Part 10

I remember when a great many young girls were taken, it is likely by _them_. And two year ago two fine young women were brought away from Aranmor one in a month and one in a week after the birth. And lately I heard that her own little girl and another little girl that was with her saw one of them appear in a cabin outside when she came to have a look at the child she left, but she didn't want to appear herself.

_John Flatley:_

There was a man I knew, Andy White, had a little chap, a little _summach_ of four years. And one day Andy was away to sell a pig in the market at Mount Bellew, and the mother was away someplace with the dinner for the men in the field, and the little chap was in the house with the grandmother, and he sitting by the fire. And he said to the grandmother: "Put down a skillet of potatoes for me, and an egg." And she said: "I will not; what do you want with them, sure you're not long after eating." And he said, "Take care but I'll throw you over the roof of the house." And then he said, "Andy"--that was his father--"is after selling the pig to a jobber, and the jobber has it given back to him again, and he'll be at no loss by that, for he'll get a half-a-crown more at the end." So when the grandmother heard that she wouldn't stop in the house with him but ran out, and he only four years old.

When the mother came back and was told about it she went out and she got some of the leaves of the Lus-Mor, and she brought them in and put them on him; and he went, and her own child came back again. They didn't see him going or the other coming, but they knew it by him. But if her child had died among them, and they can die there as well as in this world, then he wouldn't come back, but that shape in his place would take the appearance of death.

_Mrs. Cooke:_

There's a man in Kildare that lost his wife. And every night at twelve o'clock she came back, to look at her child. And it was told the husband that if he had twelve men with him with forks when she came in, they would be able to stop her from going out again.

So the next night he was there, and with him his twelve friends with forks. And when she came in they shut the door, and when she could not get out she sat down and was quiet.

And one night she was sitting by the hearth with them all, she said to her husband, "It's a strange thing that Lenchar would be sitting there so quiet, with the bottom after being knocked out of his churn."

So the husband went to Lenchar's house, and he found it was true what she had said, and the bottom was after being knocked out of his churn. But after that he left her, and lived in the village and wouldn't go near her any more.

* * * * *

Myself, I saw when I was but a child a woman come to the door that had been seven years with the good people, but do you think that could be true? And she had two strong girls with her. My brother was ill at the time, where he had his hip hurt with the shaft of a cart he was backing into the shed, and my father asked her could she cure him. And she said, "I will, if you will give me the reward I ask for." "What is that?" said he. And she stooped down and pointed at a little kettle that stood below the dresser, and it was the last thing my mother had bought in this world before she died. So he was vexed because she cast her eye on that, and he bid her go out of the house for she wouldn't get it, and so she went away.

But I remember well her being there and telling us that while the seven years were going by, she was often glad to come outside the houses in the night-time, and pick a bit of what was in the pigs' troughs. And she bid us always to leave a bit somewhere about the house for them that couldn't come in and ask for it. And though my father was a cross man and didn't believe in such things, to the day of his death he never dared to go up to bed without leaving a bit of food outside the door. (_Note_ 40.)

_A Herd:_

The McGarritys in the house beyond, they have plenty of money. It was money they got _out_, buried money, and _they_ are after them.

There is one of them--Ned--is rather silly; I meet him often on the farm stretched by the side of the wall. He met with something one night and he is not the same since then.

There is another of them was walking one evening by the brink of the bushes and he met with two fillies--he thought them to be fillies--and one of them called out, "How are you, John?" and he legged it home as fast as he could. It is likely it was the father or the uncle.

Sure leaving town one time he was brought away to the railway station, and some of the people brought him hither again and set him towards home and he was brought back to the very same place. They had a right to have got the priest to say a few Masses in that house before they went to live in it at all.

It was the time their uncle was dying there was a whistle heard outside and the man in the bed answered it, and it was that very night he died. To keep money you would get _out_ like, that is not right unless you might give the first of it in a few Masses. It was the man the money was took from gave that whistle.

_Mrs. Donnely:_

My mother told me that when she was a young girl, and before the time of side-cars, a man that was living in Duras married a girl from Ardrahan side. And it was the custom in those days for a newly married girl to ride home on a horse, behind her next-of-kin.

And she was sitting behind her uncle on the horse, and when they were passing by Ardrahan churchyard he felt her to shiver and nearly to slip off the horse, and he put his hand behind for to support her, and all he could feel in his hand was for all the world like a piece of tow. So he asked her what ailed her, and she said that she thought of her mother when she was passing by the churchyard. A year after that when her baby was born, then she died. But everyone said the night she was taken was on her wedding-night.

