Part 11

If they take any one with them, yourself or myself it might be, they'll put some old spent man in his place, that they had with them a long time, and the father and the mother and the children will think it is the child or the father or the mother that is in it. And so it may be he'd get absolution. But as for the old faeries that were there from the beginning, I don't know about them. (_Note_ 42.)

It's said that if we know how to be neighbourly with them, they'd be neighbourly and friendly with us. It's said it was they brought away the potatoes in the bad time, when all the potatoes turned black. But it wasn't for spite, it was because they wanted them themselves.

_Mrs. Casey:_

There was a woman in Ballinamore died after the baby being born. And the husband took another wife and she very young, that everyone wondered she'd like to go into the house. And every night the first wife came to the loft, and looked down at her baby, and they couldn't see her; but they'd know she was there by the child looking up and smiling at her.

So at last some one said that if they'd go up in the loft after the cock crowing three times they'd see her. And so they did, and there she was, with her own dress on, a plaid shawl she had brought from America, and a cotton skirt with some edging at the bottom.

So they went to the priest, and he said Mass in the house, and they didn't see so much of her after that. But after a year, the new wife had a baby. And one day she bid the first child to rock the cradle. But when she sat down to it, a sort of a sickness came over her, and she could do nothing, and the same thing always happened, for her mother didn't like to see her caring the second wife's baby.

And one day the wife herself fell in the fire and got a great many burns, and they said that it was _she_ did it.

So they went to the blessed well Tubbermacduagh near Kinvara, and they were told to go there every Friday for twelve weeks, and they said seven prayers and gathered seven stones every time. And since then she doesn't come to the house, but the little girl goes out and meets her mother at a faery bush. And sometimes she speaks to her there, and sometimes in her dreams. But no one else but her own little girl has seen her of late.

* * * * *

There was one time a tailor, and he was a wild card, always going to sprees. And one night he was passing by a house, and he heard a voice saying, "Who'll take the child?" And he saw a little baby held out, and the hands that were holding it, but he could see no more than that. So he took it, and he brought it to the next house, and asked the woman there to take it in for the night.

Well, in the morning the woman in the first house found a dead child in the bed beside her. And she was crying and wailing and called all the people. And when the woman from the neighbouring house came, there in her arms was the child she thought was dead. But if it wasn't for the tailor that chanced to be passing by and to take it, we know very well what would have happened it.

* * * * *

That's a thing happens to many, to have faery children put upon them.

_A Man at Corcomroe:_

There was one Delvin, that lies under a slab yonder, and for seven years he was brought away every night, and into this abbey. And he was beat and pinched, and when he'd come home he'd faint; but he used to say that the place that he went to was grander than any city. One night he was with a lot of others at a wake, and they knew the time was coming for him to go, and they all took hold of him. But he was drawn out of the door, and the arms of those that were holding him were near pulled out of their sockets.

* * * * *

Mischievous they are, but they don't do much harm. Some say they are fallen angels, and hope yet to be saved.

_A Slieve Echtge Woman:_

I knew another was away for seven years--and it was in the next townland to this she lived. Bridget Clonkelly her name was. There was a large family of them, and she was the youngest, and a very fine-looking fair-haired girl she was. I knew her well, she was the one age with myself.

It was in the night she used to go to them, and if the door was shut, she'd come in by the key-hole. The first time they came for her, she was in bed between her two sisters, and she didn't want to go, And they beat her and pinched her, till her brother called out to know what was the matter.

She often told me about them, and how she was badly treated because she wouldn't eat their food. She got no more than about three cold potatoes she could eat all the time she was with them.

All the old people about here put out food every night, the first of the food before they have any of it tasted themselves. And she said there was a red-haired girl among them, that would throw her into the river she got so mad with her. But if she'd had their food ate, she'd never have got away from them at all.

She married a serving-man after, and they went to Sydney, and if nothing happened in the last two years they're doing well there now.

_Mrs. Casey:_

Near my own house by the sea there was a girl went out one day to get nuts near the wood, and she heard music inside the wood. And when she went home she told her mother. But the next day she went again, and the next, and she stopped so long that the mother sent the other little girl to look for her, but she could see no one. But she came in after a time, and she went inside into the room, and while she was there the mother heard music from the room; but when the girl came out she said she heard nothing. But the next day after that she died.

