Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  Never was seen or heard of from that day to this one.

  And he says, “There never grew a grain of grass on that spot,” he says. “You see the tracks of his arms,” he says, “there’s his head.” He made an offer to form out the shape of a human being on the ground. There was no grass on it, right enough.

  The whole track of him just marked the ground like. Well, I saw it. I saw that. But I couldn’t certify that it was due to him falling.

  If you were to take and remove the grass and make a spot on the ground, can you stop God’s work of the grass growing?

  Well, that’s the point that I seen in it.

  I had a slight belief about that.

  As time rolled on, I did believe. But I never went back to the spot.

  THE FAIRY SHILLING

  CATHAL Ó BAOILL DONEGAL

  SEÁN Ó HEOCHAIDH 1954

  There was a man named Paddy Ó Gadhra living beyond in Malin Glen long ago. One evening he had gone west to Caiseal in Glencolumcille and when his business was finished he faced towards home. It was a fine moonlit night, and as he was going west by Dún Ált at Screig Mhór there was a woman standing at the side of the road with a basket beside her. He greeted her and she greeted him. She bent down and lifted the basket and walked in step with him along the road. He made out from the way she was changing the basket from hand to hand that it must be very heavy.

  “Give me that basket, please,” he said, “and I will carry it a bit for you.”

  She thanked him and handed the basket to him. When he took it he was very much surprised because it had no weight at all and he thought it must be empty. They walked on, but neither of them said who he or she was nor asked the other’s name. When they reached the crossroads at Malinmore Paddy said he was going to Malin Glen and maybe that was not the way she was going.

  “Oh, it is!” said she, “I am going east to Jimi Jeck’s house and I will be staying there till morning.”

  She walked step by step with Paddy. The house she was making for was the next house to Paddy’s own on the east. He went as far as it with her and bade her farewell then. When he handed the basket to her, she asked him if he drank.

  “Well,” said he, “when I am at a fair or market to be sure I will drink a glass.”

  She put her hand in her pocket and handed a shilling to him.

  “Now,” she said, “the next time you are in a tavern, drink my health!”

  Then she bade him farewell. Paddy went to his own house and she went towards Jimi Jeck’s house and he saw her no more.

  Next morning when Paddy rose he thought he would find out who the unknown woman was, and so he went up to Jimi Jeck’s and asked them who was this woman who had come to them last night.

  “Blast you!” said Jimi, “I saw no woman at all!”

  “Well, that is very strange,” said Paddy, telling him what I have told you about the woman who had been all the way from Glencolumcille with him and who had told him she was going to stop there overnight.

  Well and good. Between then and nightfall Paddy needed an ounce of tobacco and went west to a shop in Malinmore and asked for the tobacco. The man of the shop gave it to him and he threw over the shilling and got the change out of it. Going the road home from the west he put his hand in his pocket and looked at his money and saw that he had the change and the shilling as well.

  He went on like that for a long time. No matter what shop or tavern he would go into he would get change for anything he would buy and when he put his hand in his pocket the shilling would be back in it. He kept it in that way for a couple of years, but at last be began to fear it. He feared that it might lead him some time to drink too much and to some unknown calamity—that that was maybe why it had been put in his way.

  He went to the priest in Glencolumcille and told what had happened. The priest put his stole around his neck and made the sign of the cross on the shilling and it vanished as a drop of water. That was the end of Paddy Ó Gadhra’s fairy shilling.

  THE BREAKING OF THE FORTH

  ARMAGH

  T. G. F. PATERSON 1945

  It was fifty years ago or more, and be the same token there’s them alive the day who were at the digging. The old people were forever talking of the gold and treasure that was hid be the king of Navan, when he left without packing as it were. And some said as how it wasn’t in the lake at all but in the old fort itself, and that he who would find it might eat with a silver spoon for the rest of his life.

  So one fine night some brave young lads bethought themselves that they would have a try for it. And they provided themselves with spades and lanterns and quietly made off to the forth, for indeed if their fathers had knowed it they wouldn’t have slept in their beds that night at all, at all, with the dread of it.

  Howandsoever they started off cheerful enough like. But they were less happy before they got nearer. And the nearer they got, the less happy they were. And at last they reached the forth and the quietness of it was like till choke them, but they were together and none had the courage till say, “Leave it alone and come home with ye”—although that’s what they all wanted to do, for it was them had a fear upon them right enough.

  So round in a bundle they stood. And with the first spadeful dug, a cock crowed something fierce. And the more they dug the more the cocks crowed, and the hens too, all over the countryside, but that didn’t stop them until the dogs started howling. Then the fear gripped them hard, for the noises began to close in on them, and them right on the top of the forth. And they remembered the dragon in the lough below and they were sure it was on its way too.

  So off they fled by the side farthest from the lake. And they left their spades behind them though they had sense till hold on be the lanterns. And the spades were never seen no more, though the marks of the digging be there till this very day. And nothing happened till any of them, maybe because they were young and foolish. For the destroying of a forth is a serious thing, but they all lived till die natural deaths except them that’s living still, and that’s the true way of it.

