Chapter V: Fairies and supernatural agency

 In common with other countries, particularly the Highlands of Scotland, a traditional belief exists amongst the Irish peasantry in those romantic little sprites denominated Fairies; and it is wonderful, considering their being creatures of imagination, that the superstitions respecting them should have remained so much confined, and so very similar. Whether the fairy mythology of Ireland has been derived from the East, and transmitted thence through the medium of Spain, or has, as some believe, a northern origin, it is of little import to inquire, particularly as nothing more than conjecture can now be advanced on the subject. It is, however, evident, that the present fairies of Ireland, if not Gothic creations, were at least modelled in the same school and age with the elves of northern Europe.
 There is an odd mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime in the prevalent notions respecting such beings. Nor could there have been invented a more extraordinary medium between Man and his Maker.

The most esteemed novelist of the present day has happily described these curious creations of the mind, as

 Partaking both of the human and spiritual nature, having immaterial bodies, with the feelings and passions of mortality, fairies are supposed to possess both the power and the inclination to revenge an affront; and the motive of fear, which induces some savage nations to worship the Devil, prompts the vulgar in Ireland to term fairies “good people,” and in Scotland “guid folk”; nor is it uncommon to see a rustic, before drinking, spill a small part of his draught upon the ground, as a complimentary libation to the fairies. Such as use the word fairy, are often corrected in a whisper, which caution arises from conceiving that these beings are invisibly present, and the appellation is considered offensive, as denoting an insignificant object. Thus, hoping to deceive by flattery, the maxim most attended to in the intercourse with these “little great ones,” is, that “civility begets civility.” Doubtless, on the same principle, the Greeks, as observed by Augustus Schlegel, called their fairies Eumenides, or the benevolent, and assigned for their habitation a beautiful grove. “I cannot think of this policy,” said my friend C - , “without fancying a grin on Medusa, and those little urchins the northern fairies, holding their sides with laughter.” The same system of fear and flattery seems to have existed amongst the Irish, even towards animals, in the time of Elizabeth; for Camden tells us, “they take unto them wolves, ta be their godsibs (gossips), whom

they tearme Chari Christ, praying for them, and wishing them well, and so they are not afraid to be hurt by them.
 The circular intrenchments and barrows, known by the name of Danish forts, [1] in Ireland, are pointed out as the abode of fairy communities, and to disturb their habitation, in other words to dig, or plough up a rath or fort, whose construction the superstitious natives ascribe to the labour and ingenuity of the “good people,” is considered as unlucky and entailing some severe disaster on the violator and his kindred. An industrious peasant, who purchased a farm in the neighbourhood of Mallow, from a near relative of mine, commenced his improvements by building upon it a good stone house, together with a lime kiln. Soon after, he waited on the proprietor, to state “the trouble he was come to by reason of the old fort, the fairies not approving of his having placed the lime-kiln so near their dwelling; - he had lost his sow with nine bonniveens (sucking pigs), his horse fell into a quarry and was killed, and three of his sheep died, ‘all through the means of the fairies’.” Though the lime-kiln had cost him five guineas, he declared he would never burn another stone in it, but take it down, without delay, and build one away from the fort, saying, he was wrong in putting that kiln in the way of the “good people,” who were thus obliged to go out of their usual track. The back door of his house unfortunately also faced the same fort, but this offence was obviated by almost closing it up, leaving only a small hole at the top, to allow the good people free passage, should they require it. In these raths, fairies are represented as holding their festive meetings, and entering into all the fantastic and wanton mirth that music and glittering banquets are capable of inspiring. A fairy chieftain, of much local celebrity, named Knop, is supposed to hold his court in a rath, on the road side between Cork and Youghall,

where often travellers, unacquainted with the country, have been led astray by the appearance of lights, and by alluring sounds proceeding from within; but when

