Celtic Lore & Legend

by Bob Curran

Throughout the Celtic world, the imminence of the fairy realm was very keenly felt. It lay, said conventional wisdom, all around, just beyond the sight of ordinary mortals. The ancient fairy people came and went everywhere unseen by those living beside them. Occasionally, however, they would allow favored mortals fleeting glimpses through the veil that lay between the worlds and might even allow them to cross from one realm into another.

  What sort of place was the realm of the Sidhe? How was it organized? How did its inhabitants live, and, more importantly, what did they look like? These questions and others could only be answered by someone who had seen into the Otherworld.

  The Reverend Robert Kirk (c. 1630–1692), Scottish minister of Balquhidder in Callandar (the burial place of the famous Scottish figure, Rob Roy) and later of Aberfoyle in the Trossachs, was one of those who stole a glimpse into that other realm and who was able to write about what he saw and learned. Kirk, the seventh son of a seventh son, was believed to have the “gift” of seeing the world of the ancient Sidhe and had the knowledge and skills to record what he knew. His book, The Secret Commonwealth, is considered to be one of the most detailed studies of the fairy world. His account lay in manuscript form until around 1815; certainly no prior edition of it has ever been traced.

  Little is known about Kirk himself except that he was married twice and that he completed a translation of part of the Bible (the Book of Psalms) into Gaelic before he died. Given his almost-mystical pedigree, he was also considered as something of an expert in the supernatural. He was said to frequently go to meet and converse with the fairy kind on Doon Hill (a dun-shi, or fairy hill) near his manse, which was said to be a gateway into the Otherworld. With their blessing, it would seem, he wrote a highly absorbing account of the unseen world that, although it may have simply started out as personal notes or a memoir, gradually metamorphosized into The Secret Commonwealth .

  Kirk died on May 14, 1692, while out on a regular walk to Doon Hill. His body was found by the side of the road and carried back to the manse. Legend states that, after the funeral, Kirk appeared to one of his cousins to announce that he was not dead at all but was, in fact, living in the fairy realm.

  Robert Kirk, of course, reflected the beliefs and perspectives of his own community. As R.E. Cunningham-Graham remarked: “No doubt the congregation that the ingenuous minister served were most of them, devout believers in fairy lore…for they sucked it with their mother’s milk and held it, not by conviction for they never had reasoned on it, but quite naturally, as part and parcel of themselves; and in such surroundings it was not strange that the writer of the book also believed in them”. The Secret Commonwealth therefore represents a core of popular Scottish lore, which had, in Kirk’s time, been passed down across the centuries more or less intact. This brief excerpt is taken from the original work, written around 1691. There has been some Anglicisation of the Scots dialect that Kirk used, in order to give a better understanding of the discourse.

  Excerpt From

  The Secret Commonwealth

  by Reverend Robert Kirk

  The Siths, or Fairies, they call Sleagh Maith (or Good people, it would seem to prevent the dint of their ill attempts) are said to be of a middle nature betwixt man and angel, as were demons thought to be of old, of intelligent studious spirits and light, changeable bodies (like those called astral), somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud and best seen in twilight. These bodies be so pliable through the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure. Some have bodies or vehicles so spongeous, thin and pure that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquors, that pierce like pure air and oil; others feed more gross on the abundance or substance of corn and liquors, or corn itself that grows on the surface of the earth, which these fairies steal away, partly invisible and partly preying on the grain as do crows or mice; wherefore in this same age they are sometimes heard to break bread, strike hammers and to do such like services within the little hillocks they most do haunt; some whereof of old before the Gospel dispelled Paganism, and in some barbarous places as yet, enter houses after all are at rest, and set the kitchen in order, cleaning all vessels. Such dregs (spirits, supernatural beings) go under the name of Brownies. We have plenty, they have scarcity at their homes and, on the contrary (for they are not empowered to catch as much prey everywhere as they please), their robberies, notwithstanding, oft-times occasion great ricks (stacks) of corn not to bleed so well (as they call it) or prove so copious by very far as was expected by their owner.

