Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  The fellow told me he wasn’t the same for six months after, and in fact, he said, for six years after. He suffered that much.

  That bid to be a bad ghost. And I was talking to the man. That’s out of the man’s lips. It was a man the name of Jimmy Williamson. He emigrated to England some years ago.

  The house was just below the town there, a few miles out of the town, out of Enniskillen.

  And another man was telling me about another ghost.

  I’ll tell a ghost story.

  The three of them was famous card players. And they were playing cards in this house until some late hour in the night, one or two or maybe three o’clock.

  And on their journey home—it was walking they were in them days—and they came to a bridge.

  And this man—there was three of them, and he was walking in the center—and he looked across his shoulder. “God bless us,” he says, “look at what is coming after us.”

  “What,” says the other two men to him, they says, “what’s coming after us?”

  “Well, Lord,” he says. “Look at that.”

  They could see nothing.

  And at THAT he was whipped clean from between the two of them. And they were two men just as big as you and I’d say they were six stone weightier, each man.

  And this man was whipped clean

  off his feet.

  And there was a high hedge and he was lifted clean out of the position that he was walking in, out from between the two of them, and he was landed in on top of the hedge.

  Wasn’t that terrible?

  And they, they run to the hedge, and each of them caught an arm, and they had then—they were very very strong men—they had to pull. And pull. And pull.

  And very tight they got with very ferocious pulling that they pulled him back onto the road.

  And he wasn’t fit to get his legs in under him. They got him straightened up. And they held him there.

  And they said some prayers; they were three of me own persuasion.

  And they got him straightened up, and they had a mile to bring him.

  And they got him on to where he was employed.

  And brought him in and he fell on the floor.

  And they had to waken the occupants of the house, and got him down, and they got him on to bed.

  He lay down in bed.

  And he lay for a few minutes, and he never, he never mended up; he passed away.

  He died of it.

  He died of it.

  That was just at Kinawley there. I could show you where this took place.

  The other men never saw it, and they were two powerful good men. One of them was Lunny, and the other was Owens. They were two of as strong men as there was in Kinawley Parish. And they got it very very hard to get him pulled off the hedge.

  When they had him off the hedge, that was the most embarrassing thing: his legs was that way that they couldn’t get them straight in under him; they had to carry him, partly carry him.

  And he never recovered. He passed away.

  You wouldn’t believe the like of that would happen.

  We heard the man telling it himself, and he wasn’t a man that’d tell lies, because it was a most terrifying story; it would be very bad to tell it, I mean, on anybody.

  It was really genuine.

  He did describe it to them. It wasn’t an earthly thing anyway. He said he had flames out of his mouth. Bid to be a desperate—it was the most terrifying thing that I heard in my time anyway. I didn’t like to hear it. Honestly, I thought it a most terrifying story.

  We heard tell of a lot of ghost stories, and people seeing ghosts, and all that sort of thing, but I never heard as terrifying a story, I think, as that one was. Surely.

  And the man that told it now, he wouldn’t tell lies. I know that rightly. I know that perfectly well.

  The thing was genuine.

  Aye.

  THE SOLDIER IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE

  PATRICK SHEARLOCK CLARE

  JAMES DELARGY 1930

  Well, there was a soldier one time in it, and he was a very good soldier, and he had a lot of service done.

  So this time in his quarterly accounts, when he looked it up, he was wronged fourpence ha’penny, and being wronged this fourpence ha’penny he said he’d soldier no more if he couldn’t get it.

  He went to the paymaster and explained his story to him. “All right,” says the paymaster, “you’ll get it in the next account.”

  “Well, it’s now I want it,” says the soldier.

  So that was all the satisfaction the paymaster gave him about it.

  The following morning he demanded for to see his company officer. He was brought in front of his company officer to make his complaint. He told his company officer that he was wronged fourpence ha’penny in his accounts. The company officer told him that it’d be all right, that he’d get it in the next account. He said that wouldn’t do him, that he wanted it now. So he got no more satisfaction from his company officer. He went to his commanding officer and he explained his story to him. The same reply he got from his commanding officer. He said he’d go to the brigadier general. He went to the brigadier general, and he explained his story to the brigadier general. So the brigadier general told him that it’d be all right, that it’d run in to his next accounts. So the soldier said that that wouldn’t do him. He said he’d desert or leave the army. He went to this lord’s place. There was the chief general of the whole British Army. He explained his story there to him. He told him that if he’d sleep in this building tonight that he’d get him back his fourpence ha’penny in his accounts.

  “Yes, I will,” says the soldier.

  He brought him into this building, and put down a big fire, left the soldier sitting by the side of it, gave him plenty to eat and to drink and plenty tobacco to smoke.

  So the soldier was sitting down that night by the fire, and he heard all sorts of music and dancing upstairs, and he says: “Ye’re keeping it very quietly to yerselves, wouldn’t ye come down in the kitchen and let me see, and we won’t feel the night passing by?”

  That was all right till the cock crew in the morning, and he couldn’t hear no more of it. He went up to the lord.

