Part 9

Well, the child was getting sick all the day, and I didn't go out that evening. And in the night we could hear the noise as if of scores of rats, going about the room. And every now and again I struck a light, but so soon as the light was in it we'd hear nothing. But the noise would begin again as soon as it was dark, and sometimes it would seem as if they came up on the bed, and I could feel the weight of them on my chest as if they would smother me.

And in the morning I chanced to open the box where the dinner used to be put, and it as big a box as any in Aran, and when I opened it I saw it was all full of blood, up the sides and to the top, that you couldn't put your hand in without it getting bloody. I said nothing but shut the lid down again. But after, when I came into the house, I saw the wife rubbing at it with a thing they call flannel they got at Killinny, and I asked her what was she doing, and she said, "I'm cleaning the box, where it's full of blood." And after that I gave up the child and I had no more hope for its life. But if they had told me that about the neighbour speaking to him, I'd have gone over, and I'd have killed him with my stick, but I'd have made him come and spit on him. After that we didn't hear the noise the same again, but we heard like the sound of a clock all through the night and every night. And the child got a swelling under the feet, and he couldn't put a foot to the ground. But that made little difference to him, for he didn't hold out a week.

* * * * *

I lost another son after--but he died natural, there was nothing of that sort. And I have one son remaining now, and one day he went to sleep out in a field and that's a bad thing to do. And the sister found him there, and when she woke him he couldn't get up hardly, or move his hand, and she had to help him to the house.

_Pat Doherty:_

I know a gentleman too got the touch, one of the Butlers. It was on a day he made a great leap he got it. And he went to the bed and for three or four days he couldn't stir, and red marks came out over him shaped like a bow. And then I went for the priest and brought him to see him, and when he heard of the marks, "I'm as bad as that myself," he said, making fun; "for I'm after making a journey in a curragh." But when the clothes were stripped back and he saw his skin, "Oh, murder!" he said, and he put on his stole and got out a book. And he said, "Did you hear what I did to the man at Iona? He went to the well with a tin can for water, and when he got to the well, a few yards away from it, it was spilled. And he went back and filled it again, and the second time at the well it was spilled, and he fell along with it, and he got a little cut in the fall, and he began to bleed, and all the people said as much blood as would be in three men came away from him. And they sent for me, and the minute I came the bleeding stopped, and he was all right again and the cut closed up."

And then he put his head down and what he read I don't know, but he hardly got to the turn of the road outside the house, when the boy stood up from the bed and asked for something to eat.

* * * * *

Another time I was drawing turf that came in the boats from Connemara to Kilronan pier. And of a sudden there came a swelling in my arm, and it was next day the size of an egg, and it turned black. And I couldn't lift the arm, and Healy the coast-guard said to me to go to Doctor Lydon. And I said I would, but in the way I met with Father Jordan and I showed it to him. And he said; "What do you want with your Healy and your Lydons? Let me see it." And he pressed his hand on it two or three times like that, and the swelling began to go, and when I got home they were clearing weed on the shore, and I was able to go down and to give them a hand with it.

_A Piper:_

There was a cousin of my own used to feel some heavy thing coming on him in the bed in the night time. And he went to the friars at Esker to take it off of him, and they took it off. But Father Williams said, "If this is gone from you some other thing will be put on you." And sure enough it wasn't a twelvemonth after, he was carting planks and the horse fell, and the planks fell on his foot and broke it in two pieces. And after that again he got a fall, over some stones, and he died with throwing off blood.

I had a fall myself in Galway the other day that I couldn't move my arm to play the pipes if you gave me Ireland. And a man said to me--and they are very smart people in Galway--that two or three got a fall and a hurt in that same place. "There is places in the sea where there is drowning," he said, "and places on the land as well where there do be accidents, and no man can save himself from them, for it is the Will of God."