And sure a sister-in-law of my own was taken the same way that poor Mrs. Hehir was. It was a couple of days after her baby was born, and I went to see her, and she Fardy's daughter and niece to Johnson that has the demesne land. And she was sitting up on the bed and so well and so strong that her mother says to me, "Catherine, try could you get a chicken any place; I think she'll be able to eat it tomorrow." "Chicken's is scarce, ma'am," says I, "but anyway I'll do my best and someway or other I'll find one."

Well, after that we left, and her husband being tired with the nights he'd been sitting up came with us to sleep at the house of his uncle, Johnson. And hardly had he got to the house when bad news followed him. And when he got home his wife was dead before him. Hardly were we out of the house when she said to her mother "Take off my boots." "Sure, you have no boots on," said the mother. "Well," says she, "lay me at the foot of the bed." And presently she says, "Send in to the McInerneys and ask them if the coffin they have is a better one than mine." And the mother saw she was going, and sent for the husband, but she was gone before he could come. And she so well and sitting up in the bed. But Hehir's wife was out of bed altogether, and brought her husband his tea in the hayfield before she was took.

* * * * *

And now I'll tell your ladyship a story that's all truth and no lie. There was an uncle of my own living near Kinvara, and one night his wife was coming home from Kinvara town, and she passed three men that were lying by the roadside. And the first of them said to her in Irish, "Go home, my poor woman." And the second said, "Go home if you can." And when she got home and told the story, she said the voice of the second was like the voice of her brother that was dead.

And from that day she began to waste away, and was wasting for seven year, until she died. And at the last some person said to her husband, "It's time for you to ask her what way she's been spending these seven years."

So he went into the room where she was on the bed, and said, "I believe it's time to ask you now what way have you been spending these seven years." And she said, "I'll tell you presently when you come in again, but leave me now for a while." And he went back into the kitchen and took his pipe for to have a smoke before he'd go back and ask her again. And the servant girl that was in the house was the first to go into the room, and found her cold and dead before her.

They had her took away before she had the time to tell what she had been doing all those seven years.

_J. Kenny:_

I was in a house one night with a man used to go away with the faeries. He got up in the night and opened the house door and went out. About four hours he was away, and when he came back he seemed to be very angry. I saw him putting off his clothes.

_Nora Whelan:_

Indeed Moneen has a great name for things that do be going on there beside that big forth. Sure there's many can hear them galloping, galloping all the night. You know Stephen's house at the meadow? Well, his daughter got a touch from them one night when she heard them going past with horses and with carriages, and she the only one in the house that felt them. She got silly like for a bit, but she's getting better now.

* * * * *

An old woman from Loughrea told me that a woman, I believe it was from Shragwalla close to the town, was taken away one time for fourteen years when she went out into the field at night with nothing on but her shift. And she was swept there and then, and an old hag put into the bed in her place, and she suckling her young son at the time.

It was a great many years after that, there was a pedlar used to be going about, and in his travels he went to England. And up in the north of England he saw a rich house and went into the kitchen of it, and there he saw that same woman, in a corner working. And he went up to her and said, "I know where you come from." "Where's that?" says she, and he gave her the name of her own village. Well, she laughed and she went out of the kitchen, and I don't know did she buy anything from him. But anyhow not long after that she come back and walked into her own house.

The husband never knew her, but the boy that was then fourteen year come up and touched her, and the father cried out, "Leave off putting your hand to that fine dress," for she had very rich clothes on. But she stood up and said, "I'm no other than your wife come back again, and the first thing you have to do is to bring in all you can carry of turf, and to make a big fire here in the middle of the floor."

Well, the old hag was in the room within, in the bed where she'd been lying a long time, and they thinking she was dying. And when the smoke of the fire went in at the door she jumps up and away with her out of the house, and tale or tidings of her they never had again.

My mother often told me about her sister's child--my cousin--that used to spend the nights in the big forth at Moneen. Every night she went there, and she got thin and tired like. She used to say that she saw grand things there, and the horses galloping and the riding. But then she'd say, "I must tell no more than that, or I'll get a great beating." She wasted away, but one night they were so sure that she was dead they had the pot boiling full of water to wash her. But she recovered again and lived five years after that.

* * * * *

Sure there was a faery in the house out beyond fourteen years. Katie Morgan she was called. She never kept the bed, but she'd sit in the corner of the kitchen on a mat, and from a good stout lump of a girl that she was she wasted to nothing, and her teeth grew as long as your fingers and then they dropped out. And she'd eat nothing at all only crabs and sour things. And she'd never leave the house in the day-time, but in the night she'd go out and pick things out of the fields she could eat. And the hurt she got or whatever it was touched her, it was one day that she was swinging on the corner gate just there by the forth. She died as quiet as another. But you wouldn't like to be looking at her after the teeth fell out.