  “Now, sir, can I get back and get my fourpence ha’penny?”

  “Will you sleep tonight in that big building?” says the lord.

  “Yes, I will,” says the soldier.

  The soldier went down that night, and he stood by the fire. What noise he heard the first night was nothing to what he heard the second night, till the cock crew in the morning, till he could hear no more about it. He went up to the lord and said to know could he go back for to get his fourpence ha’penny. The lord asked him to know would he sleep the third night in the house, and he said, “Yes.”

  So the third night he was sitting by the fire when he heard any amount of noise and dancing again around the room. After a short time what came down the stairs but a bull, and this bull had two big horns, and a coffin laid on the top of them, came down to the fireside, stooped down on her knees and left the coffin down by the soldier’s side. The soldier took the lid off of it to see who was in it, and an old man stuck his head up through it.

  “Come up out of that!” says the soldier. “What business have you there, and sit up alongside me by the fire!”

  The old man that was in the coffin, he only started to grin and sneer at the soldier.

  “Maybe,” says the soldier, says he, “you’d have a smoke?”

  He pulled out a clay pipe and filled it with tobacco, and handed it to the old man to take a smoke of it. The old man took the pipe in his hand and dashed it against the ground.

  “If you do that again,” says the soldier, “I’ll knock the head off of you, but of course it’s I’m worse for to give it to you!”

  So he went to fill another to hand it over to the old man, and when he turned around to hand him the pipe, the coffin and the old man was disappeared.

  So that morning before t
he cock crew a young man walked down the stairs to him and told him: “You’re one of the best men that ever slept before in this big house, for I’m the man that created all the noise and disturbance around it. And you must have a great heart. An old soldier always had a good heart. So if you were to remain in this house for twenty years you would not hear a mouse in it. So here’s a letter for you, and give it to my father. As soon as my father’ll see this he’ll know you were speaking to me, and you can tell my father there’s three crocks of gold in such a room in this house. One of them is to be given to you, another for himself, and one to say Masses for me.”

  The soldier went up and he handed the lord the letter, and when he read it he knew that the soldier was speaking to his son, for he knew his son’s handwriting. The lord turned around, and he went to the room, and he got the three crocks of gold. He did not keep one for himself, but he gave the soldier two; kept one to get Masses said for his son.

  “Go back now,” says the lord, “and you can soldier on, and I’ll make an officer of you.”

  “It’s not for that I came here,” says the soldier, “but can you tell me am I going to get my fourpence ha’penny?”

  “Yes, you are,” says the lord.

  The soldier went back to the barracks, and they went to make a prisoner of him when the lord came there. Instead of he being a private he made a commanding officer of him. There was a sergeant in his room that always had a downfall and a set upon him. He reduced that sergeant to the ranks, and other officers. He made corporals and sergeants of a lot of his own pals. After a short time he got a chance at his own commanding officer for being drunk, tried him by court-martial, and got him stripped and reduced to the ranks as a private.

  So that’s the finishing of my story!

  DANIEL CROWLEY AND THE GHOSTS

  MR. GARVEY KERRY

  JEREMIAH CURTIN 1892

  There lived a man in Cork whose name was Daniel Crowley. He was a coffinmaker by trade, and had a deal of coffins laid by, so that his apprentice might sell them when himself was not at home.

  A messenger came to Daniel Crowley’s shop one day and told him that there was a man dead at the end of the town, and to send up a coffin for him, or to make one.

  Daniel Crowley took down a coffin, put it on a donkey cart, drove to the wake-house, went in, and told the people of the house that the coffin was there for them. The corpse was laid out on a table in a room next to the kitchen. Five or six women were keeping watch around it; many people were in the kitchen. Daniel Crowley was asked to sit down and commence to shorten the night: that is, to tell stories, amuse himself and others. A tumbler of punch was brought, and he promised to do the best he could.

  He began to tell stories and shorten the night. A second glass of punch was brought to him, and he went on telling tales. There was a man at the wake who sang a song. After him another was found, and then another. Then the people asked Daniel Crowley to sing, and he did. The song that he sang was of another nation. He sang about the Good People, the fairies. The song pleased the company, they desired him to sing again, and he did not refuse.

  Daniel Crowley pleased the company so much with his two songs that a woman who had three daughters wanted to make a match for one of them, and get Daniel Crowley as a husband for her. Crowley was a bachelor, well on in years, and had never thought of marrying.

  The mother spoke of the match to a woman sitting next to her. The woman shook her head, but the mother said:

  “If he takes one of my daughters I’ll be glad, for he has money laid by. Do you go and speak to him, but say nothing of me at first.”

  The woman went to Daniel Crowley then, and told him that she had a fine, beautiful girl in view, and that now was his time to get a good wife; he’d never have such a chance again.

  Crowley rose up in great anger. “There isn’t a woman wearing clothes that I’d marry,” said he. “There isn’t a woman born that could bring me to make two halves of my loaf for her.”

  The mother was insulted now and forgot herself. She began to abuse Crowley.

