Irish Ghost Tales (8 page)

Once upon a time County Mayo was covered in trees. In fact, ‘Mayo' means ‘Plain of the Yew'. On the edge of this ancient wood there lived a woman called Old Biddy. She was an extremely ugly old woman, scrawny with squinty little eyes and a big black wart on the end of her long, crooked nose. She had a reputation for being a cantankerous old woman and people avoided her whenever she ventured into the town. However, that didn't stop people from seeking her out when they were sick for Old Biddy was known far and wide as the best wise woman in the west of Ireland.

Old Biddy's cottage was full of herbs, roots and bottles of various concoctions. There were strange books with magic spells lying patiently on the shelf. This in itself was very unusual for at that time very few people could read, but Old Biddy's grandmother and mother were both renowned wise women and healers and they had taught her the skill as part of her magical training.

The only friend that Old Biddy had was a giant otter that lived not far from her cottage on the banks of the nearby river. It was a bad-tempered, mean old animal that was as ugly as Old Biddy herself, but they seemed to get on with each other and the otter spent a lot of its time rummaging around in Old Biddy's garden, eating bits and pieces that she had thrown onto her compost heap.

Unfortunately a number of these bits and pieces had been used in the making of Old Biddy's concoctions, so they had magical properties. In time, they began to have an effect on the otter. Some locals suggested that they saw the otter walking upright like a man and one fella claimed that he saw the otter sitting in a chair outside Old Biddy's cottage, talking away to her in Irish while she cooked up some potion in the kitchen. However, no one believed this as the fella in question was well known for his love of poteen.

Old Biddy called the otter ‘Rawhead' and some people said this was because it was so ugly. The otter didn't seem to mind his funny name and he followed Old Biddy around her garden, gathering any leftovers he could find. It was said that he even followed her into town on the rare occasions she ventured in to deliver her homemade remedies. The locals soon got used to the sight of the two strange-looking creatures walking around the town, so they were mostly ignored until one market day a shopkeeper noticed that Old Biddy was on her own and looking very worried.

‘Where's your friend Rawhead?' asked the shopkeeper.

‘I don't know,' Old Biddy replied. ‘I haven't seen him today and I'm very worried. Have you seen him in town?'

‘No, I haven't seen him at all,' the shopkeeper said. ‘And no one I've spoken to has mentioned seeing him around, but I'll let you know if he comes into town looking for you.'

‘Thank you,' Old Biddy replied. ‘If you do see him please tell him to go home at once.'

Old Biddy headed home but by now she was extremely worried. It wasn't like her friend to go missing, especially on the day they went into town because the shopkeepers always saved him a few tasty scraps and Rawhead never missed a visit. Arriving back at her cottage Old Biddy mixed up one of her special potions and poured it onto a flat plate. She whispered the words of a finding spell as she poured.

‘Where's that old otter got to?' she asked the liquid.

The potion began to cloud over and a series of pictures started to form. First she saw an old hunter who was often creeping around the ancient wood, spying on her and Rawhead. She saw that he had captured Rawhead and was taking him deep into the heart of the wood. Then she saw Rawhead hanging upside down from a tree. The last picture she saw was a pile of bloody bones lying under the tree. Old Biddy went mad with grief. Rawhead had been her only friend – yes, he was old and ugly but he had never harmed any living creature in his life. She considered what the hunter had done to be murder. Everyone knew how much she loved that ugly old otter. He was her friend. She swore that lazy, good-for-nothing hunter would pay.

Old Biddy was known for practising the healing arts but she also knew the dark side of magic. Her grandmother had left her a book filled with old spells, powerful dark magic. She opened the book and turned to the last page. She prepared her altar, lit several candles and placed the plate containing the liquid picture of Rawhead and his bloody bones upon the altar. Then she began to chant, ‘Rawhead and bloody bones, Rawhead and bloody bones.'

The sun shining in the window suddenly disappeared as dark clouds began to gather above the clearing where Old Biddy's cottage stood. The howl of dark spirits could be heard in the wind as it blew through the branches of the trees.

‘Rawhead and bloody bones, Rawhead and bloody bones.'

Old Biddy continued to chant until a bolt of lightning shot from the plate, straight out the open window. It headed straight into the ancient woodland. When the lightning bolt struck Rawhead's severed head, which was on the back of the hunter's wagon, it fell to the ground and rolled over to the pile of bloody bones that had once been its body. As the hunter's wagon continued on its way the enchanted head of the otter called out, ‘Bloody Bones, get up and dance.'

Immediately, the pile of bones reassembled themselves into the skeleton of the otter, which walked upright as it had often done when it was alone with Old Biddy. The head jumped on top of the skeleton and Rawhead went searching the woods for weapons to use against the hunter.

He borrowed a sharp set of teeth from a dying wolf, the claws of a dead boar and the tail from the rotting corpse of a fox. He placed them over his skinned head and bloody bones.

