Irish Gothic Fairy Stories

by Steve Lally

  When they got back to shore they all went their separate ways and that night there was a knock on the door of the brave fisherman. He answered the door and there was a finely dressed man, with long black hair and piercing eyes, with a great horse standing at his side. Both man and beast were soaked to the skin, but it had not been raining outside at all. Most peculiar.

  He was sure that this was the figure on horseback that he had seen riding below the ocean. The stranger looked at him with those piercing eyes and said, ‘Are you the man who threw that knife at the wave today?’

  ‘I am indeed, have you got it for me?’ replied the fisherman, showing no signs of fear.

  The stranger was not amused by the seafarer’s attitude and he demanded that he come with him.

  ‘I will not!’ replied the fisherman and bid the stranger good night. But just before he had a chance to close the door, the stranger changed his tone and sounded sad and mournful. He said, ‘Please come with me and I give you my word that I will return you safely once the matter is taken care of.’

  ‘What class of matter would this be?’ asked the fisherman.

  ‘The woman you hit with the knife is dying and the only way for her to survive is to have the owner of the knife remove it from her himself.’

  The fisherman could see that the stranger was full of grief and he also figured he could get his trusty knife back. ‘Alright, I will come with you,’ he said and grabbed his big coat.

  He climbed onto the back of the mighty horse and the rider commanded the beast to run, which it did like the wind.

  When they came to the shoreline the fisherman was wondering if a boat would come and collect them. With that the horse reared up on its hind legs and let out a terrible whinny like a pooka horse and charged straight into the ocean. The fisherman did not have a chance to say a single word as they galloped down below the sea and along the seabed. He could not understand how he was not drowning and he could see clearly all about in this magical underwater world. He saw fish, plants and sea creatures the likes of which he never knew existed, he was truly amazed at this great wonder that was all around him.

  As they rode along the seabed he could see a great palace in the distance, it was truly magnificent; its walls and turrets were decorated with shells, corals and stones of every colour, size and shape.

  When they got to the palace, two great golden doors opened up before them. They then trotted into the courtyard where they were greeted by strange-looking mermen with green faces and bodies, red pointy noses, flipper arms and wee piggy eyes. Then he saw the beautiful merrows with their long flowing hair and perfect features. They all gathered round the riders and their steed and helped them down from the horse; when this was done they all bowed to the stranger with the piercing eyes, like one might when in the company of royalty.

  They were then escorted into the palace, where they were taken up a long decorated hallway to a huge room with a magnificent bed in the centre of it, and on this bed lay a young woman. She was the same woman that the fisherman had seen inside the wave that day. She looked very weak. Then he saw the black handle of the knife protruding from the young woman’s chest. It was his knife for sure and he looked at the stranger with a quizzical expression on his face.

  The stranger then spoke. ‘She is my daughter, she wanted to go upon the land for she had never seen it before and I forbade it, for I knew of the dangers. But she was angered and stormed off in a rage, which caused the terrible storm and waves that you were caught up in. I went riding after her but the last thing I saw was this terrible knife plunging into her chest. I took her back here and then I went looking for the owner of the knife. For only they can remove it without her dying. It is your knife, is it not?’

  He stared at the fisherman with a look of both anger and anticipation. ‘Tis mine alright,’ said the fisherman. He walked closer to the bed and reached for the knife. ‘Careful, please be careful,’ said the stranger as he watched the man take hold of the handle. When he caught a good hold of it he took a deep breath and pulled the blade from the woman’s chest. As soon as he did so, she shot up in the bed and lunged at him with her arms outstretched.

  ‘No, you cannot have him, I promised to take him back!’ shouted her father.

  The fisherman could see a sadness in her eyes as she lay back down and then he watched as she wept ever so gently. For the first time in his life the seafarer felt a terrible sorrow come over him. The stranger approached him and led him back down the hall to where the horse waited with two ghoulish mermen at either side of it. Quietly the two men mounted the horse and off they rode into the depths of the great ocean.

  When they emerged from the sea it was dark all around them and the moon was shining brightly in the sky, sending flickering slivers of silver light across the sea.

  They rode in silence back to the fisherman’s house and when they arrived he climbed down from the horse and looked up at the rider. ‘I do hope she will be alright,’ he said.

  ‘She will be fine as long as she stays amongst her own kind – this has been a valuable lesson for her,’ replied the stranger. With that the rider turned on his horse and rode away, back to the vast depths of the ocean.

  The fisherman stood silently and alone in the moonlight and all he could hear was the sound of the soft wind and the sound of the sea as is rolled in and out upon the shore. He looked down at his knife inside his belt; he pulled it out and in the moonlight he could see specks of green blood on the blade and it sent a shiver down his back.