and the delicious viands change into carrion. The crystal goblets become rugged pebbles, and the whole furniture of the feast undergoes a similar metamorphosis. [2]
 An eddy of dust, raised by the wind, is attributed to the fairies journeying from one of their haunts to another; on perceiving which, the peasant will obsequiously doff his hat, muttering, “God speed ye, God speed ye, Gentlemen”; and returns it to his head, with the remark, “good manners are no burthen,” as an apology for the motive, which he is ashamed to acknowledge. Should he, however, instead of such friendly greeting, repeat any short prayer, or devoutly cross himself, using a religious response, the fairy journey is interrupted, and if any mortals are in their train, the charm by which they were detained is broken, and they are restored to human society. On these occasions, the production of a black-hafted knife is considered as extremely potent in dissolving the spell. This weapon is believed to be effective not only against fairy incantation, but also against any supernatural being; and accounts of many twilight

rencontres between shadowy forms and mortals are related, to establish its power, gouts of blood or jelly being found in the morning on the spot where the vision had appeared. A respectable farmer has been pointed out to me, whose familiar appellation in Irish was “Kill the Devil,” from the report of his having quelled, by means of a black-hafted knife, a phantom that long had haunted him.
 A stanza, containing the truck of a fairy procession, is preserved by Dr. Neilson in his Irish Grammar; and, as a curiosity, the translation may be worth copying:
 Paying a fleeting visit to many an “airy castle, rath, and mount,” Finvar and his troop hold their course, from dawn of morn till fall of night, on beautiful winged coursers

the latter name signifying in English, the Musical Hill, so called from the supernatural strains supposed occasionally to proceed from it.
 The most romantic dells are also pointed out as scenes of fairy resort, and distinguished by the term, “gentle places”; beetling linen by the side of a rocky stream that murmurs through an unfrequented glen, is represented as a favourite, or rather common female fairy occupation, where they chaunt wild and pathetic melodies, beating time with their beetles. The herbs and plants, with which such glens abound, are considered as under fairy influence, and are collected, with many ceremonies, for charms, by cunning old women, termed “Fairy Doctors,” or, sometimes, from their professed knowledge of surgery, “Bone Setters” A confidence in superstitious

quackery exists so strongly amongst the lower orders in Ireland, that many instances are known to me where patients have been carried a distance of several miles to a “Bone Setter,” to whom a fee was given; when they might have received, without removal, and free of expense, every attendance from the most skilful surgeons. “I would not, if all the doctors in Ireland told me so, treat the poor sufferer thus,” is the prefatory sentence used by these “wise women.” “What do doctors know about sick people? - but take the herbs which I shall give you, bury them at sun-set in the north-east corner of the fort-field, and when you return, tie a thread three times round the left-hand upper post of the sick person’s bed, and let it remain there for nine nights,” - &c. Camden, it would seem, had some faith in the efficacy of these “skilful women,” who, “by means of charms,” to use his own words, “gave more certain judgment of the disease than many of our physicians can.”
 Fairies are represented as exceedingly diminutive in their stature, having an arch and malicious expression of countenance, and generally habited in green, with large scarlet caps; hence the beautiful plant Digitalis Purpurea is named “Fairy Cap” by the vulgar, from the supposed resemblance of its bells to this part of fairy dress. To the same plant, many rustic superstitions are attached, particularly its salutation of supernatural beings, by bending its long stalks in token of recognition.
 Old and solitary thorns, in common with the digitalis, are regarded with reverence by the peasantry, and considered as sacred to the revels of these eccentric little sprites, whose vengeance follows their removal. Any antique implement casually discovered by the labourer is referred to the fairies, and supposed to have been dropped or forgotten by them; small and oddly-shaped tobacco pipes, frequently turned up by the spade or the plough, the finder instantly destroys, to avert the evil agency of their former spiritual owners. Amongst those remains may be noticed the flint arrowheads,