  Their bodies of congealed air are sometime carried aloft, other whiles grovel in different shapes, and enter into any cranny or cleft of the earth where air enters, to their ordinary dwellings; the earth being full of dark cavities and cells, and there being no place, no creature, but is supposed to have other animals (greater or lesser) living in or upon it as inhabitants; and no such thing as a pure wilderness in the whole universe.

  We then (the more terrestrial kind have now so numerously planted all countries) do labour for that abstruse people as well as for ourselves. Albeit when several countries are inhabited by us, these had their easy tillage above ground as we do now. The print of those furrows do yet remain to be seen on the shoulders of very high hills, which was done when the campaign ground was wood and forest.

  They remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the year, so traversing till doomsday, being impotent of staying in one place, and finding some ease by journeying and changing habitations. Their chameleon-like bodies swim in the air near the earth with bag and baggage; and at such revolution of time, seers or men of the second sight, (females being seldom so qualified) have very terrifying encounters with them, even on highways; who awfully shun to travel abroad at these four seasons of the year, and therefore have made it a custom to this day among the Scottish-Irish to keep church duly every first Sunday of the quarter to seun or hallow themselves, their corn and cattle, from the shots and stealth of these wandering tribes; and many of these superstitious people will not be seen in church again until the next quarter begins, as if no duty were to be learnt or done by them; but all the use of worship and sermons were to save them from the arrows that fly in the dark.

  They are distributed in tribes and orders and have children, nurses, marriages, deaths and burials in appearance, even as we (unless they do so for a mock-show, or to prognosticate some such things among us).

  They are clearly seen by these men of the second sight to eat at funerals and banquets. Hence many of the Scottish-Irish will not taste meat at these meetings, lest they have communion with, or be poisoned by, them. So are they seen to carry the bier or coffin, with the corpse among the middle-earth men to the grave? Some men of that exalted sight (whether by art or nature) have told me they have seen theses meetings as a double man, or the shape of a man in two places, that is a super-terranean and subterranean inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all points, when he, notwithstanding could easily distinguish one from another by some secret tokens and operations, and go and speak to the man, his neighbour and familiar, passing by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch that every element and different state of being has animals resembling those of another element; as there are fishes sometimes at sea, resembling monks of late order in all their hoods and dresses; so as the Roman invention of good and bad demons and guardian angels particularly assigned [Editor’s Note: Kirk is here referring to the Roman Catholic Church, which was, in this time, considered to be highly superstitious and gullible.] is called by them an ignorant mistake, sprung only from this original. They call this reflex man, a co-walker, every way like the man, as a twin brother and companion, haunting him as his shadow, as is oft seen and known among men (resembling the original), both before and after the original is dead; and was often seen of old to enter a house by which the people knew that the person of that likeness was to visit them within a few days. This copy, echo, or living picture, goes at last to his
won herd. It accompanied that person so long and frequently for ends best known to itself, whether to guard him from the secret assaults of some of its own folk, or only as a sportful ape to counterfeit all his actions. However, the stories of old witches prove beyond contradiction that all sorts of people, spirits which assume airy bodies, or crazed bodies concocted by foreign spirits, seem to have some pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking and capering like satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky birds) in their unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar to men; otherwise being in a different state and element, they neither can nor will easily converse with them. They avouch that a heluo, or great eater has a voracious elve to be his attender, called a joint-eater or just-halver, feeding on the pith and quintessence of what the man eats; and that, therefore, he continues lean like hawk or heron; notwithstanding his devouring appetite, yet it would seem they convey his substance elsewhere, for these subterraneans eat but little in their dwellings, their food being exactly clean, and are served by pleasant children, like enchanted puppets.

