Well, we hear tell of a man that was good to bring back people (so they said), and we went to him. He gave us a bottle full of green herbs, and desired us to boil them on the fire, and if they kept green she was our own, but if they turned yellow, she was gone—the Good People had her from us. He bid us to give her the water they were boiled in to drink. When we came home we boiled the herbs, and they turned as yellow as gold in the pot before our eyes. We gave her the water to drink, and five minutes after she took it she died, or whatsomever thing we had in her place died. Anyhow ’twas just like herself, and talked to us just the same as if ’twas our own sister we had there before us.
People says she’s down along with them in the old fort. Some says she’ll come back, and more says she won’t, and indeed, faix, there’s no knowing for certain which to believe, or which way it is.
TAKEN
TOMÁS Ó CRITHIN KERRY
ROBIN FLOWER 1945
It is not so long ago that a woman of my mother’s kin, the O’Sheas, was taken, and when I was young I knew people who had seen her. She was a beautiful girl, and she hadn’t been married a year when she fell sick, and she said that she was going to die, and that if she must die she would rather be in the home in which she had spent her life than in a strange house where she had been less than a year. So she went back to her mother’s house, and very soon she died and was buried. She hadn’t been buried more than a year when her husband married again, and he had two children by his second wife. But one day there came a letter to her people, a letter with a seal on it.
It was from a farmer who lived in the neighborhood of Fermoy. He said that now for some months, when the family would go to bed at night in his farm, if any food were left out they would find it gone in the morning. And at last he said to himself that he would find out what it was that came at night and took the food.
So he sat up in a corner of the kitchen one night, and in the middle of the night the door opened and a woman came in, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen with his eyes, and she came up the kitchen and lifted the bowl of milk they had left out, and drank of it. He came between her and the door, and she turned to him and said that this was what she had wanted.
So he asked her who she was, and she said that she came from the liss at the corner of his farm, where the fairies kept her prisoner. They had carried her off from a place in Ventry parish, and left a changeling in her place, and the changeling had died and been buried in her stead.
She said that the farmer must write to her people and say that she was in the liss with the fairies, and that she had eaten none of the food of the fairies, for if once she ate of their food she must remain with them forever till she died; and when she came near to death they would carry her through the air and put her in the place of another young woman, and carry the young woman back to be in the liss with them, in her stead. And when he wrote to her people, he must ask her mother if she remembered one night when her daughter lay sick, and the mother was sitting by the fire, and, thinking so, she had forgotten everything else, and the edge of her skirt had caught fire and was burning for some time before she noticed it. If she remembered that night it would be a token for her, for on that night her daughter had been carried off, and the fire in her mother’s skirt was the last thing she remembered of her life on earth. And when she had said this she went out through the door, and the farmer saw her no more.
So the next day he wrote the letter as she had told him. But her people did nothing, for they feared that if they brought her back there would be trouble because of the new wife and her two children.
And she came again and again to the farmer, and he wrote seven letters with seals, and the neighbors all said it was a shame to them to leave her with the fairies in the liss. And the husband said it was a great wrong to leave his wife in the liss, and, whatever trouble it would bring, they should go and fetch her out of the liss.
So they set out, her own people and her husband, and when they had gone as far as Dingle, they said they would go and ask the advice of the priest.
So they went to the priest that was there that time, and they told him the story from the beginning to the end. And when he had heard the story, he said that it was a hard case, and against the law of the church. And the husband said that, when they had brought the woman out of the liss, he would not bring her back with him to make scandal in the countryside, but would send her to America, and would live with his second wife and her children. But the priest said that even if a man’s wife were in America, she was still his wife, and it was against the law of the Pope that a man should have two wives; and, though it was a hard thing, they must leave her in the liss with the fairies, for it was a less evil that she should eat the fairy bread and be always with the fairies in the liss than that God’s law should be broken and a man have two wives living in this world.
They found nothing to say against the priest, and they went back home sorrowing. And when the woman heard this from the farmer she went back with the fairies to the liss, and ate their bread and remained with them.
HOW THE SHOEMAKER SAVED HIS WIFE
PEADAR Ó BEIRN DONEGAL
SEÁN Ó HEOCHAIDH 1954
When I was a boy about thirty years ago I was hired in a townland called Rualach in the parish of Kilcar. Here is a little story I heard the woman of the house tell one night:
A good many years ago there was a couple living at Gortalia. The wife was expecting the birth of a child and the husband was sent on horseback to Kilcar to fetch the midwife. While she was dressing herself he went about the town doing some errands, and he had a small drink. He was a shoemaker, and he decided he might as well buy a couple of pounds of shoe-nails while he was in the town.