The otter headed to the home of the hunter, looking for the one responsible for his slaughter. He silently slipped past the hunter and went into the barn where the hunter kept his horse and wagon. Rawhead climbed up into the loft and waited patiently for the hunter to enter the barn. It was dusk when the hunter returned home. He drove his horse and wagon into the barn and began to unhitch the horse. The horse began to snort with fear as he sensed the presence of Rawhead hiding in the loft above. The hunter wondered what had spooked the normally docile horse and looked around to find the cause. He saw a large pair of eyes staring down at him from the loft. As it was the month of October he stupidly thought it was some of the local children playing a prank.

‘Oh, what big eyes you've got! I suppose they're all the better to see me with?'

He laughed. He thought one of the children was wearing some sort of scary mask.

‘All the better to see your grave,' growled Rawhead very softly.

The hunter snorted in irritation and backed his horse into its stall.

‘Very funny,' said the hunter as he came out of the stall.

The hunter noticed that Rawhead had crept a little nearer. His big, luminous, red eyes and long claws could be seen.

‘Oh, what big claws you have! All the better to scratch me with?' laughed the hunter. ‘Now you're beginning to look ridiculous!'

‘All the better to dig your grave,' Rawhead said, his voice a deep growl that raised the hairs on the back of the hunter's neck. The hunter began to feel a little uneasy. He hurried towards the door of the barn. Rawhead slipped out of the loft and climbed down the side of the barn behind the hunter. He raced ahead through the trees and up the path to a large, moonlit rock. There he hid in the shadows so that the only things showing were his glowing red eyes, his boar claws and his fox tail.

When the hunter reached the rock, he gave a startled cry. Staring at Rawhead, he said, ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack, you nasty little brat, and what have you got that rotten tail for?'

‘All the better to sweep your grave,' Rawhead roared, his enchanted voice echoing through the silence of the woods, getting louder and louder with each echo.

The hunter took to his heels and ran towards his cabin. He ran past the woodpile, the old well and the rotten fence into the garden in front of his cabin. But Rawhead was a lot faster. When the hunter reached the front door of his cabin, Rawhead leapt out of the shadows and stood looming over him. The hunter looked up in terror. He saw the gleaming red eyes staring out from the ugly head of the otter and his bloody skeleton, with its long boar claws and the rotting tail of a long-dead fox.

‘Oh, what big teeth you've got,' the hunter said, stumbling backwards from the terrible sight before him.

‘All the better to eat you with, just like you wanted to eat me,' Rawhead roared.

The sound of one long scream reverberated through the wood and then there was silence, except for the sound of crunching.

M
ary Butters, the Carnmoney Witch, was put forward for trial at the Spring Assizes in March 1808. It is an instance of black magic versus white magic, although it should be remembered that in the persecution of witches many women were put to death on the latter charge. It should be said at this point that the skill of these women in the use of herbs benefited the population and added greatly to our present-day knowledge of pharmacology. The following story comes from the
Belfast News-Letter
of 21 August 1807.

One Tuesday night an extraordinary event took place in the house of a tailor named Alexander Montgomery, who lived near Carnmoney meeting house. The tailor had a cow that continued to give milk as usual, but of late no butter could be produced from it. Montgomery's wife came to believe that this was caused by the cow having been bewitched. Her belief in this was strengthened by the fact that every old woman in the parish knew stories of certain women who used witchcraft, spells or the evil eye to cause problems out of spite or jealousy.

At length the family were told about a woman named Mary Butters, who resided at Carrigfergus. She was a well-known sorceress so they brought her to the house to cure the cow. At about ten o'clock that night, war was declared against the unknown witches. Mary Butters ordered old Montgomery and a young man named Carnaghan to go out to the cow-house, turn their waistcoats inside out, then stand by the head of the cow until she sent for them, while the wife, the son, and an old woman named Margaret Lee remained in the house with her.

Montgomery and his ally kept their lonely vigil until daybreak, when, alarmed that they had received no summons, they left their post and knocked at the door. There was no response. They then looked through the kitchen window and saw to their horror that the four others were stretched out on the floor, dead. They immediately burst in the door and found that the wife and son were dead and the sorceress and Margaret Lee nearly so. The latter expired soon afterwards.

Mary Butters was thrown out on a dung heap and a restorative administered to her in the shape of a few hearty kicks, which had the desired effect of waking her up. The house had a sulphurous smell and on the fire was a large pot in which there was milk, needles, pins and crooked nails. At the inquest held at Carnmoney on 19 August, the jurors stated that the three victims had come to their deaths from suffocation, owing to Mary Butters having made use of some noxious ingredients in her potion intended to cure the sick cow.

She was brought up at the assizes, but discharged by proclamation after she claimed that the devil had appeared in the house in the guise of a black man, armed with a huge club, with which he killed the other three people and stunned her. Terrible though the whole affair was, it seems to have aroused no more amongst the inhabitants of Carnmoney and Carrigfergus than ridicule and mockery.

Mary Butters continued to practise her art for decades afterwards and was still consulted by the locals in cases of bewitched cows.

T
here once was a man who was walking home alone on a dark and windy night. His path took him down a dark, deserted street that ran right by the local cemetery. As he passed the gates, he heard a strange noise in the darkness behind him. Not daring to look back, he quickened his pace, but the bumping noise continued. He stopped and turned to see what it was. Coming down the road behind him was a coffin, standing on end, bumping from side to side.
BUMP
,
BUMP
,
BUMP
!