The neighbours all came in to the wake, and there was tobacco and snuff there, but not much, for it's the custom not to have so much when a young person dies. But when they looked at the bed, it was no young person they saw in it, but an old woman with long teeth that you'd be frightened, and the face wrinkled, and the hands. So they didn't stop but went away, and she was buried the next day. And in the night the mother would hear music all about the house, and lights of all colours flashing about the windows.

She was never seen again except by a boy that was working about the place. He met her one evening at the end of the house, dressed in her own clothes. But he could not question her where she was, for it's only when you meet them by a bush you can question them there.

_A Man of Slieve Echtge:_

There was a man, and he a cousin of my own, lost his wife. And one night he heard her come into the room, where he was in bed with the child beside him, and he let on to be asleep, and she took the child and brought her out to the kitchen fire and sat down beside it and suckled it.

And then she put it back into the bed again, and he lay still and said nothing. The second night she came again, and he had more courage and he said, "Why have you got no boots on?" For he saw that her feet were bare. And she said, "Because there's iron nails in them." So he said, "Give them to me," and he got up and drew all the nails out of them, and she brought them away.

The third night she came again, and when she was suckling the child he saw that she was still barefoot, and he asked why didn't she wear the boots. "Because," says she, "you left one sprig in them, between the upper and the lower sole, But if you have courage," says she, "you can do more than that for me. Come tomorrow night to the gap up there beyond the hill, and you'll see the riders going through, and the one you'll see on the last horse will be me. And bring with you some fowl droppings and urine, and throw them at me as I pass, and you'll get me again." Well he got so far as to go to the gap, and to bring what she told him, and when they came riding through the gap, he saw her on the last horse, but his courage failed him, and he let it drop, and he never got the chance to see her again.

Why she wanted the nails out of her boots? Because it's well known _they_ will have nothing to do with iron. And I remember when every child would have an old horse nail hung round its neck with a bit of straw, but I don't see it done now.

* * * * *

There was another man though, one of the family of the Coneys beyond there, and his wife was away from him four years. And after that he put out the old hag was in her place, and got his wife back and reared children after that, and one of them was trained a priest.

* * * * *

There was a drunken man in Scariff, and one night he had drink taken he couldn't get home, and fell asleep by the roadside near the bridge. And in the night he awoke and heard _them_ at work with cars and horses. And one said to another, "This work is too heavy, we'll take the white horse belonging to so and so"--giving the name of a rich man in the town. So as soon as it was light he went to this man, and told him what he had heard them say. But he would only laugh at him and say, "I'll pay no attention to what a drunkard dreams." But when he went out after to the stable, his white horse was gone.

* * * * *

That's easy understood. They are shadows, and how could a shadow move anything? But they have power over mankind that they can bring them away to do their work.

* * * * *

There was a woman used to go out among them at night, and she said to her sister, "I'll be out on a white horse and I'll stop and knock at your door," and so she would do sometimes.

And one day there was a man asked her for a debt she owed, and she said, "I have no money now." But then she put her hand behind her and brought it back filled with gold. And then she rubbed it in her hand, and when she opened the hand there was nothing in it but dried cow-dung. And she said, "I could give you that but it would be no use to you."

_An Old Woman Talking of Cruachmaa:_

I remember my father being there, and telling me of a girl that was away for seven years, and all thought she was dead. And at the end of the seven years she walked back one day into her father's house, and she all black-looking. And she said she was married there and had two children, but they died and then she was driven away. And she stopped on at her father's house, but the neighbours used to say there was never a day but she'd go up the hill and be there crying for one or two hours.

_An Old Woman who only Speaks Irish:_

I remember a young man coming to the island fourteen years ago that had never been in it before and that knew everything that was in it, and could tell you as much as to the stones of the chimney in every house. And after a few days he was gone and never came again, for they brought him about to every part. But I saw him and spoke to him myself.

_Mr. Sullivan:_

There was a man had buried his wife, and she left three children. And then he took a second wife, and she did away with the children, hurried them off to America, and the like. But the first wife used to be seen up in the loft, and she making a plan of revenge against the other wife.

The second one had one son and three daughters; and one day the son was out digging the field, and presently he went into what is called a faery hole. And there was a woman came before him, and, says she, "what are you doing here trespassing on my ground?" And with that she took a stone and hit him in the head, and he died with the blow of the stone she gave him. And all the people said it was by the faeries he was taken.

