than what was happening in the world around them.
Poll had a fear of priests who did not approve of her cures and methods. But she claimed that she never dealt in the black arts, beyond the sowing of hemp-seed or placing a shirt to air at the fire, in the devil’s name. She possessed a powerful murrain stone, far superior to the one owned by the ‘markiss’ as she liked to call him. This ‘markiss’ or marquis was Lord Waterford, and this magical stone was believed to have been brought back to Ireland in ancient times from the Levant, a term used to describe the eastern Mediterranean, including such places as Greece, Turkey parts of the Holy Lands and Lebanon. Poll was a great teller of the meanings behind birthmarks and moles. She did not believe in the use of ‘the dead man’s hand’ for that was very much part of the practice of black magic. Poll was noted for her powers of prediction, her love-potions, matchmaking and her many pishogues.
She had a keen eye, and was hard featured, resembling a witch in all the classical descriptions of one. She had a black cat with wild green eyes. She was held in awe by the peasantry of the time. Nobody would dare cross her, for they were terrified of a terrible curse being put upon them. Whether she was a real witch or not is not known but she certainly had all the hallmarks of one and if one was to come across her little conical hut made of turf sod and the smoke billowing out of it in the heart of the Bog of Allen they would not be overly surprised to see Poll arriving at the door on a broomstick.
17
THE TRINITY WELL
A holy well is a spring or other water source that for one reason or another is considered to be holy or sacred. Many of these wells were used in pre-Christian rituals and are often called Saint Brigid’s wells. What is interesting about them is that fairy trees often gr
ow very close to them and they seem to share a common ground together. These wells are still believed to have healing powers and are frequented by many people today. One in particular is still frequented by pilgrims every Sunday in Kildare. This well is known as ‘The Trinity Well’. I found this story in a great little book entitled The Holy Wells of Ireland, by Patrick Logan, published by Colin Smythe Ltd, 1980.
The River Boyne rises in a pool, now known as Trinity Well, near Carbury, County Kildare; a popular pilgrimage is made to this well on Trinity Sunday. The story goes that a king called Nechtan lived at Carbury Hill (Sidh Nechtain), and had in his garden a very special well, which no woman might approach or take water from. Despite this, Boan, the wife of Nechtan, not only approached the well, but insulted it gravely by walking three times round it in an anti-clockwise direction. This was considered blasphemous to the gods. At the insult the well rose up and like a tidal wave came after her. As she fled hysterically, the water formed a river as she ran and it was named after Queen Boan – the River Boyne. Eventually the water caught up with her and swept her out to sea, and she was drowned.
The pre-Christian Irish worshipped the River Boyne as a goddess and clearly this story is derived from their religious beliefs. In 1849, William Wilde, father of the poet and writer Oscar Wilde, wrote The Beauties of the Boyne and its Tributary the Blackwater. In it he writes about a number of other holy wells that are found close to the young river and add their waters to it. These are now as completely Christianised as Trinity Well. The first is Tobercro (Tobar Croiche Naoimh – The Well of the Holy Cross). Wilde then mentioned the Beautiful Well and next to it Lady Well, where he said that a pattern was held early in the nineteenth century. Wilde also mentioned two others, Carbury Well and Tobar na Cille – ‘six in all, baptising the infant Boyne’. Of course the Boyne is heavily associated with the Battle of the Boyne of 1690 and is celebrated every year by the Orange Order on 12 July. So it seems that this river transcended many changes in religious beliefs over the centuries.
18
QUEEN BUAN
This is a story that is very close to my heart as I heard it when I was a small boy. Little did I know it would have a direct relation to my own father who sadly passed away and rests at Mainham graveyard in Clane, County Kildare. Overlooking the ancient graveyard of Mainham stands the burial mound of ‘Queen Buan’ the Queen of Leinster and pride of the Celtic people. This is her story.
On the outskirts of the village of Clane, County Kildare, lies a townland called Mainham, beside Clongowes Wood College, the former residence of a family named Browne. Here there is a cemetery known to all the locals as ‘Mainham graveyard’. This graveyard holds many of the secrets and stories of Ireland. It houses the remains of an early-Christian monastery, a Norman church, graves from the great plantation period and a lonely mausoleum which stands just outside the churchyard wall, which contains a vault in which members of the Browne family who died during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been buried. Inside is an effigy of a shrouded figure with two death heads looming over it. A limestone altar stands at the rear wall with kneeling figures carved into it. There are the scattered graves of many people who gave their lives in the struggle for freedom in Ireland. But the most ancient and breath-taking of all these markers of history is a great Celtic burial mound that looms over the graveyard in an adjoining field. It is overgrown with grass and trees and is home to all sorts of wildlife. This magnificent mound is known locally as the burial mound of Queen Buan. Queen Buan was the wife of Mesgegra, King of Leinster who lived at Naas (Nas na Rí). She was buried separately from her husband the king, whose remains lie in another mound at Clane, also in Kildare. Both their stories hold all the hallmarks of a great Celtic tragedy. This is how it began.
In ancient Ireland there dwelt a cruel, merciless man called Atherne the Urgent of Ulster. He was a persistent and unrelenting poet-druid. He was the sort of man that asked a one-eyed man for his single eye and would not thank him for it.
