Part 5

[57] Patrick Kennedy, in "A Belated Priest," tells how the "good people" surrounded a priest on a dark night, and asked him to declare that at the Last Day their lot would not be with Satan. He replied by the question, "Do you adore and love the Son of God?" There came no answer but weak and shrill cries, and with a rushing of wings the fairies disappeared (see "Fictions of the Irish Celts," p. 89).

In "The Priest's Supper," the good people are anxious to know if their souls will be saved at the Last Day, but when an interview with a priest is suggested to them they fly away (see "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland," by T. Crofton Croker, pp. 36-42).

[58] "Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland," vol. i., p. 250.

[59] It is quoted by Mr. David MacRitchie in "Testimony of Tradition," p. 67.

[60] "Testimony of Tradition," p. 68.

[61] See "The Picts and Pets" in the _Antiquary_ for May, 1906, p. 172.

[62] "The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius," edited, with a translation and notes, by James H. Todd, D.D., F.T.C. (Dublin, 1848). The verse quoted is given at p. lxix, additional notes.

[63] See the _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1908.

[64] See "Ein dolichokephaler Schädel aus dem Dachsenbüel und die Bedeutung der kleinen Menschenrassen für das Abstammungsproblem der Grossen." His words are: "In dem platten, breiten Gesicht sitzt dann eine platte, breite, niedrige Nase, mit breiter Nasenwürzel." He is speaking of the characteristics of the present dwarf races found throughout the world, and quotes the authority of Hagen.

[65] Sir James Ware's "Antiquities of Ireland," translated, revised, and improved, with many material additions, by Walter Harris, Esq., vol. ii., chap. ii., p. 17 (Dublin, 1764). The above is taken from one of the additional notes by Harris.

[66] Quoted by Mr. Standish H. O'Grady in "Silva Gadelica" (translation and notes), pp. 563, 564. See Ante p. 32.

[67] Keating's "History of Ireland," book i., chap. viii. Translation by P. W. Joyce, LL.D., M.R.I.A.

[68] See Cael's "Wooing of Credhe" in "The Colloquy of the Ancients"; "Silva Gadelica," by Standish H. O'Grady, volume with translation and notes, pp. 119-122.

[69] See "Life of St. Patrick," p. 264.

[70] See Der Mensch, "Separat-Abzug aus den Denkschriften der Schweiz Naturforschenden Gesellschaft," Band xxxv, 1896.

[71] See the paper already referred to, "Ein dolichokephaler Schädel," etc. Professor J. Kollmann's words are: "Die man in Africa wohl zu den Pygmäen zählen wurde."

Folklore from Donegal[72]

The stories current among the peasantry are varied, especially in Donegal, where we hear of giants and fairies, of small and tall Finns, of short, stout Firbolgs or Firwolgs, of Danes who made heather ale, and sometimes of Pechts with their large feet.

According to one legend, the fairies were angels who had remained neutral during the great war in heaven. They are sometimes represented as kindly, but often as mischievous. Near Dungiven, in Co. Derry, I was told of a friendly fairy who, dressed as an old woman, came one evening to a cottage where a poor man and his wife lived. She said to the wife that if the stone at the foot of the table were lifted she would find something that would last her all her days. As soon as the visitor was gone, the wife called to her husband to bring a crowbar; they raised the stone, and under it was a crock of gold.

The old man who related this story to me had himself found in a bog a crock covered with a slate. He hoped it might be full of gold, but it only contained bog butter, which he used for greasing cart-wheels.

A carman at Rosapenna told me how the fairies would lead people astray, carrying one man off to Scotland. A girl had her face twisted through their influence, and had to go to the priest to be cured. "He was," the man added, "one of the old sort, who could work miracles, of whom there are not many nowadays." Near Finntown a girl had offended the fairies by washing clothes in a "gentle" burn, or stream haunted by the little people. Her eyes were turned to the back of her head. She, too, invoked the aid of a priest, and his blessing restored them to their proper place.

Donegal fairies appear able to adapt themselves to modern conditions. I was told at Finntown they did not interfere with the railway, as they sometimes enjoyed a ride on the top of the train. Although usually only seen in secluded spots, they occasionally visit a fair or market, but are much annoyed if recognized.

