Irish Folk Tales (47 page)

And I think it was principally told on that account—to take fear and to keep them in, and to keep them under the safekeeping of their parents. I have that imagination.

Fairy tales were handed down from one to the other who really believed it, really believed it. Then the world advanced. I mind in my day when I was about the age of your daughter there, I used to be afraid to go out, and I used to bring a lamp with me—what they called a hand lamp, the same as the battery lamp now; it was a candle used in them days—and maybe I wouldn’t have the second match with me, and maybe the wind blows me lamp out, and there I was in the dark and I was in an awful mess.

I remember coming across what they called a footstick; that would be a wee plank across a drain.

And I seen the two eyes shining at me on the other side. And it was the reflection of the lamp shining in the dog’s eyes.

And man, I nearly fainted.

He let a bark.

And I let a shout.

And I nearly collapsed into a drain. And from
that night
to this I never was one bit afraid.

That fright was the best thing ever happened. It came to make me nerves strong and staunch that I wasn’t afraid of anything. And I never carried a lamp after that. I just walked away, and if I found a noise or a rattle or a flicker of the leaves, I never was one bit afraid.

And that was the way.

So
that
cut out the whole fairy tales. Me father was great for fairy tales; he’d tell you about seeing the fairies.

The only thing ever I heard him saying was that he seen a last that a
man run and got of the fairy when he was making a wee shoe. That was above Swanlinbar.

He saw him making a wee shoe, and he run and he got it, and the last—did you ever see a foot-last?—he got the last and the last was in the house right beside where I was born. I never saw it meself, but it was there during his time.

And
I’m
not
saying me father was a liar, and I wouldn’t excuse him any more than any other, but the old people had that way of going on in them days. And he maintained that it was there.

There was some house, but I don’t remember the name of it
now
. It was in it for years and years and years: the fairy last.

I heard another man saying he seen one of the fairies too. And he’s not all that long dead.

He said he was walking this day and the fairy just stepped out. He even said that he caught him.

He told me that: that he was only a very small little mite of a wee urchin of a thing.

And he said he caught him; he lifted him up in his hand.

And the fairy told him, he says, “If you let me out, I’ll tell you,” he says, “where there’s a good crock of gold.”

“Well,” he says, “you’ll have to tell me,” he says, “before I’ll let you go.” He says, “No, I’ll not let you go,” he says, “till you tell me.”

“I cannot,” he says. The fairy spoke, as he maintained, in proper English language. “I cannot tell you, until you let me go,” he says.

“Release me.”

So he let him go, just like that. Left him on the ground just beside him, and he disappeared out of sight, and that was that.

Well, I didn’t believe him. But he was a very old man. He was eighty years of age.

Well, another man told me—I had been working in the place, and he says, “Do you see that spot there?”

“I do,” says I, “see it, surely.”

“And what,” he says, “do you remark about it?”

“Well,” says I, “I remark there’s no grass on it.”

And the rest of the field was fully fledged in grass. Says I, “There’s no grass on it.” And he said, “Do you know the reason why?”

“Ah, no,” says I. I was only young at the time.

“Well,” he says, “that was a boy that was taken away,” he says, “about a hundred and fifty years ago,” he says, “from the house I live in and that you sleep in.”

“Taken away by who?” says I.

He says, “Taken away by the fairies.” The Good People they called them sometimes.

And he says, “He came to the window this night, and he tapped at the window and the people inside answered the call or the tap at the window.”

And so he mentioned who he was.

“And what’s wrong with ye?”

“I can’t,” he says, “come back. I’m with the fairies,” he says. “But I’m coming by on such a night”—mentioning the night, let it be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or some night in the week. He says, “At the hour of two o’clock, I’ll be coming by then, coming by the house, and I’ll get released,” he says, “if yous are fit to take me off the horse. I’ll be the second man on the second horse.”

He says, “I’ll be riding the second horse, and if yous are fit to pull me off with iron or anything steel, or throw a hoop around me,” he says, “like a barrel hoop, or anything like that, I’ll get released.”

So they certified to him that they’d do their best.

Well, the time came and they heard the click click of the horses coming, and there was a person selected to throw the hoop round.

“But,” he says, “if yous miss me, well, I’m done.” He says, “I’ll never get back.”

So they made the attempt, but it wasn’t successful.

And they made the attempt with this steel circle or hoop, just in this spot where he was going through a gap.

And they missed him, and he just fell like that off the horse and disappeared.

And where he fell down,

   the shape of him is on the ground,

      all the time.

And that was the last of him.

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.

T
HE FAIRY SHILLING

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.

T
HE BREAKING OF THE FORTH

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.