_Peter Henderson:_

There was a first cousin of mine used sometimes to go out the house, that none would see him going, And one night his brother followed him, and he went down a path to the sea, and then he went into a hole in the rocks, that the smallest dog wouldn't go into. And the brother took hold of his feet and drew him out again. He went to America after that, and is living there now; and sometimes in his room they'll see him kicking and laughing as if _some_ were with him.

One night when some of the neighbours from these islands were with him, he told them he'd been back to Inishmaan, and told all that was going on. And some would not believe him. And he said, "You'll believe me next time." So the next night he told them again he had been there, and he brought out of his pocket a couple of boiled potatoes and a bit of fish and showed them, so then they all believed it.

_An Old Man from the State of Maine says, hearing this:_

I knew him in America, and he used often to visit this island, and would know about all of them were living, and would bring us word of them, and all he'd tell us would turn out right. He's living yet in America.

_An Aran Woman:_

There was a woman in Killinny was dying, and it was she used to be minding the Lodge over there, and when she was near death her own little girl went out, and she saw her standing, and a black-haired woman with her. And she came back and said to her father "Don't be fretting, my mother's not there in the bed, I saw her up by the Lodge and a black woman with her, that took her in with her." And there was a man from Arklow there, and he said, "That's not your wife at all that's in the bed--that's not Maggie Mulkair. That is a black woman and Maggie Mulkair is red-haired." And the husband looked in the bed, and so it wasn't Maggie Mulkair that was in it, but at that minute she died. It's well known they bring back the old to put in the place of the young.

* * * * *

There was a girl in the County Clare, and she went to get married, and she and the husband were riding back on the one horse and it slipped and fell. And when she got to the house, she sat quiet and not a word out of her. And everybody said she used to be a pleasant, jolly girl, but this was like an old woman.

And she sat there by the hob for three days and she didn't turn her face to the people. But the husband said, "Let her alone, maybe she's shy yet." But his mother got angry at last and she said, "I'd sooner be rubbing stones on the clothes than watching an idle woman." And she went out to the flax and she said to the girl, "You'd best get the dinner ready before the men come in." But when she came in there was nothing done; and she gave her a blow with some pieces of the flax that were in her hand, and said, "Get out of this for a good-for-nothing woman!" And with that she went up the chimney and was gone. And the mother got the dinner ready, and then she went out, not knowing in the world how to tell the husband what she had done. But when she got to the field where they were working, there was the girl walking down the hill, and she took the two hands of the mother and said, "It's well for me you hadn't patience to last two days more or I'd never have got back, but I never touched any of the food while I was with them."

_Mrs. Casey:_

There was a girl one time, and a boy wanted to marry her, but the father and mother wouldn't let her have him, for he had no money. And he died, and they made a match for her with another. And one day she was out going to her cousins' house, and he came before her and put out his hand and said, "You promised yourself to me, and come with me now." And she ran, and when she got to the house she fell on the floor. And the cousins thought she had taken a drop of drink, and they began to scold her.

Another day after that she was walking with her husband and her brother, and a little white dog with them, and they came to a little lake. And he appeared to her again, and the husband and the brother didn't see him, but the dog flew at him, and began barking at him and he was hitting at the dog with a stick, and all the time trying to get hold of the girl's hand. And the husband and the brother wondered what the dog was barking at and why it drew down to the lake in the end, and out into the water. For it was into it that he was wanting to draw the girl.

* * * * *

It's a strange thing that you'll see a man in his coffin and buried; and maybe a fortnight after, the neighbours will tell you they saw him walking about. There was one Flaherty lived up at Johnny Reed's and he died. And a few days later Johnny Reed's sister and another woman went out with baskets of turnips to the field where the sheep were, to throw them out for them. And when they got to the field they could see Flaherty walking, just in the same clothes he had before he died, long skirts and a jacket, and frieze trousers. So they left the turnips and came away.

* * * * *

There was a man up there near Loughrea, one of the Mahers, was away for seven years. In the night he'd be taken, and sometimes in the daytime when he was in the bed sick, that's the time he'd be along with them; riding out and going out across the bay, going as fast as the wind in the sky. Did he like to be with them? Not at all, he'd sooner be at home; and it is bad for the health too to be going out these rough nights. There were three men near him that had horses, Daniel O'Dea and Farragher and Flynn, and he told them they should sell their horses. And Daniel O'Dea and Farragher sold theirs, but the other man wouldn't mind him. And after a few days his horse died. Of course they had been with him at night riding their own horses, and that's how he knew what would happen and gave the warning.