In the following story we have an illustration of intercourse between fairies and human beings: An old woman at Glenties was called upon by a strange man to give her aid at the birth of a child. At first she refused, but he urged her, saying it was not far, and in the end she consented. When he brought her to his dwelling she saw a daughter whom she had supposed to be dead, but who was now the wife of the fairy man. The daughter begged her not to let it be known she was her mother, and, giving her a ring, bade her look on it at times and she would know when they could meet. She also added that her husband would certainly offer a reward, but she implored her mother not to accept it, but to ask that the red-haired boy might be given to her. "He will not be willing to part from him," the daughter added; "but if you beg earnestly, he will give him to you in the end." The mother attended her daughter, and when his child was born the fairy man offered her a rich reward, but she refused, praying only that the red-haired boy might be given to her. At first the father refused, but when she pleaded her loneliness, he granted her request. The daughter was well pleased, told her mother they might meet at the fair on the hill behind Glenties, but warned her that even if she saw the fairy man she must never speak to him. The old woman returned to her home, taking her grandson, the red-haired boy, with her. She kept the ring carefully, and it gave her warning when she would meet her daughter on the hill at Glenties. These interviews were for a long time a great comfort to mother and daughter, but one day, in the joy of her heart, the mother shook hands with and spoke to the fairy man. He turned to her angrily asking how she could see him, and with that he blew upon her eyes, so that she could no longer discern fairies. The precious ring also disappeared, and she never again saw her daughter.

Variants of this story were told to me by an old woman at Portstewart, and by a man whom I met near Lough Salt during the Rosapenna Conference of Field Clubs. In these versions there is no mention of the red-haired boy, nor of the old woman being the mother of the fairy man's wife; she is simply called in to attend to her. When rubbing ointment on the infant, she accidentally draws her hand across one of her eyes and acquires the power of seeing the fairies. Shortly afterwards she meets the fairy man at a market or fair, and inquires for his wife. He is annoyed at being recognized, asks with which eye she sees him, blows upon it, and puts it out.[73]

In another Donegal legend the fairies gain possession of a bride, and would have kept her in captivity had not their plans been frustrated by a mortal. This is the story as told to me near Gweedore, and also at Kincasslagh, a small seaport in the Rosses. Owen Boyle lived with his mother near Kincasslagh, and worked as a carpenter. One Hallow Eve, on his return home, he found a calf was missing, and went out to look for it. He was told it was behind a stone near the spink or rock of Dunathaid, and when he got there he saw the calf, but it ran away and disappeared through an opening in the rock. Owen was at first afraid to follow, but suddenly he was pushed in, and the door closed behind him. He found himself in a company of fairies, and heard them saying: "This is good whisky from O'Donnel's still. He buried a nine-gallon keg in the bog; it burst, the hoops came off, and the whisky has come to us." One of the fairies gave Owen a glass, saying he might be useful to them that night. They asked if he would be willing to go with them, and, being anxious to get out of the cave, he at once consented. They all mounted on horses, and away they went through Dungloe, across the hills to Dochary, then to Glenties, and through Mount Charles to Ballyshannon, and thence to Connaught. They came to a house where great preparations were being made for a wedding. The fairies told Owen to go in and dance with any girl who asked him. He was much pleased to see that he was now wearing a good suit of clothes, and gladly joined in the dance. After a time there was a cry that the bride would choose a partner, and the partner she chose was Owen Boyle. They danced until the bride fell down in a faint, and the fairies, who had crept in unseen, bore her away. They mounted their horses and took the bride with them, sometimes one carrying her and sometimes another. They had ridden thus for a time when one of the fairies said to Owen: "You have done well for us to-night." "And little I have got for it," was the reply; "not even a turn of carrying the bride." "That you ought to have," said the fairy, and called out to give the bride to Owen. Owen took her, and, urging his horse, outstripped the fairies. They pursued him, but at Bal Cruit Strand he drew with a black knife a circle round himself and the bride, which the fairies could not cross. One of them, however, stretched out a long arm and struck the bride on the face, so that she became deaf and dumb. When the fairies left him, Owen brought the girl to his mother, and in reply to her questions, said he had brought home one to whom all kindness should be shown. They gave her the best seat by the fire; she helped in the housework, but remained speechless.

A year passed, and on Hallow Eve Owen went again to Dunathaid. The door of the cave was open. He entered boldly, and found the fairies enjoying themselves as before. One of them recognized him, and said: "Owen Boyle, you played us a bad trick when you carried off that woman." "And a pretty woman you left with me! She can neither hear nor speak!" "Oh!" said another, "if she had a taste of this bottle, she could do both!" When Owen heard these words he seized the bottle, ran home with it, and, pouring a little into a glass, gave it to the poor girl to drink. Hearing and speech were at once restored. Owen returned the bottle to the fairies, and, before long, he set out for Connaught, taking the girl with him to restore her to her parents. When he arrived, he asked for a night's lodging for himself and his companion. The mother, although she said she had little room, admitted them, and soon Owen saw her looking at the girl. "Why are you gazing at my companion?" he asked. "She is so like a daughter of mine who died a twelvemonth ago." "No," replied Owen; "she did not die; she was carried off by the fairies, and here she is." There was great rejoicing, and before long Owen was married to the girl, the former bridegroom having gone away. He brought her home to Kincasslagh, and not a mile from the village, close to Bal Cruit Strand, may be seen the ring which defended her and Owen from the fairies. It is a very large fairy ring, but why the grass should grow luxuriantly on it tradition does not say.