  DREAMS OF GOLD

  JOHN PHELAN GALWAY

  LADY GREGORY 1920

  There was a man in Gort, Anthony Hynes, he and two others dreamed of finding treasure within the church of Kilmacdaugh. But when they got there at night to dig, something kept them back, for there’s always something watching over where treasure is buried. I often heard that long ago in the nursery at Coole, at the cross, a man that was digging found a pot of gold. But just as he had the cover took off, he saw old Richard Gregory coming, and he covered it up, and was never able again to find the spot where it was.

  But there’s dreams and dreams. I heard of a man from Mayo went to Limerick, and walked two or three times across the bridge there. And a cobbler that was sitting on the bridge took notice of him, and knew by the look of him and by the clothes he wore that he was from Mayo, and asked him what was he looking for. And he said he had a dream that under the bridge of Limerick he’d find treasure. “Well,” says the cobbler, “I had a dream myself about finding treasure, but in another sort of a place than this.” And he described the place where he dreamed it was, and where was that, but in the Mayo man’s own garden. So he went home again, and sure enough, there he found a pot of gold with no end of riches in it. But I never heard that the cobbler found anything under the bridge at Limerick.

  THE CASTLE’S TREASURE

  PADDY WELSH ROSCOMMON

  SIR WILLIAM WILDE 1852

  I dreamed one night that I was walking about in the bawn, when I looked into the old tower that’s in the left-hand corner, after you pass the gate, and there I saw, sure enough, a little crock, about the bigness of the bottom of a pitcher, and it full up of all kinds of money, gold, silver, and brass.

  When I woke next morning, I said nothing about it, but in a few nights after I had the same dream over again, only I thought I was looking down from the top of the tower, and that all the floors were taken away. Peggy knew be me that I had a dr
eam, for I wasn’t quite easy in myself. So I ups and tells her the whole of it, when the childer had gone out.

  “Well, Paddy,” says she, “who knows but it would come true, and be the making of us yet. But you must wait till the dream comes afore you the third time, and then, sure, it can do no harm to try, anyways.”

  It wasn’t long till I had the third dream, and as the moon was in the last quarter, and the nights mighty dark, Peggy put down the grisset, and made a lock of candles. And so, throwing the loy over my shoulder, and giving Michauleen the shovel, we set out about twelve o’clock, and when we got to the castle, it was as dark that you wouldn’t see your hand before you. And there wasn’t a stir in the old place, barring the owls that were snoring in the chimley.

  To work we went just in the middle of the floor, and cleared away the stones and the rubbish, for nearly the course of an hour, with the candles stuck in potatoes, resting on some of the big stones on one side of us. Of course, sorra word we said all the while, but dug and shoveled away as hard as hatters, and a mighty tough job it was to lift the floor of the same building.

  Well, at last the loy struck on a big flag, and my heart riz within me, for I often heard tell that the crock was always covered with a flag, and so I pulled away for the bare life, and at last I got it cleared, and was just lifting the edge of it, when—

  Oh, what’s the use in telling you anything about it. Sure, I know by your eye you don’t believe a word I am saying. The dickens a goat was sitting on the flag. But when both of us were trying to lift the stone, my foot slipped, and the clay and rubbish began to give way under us. “Lord between us and harm,” says the gossoon. And then, in the clapping of your hand, there was a wonderful wind rushed in through the doorway, and quinched the lights, and pitched us both down into the hole. And of all the noises you ever heard, it was about us in a minute. M’anum san Deowl! But I thought it was all over with us, and sorra one of me ever thought of as much as crossing myself. But I made out as fast as I could, and the gossoon after me, and we never stopped running till we stumbled over the wall of the big entrance, and it was well we didn’t go clean into the moat. Troth, you wouldn’t give three ha’pence for me when I was standing in the road—the bouchal itself was stouter—with the weakness that came over me. Och, millia murdher! I wasn’t the same man for many a long day. But that was nothing to the tormenting I got from everybody about finding the gold, for the shovel that we left after us was discovered, and there used to be dealers and gentlemen from Dublin—antiquarians, I think they call them—coming to the house continually, and asking Peggy for some of the coins we found in the old castle.

  There now, you have the whole of it.

  THE AIR IS FULL OF THEM

  JAMES HILL GALWAY

  LADY GREGORY 1920

  One night since I lived here I found late at night that a black jennet I had at that time had strayed away. So I took a lantern and went to look for him, and found him near Doherty’s house at the bay. And when I took him by the halter, I put the light out and led him home. But surely as I walked there was a footstep behind me all the way home.

  I never rightly believed in them till I met a priest about two years ago coming out from the town that asked his way to Mrs. Canan’s, the time she was given over, and he told me that one time his horse stopped and wouldn’t pass the road, and the man that was driving said, “I can’t make him pass.”

  And the priest said, “It will be the worse for you, if I have to come down into the road.” For he knew some bad thing was there. And he told me the air is full of them. But Father Dolan wouldn’t talk of such things, very proud he is, and he coming of no great stock.

  One night I was driving outside Coole gate—close to where the Ballinamantane farm begins. And the mare stopped, and I got off the car to lead her, but she wouldn’t go on. Two or three times I made her start and she’d stop again. Something she must have seen that I didn’t see.