He was called upon by King Cochobar (Conor) Mac Nessa, the King of Ulster’s counsel, to go on a (bardic) circuit of Ireland. He went west around Ireland till he made the round of Connaught. He then went to the king of the middle of Ireland, between the two Fords of Hurdles, to Eochaid son of Luchta, king of the south of Connaught. Eochaid then took the poet Atherne to the King of Munster over the Shannon, in a southward direction.
Atherne, being a poet of great power, demanded great respect amongst the royalty of Ireland and he abused this power. He ordered that he should take the King of Munster’s queen for himself for one night or else he would create a damning poem about the king and the men of Munster. By doing this he would take away their honour and respect from the other kingdoms. The poor queen offered herself to cruel Atherne, for the sake of her husband’s honour, and the honour of her people.
Atherne then went to Leinster, and stopped in Ard Brestine in the south of Moyfea. He was offered jewels and treasures not to come into the country, so that he might not leave behind damning poems about them. He was not impressed at all with the gifts that were brought to him by the local king’s representatives – in fact he laughed in their faces. The people threatened to slay him for his insults and he laughed at them again, stating that if they did kill him, Ulster would be forever avenging him on Leinster. He stated that he would leave an ail bréthre (verbal insult) on them for ever, so that they should not hold up their faces before the Gael, unless they gave him the jewel that was best on the Hill of Allen; and he said that no one knew what this jewel was or what place it was in upon the hill.
This was an outrage and a great disgrace to the hosts of Leinster. And they all called upon the Lord of the Elements to give them help to avenge this outrage that was inflicted upon them.
So the people took Atherne to the Hill of Allen where they watched a horseman training his horse on the hill. As he was galloping fiercely across the hill, the horse flung a great sod from his two hooves. No one in the meeting noticed it till it fell into lap of the king, Fergus Fairge. Sticking out from the sod, he saw a brooch made of solid red gold and encrusted with the finest jewels and with the finest craftsmanship worked into the precious metal. ‘What is this that has fallen into my lap, Atherne?’ said the king.
‘That is the jewel that I spoke of,’ said Atherne. ‘My father’s brother ripped it from a slayed warrior, and buried it in the ground during a bloody battle against the Ulstermen.’
So then the brooch was given to him and the people were relieved to see him go. He then went to see Mesgegra, the king of Leinster. Mesgegra made great welcome to Atherne, and did his best to make him feel at ease, but the cruel and malevolent bard was not interested because he had already decided what he wanted. He demanded that he take all the women of the king’s court with him, including Mesgegra’s beautiful wife, Queen Buan.
King Mesgegra refused and Queen Buan and all her ladies-in-waiting were taken to the Bog of Allen for safety. The Leinsterman and their king then chased Atherne from Kildare. But the Ulstermen came to protect Atherne and a brutal battle was fought.
The Ulstermen were sent into retreat, and they fled by the sea eastward until they were trapped in Howth. Nine days and nights they were in Howth without drink, or food, unless they drank the brine of the sea, or they devoured the clay.
The Leinstermen waited patiently and then attacked. It was a vicious and ruthless slaughter. The women were returned home safely, but that was not to be the end of it.
A great and fierce Ulster warrior called Conall Cernach lost two of his brothers in the fighting and to avenge them he pursued the King of Leinster, whom he confronted in Clane. He found King Mesgegra with one of his servants. The king had just lost his hand as the result of a quarrel. Conall therefore fought Mesgegra with one hand tucked in his belt to make it a fair fight. He defeated Mesgegra and cut off his head, which he then placed on a sacred Bullaun stone at the edge of the ford in Clane County Kildare. (In another version of the story he placed th
e head on another stone and the blood was so powerful it ate away through the stone like acid and went through it. Some of the blood hit Conall in the eye and made him go cross-eyed). The Bullaun stone was believed to have been used for human sacrifice, and it is still there today. It can be found opposite the Franciscan Friary in Clane, beside the Butterstream.
Conall then took the head and placed it on his own and covered himself up with a great cloak and mounted his chariot taking the servant with him and made his way to see Queen Buan, whom he wished to take for himself under the pretence that he was indeed her husband Mesgegra. As he rode towards Mainham, Mesgegra’s wife, Buan (which means ‘eternal’), was waiting anxiously for her husband’s arrival, and Conall called out to her under the pretext that the words came from Mesgegra’s mouth. She was so happy and relieved to see her husband returning that she ran to him. But then Conall revealed his true self by removing Mesgegra’s head from his own. When Queen Buan witnessed this horrific sight she screamed so loud that her heart burst and she fell dead to the ground.
Unmoved by this, Conall then tried to take hold of the head again, but it was impossible to lift. Then he said to his servant, ‘Take out the brains with your sword, take them away and mix them with earth to make a ball for a sling.’ This was known as a brain-ball or Tathlum, meaning a concrete ball, and was made by mixing human brains with lime and allowing it to harden. These were ritualistic weapons used to kill powerful foes. Balor of the Baleful Eye was said to have been killed with a Tathlum. The ancient Celts being headhunters believed that the heads of their enemies contained great powers and strength so to make a missile using the brain was a formidable weapon.
Kildare Folk Tales Page 12