  “Bad luck to you, you hairy little scoundrel,” said she, “you might be a grandfather to my child. You are not fit to clean the shoes on her feet. You have only dead people for company day and night; ’tis by them you make your living.”

  “Oh, then,” said Daniel Crowley, “I’d prefer the dead to the living any day if all the living were like you. Besides, I have nothing against the dead. I am getting employment by them and not by the living, for ’tis the dead that want coffins.”

  “Bad luck to you, ’tis with the dead you ought to be and not with the living. ’Twould be fitter for you to go out of this altogether and go to your dead people.”

  “I’d go if I knew how to go to them,” said Crowley.

  “Why not invite them to supper?” retorted the woman.

  He rose up then, went out, and called:

  “Men, women, children, soldiers, sailors, all people that I have ever made coffins for, I invite you tonight to my house, and I’ll spend what is needed in giving a feast.”

  The people who were watching the dead man on the table saw him smile when he heard the invitation. They ran out of the room in a fright and out of the kitchen, and Daniel Crowley hurried away to his shop as fast as ever his donkey could carry him. On the way he came to a public house and, going in, bought a pint bottle of whiskey, put it in his pocket, and drove on.

  The workshop was locked and the shutters down when he left that evening but when he came near he saw that all the windows were shining with light, and he was in dread that the building was burning or that robbers were in it. When right there Crowley slipped into a corner of the building opposite, to know could he see what was happening, and soon he saw crowds of men, women, and children walking toward his shop and going in, but none coming out. He was hiding some time when a man tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Is it here you are, and we waiting for you? ’Tis a shame to treat company this way. Come now.”

  Crowley went with the man to the shop, and as he passed the threshold he saw a great gathering of people. Some were neighbors, people he had known in the past. All were dancing, singing, amusing themselves. He was not long looking on when a man came up to him and said:

  “You seem not to know me, Daniel Crowley.”

  “I don’t know you,” said Crowley. “How could I?”

  “You might then, and you ought to know me, for I am the first man you made a coffin for, and ’twas I gave you the first start in business.”

  Soon another came up, a lame man: “Do you know me, Daniel Crowley?”

  “I do not.”

  “I am your cousin, and it isn’t long since I died.”

  “Oh, now I know you well, for you are lame. In God’s name,” said Crowley to the cousin, “how am I to get these people out of this? What time is it?”

  “ ’Tis early yet, it’s hardly eleven o’clock, man.”

  Crowley wondered that it was so early.

  “Receive them kindly,” said the cousin. “Be good to them, make merriment as you can.”

  “I have no money with me to get food or drink for them. ’Tis night now, and all places are closed,” answered Crowley.

  “Well, do the best you can,” said the cousin.

  The fun and dancing went on, and while Daniel Crowley was looking around, examining everything, he saw a woman in the far-off corner. She took no part in the amusement, but seemed very shy in herself.

  “Why is that woman so shy—she seems to be afraid?” asked he of the cousin. “And why doesn’t she dance and make merry like others?”

  “Oh, ’tis not long since she died, and you gave the coffin, as she had no means of paying for it. She is in dread you’ll ask her for the money, or let the company know that she didn’t pay,” said the cousin.

  The best dancer they had was a piper by the name of John Reardon from the city of Cork. The fiddler was one John Healy. Healy brought no fiddle with him, but he made one, and the
way he made it was to take off what flesh he had on his body. He rubbed up and down on his own ribs, each rib having a different note, and he made the loveliest music that Daniel Crowley had ever heard. After that the whole company followed his example. All threw off what flesh they had on them and began to dance jigs and hornpipes in their bare bones. When by chance they struck against one another in dancing, you’d think it was Brandon Mountain that was striking Mount Eagle, with the noise that was in it.

  Daniel Crowley plucked up all his courage to know, could he live through the night, but still he thought daylight would never come. There was one man, John Sullivan, that he noticed especially. This man had married twice in his life, and with him came the two women. Crowley saw him taking out the second wife to dance a breakdown, and the two danced so well that the company were delighted, and all the skeletons had their mouths open, laughing. He danced and knocked so much merriment out of them all that his first wife, who was at the end of the house, became jealous and very mad altogether. She ran down to where he was and told him she had a better right to dance with him than the second wife.

  “That’s not the truth for you,” said the second wife. “I have a better right than you. When he married me you were a dead woman and he was free, and, besides, I’m a better dancer than what you are, and I will dance with him whether you like it or not.”

  “Hold your tongue!” screamed the first wife. “Sure, you couldn’t come to this feast tonight at all but for the loan of another woman’s shinbones.”

  Sullivan looked a his two wives, and asked the second one:

  “Isn’t it your own shinbones you have?”

  “No, they are borrowed. I borrowed a neighboring woman’s shins from her, and ’tis those I have with me tonight.”

  “Who is the owner of the shinbones you have under you?” asked the husband.

  “They belong to one Catherine Murray. She hadn’t a very good name in life.”

  “But why didn’t you come on your own feet?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t good myself in life, and I was put under a penalty, and the penalty is that whenever there is a feast or a ball I cannot go to it unless I am able to borrow a pair of shins.”