said to be sportively shot at cattle, by the fairies; and in compliance with the popular superstition termed, even by antiquarians, “elf arrows.”
 The fairies are believed to visit the farm-houses in their district on particular nights, and the embers are collected, the hearth swept, and a vessel of water placed for their use before the family retire to rest. But these dubious divinities seem to preside more especially over cattle, corn, fruits, and agricultural objects. Milking the cows, upsetting the dairy pans, and disarranging whatever may have been carefully placed in order, are amongst their mischievous proceedings. Cluricaune or Leprehaune is the name given to the Irish Puck. The character of this goblin is a compound of that of the Scotch Brownie and the English Robin Good fellow. He is depicted (for engraved portraits of the Irish Leprehaune are in existence) as a small and withered old man, completely equipped in the costume of a cobler, and employed in repairing a shoe. A paragraph recently appeared in a Kilkenny paper stating, that a labourer, returning home in the dusk of the evening, discovered a Leprehaune at work, from whom he bore away the shoe which he was mending; as a proof of the veracity of his story it was further stated, that the shoe lay for the inspection of the curious at the newspaper office. The most prominent feature in the vulgar creed respecting the Leprehaune is, his being the possessor of a purse, supposed to be, like that of Fortunatus, inexhaustible; and many persons, who have surprized one of these fairies occupied in shoe-making, have endeavoured to compel him to deliver it; this he has ingeniously avoided, averting the eye of his antagonist by some stratagem, when he disappears, which it seems he has not the power of doing as long as any person’s gaze is fixed upon him.
 Fairy children, I have been assured, are frequently seen in lonely glens, engaged in mimic fights and juvenile gambols. A story, related by Gervase of Tilbury, in the Otia Imperialia, and mentioned

in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border as current, with only slight variations, both in the highlands and lowlands of Scotland, is equally so in the south of Ireland, and is perhaps the most common of fairy fictions.
 A woman, who had been abstracted to nurse a young fairy, during her residence amongst the supernatural community, accidentally anointed one of her eyes with a substance entrusted to her for the use of her infant charge. On being emancipated from captivity, the “good people” still remained visible to the eye which had been touched by the magic ointment, and hence she daily beheld them engaged (like the sylphs in Pope’s Rape of the Lock) in their various fairy avocations. The woman, however, remained a silent spectator, until, happening to recognise, sporting amongst others, the fairy child whom she had nursed, in all the delicate bloom and beauty of unearthly youth, her prudence forsook her, and, at the sight, she was betrayed by her feelings into an exclamation of delight; on hearing which, the young fairy approached his nurse, and inquired by what means she was conscious of his presence. - She pointed to the anointed eye, into which he instantly darted a spear that he held in his hand, and thus, by destroying the organ, shut out for ever the secrets of the invisible world from the mortal eye to which they had been revealed.  When a child appears delicate, or a young woman consumptive, the conclusion is, that they are carried off to be made a playmate or nurse to the young fairies, and that a substitute, resembling the person taken away, is deposited in their place, which gradually declines, and ultimately dies. The inhuman means used by ignorant parents to discover if an unhealthy child be their offspring or a changeling, [3] (the name given to the

illusitory image,) is, placing the child, undressed, on the road side, where it is suffered to lie a considerable time exposed to cold. After such ceremony, they conclude a natural disorder has caused the symptoms of decay; and the child is then treated with more tenderness, from an idea, that had it been possessed by a fairy, that spirit would not have brooked such indignity, but made its escape. Paralytic affections are attributed to the same agency, whence the term “fairy struck”; and the same cruel treatment is observed towards aged persons thus afflicted.
 A pleasing ballad, by my friend Mr. Anster, has been founded on this superstition; the mother is supposed to speak.

Sometimes an intricate legal question arises in the case of a young woman being carried off by the fairies, and returning after an absence of several years, which is by no means uncommon, when she finds her husband married to a second wife. More than one instance of this unexpected re-appearance has come within my own knowledge, and I select the relation contained in a letter which I received during the present year, from its being the most recent case. - “The day before I left Island Bawn,” says the writer, “I heard of an Irish Kilmeny, in the person of the wife of a labouring cottager, who, having died about twenty years since, and been buried with the usual ceremonies, the poor man allowed a reasonable period to elapse, and subsequently took unto himself another helpmate, with whom he had since continued to live; when one night last winter (1820), they were disturbed by a woman vociferously claiming admission into their cabin, and asserting her right to the full and undisturbed sovereignty of the same, inasmuch as she was the owner’s true and lawful wife, whom he supposed deceased and interred, whereas she had only been with the fairies, from whose power she had now emancipated herself. So minute and clear (if not satisfactory) did she make out her title, that both the husband and his second spouse quailed before this unwelcomed visitant from the “good people.” The first wife allowed her locum tenens to remain in the house while she behaved herself respectfully, and all went on smoothly for some time, the stranger supporting the truth of her story by mysteriously telling the