During the Field Club Conference at Rosapenna a variant of this story was told me by a lad on the heights above Gortnalughoge Bay. Here the man who rode with the fairies was John Friel, from Fanad. They went to Dublin and brought away a young girl from her bed, leaving something behind, which the parents believed to be their dead daughter. Meanwhile the young girl was taken northwards by the fairies. As they drew near to Fanad, John Friel begged to be allowed to carry her, and quickly taking her to his own cottage, kept her there with his mother. The girl was deaf and dumb, but there was no mention of the magic circle or of the blow from the fairy's hand. At the end of the year John Friel, like Owen Boyle, pays another visit to the fairies, overhears their conversation, snatches the bottle, and a few drops from it restore speech and hearing to the girl. He takes her to Dublin. Her parents cannot at first believe that she is truly their daughter, but the mother recognizes her by a mark on the shoulder, and the tale ends with great rejoicing.[74]

In these stories we see the relations between fairies and mortals. The fairy man marries a human wife; he appears solicitous for her health, and is willing to pay a high reward to the nurse, but the caution his wife gives to her mother shows her fear of him, and when the latter forgets this warning and speaks to the husband, he effectively stops all intercourse between her and her daughter.

In another story we see that it was the living girl who was carried off, and only a false image left to deceive her parents.[75] It is true that, through the magic of the fairies, she becomes deaf and dumb, but when this is overcome, she returns home safe and sound. The black knife used by Owen Boyle was doubtless an iron knife, that metal being always obnoxious to the fairies.

Stories of children being carried off by fairies are numerous. There was a man lived near Croghan Fort, not far from Lifford, who was short, and had a cataract--or, as the country-people call it, a pearl--on his eye. He was returning home after the birth of his child, when he met the fairies carrying off the infant. They were about to change a benwood into the likeness of a child, saying:

"Make it wee, make it short; Make it like its ain folk; Put a pearl in its eye; Make it like its Dadie."

Here the man interrupted them, throwing up sand, and exclaiming: "In the name of God, this to youse and mine to me!" They flung his own child at him, but it broke its hinch, or thigh, and was a cripple all its days.

It is not often that fairies are associated with the spirits of the departed, but in Tory Island and in some other parts of Donegal it is believed that those who are drowned become fairies. In Tory Island I also heard that those who exceeded in whisky met the same fate.

According to the inhabitants of this island, fairies can make themselves large or small; their hair may be red, white, or black; but they dress in black--a very unusual colour for fairies to appear in. It may perhaps be explained by remembering that Tory Island, or Toirinis, was a stronghold of the Fomorians, whom Keating describes as "sea rovers of the race of Cam, who fared from Africa."[76] I need hardly add that "Cam" is an old name for "Ham." I should infer that the fairies of Tory Island represent a dark race.

King Balor, it is true, is not of diminutive stature. I heard much of this chieftain with the eye at the back of his head, which, if uncovered, would kill anyone exposed to its gaze. He knew it had been said in old times that he should die by the hand of his daughter's son, and he determined his daughter should remain childless. He shut her up in Tormore, with twelve ladies to wait on her. Balor had no smith on the island, but at Cloghanealy, on the mainland, there lived a smith who had the finest cow in the world, named Glasgavlen. He kept a boy to watch it, but, notwithstanding this precaution, two of Balor's servants carried off the cow. When the herd-boy saw it was gone, he wept bitterly, for the smith had told him his head would be taken off if he did not bring her back. Suddenly a fairy, Geea Dubh, came out of the rock, and told the boy the cow was in Tory, and if he followed her advice he would get it back. She made a curragh for him, and he crossed over to Tory, but he did not get the cow. The tale now becomes confused. We hear of twelve children, and how Balor ordered them all to be drowned, but his daughter's son was saved. The fairy told the herd-boy that, if the child were taken care of, it would grow up like a crop which, when put into the earth one day, sprouts up the next.

The boy took service under Balor, and the child was sent to the ladies, who brought him up for three years. At the end of that time the herd boy took him to the mainland, where he grew up a strong youth, and worked for the smith. On one occasion Balor sent messengers across to the mainland, but the lad attacked them and cut out their tongues. The maimed messengers returned to Tory, and when Balor saw them he knew that he who had done this deed was the dreaded grandson. He set out to kill him; but when the youth saw Balor approaching the forge, he drew the poker from the fire and thrust it into the eye at the back of the King's head.

The wounded Balor called to his grandson to come to him, and he would leave him everything. The youth was wise; he did not go too near Balor, but followed him from Falcarragh to Gweedore. "Are you near me?" was the question put by the King as he walked along, water streaming from his wounded eye; and this water formed the biggest lough in the world, three times as deep as Lough Foyle.