  Their houses are called large and fair and (unless at some odd occasions) unperceivable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland and other enchanted islands [Editor’s Note: Rachland was believed to be a fairy island lying off the Northwest Coast of Scotland. It was allegedly inhabited either by fairies of by the descendants of Vikings and only appeared to mortal eyes once every seven years, but it could be seen by the pure-hearted almost at any time.] having fir lights, continual lamps and fires, often seen without fuel to sustain them. Women are yet alive who tell they were taken away when in child-bed to nurse fairy children, a lingering, voracious image of them being left in their place (like a reflection in a mirror) which (as if it were some insatiable spirit in an assumed body) made first semblance to devour the meats that it cunningly carried by, and then left the carcass as if it expired and departed thence by a natural and common death. The child and fire, with food and all other necessities, are set before the nurse how soon she enters, but she never perceives any passage out, nor sees what those people do in any other rooms of the lodging. When the child is weaned, the nurse dies, or is conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there. But if any superterraneans be so subtle as to practice sleights for procuring the privacy to any of their mysteries (such as making use of their ointments, which, as Gyges’ ring, make them invisible or nimble, or cast them in a trance, or alter their shape, or make things appear at a vast distance, etc.), they smite them without pain, as with a puff of wind, and bereave them of both the natural and acquired sights in the twinkling of an eye (both these sights, when once they come, being in the same organ and inseparable), or they strike them to death. [Editor’s Note: The reference to the Ring of Gyges evokes a tale mentioned in Plato’s Republic in which the Lydian shepherd Gyges enters a cave that had been revealed after an earthquake. Finding a ring upon the hand of an enthroned corpse there, he stole it and found that it had the power to make him invisible. Using the magical artifact, he murdered the ruler of Lydia to ascend the throne himself. King Croesus, the famous king with the golden touch, was reputedly descended from Gyges. Various and contradictory versions of this legend circulated throughout the ancient world—a vastly different story is told by Heroditas, for example.] The tramontanes to this day, place bread, the Bible, or a piece of iron, so save their women at such time from being stolen, and they commonly report that all uncouth, unknown weights (supernatural creatures) are terrified of nothing earthly as much as cold iron. [Editor’s Note: The use of the word tramontanes, thought to be of French derivation, is interesting here. It has been used to describe Catalans but is here probably used in a religious sense to describe indigenous Gaelic Scots—predominantly Catholic—who were deemed to be incredibly superstitious.] They deliver the reason to be that hell, lying between the chill tempests and firebrands of scalding metals, and iron of the north (hence the lodestone causes a tendency to that point) by antiquity thereto, these odious, far-scenting creatures shrug and fright at all that comes thence relating to an abhorred place, whence their torment is either begun, or feared to come hereafter.

  The hero confronts a dreadful monster.

  Their apparel and speech is like that of the people and country under which they live; so are they seen to wear plaids and variegated garments in the Highlands of Scotland, and suanachs (plaids) therefore in Ireland. They speak but little, and by way of whistling clear, not rough. The very devils conjured in any country do answer in the language of that place; yet sometimes the subterraneans speak more distinctly than at other times. Their women are said to spin very fine, to dye, to tossue, and embroider, but whether it be as manual operation of industrial refined stuffs, with apt and solid instruments, or only curious cobwebs, unpalpable rainbows and a phantastic imitation of the actions of the more terrestrial mortals, since it transcended all the senses of the seer to discern whether, I leave to conjecture as I found it.

  Their men travel much abroad, either presaging or aping the dismal and tragical actions of some amongst us; and have also many disastrous doings of their own, as convocations, fighting, gashes, wounds and burials, both in the earth and air. They live much longer than we, yet die, at last; or at least vanish from that state. ‘Tis one of these tenets that nothing perisheth, but (as the sun and year) everything goes in a circle, lesser or greater, and is renewed and refreshed in its revolutions, as ‘tis another, that every body in creation moves (which is a sort of life) and that nothing moves but has another animal moving on it; and so on until the utmost minutest corpuscle that’s capable of being a receptacle of life.