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fortunes of those who flocked to see so wonderful a woman. Being,” continues the writer, “unable to pay her a visit myself, I requested a young lady who was staying at my sister’s to do so, and who was much more qualified than I should have been to elicit, if possible, the truth. With her usual kindness, she undertook the task; and I cannot do better than copy her letter to my sister:

Dr. Neilson gives us, with every appearance of authenticity, a more intricate matrimonial case than the foregoing, where the woman, on her return from Fairyland, finding her first husband married, marries again herself. The second wife of the first husband dies, and he, having discovered his former spouse, claims her; but her second husband being unwilling to part with her, denies the claim. The question is referred to an ecclesiastical tribunal, where fairy agency will not be acknowledged, and which, under conflicting testimony, is unable to determine the matter. It, however, ultimately terminates in the friendly arrangement, “That both doors of the woman’s second husband’s house should be set open; that Joyce (her

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former husband) should stand seven steps from the street-door, and Thady, in the garden, seven steps from the back-door; that she should take her choice, and abide by it thenceforward.” - “The child was sleeping in the cradle, and as Mary was about to depart she went to the child to take leave of it and shed a tear. She went then towards the street-door, when she heard the child cry after her; presently she returned, and remained without murmuring or uneasiness with Thady Hughes till her death.”
 A curious spirit, and one I believe peculiar to Ireland, is the Banshee, or White Fairy, sometimes called She Frogh, or the House Fairy. The derivation of both these names appears to me obvious from the credulous personification, that of a small and shrivelled old woman with long white hair, supposed to be peculiarly attached to ancient houses or families, and to announce the approaching dissolution of any of the members by mournful lamentations. This fairy attendant is considered as highly honourable, and in part of an elegy on one of the knights of Kerry, still extant, the family Banshee is introduced as deploring, with wailing accents, the knight’s impending fate; when every trader at Dingle who hears the strain becomes alarmed lest it should forebode his own death; but the bard assures them, with an air of humorous sarcasm, they have no cause for uneasiness, such warning being given only to those of illustrious descent.
 Another species of Irish fairy is the Phooka, the descriptions given of which are so visionary and undefined it is impossible to reduce them to detail. The name of many lonely rocks and glens in Ireland declares them sacred to this spirit. In the county Cork there are two castles called Carrig Phooka, or the Phooka’s Rock, one near Doneraile, the other not far from Macroom; and in the county Wicklow, the celebrated waterfall of Poula Phooka, or the Phooka’s Cavern, is well known.
 Notwithstanding the universal belief in fairy influence, the credence

given to witchcraft amongst the vulgar Irish is by no means proportionate. Some few instances are historically preserved, but, considering the extent and reputation which witchcraft obtained during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. in England, these may be viewed as imported rather than primitive superstitions. The admirable account of Moll White given in the Spectator presents a collection of the popular notions respecting the sorcery of old women; and those who are inclined to investigate the subject further may find some hundred volumes written upon it.
 The most remarkable Irish witch on record is Dame Alice Ketyll (whose history is to be found at length in Camden). Amongst the charges made against her, when examined in 1325, was the sacrificing nine red cocks to her familiar spirit or imp, named Robyn Artysson, “at a stone bridge in a certaine foure crosse high-way. Item, that she swept the streets of Kilkenny with beesomes between Complin and Courefew, and in sweeping the filth towards the house of William Utlaw her sonne, by way of conjuring uttered these words:

 And, amongst “the goods and implements of the said Alice, there was a certain holy wafer cake found, having the name of the divell imprinted upon it; there was found also a boxe, and within it an ointment, wherewith she used to besmear or grease a certain piece of wood called coultree, which, being thus anointed, the said Alice, with her complices, could ride and gallop upon the said coultree whithersoever they would, all the world over, through thick and thin, without either hurt or hindrance.” These things, we are told, were notorious, and dame Ketyll, to avoid punishment, escaped to England; but one of her accomplices, Pernill or Parnell, was burned at Kilkenny, who avouched that Alice’s son William “deserved

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death as well as herself, affirming that he, for a year and a day, wore the divell’s girdle upon his bare bodie.” Kilkenny seems to have been peculiarly fatal to witches. In October, 1578, Cox relates that Sir William Drury, the Lord Deputy, caused thirty-six criminals to be executed there, “one of which was a blackamoor, and two others were witches, and were condemned by the law of nature, for there was no positive law against witchcraft in those days.”
 Some more recent account of witches is traditionally preserved in Ireland, particularly of Nanny Steer, whose malign glance produced madness, and the malady of many a wretched lunatic, who wandered about the country, was attributed to her baneful influence.
 In the Queen’s county a young man, named Rutlidge, on the day of his marriage, is said to have become a victim to one of these dreadful looks, from his having neglected to invite Nanny Steer to the wedding - who appeared an unbidden guest, and casting an evil eye on the bridegroom, he immediately became a maniac.
 “In no case,” says Camden, speaking of Irish superstitions, “must you praise an horse or any other beast, until you say, “God save him,” or unless you spit upon him. If any harm befall the horse within three dayes after, they seeke him that praised him, that he may mumble the Lord’s Prayer in his right eare. They think that there bee some that bewitch their horses with looking upon them, and then they use the help of some old hagges, who, saying a few prayers with a loud voice, make them well again.” This belief in the fatal effects of an evil eye is as prevalent at the present day as when Camden wrote; and few, if any, of the lower orders will speak to or of a child without spitting out, and excusing himself, should a superior be present, with - “It’s for good luck sure.” - “And God bless the boy, and make a fine man of him.” So powerful is this superstition that even people of education and above the ordinary rank, are obliged, from policy, to accommodate themselves to it in 

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their intercourse with the peasantry, as few things are considered more dangerous and unfriendly, or are longer remembered, than the omission of such ceremony.
 Another vulgar superstition regarding witches, is, their power of assuming the shape of some insect or animal - the most favourite forms are those of a fly or a hare; under the latter disguise they are supposed to suck the teats of cows, and thus either deprive them of their milk or communicate an injurious effect to it.
 Of the following story numberless variations are in circulation amongst the Irish peasantry. A herdsman having wounded a hare which he discovered sucking one of the cows under his care, tracked it to a solitary cabin, when he found an old woman smeared with blood and gasping for breath, extended almost lifeless on the floor, having, it is presumed, recovered her natural shape.
 In churning, should not the milk readily become butter, the machinations of some witch are suspected. As a test, the iron coulter of the plough is heated in the fire, and the witches name solemnly pronounced, with the following charm, on whom this spell is supposed to inflict the most excruciating tortures,

 And if the milk has lost its good qualities by means of incantations, it immediately turns to excellent butter.
 In the sixteenth century the same opinion existed in Ireland, somewhat tinged with a relic of Pagan or Druidical rites, fire being considered, before the introduction of Christianity, the immediate representative of the Deity, and the first of May as peculiarly sacred to these rites, many relics of which may still be discovered.

 Amongst some Irish manuscripts in my possession, the composition, I apprehend, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is a long description, possessing considerable poetic merit, of a contest between Eogan and “Conn of the Hundred Battles,” part of which presents a picture of the appearance of some supernatural hags to the contending chieftains the night previous to the engagement; the translation is extremely literal.
 “When Eogan came back from the council, three witches stood before him; frightful beyond description, with red and fiery-looking eyes, and long, lank, grizzly hair hanging down dishevelled over cadaverous countenances. The eye-brows of these fiends were large, rough, and grim, growing into each other and forming two curvatures of matted bristles. Their cheeks were hollow, shrivelled, and meagre; and their beaked noses, covered with parched skin, issued forth prominently from the deeply-wrinkled and knobby foreheads of these monstrous and filthy she-devils! - Their blasting tongues with flippant volubility held ceaseless gabble, and their crooked yellow hairy hands and hooked fingers resembled more the talons of an eagle or foul-feeding harpy, than the fingers of a human creature. Thus, supported by small inbent and bony legs, they stood before Eogan.”
 “Whence come ye, furies? asked the chief.”
 “We come from afar by our powers, replied they.”