  From that day onwards when the fisherman went out to sea he never took his black-handled-knife with him. For if he ever came across a fairy wave again and saw the beautiful young woman inside its billowing breakers, he would gladly throw himself into her arms and join her in the magical world beneath the sea.

  Co. Roscommon: From the Irish Ros Comáin, meaning ‘Coman’s Wood’, named after St Coman. Co. Roscommon is where Rathcroghan (Ráth Cruachan, meaning ‘Fort of Cruachan’) can be found. It was the royal seat of Queen Maebh, Connacht’s warrior queen. Her mother, Crochen Croderg, was born of the sun goddess Étaín and dropped from her apron as she passed over the western lands on her daily journey to the heavens. When she fell she went into the ground through an opening called an Owenynagat (a Celtic otherworld). Rathcroghan was built by Maebh’s father, Eochaid Feidlech. Rathcroghan is also the home of The Morrigan, the queen of phantoms/nightmares. Co. Roscommon is where Douglas Hyde (1860–1949) was born. He was a folklorist, a leading figure in the Gaelic Revival, and Ireland’s first President.

  THE CASTLE’S TREASURE (CO. ROSCOMMON)

  Sir William Wilde collected this story back in 1852 from a man called Paddy Welsh. It is written here as it would have been told all those years ago. We found this great little story in Henry Glassie’s book Irish Folktales, published in 1985. The language needs a little getting used to but it’s a fun task trying to guess the meaning of the old words!

  In some stories we have found that the fairies interfere, and sometimes take a liking to a human and give them access to their treasure. In most cases we have discovered that it is rarely straightforward and comes at a price. We hear of people who have dreams about hidden treasure or maybe just a feeling about a place. But more times than none they will be under some strict instructions as to how they will obtain the treasure. For instance, they will need to look for the treasure at a certain time of day, and they must tell no one about the search.

  Here is an example of such a story. Now settle down and enjoy the tale of the Castle’s Treasure…

  I dreamed one night that I was walking about in the bawn [old castle], 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 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 dream, 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 until I had the third dream, and as the moon was in the last quarter, and the night’s mighty dark, Peggy put down the grisset [wrought-iron pan], and made a lock of candles. And so, throwing the loy [an early Irish spade with a long heavy handle made of ash] over my shoulder, and giving my son Michauleen the shovel, we set out about twelve o’clock, and when we got to the castle, it was so dark that you wouldn’t see your hand before you. And there wasn’t a stir in the old place, barring the owls that where snoring in the chimney.

  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, not a word we said all the while, but dug and shovelled 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 of the crock of gold 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 was 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 (Si Gaoithe or fairy wind) rushed in through the doorway, and out went the lights, and pitched us both down into the hole. And of all the noises you ever heard, was about us in a minute! But I thought it was all over for us… But I made out as fast as I could, and the gossoon after me, and we never stopped running till we stumped 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 on the road – the bouchal itself was stouter – with the weakens 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.

  But what these academics from Dublin did not realise was the fact that if Paddy had taken the treasure, it was fairy gold. If he was to say that he had it or even saw it, the gold would automatically turn into múnlach [foul manure]. So from that day to this, no one ever knew if Paddy Welsh found the fairy gold.

  Co. Sligo: From the Irish Shligigh, meaning ‘Shelly Place’. Sligo is known as ‘the Kingdom of the Fairies’, which lies deep within the majestic rock formation of Benbulben. It was also one of the main hunting grounds for Finn Mac Cumhail and his army of warriors, the Fianna. The brave warrior Diarmuid was pierced through the heart and killed whilst fighting an enchanted boar on Benbulben. Keshcorran Mountain is capped by a large un-opened cairn, known locally as ‘the Pinnacle’, which can be seen from many parts of Co. Sligo. The Caves of Kesh, are a series of limestone caves. A famous Celtic King, Cormac MacArt was believed to have been born and raised in the caves by a she wolf. Maebh, the Warrior Queen of Connacht, is buried in a cairn in Knocknarea. She has still not forgiven Ulster for denying her the Brown Bull of Cooley. She is not at rest but instead is standing in the cairn with a spear in her hand facing Ulster ready for battle. The poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) is buried in Drumcliff, North Co. Sligo.

  PINKEEN AND THE FAIRY TREE OF DOOROS (CO. SLIGO)

  Our final story in this collection comes from Co. Sligo, better known as the Kingdom of the Fairies. The Kingdom of the Sidhe lies deep in the heart of the mighty Ben Bulben, a magnificent rock formation of limestone in Sligo.