I have given this story as it was told to me by an elderly man in a cottage on Tory Island.

A version of it is related by the late Most Rev. Dr. MacDevitt in the "Donegal Highlands." It is referred to by Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in "Highways and Byways in Donegal and Antrim," and a very full narrative is given by Dr. O'Donovan in a note in his edition of the "Annals of the Four Masters."[77] Dr. O'Donovan states that he had the story from Shane O'Dugan, whose ancestor is said to have been living in Tory in the time of St. Columbkille. Here we read of the stratagem by which Balor, assuming the shape of a red-haired little boy, carried off the famous cow Glasgavlen from the chieftain MacKineely, and it is not the herdboy, but the chieftain himself, who is wafted across to Tory Island and introduced to Balor's daughter. Three sons are born; Balor orders them all to be drowned, but the eldest is saved by the friendly banshee and taken to his father, who places him in fosterage under his brother, the great smith Gavida. After a time MacKineely falls a victim to the vengeance of Balor, and is beheaded on the stone Clough-an-neely, where the marks of his blood may still be seen.

Balor now deems himself secure. He often visits the forge of Gavida, and one day, when there, boasts of his conquest of MacKineely. No sooner has he uttered the proud words than the young smith seizes a glowing rod from the furnace and thrusts it through Balor's basilisk eye so far that it comes out at the other side of his head.

It will be noted that in this version Balor's death is instantaneous; nothing is said about the deep lough formed by the water from his eye.

According to O'Flaherty's "Ogygia," Balor was killed at the second battle of Moyture "by a stone thrown at him by his grandson by his daughter from a machine called Tabhall (which some assert to be a sling)."[78]

If Balor is the grim hero of Tory Island, on the mainland we hear much of Finn McCoul. I was informed that he had an eye at the back of his head, and was so tall his feet came out at the door of his house. How large the house was, tradition does not say. The island of Carrickfinn opposite to Bunbeg is said to have been a favourite hunting-ground of Finn McCoul. When crossing over to this island, I was told by the boatman that the Danes were stout, small, and red-haired, and that they lived in the caves. The Finns, he said, were even smaller, dark yellow people.

Near Loughros Bay I saw the Cashel na Fian, but whether it was built by tall or small Finns I do not know. Part of the wall was standing, built in the usual fashion with stones without mortar.

This cashel was on a height, and near it I was shown some old fields, the ridges farther apart than those of the present day, and I was told they might be the fields of those who built the cashel, or perhaps of the Firbolgs. The old man who acted as my guide softened the _b_ in the Irish manner, and spoke of those people as the Firwolgs; he said they were short and stout, and cultivated the lands near the sea.

To the Danes are ascribed the kitchen-middens on Rosguill, and the lad I met above Gortnalughoge Bay, told me they lived and had their houses on the water, I should infer after the fashion of the lake-dwellers. He could not tell me the height of these Danes, but those who built the forts and cashels have often been described to me as short and red-haired. As I have stated on former occasions, I should be inclined to identify these short Danes with the Tuatha de Danann. I visited one of their cashels above Dungiven, under which there is a souterrain, and I also went to one on a hill above Downey's pier at Rosapenna. I believe it is the Downey's Fort marked on the Ordnance Survey map. It appeared to be regarded as an uncanny spot; treasure is said to be hidden under it, and I had a difficulty in getting anyone to take me to it. A little girl, however, acted as guide, and a young farmer, who had at first refused, joined me on the top. I took some very rough measurements of this cashel. From the outer circumference it was about 60 by 60 feet; the walls had fallen inwards, so it was impossible to say how thick they had been originally, but the space free from stones in the centre measured about 25 by 25 feet.

The young farmer told me of some rocks at a place he called Dooey, on which crosses were inscribed. I believe that near Mevagh, in addition to the spiral markings, which were visited by many members of the Conference, there is another rock on which crosses are also inscribed.

Firbolgs, Danes, Finns, and Pechts, of whom I have spoken on former occasions, are all strictly human; and if the fairy has been more spiritualized, I think, in many of the traditions, we may see how closely he is allied to ancient and modern pygmies.

Fairies intermarry freely with the human race; they are not exempt from death, and sometimes come to a violent end. At Kincasslagh a graphic story was told me by an old woman of how two banshees attacked a man when he was crossing the "banks" at Mullaghderg. His faithful dog had been chained at home, but, knowing the danger, escaped, saved his master, and killed one of the banshees. Her body was found next morning in the sand: she had wonderful eyes, small legs, and very large feet. I may mention that large feet are characteristic of the Pechts.

It is true that those who are drowned may become fairies, but if a fisherman be missing, who shall say whether he lies at the bottom of the ocean or has been carried captive to a lonely cave. In later times, when the fairies were associated with fallen angels, one who had not received the last rites of the Church might naturally be supposed to become a fairy.