 “I demand to know your powers? said Eogan, leader of the mighty bands.”
 “We cause the sea to run higher than the mountain tops by our breath; we bring snow on the earth by the nodding of our white heads; we spread flames in dwellings by our words; we alter and change the shape of every person, nay of those in our own occupation, by the rolling of our eyes; we - ”
 “Enough! cried the mighty Eogan. I now demand your names.”
 “Our names, returned the hags, are Ah, Lann and Leana; we are daughters of Trodan the magician, and we have come from remote countries to warn you of your approaching death. - For Eogan shall fall by the keen-edged and bone-cleaving sword of the ever-victorious “Conn of the Hundred Battles”.”
 “On your own heads may this prophetic warning light, ye hags of hell, returned Eogan; may your forebodings of Conn sink into nothing on the air, and be unanswered by the voices of the mountains. May the trees bear the brunt of your evil words, the venom of your lips fall harmless on the rocks of the valley, and your malice be given to the waves of the ocean.”
 “It is inevitable destiny we speak, said they. - We have spoken without precipitation or without reward; and muttering of their horrid spells they vanished from Eogan.”
 “That night came the same three hags to the tent of the King of Spain’s son, and they boded ill to him; and thence they came where the hostes of Conn of the Hundred Battles lay incamped, and they roused that hero with these words: - ”
 “In thy arm be thy strength; in thy sword be thy safety; in thy face be thy foes; in thy strides thy prosperity. - The pride of Ireland is against thee, in life and in motion. Be thou restless as the treacherous light that gleams to benighted travellers.” [4]

where some additional particulars may be found from the pen of Mr. Ockenden. [5] - “There is a farmer now alive,” says that gentleman, “who declares, as I am told, that riding one evening near the lower end of the Lake he was overtaken by a gentleman, who seemed under thirty years of age, very handsome in his person, very sumptuous in his apparel, and very affable in conversation. After having travelled for some time together, the nobleman (for such he judged him, by his appearance, to be) observed, that as night was approaching, the town far off, and lodging not easy to be found, he should be welcome to take a bed that night at his house, which he said was not very distant. The invitation was readily accepted, they approached the Lake together, and both their horses moved upon the surface without sinking, to the infinite amazement of the farmer, who thence perceived the stranger to be no less a person than the great O’Donoghue. They rode a considerable distance from shore, and then descended to a delightful country under water, and lay that night in a house much larger in size and much more richly furnished than even Lord Kenmare’s at Killarney.”
 Second sight, so common in the Highlands, I believe is unknown in the South of Ireland. Story relates a mysterious appearance of stars, accompanied by heavy groans, that preceded the landing of the rival monarchs William and James, seen by “one Mr. Hambleton, of Tollymoore, a justice of the peace in his county, and a sober, rational man”; in company with others who were journeying towards Dundalk; adding, “They have a great many tales of this kind in Ireland, and the Inniskilling men tell you of several such things before their battles.” I should, however, consider these visions, on account of their northern limits, as derived from Scotland, and not genuine Irish superstitions.
 I fear it may be considered that I have dwelt too long upon, and

 entered too minutely into the notions of the ignorant; but early associations have tempted me to linger over these marvellous relations, and have, perhaps, misled my maturer judgment.

On the whole, from what may be collected, the present state of Irish superstition closely resembles that of England during the age of Elizabeth; a strong proof of the correct measurement of those who have stated a space of two centuries to exist between the relative degree of popular knowledge and civilization attained by the sister kingdom.

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Notes