  In the side of Ben Bulben is a white square in the limestone. It is said to be the door of fairyland. There is no more inaccessible place in existence than this white square door; no human foot has ever gone near it, not even the mountain goats can browse the saxifrage beside its mysterious whiteness. Tradition says that it swings open at nightfall and lets pour through an unearthly troop of hurrying spirits. (Handbook of the Irish Revival: An Anthology of Irish Cultural and Political Writings 1891–1922, edited by Declan Kiberd and P.J. Mathews and published by Abbey Theatre Press)

  County Sligo is the resting place of the great poet and collector of fairy lore, William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). It also happens to be where Steve Lally was born before his family moved to Lucan in Co. Dublin. Paula Flynn Lally shares the same birthday with Yeats: 13th of June.

  We found this magnificent ‘Wonder Tale’, which captures the magic, tragedy, and epic adventure of a great fairy story, in Edmund Leamy’s book Irish Fairy Tales, which was first published in 1889 and republished in 1906 by M.A. Gill & Son Ltd, Dublin to honour Leamy after his death.

  The Forest of Dooros was in the district of Hy Fiera of the Moy (now the Barony of Tireragh, in Sligo). On a certain occasion the Dé Dannans (the Tuatha Dé Danann – the fairy folk), returning from a hurling match with the Feni, passed through the forest, carrying with them for food during the journey crimson nuts, arbutus-apples and scarlet quicken-berries, which they had brought from the Land of Promise. One of the quicken-berries dropped to the earth and the Dé Dannans passed on, not heeding. From this berry a great quicken-tree sprang up, which had the virtues of the quicken-trees that grow in Fairyland. Its berries have the taste of honey and those who ate of them felt a cheerful glow, as if they had drunk wine or old mead. If a man were even 100 years old, he returned to the age of 30 as soon as he had eaten three of the quicken-berries.

  The Dé Dannans heard of this tree, and not wishing that anyone should eat of the berries but themselves, sent a giant of their own people to guard it, namely Sharvan the Surley of Lochlann.

  (From Old Celtic Romances by P.W. Joyce (1827–1914), p.313, ‘The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grania’, Chapter VII: ‘Sharvan the Surley Giant, and the Fairy Quicken Tree of Dooros’. Published by Kegan Paul & Co. 1 Paternoster Square, London 1879.)

  Once upon a time the fairies of the west, going home from a hurling match with the fairies of the lakes, rested in Dooros Wood for three days and three nights. They spent the days feasting and the nights dancing in the light of the moon, and they danced so hard that they wore the shoes off their feet, and for a whole week after the leprechauns (the fairies’ shoemakers), were working night and day making new ones, and the rip, rap, tap, tap of their little hammers were heard in all the hedgerows.

  The food on which the fairies feasted were little red berries, and were so like those that grow on the rowan tree that if you only looked at them you might mistake one for the other; but the fairy berries grow only in Fairyland, and are sweeter than any fruit that grows here in this world, and if an old man, bent and grey, ate one of them, he became young and active and strong again; and if an old woman, withered and wrinkled, ate one of them, she became young and bright and fair; and if a little maiden who was not handsome ate of them, she became lovelier than the flower of beauty.

  The fairies guarded the berries as carefully as a miser guards his gold, and whenever they were about to leave fairyland they had to promise in the presence of the king and queen that they would not give a single berry to mortal man, nor allow one to fall upon the earth; for if a single berry fell upon the earth a slender tree of many branches, bearing clusters of berries, would at once spring up, and mortal men might eat of them.

  But it chanced th
at this time they were in Dooros Wood they kept up the feasting and dancing so long, and were so full of joy because of their victory over the lake fairies, that one little, weeny fairy, not much bigger than my finger, lost his head, and dropped a berry in the wood.

  When the feast was ended the fairies went back to fairyland, and were at home for more than a week before they knew of the little fellow’s fault, and this is how they came to know of it.

  A great wedding was about to come off, and the Queen of the Fairies sent six of her pages to Dooros Wood to catch fifty butterflies with golden spots on their purple wings, and fifty white without speck or spot, and fifty golden, yellow as the cowslip, to make a dress for herself, and a hundred white, without speck or spot, to make dresses for the bride and bridesmaids.

  When the pages came near the wood they heard the most wonderful music, and the sky above them became quite dark, as if a cloud had shut out the sun. They looked up and saw that the cloud was formed of bees, who in a great swarm were flying towards the wood and humming as they flew. Seeing this they were sore afraid until they saw the bees settling on a single tree, and on looking closely at the tree they saw it was covered with fairy berries.

  The bees took no notice of the fairies, and so they were no longer afraid, and they hunted the butterflies until they had captured the full number of various colours. Then they returned to Fairyland, and they told the queen about the bees and the berries, and the queen told the king.

  The king was very angry, and he sent his heralds to the four corners of Fairyland to summon all his subjects to his presence that he might find out without delay who was the culprit.

  They all came except the little weeny fellow who dropped the berry, and of course every one said that it was fear that kept him away, and that he must be guilty.