Well and good. When he had got all he needed he returned for the midwife who was ready and waiting for him. He put her up behind him on the horse, and off with the two of them on their way to the sick woman. When he mounted the horse he had the nails in one hand and he held the reins in the other. They rode away with the horse going at full gallop. It was a cloudy moonlit night and as they were going through a place called Ált an Tairbh he heard a sound as if a flock of birds was coming towards them in the air. It came directly in their way and as it was passing overhead he threw the paperful of nails up in the air. He was full of anger and spoke out from his heart:
“May the Devil take you with him!”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he heard the sound of something falling at the horse’s feet. He turned around and dismounted, and when he looked at the thing that had fallen what did he find but a woman! He looked sharply at her and who did he find her to be but his own wife whom he had left lying at home. He took her up and put her on the horse with the midwife, who held her while he led the horse home by its head.
Well. As they were approaching the house there was a hullabaloo there that they were too late, that his wife had died since he left, and there was great crying and clamor. The man led the two women he had with him into the stable with the horse and asked them to stay there until he returned. He himself went into the house, as if nothing had happened, and went over to the bed where the supposed corpse was lying. Everyone was astonished that he was not crying nor the least distraught as men usually are when their wives die. He turned on his heel and out with him and in again in a moment with the pitchfork from the byre. He went up to the bed and made a swipe at the thing that was lying there, but, well for her, when she saw him drawing at her she rose and went out of the window like a flash of lightning.
He went out then and brought in his wife and the midwife. Everything went well then and in due time the child was born. He and his wife spent a long life after that at Gortalia and neither the wee folk nor the big people gave them any more trouble!
THE MOUNTAIN ELF
PETER FLANAGAN FERMANAGH
HENRY GLASSIE 1972
Well, in days gone by, they assembled every night from one house to another. I went to your house, and you went to
my house, and we sat down and we told fairy tales.
And it seems to me it was definitely true, for I have heard tell of several children being taken away and sickly elves left in their place. There was often a substitute child left.
I saw one meself. I’ll tell you about it.
Well. We were on a mumming expedition. And it was up here on the mountain. I’ll not mention the names of the people, you know. But we went into this house.
After doing our mumming transaction, you know, going through the whole performance, I saw this wee boy in the corner.
And he had wee, thin long hands, similar there to a monkey.
And he had feet on him, I’d say really they were nine or ten inches long. His legs were not thicker than the leg of the tongs.
And he had a pile of wee straws. He was nipping it in the corner, breaking them all to pieces.
There was only two old men in the house. And I didn’t really remember seeing him when I went in, you know. And then I looked, and he had a very thin worn face on him; you’d think that he was a thousand years of age. A very faded-out-looking figure.
I didn’t ask the boys atall anything about him, but a certain length of time after I asked, and there was a lot of people didn’t know anything about him, but there was one fellow told me he was supposed to be left be the fairies.
The normal child was taken away a considerable number of years before that.
And this boy could do anything. He could go out and he could
fly from one house to another,
rise up and fly
as far as he liked.
Could be he would come back again in a few minutes, and he might be away for the whole day.
He was seen here, and he was seen there, miles and miles away.
He could be on the street at the very same time when a meal would be ready, no matter how far he was away.
Then there was wee tales, yarns like that told about him.
And he lived on for years, years. He stayed there in fact for years and years, until one morning the two old men was looking for him and he was gone. Completely.
And he never returned again.
He never seemed to grow older. He kept the one, he was the same. He was put in the cradle where the normal child was until he had them just harried out.
He got up and he walked through the floor, and he could jump here and jump there, and he could light, and they didn’t know what to do with him.
The doctor was acquainted, but he give no decision on him or anything. He stayed in the house till they were fed up with him. They were a pair of nice quiet old men.
And finally this is what took place: he just riz up, and cleared away, Christmas morning, and was gone.
That was the end of it.
INISHKEEN’S ON FIRE
ELLEN CUTLER FERMANAGH
HENRY GLASSIE 1972
There was a woman and she had a wee baby boy in a cradle. Them days there was no such thing as a pram.
So this boy come in, and the child was taken out of the cradle, and this funny boy got into it.
The child was never seen, and the funny boy was in the cradle all the time.
And a man come in, a neighbor man come in, and the boy in the cradle says, “GIMME A LIGHT FOR ME PIPE.
“GIMME A COAL THERE OUTTA THE FIRE.”
So the boyo got the coal and he smoked.
And then there was another man going to a blacksmith. He was going to get a loy fixed. It wasn’t a spade now; it was a loy.
So. The man was going away to get the loy fixed with the blacksmith. He looked into the cradle. And he knew it was no child.
He knew it was no baby.
And the boy in the cradle put up his head. “WOULD YOU GIVE ME A LIGHT FOR ME PIPE,” he says.
So the man that went in, he went out to the street, and he let a big curse out of him:
“Inishkeen’s on fire.
“Inishkeen’s on fire.”
The boyo got up
and hopped out of the cradle
and away
and he never was seen after.