_Martin Rabitt:_

There's some people it's lucky to meet and others it's unlucky, and if you set off to go to America or around the world, and one of the unlucky ones comes and speaks to you on the boat, you might as well turn back and come home again.

My own sister was taken away, she and her husband within twenty-four hours, and not a thing upon them, and she with a baby a week old. Well, the care of that child fell on me, and sick or sorry it never was but thriving always.

And a friend of mine told me the same thing. His wife was taken away in child-birth--and the five children she left that did be always ailing and sickly--from that day there never was a hap'orth ailed them.

Did the mother come back to care them? Sure and certain she did, and I'm the one can tell that. For I slept in the room with my sister's child after she dying; and as sure as I stand here talking to you, she was back in the room that night.

Walking towards nightfall myself, I've seen the shadows dancing before me, but I wasn't afeared, no more than I am of you. And I've felt them other times crying and groaning about the house.

* * * * *

As to the faeries, up beyond Ballymore there's a woman that was said to be with them for seven years. But she came back after that and had an impediment in her speech ever since.

_Martin King:_

There's a little forth on this side of Clough behind Glyn's house, and there was a boy in Clough was said to have passed a night and a day in it. I often saw him, and he was dull looking, but for cleverness there was no one could touch him. I saw a picture of a train he drew one time, with not a bolt nor a ha'porth left out; and whatever he put his hand to he could do it, and he with no more teaching than any other poor boy in the town. I believe that he went to America afterwards.

* * * * *

And I remember a boy was about my own age over at Annagh at the other side of the water, and it's said that he was away for two years. Anyway for all that time he was sick in bed, and no one ever saw bit or sup cross his lips in all that time, though the food that was left in the room would disappear, whatever happened it. He recovered after and went to America.

* * * * *

There was a girl near taken, in the Prestons' house. I saw her myself in the bed, near gone. But of a sudden she sat up and looked on the floor and began to curse, and then they left her for they can't bear curses. They have the hope of Heaven or they wouldn't leave one on the face of the earth, and they are afraid of God. They'll not do you much harm if you leave them alone; it's best not to speak to them at all if you should meet them. If they bring any one away they'll leave some old good-for-nothing thing in its place, and the same way with a cow or a calf or such things. But a sheep or a lamb it's beyond their power to touch, because of our Lord.

_An Old Butcher:_

I was born myself by daylight, and my mother often told me that I'd never see anything worse than myself. There's some can see those things and some that can't.

But one time I went up by the parish of Killisheen to look for half-beef, I having at the time a contract for the workhouse. And I went astray on the mountains, and near Killifin I came to a weaver's house and went in. And there was sitting in the corner such a creature as I never saw before, with nothing on him but a shirt, and eyes that would go through you. And I wouldn't stop in the house but went out again. And the weaver followed me and says he, "Is it afraid of him you are?" "It is," says I. "I thought you would be," says he, "and would you believe that he's my own son, and as fine a young chap as ever you seen until seven year ago when I sent him to Clough on a message, and he fell going over a wall, and it's then he got the touch, and it's like this he's been ever since." "Does he ask to eat much?" says I. "He'd eat the whole world," says he. "Then it's not your son that's in it, you may be sure of that," says I, and I turned and went away and never went back there again.

And it's not many year ago that such a lot of fine women were taken from Clough, very sudden, after childbirth--fine women--I knew them all myself. And I'll tell you a thing I heard of in the country. There was a woman died, and left her child. And every night at twelve o'clock she'd come back, and brought it out of the bed to the fire, and she'd comb it and wash it. And at last six men came and watched and stopped her at the door, and she went very near to tear them all asunder. But they got the priest, and he took it off her. Well, the husband had got another wife, and the priest came and asked him would he put her away, and take the first again. And so he did, and he brought her to the chapel to be married to her again, and the whole congregation saw her there. That was rather hard on the second wife? Well, but wasn't it a great thing for the first poor creature to be brought back? Sure there's many of those poor souls wandering about.

Sure enough, some are brought away and kept for years, but sometimes they come back again. There was a woman beyond at Cahirmacun was away for a year, and came back and reared a family after. They know well what happened them, but they don't speak of it. There was a young fellow got a touch there near Ballytown, and a little chap met him wandering in the field. And he bid him put out food for him every night, for he had none of their food ate yet, and so they hadn't got full power over him. So food was left for him, and after a time he came back as well as another.