_The Spinning Woman:_

There was a man got married, and he began to pine away, and after a few weeks the mother asked him what ailed him. And he opened his coat and showed her his breast inside, that it was all torn and bloody. And he said: "That's the way I am; and that's what she does to me in the nights." So the mother brought her out and bid her to pick the green flax, and she was against touching it, but the mother made her. And no sooner had she touched three blades of it but she said, "I'm gone now," and away with her. And when they went back to the room they found the daughter lying in a deep sleep, where she had just been put back.

_An Old Woman at Kinvara:_

There was a woman put in her coffin for dead, but a man that was passing by knew that she wasn't dead, and he brought her away and married her and lived with her for seven years, and had seven children by her. And one day he brought her to a fair near the place she came from, and the people that saw her said: "If that woman that died ever had a sister, that would be her sister." So he let it out to them then about her. But his mother always minded her, that she wouldn't wet her hands. But one day the mother was hurried, and the woman made a cake. And after making it she washed her hands, and with that they had her again and she went from the husband and from her children.

_A Herd:_

One time I was tending this farm for Flaherty, and I came in late one evening after being out with cattle, and I sent my wife for an ounce of tobacco, and I stopped in the house with the child. And after a time I heard the rattle of the door, and the wife came in half out of her mind. She said she was walking the road and she met four men, and she knew that they were not of this world, and she fell on the road with the fright she got, but she thought one of them was her brother, and he put his hand under her head when she fell, so that she got no hurt. And for a long time after she wasn't in her right mind, and she'd bring the child out in the field, to see her brother. And at last I brought her to the priest, and when we were on the way there she called out that those fields of stones were full of them, and they all dressed in tall hats and black coats. But the priest read something over her and she's been free from them since then.

* * * * *

There were three women died within a year, one here, John Harragher's wife, and two at Inishmaan. And the year after they were all seen together, riding on white horses at the other side of the island.

* * * * *

There were two young women lived over in that village you see there, and they were not good friends, for they were in two public houses. And one of them died in January, after her baby being born. Some said it was because of her mother or the nurse giving her strong tea, but it wasn't that, it was because her time had come. And when the other woman heard it she said to her husband, "Give me the concertina, and I'll play till you dance for joy that Mrs. Considine is gone." But in April her own child was born, and though the doctor tried to save her he couldn't and she died.

And since then they're often seen to appear walking together. People wonder to see them together, and they not friends while they lived. But it's bad to give way to temper, and who is nearer to us than a neighbour?

_A Young Woman:_

I know a girl that lost her mother soon after she was born. And surely the mother came back to her every night and suckled her, for she'd lie as quiet as could be, without a bottle or a hap'orth and they'd hear her sucking. And one night the grandmother felt her daughter that was gone lying in the clothes, and made a grab at her, but she was gone. Maybe she'd have kept her if she'd taken her time, for there's charms to bring such back. But the little girl grew, that she was never the same in the morning that she was the night before, and there's no finer girl in the island now. I call to my own mother sometimes when things go wrong with me, and I think I'm always the better of it. And I often say those that are gone are troubled with those they leave behind. But God have mercy on all the mothers of the world!

_Mrs. Maher:_

There was a woman with her husband passing by Esserkelly, and she had left her child at home. And a man came and called her in, and promised to leave her on the road where she was before. So she went, and there was a baby in the place she was brought to, and they asked her to suckle it. And when she had come out again she said, "One question I'll ask. What were those two old women sitting by the fire?" And the man said, "We took the child today, and we'll have the mother tonight and one of them will be put in her place, and the other in the place of some other person." And then he left her where she was before.

But there's no harm in them, no harm at all.

_Tom Hislop:_

Scully told me he was by the hedge up there by Ballinamantane one evening and a blast came, and as it passed he heard something crying, crying, and he knew by the sound that it was a child that they were carrying away.

* * * * *

And a woman brought in at Esserkelly heard a baby crying and a woman singing to it not to fret, for such a woman would die that night or the next and would come to mind her. And the very next night the woman she heard the name of died in childbirth.

* * * * *

At Aughanish there were two couples came to the shore to be married, and one of the new-married women was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the island. And a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some blessed Aves that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.

_Peter Hanrahan:_

No, I never went to Biddy Early. What would they want with the like of me? It's the good and the pious they come for.