  They are said to have aristocratical rulers and laws, but no discernable religion, love, or devotion towards God, the blessed Maker of all; they disappear whenever they hear His name invoked, or the name of Jesus (at which all do bow willingly, or by constraint, that dwell above or beneath, within the earth) (Philip ii.10); nor can they act ought at that time after the hearing of the sacred name. The Taiblsdear or seer, that corresponds with this kind of familiars, can bring them with a spell to appear to himself or others when he pleases, as readily as the Endor Witch did those of her own kind. He tells that they are ever readiest to go on hurtful errands but seldom will be the messengers of great good to men. He is not terrified with their sight when he calls them, but seeing them in a surprise (as often as he does) frights him extremely, and glad would he be to be quit of such, for the hideous spectacles seen among them, as the torturing of some wight (spirit or goblin), earnest, ghostly, staring looks, skirmishes and the like. They do not all the harm which, appearingly, they have the power to do; nor are they perceived to be in great pain, save that they are usually silent and sullen. They are said to have many pleasant, toyish books; but the operation of these pieces only appears in some paroxysms of antic, corybantic jollity, as if ravished and prompted by a new spirit entering into them at that instant, lighter and merrier than their own. Other books they have of involved, abstruse sense, much like the Rosicurucian style. They have nothing of the Bible, save collected parcels for charms and counter-charms: not to defend themselves withal, but to operate on other animals, for they are a people invulnerable to weapons, and albeit werewolves and witches true bodies are (by the union of spirit and nature that runs through all, echoing and doubling the blow towards another) wounded at home, when the astral or assumed bodies are stricken elsewhere—as the strings of a second harp, tuned to a unison sound, though only one be struck—yet these people have not a second, or so gross a body at all, to be so pierced, but as the air which when divided, unites again; or if they feel pain by a blow, they are better physicians than we, and quickly cure. They are not subject to sore sicknesses, but dwindle and decay at a certain period, all about an age. Some say that their continual sadness is because of their pendulous state (like those men: Luke xiii. 2-6), as uncertain what at the last revolution will become of them; when they are locked up into an un
changeable condition; and if they have any frolic fits of mirth, ‘tis as the constrained grinning of a mort’s-head (death’s-head) or rather as acted on a stage and moved by another, than by cordially coming of themselves. But other men of the second sight, being illiterate, and unwary in their observations, differ from those, one averring those subterranean people to be departed souls, attending a while in this inferior state, and clothed with bodies procured through their alms-deeds in this life, fluid, active, eternal vehicles to hold them that they may not scatter nor wander and be lost in the totum or their first nothing; but if any were so impious as to have given no alms, they say, when the souls of such do depart, they sleep in an inactive state till they resume the terrestrial bodies again; others that what the low-country Scotch call a wraith, and the Irish taibhse, or death’s messenger (appearing sometimes as a little rough dog and if crossed and conjured in time will be pacified by the death of any other creature instead of the sick man) is only exuvious fumes of the man approaching death, exhaled and congealed into a various likeness (as ships and armies are sometimes shaped in the air) and called astral bodies, agitated as wildfire with the wind, and are neither souls nor counterfeiting spirits, yet not a few avouch (as is said) that surely these are a numerous people by themselves, having their own politics, which diversities of judgement may occasion several inconsistencies in this rehearsal after the narrowest scrutiny made about it.

  Fictional

  Tales

  Introduction

  It was not only local storytellers—those men and women who sat by the hearthside of a Winter’s night and entertained their neighbors with stories of great deeds in times long past and tales of the imminent supernatural—who looked towards the ancient corpus of belief and tradition. The successors of the oral transmitters, writers and artists, also drew on the lore of former times for their stories and pictures. Some of the writers simply recorded the tales that they heard, but others used the themes and suggestions that they’d heard in the Celtic countryside as a basis around which to build tales of their own. In a sense, they were following a tradition that dated all the way back to the Celtic Bards who changed and embellished some of the ordinary events that they recited into something marvelous and strange.