_A Connemara man:_

There are many that die and don't go out of the world at all. The priests know that. There was a boy dying in a house up the road, and the priest came to him and he was lying as if dead, that he could not speak nor hear, and the priest said, "_The boys_ have a hand in this." He meant by that, the faeries. I was outside the house myself at the time, for the boy was a friend of mine, and I didn't like him to die. And you never saw such a storm as arose when the priest was coming to the house, a storm of wind, and a cloud over the moon. But after a while the boy died, and the storm went down and the moon shone out as bright as before.

There was a man was said to go away of nights with _them_. When he got the call, away he must go if he liked it or not.

And one day he was out in the bay with some others, and all of a sudden he said, "Let me go home, my horse is like to die." And they wouldn't mind him for a time, but at last they turned and rowed home, and they found his horse that was well when he went out, stretched on the field.

Another time he was with a man that had a grand three-year-old filly and was showing it to him. And he said, "You won't have her long"; and it wasn't long after that she died.

_Mrs. Feeney:_

There was a man died and his wife died, and an uncle took charge of the children. The man had a shop but the uncle lived a little way from the shop, and he would leave the children alone through the night. There were two men making a journey, and a storm rose up, and they asked could they have a part of the night in the house where the shop was, and the uncle said they could, and he went to his own house.

The men were sitting up by the fire and the children were sleeping at the other side of the room. And one of the men said to the other "God rest the soul of the man that died here. He was a good man." And the other said, "The wife wasn't so good." And just then they heard a noise below, and they saw the wife that had died coming into the room and she went across and lay down on the bed where the baby was. And the baby that was crying before got quiet then and made no sound at all.

But as to the two men, bad as the storm was outside, they thought better to be out in it than to stop in the room where the woman was, so they went away. It was to quiet the baby she used to come back.

* * * * *

There was an old woman I remember, Mrs. Sheridan, and she had to go with them for two or three hours every night for a while, and she'd make great complaints of the hardship she'd meet with, and how she'd have to spend the night going through little boreens or in the churchyard at Kinvara, or they'd bring her down to the seashore. They often meet with hardships like that, those they bring with them, so it's no wonder they're glad to get back. This world's the best.

* * * * *

There was a woman living over there near Aughsulis, and a few years ago she lost a fine young milch cow, with its first calf. And she and the three boys in the house salted it down and they ate the half of it and they couldn't eat the other half, it was too hard or too tough, and they put it under the dung that was in the yard, the way it would melt into it. And when the springtime came, they turned up the dung, and in the place it was buried they found nothing but three planks of the wood that's cut in Connemara--deal they call it. So the cow never died, but was brought away with _themselves_. For many a young boy and young woman goes like that, and there's no doubt at all that Mary Hynes was taken. There's some living yet can remember her coming to the pattern was there beyond, and she was said to be the handsomest girl in Ireland. (_Note_ 41.)

* * * * *

There's a man now living between this place and Kinvara, Fannen his name is, and he goes away with them, and he's got delicate and silly like. One night he was in that bad place that's near the chapel of Kinvara, and he found a great crowd of them about him and a man on a white horse was with them, and tried to keep him, and he cried and struggled and they let him go at last. But now the neighbours all say he does be going with them, and he told me himself he does. I wouldn't be afraid of him when I'd meet him on the road, but many of the neighbours would be afraid.

And two of his sons have got silly. They found a bar of gold one time out playing in the field, and the money they got for it they put it in the bank. But I believe it's getting less now, and what good did it do them when they went like that? One of the boys was to be a priest, but they had to give that up when he got silly. It was no right money. And they'd best not have touched it.

_Mrs. Finnegan:_

Dreams, we should not pay too much attention to, and we should judge them well, that is, if a dream is bad or good, we should say "It's a good dream"; and we should never tell a dream to anyone fasting; and it's said if you tell your dream to a tree fasting, it will wither up. And it's better to dream of a person's downfall than of him being up. When the good people take a cow or the like, you'll know if they did it by there being no fat on what's left in its place and no eyes in it. When my own springer died so sudden this year, I was afraid to use it. But Pat Hevenor said, "It's a fool you are, and it might save you the price of a bag of meal to feed the bonifs with a bit of it." And he brought the cart and brought it home to me. So I put down a bit to boil for the bonifs to try it, for I heard that if it was _their_ work, it would go to water. But there was fat rising to the top, that I have enough in the shed to grease the cart wheels for a year. So then I salted a bit of it down.