He was frightened, you see, when he heard about the fire in Inishkeen. That’s where they lived, you see.
I often heard me husband telling it.
The man says, “Inishkeen’s on fire.”
So he disappeared.
I often heard him telling me that.
THE BLOOD OF ADAM
KATE AHERN LIMERICK
KEVIN DANAHER 1967
There was a priest in this parish long ago, and the old people used to tell us a lot of stories about him. He was a fine singer, they said, and he could play the fiddle finely and he was very fond of music. He was a noted horseman, too, although it was a horse that killed him in the end—it was how he was out one night on a sick call, and it was late and very dark when he was coming home, and the horse stumbled and threw him, and they found him in the morning and his neck broken. It was behind on the Gort a’ Ghleanna road it happened, just at the bridge halfways down the hill.
Well, what I’m telling you happened a good while before that, on another night when he was out riding late, when he was back on the lower road, near the county bounds.
It was a bright moonlight night and he was walking the horse along when he heard this sweet music coming from the bank of the river, and he stopped to listen to it. After a while he put the horse at the ditch of the road and cleared it into the field and down to the river.
And there was this very big crowd of small people, men and women about as big as a twelve-years-old child, and they all gathered around listening to a lot of them that were playing every kind of a musical instrument.
And the priest was sitting on his horse, enjoying the music, when some of them saw him. “ ’Tis a priest,” they said and the music stopped.
And they all gathered around the horse. And one of them, the head man of them, maybe, spoke up. “Such a question, Father, and will you answer it?” says he.
“I will, and welcome, if I have the answer,” says the priest.
“What we want to know is this, will we go to Heaven?” says the little man.
“I do not know,” says the priest, “but I can tell you this much: if you have any drop of Adam’s blood in your veins, you have as good a chance of Heaven as any man, but if you have not, then you have no right to Heaven.”
“Ochón Ó!” says the little man. And they all went off along the riverbank, all crying and wailing so that it would break your heart to listen to them.
WE HAD ONE OF THEM IN THE HOUSE FOR A WHILE
MR. AND MRS. KELLEHER WICKLOW
LADY GREGORY 1920
MR. KELLEHER I often saw them when I had my eyesight. One time they came about me, shouting and laughing and there were spouts of water all around me. And I thought that I was coming home, but I was not on the right path and couldn’t find it and went wandering about, but at last one of them said, “Good evening, Kelleher,” and they went away, and then in a moment I saw where I was by the stile. They were very small, like little boys and girls, and had red caps.
I always saw them like that, but they were bigger at the butt of the river; they go along the course of the rivers. Another time they came about me playing music and I didn’t know where I was going, and at last one of them said the same way, “Good evening, Kelleher,” and I knew that I was at the gate of the College; it is the sweetest music and the best that can be heard, like melodeons and fifes and whistles and every sort.
MRS. KELLEHER I often heard that music too, I hear them playing drums.
MR. KELLEHER We had one of them in the house for a while, it was when I was living up at Ticnock, and it was just after I married that woman there that was a nice slip of a girl at that time. It was in the winter and there was snow on the ground, and I saw one of them outside, and I brought him in and put him on the dresser, and he stopped in the house for a while, for about a week.
MRS. KELLEHER It was more than that, it was two or three we
eks.
MR. KELLEHER Ah! maybe it was—I’m not sure. He was about fifteen inches high. He was very friendly. It is likely he slept on the dresser at night. When the boys at the public house were full of porter, they used to come to the house to look at him, and they would laugh to see him but I never let them hurt him. They said I would be made up, that he would bring me some riches, but I never got them. We had a cage here, I wish I had put him in it, I might have kept him till I was made up.
MRS. KELLEHER It was a cage we had for a thrush. We thought of putting him into it, but he would not have been able to stand in it.
MR. KELLEHER I’m sorry I didn’t keep him—I thought sometimes to bring him into Dublin to sell him.
MRS. KELLEHER You wouldn’t have got him there.
MR. KELLEHER One day I saw another of the kind not far from the house, but more like a girl and the clothes grayer than his clothes, that were red. And that evening when I was sitting beside the fire with the Missus I told her about it, and the little lad that was sitting on the dresser called out, “That’s Geoffrey-a-wee that’s coming for me,” and he jumped down and went out of the door and I never saw him again. I thought it was a girl I saw, but Geoffrey wouldn’t be the name of a girl, would it?
He had never spoken before that time. Somehow I think that he liked me better than the Missus. I used to feed him with bread and milk.
MRS. KELLEHER I was afraid of him—I was afraid to go near him, I thought he might scratch my eyes out—I used to leave bread and milk for him but I would go away while he was eating it.
MR. KELLEHER I used to feed him with a spoon, I would put the spoon to his mouth.
MRS. KELLEHER He was fresh-looking at the first, but after a while he got an old look, a sort of wrinkled look.
Irish Folk Tales Page 18