  Beasts will sometimes see more than a man will. There were three young chaps I knew went up by the river to hunt coneens one evening, and they threw the dog over the wall. And when he was in the field he gave a yelp and drew back as if something frightened him.

  Another time my father was going early to some place, and my mother had a noggin of turnips boiled for him that night before, to give him something to eat before he’d start. So they got up very early and she lighted the fire and put the oven hanging over it for to warm the turnips, and then she went back to bed again. And my father was in a hurry and he went out and brought in a sheaf of wheaten straw to put under the oven, the way it would make a quick blaze. And when he came in, the oven had been taken off the hook, and was put standing in the hearth, and no mortal had been there. So he was afraid to stop, and he went back to the bed, and till daybreak they could hear something that was knocking against the pot. And the servant girl that was in the house, she woke and heard quick steps walking to the stable, and the door of it giving a screech as if it was being opened. But in the morning there was no sign there or of any harm being done to the pot.

  Then the girl remembered that she had washed her feet the night before, and had never thought to throw out the water. And it’s well known to wash the feet and not to throw the water out, brings some harm—except you throw fire into the vessel it stands in.

  THE FEET WATER

  MICHAEL DAWSON LIMERICK

  KEVIN DANAHER 1967

  In every house in the country long ago the people of the house would wash their feet, the same as they do now, and when you had your feet washed you should always throw out the water, because dirty water should never be kept inside in the house during the night. The old people always said that a bad thing might come into the house if the feet water was kept inside and not thrown out, and they always said, too, that when you were throwing the water out you should say “Seachain!” for fear that any poor soul or spirit might be in the way. But that is not here nor there, and I must be getting on with my story.

  There was a widow woman living a long time ago in the east of County Limerick in a lonely sort of a place, and one night when she and her daughter were going to bed, didn’t they forget to throw out the feet water. They weren’t long in bed when the knock came to the door, and the voice outside said: “Key, let us in!”

  Well, the widow woman said nothing, and the daughter held her tongue as well.

  “Key, let us in,” came the call again, and, faith! this time the key spoke up: “I can’t let you in, and I here tied to the post of the old woman’s bed.”

  “Feet water, let us in!” says the voice, and with that, the tub of feet water split and the water flowed around the kitchen, and the door opened and in came three men with bags of wool and three women with spinning wheels, and they sat down around the fire, and the men were taking tons of wool out of the bags, and the little women were spinning it into thread, and the men putting the thread back into the bags.

  And this went on for a couple of hours and the widow woman and the girl were nearly out of their minds with the fright. But the girl kept a splink of sense about her, and she remembered that there was a wise woman living not too far away, and down with her from the room to the kitchen, and she catches up a bucket. “Ye’ll be having a sup of tea, after all the work,” says she, as bold as brass, and out the door with her.

  They didn’t help or hinder her.

  Off with her to the wise woman, and out with her story. “ ’Tis a bad case, and ’tis lucky you came to me,” says the wise woman, “for you might travel far before you’d find one that would save you from them. They are not of this world, but I know where they are from. And this is what you must do,” and she told her what to do.

  Back with the girl and filled her bucket at the well, and back with her to the house. And just as she coming over the stile, she flung down the bucket with a bang, and shouted out at the top of her voice: “There is Sliabh na mBan all on fire!”

  And the minute they heard it, out with the strange men and women r
unning east in the direction of the mountain.

  And in with the girl, and she made short work of throwing out the broken tub and putting the bolt and the bar on the door. And herself and her mother went back to bed for themselves.

  It was not long until they heard the footsteps in the yard once more, and the voice outside calling out: “Key, let us in!” And the key answered back: “I can’t let you in. Amn’t I after telling you that I’m tied to the post of the old woman’s bed?” “Feet water, let us in!” says the voice.

  “How can I?” says the feet water, “and I here on the ground under your feet!”

  They had every shout and every yell out of them with the dint of the rage, and they not able to get in to the house. But it was idle for them. They had no power to get in when the feet water was thrown out.

  And I tell you it was a long time again before the widow woman or her daughter forgot to throw out the feet water and tidy the house properly before they went to bed for themselves.

  THE FAIRY RABBIT AND THE BLESSED EARTH OF TORY

  JIMÍ DIXON DONEGAL

  SEÁN Ó HEOCHAIDH 1954

  My grandfather, Donnchadh Ó Duibhir, was a great fisherman, and as well as being a good seaman he was a wonderful swimmer. He was a very strong man too. He used to go out fishing with a man from the east of the island. It was in Port an Dúin he kept his curragh and it was on the north side of the island he did most of his fishing.

  One fine summer evening he went east to meet his comrade and the two of them went to Port an Dúin. They took all the boat-gear and the curragh down to the edge of the strand and set out for the northern shore.

  There is a place on the east of the island near the Dún called Poll an Rutáin. It is a cavern open at both ends and it is a good short-cut compared with having to go round the nose of Tor Mór. It was through Poll an Rutáin they were going that evening. There was not a breath of wind and the sea was as smooth as a board.