_Mrs. Scanlon:_

Some people call Mrs. Tobin "Biddy Early." She has done a good many cures. Her brother was _away_ for a while and it was from him she got the knowledge. I believe that it's before sunrise that she gathers the herbs, anyway no one ever saw her gathering them. (_Note_ 38.) She has saved many a woman from being brought away when their child was born, by whatever she does. She told me herself that one night when she was going to the lodge gate to attend the woman there, three magpies came before her and began roaring into her mouth, to try to drive her back. Father Folan must know about her, but he is a dark man and says nothing, and anyway the priests know as much, and are as much in dread as any one else.

I wish I had sent for her for my own little boy. It's often he asked me to bring him to the friars at Loughrea. But he never would tell how or where he got the touch. It came like a lump in the back, and he got weaker and smaller till you could put him into a tin can, and he twenty years. Often I asked him about it, but he'd say nothing. I believe that they are afraid to tell or they would be worse treated. I asked him was it at the jumping, for they used to be jumping over a pole, and he said it was not, and that he never took a jump that was too much for him.

But some that saw his back said he had been beat. And when the Doctor came in to see him, he was lying on the bed, and he turned him over and looked at him and said, "If he had all Lady Gregory's estate he couldn't live a week." And sure enough within five days he died. And many of the neighbours said they never heard such a storm of wind as rose about the house that night. I never saw him since, and I went late and early, in the mill and down by the river. But it's maybe a hundred or two hundred miles he was brought away.

_Tom Flatley:_

There is a priest now, a curate down in Cloughmore, is doing great cures. There is often silence between him and the parish priest, Father Rock, for he wouldn't like him to be doing them. There was a little chap went to bed one night as well as yourself, and in the morning he rose up with one of his ears as deaf as that he wouldn't hear you if he died. And the mother brought him to Father Dolan and he came out as well as ever he was. It was but a fortnight ago that happened, and I didn't hear did the misfortune fall on any of the stock.

But wherever there is a cure something will go, and what would a sheep or a heifer be beside a misfortune on a child?

There was a priest near Ennis, a woman I knew went to for a cure, and he wouldn't do it. "_Tha me bocht_," he said, "I am poor, but I will not do it." "I will pay you well," said the woman. "I will not do it," said he, "for my heart was killed two years ago with one I did. And it isn't money I'd ask of you if I did it," he said, "but to offer you my blessing and the blessing of God."

_Mrs. Casey:_

There was a woman down by the sea that had a very severe time when her baby was born, and they did not think she or the baby would live after. So the husband went and brought Father Rivers and he said, "Which would you sooner lose--the wife or the child--for one must go?" And the husband said, "If the wife is taken I might as well close the door." And then Father Rivers said, "She's going up and down like the swinging of a clock, but for all that I'll strive to keep her for you, but maybe you must lose two or more." So he read some prayers over her, and the next day the baby died, and a fine cow out in the field, but the woman recovered and is living still. But Father Rivers died within two years. They never live long when they do these cures, because that they say prayers that they ought not to say.

* * * * *

There's Father Heseltine of Killinan has lost his health and no person knows where he is. They say he's gone abroad because he did a cure on one of his sisters.

_Mrs. Cassilis:_

A young mare I lost. It was on the 15th August, something came on it in the field, and it did no good, and the son was tending it. And on S. Colman's Day he was taken with a weakness in the chapel that they had to bring him home, and he did not go fasting to the chapel. He got well, but the mare died. I didn't mind that, I knew something must go, and it was better the mare to go than the son.

There were many said, the mare not to have died there would be no chance for him. So I am well content, for whatever way we'll struggle we might get another mare. But a person to go, there is no one for you to get in his place.

_A County Galway Magistrate:_

That time I was laid up at Luke Manning's they sent for Father Heseltine to "read a gospel" over me. He said when he came in, "You'll lose something tonight." I heard him say this, but what he read over me I don't know, it seemed a sort of muttering. At all events I got well after it, and the next morning, a sheep was found dead.

_Pat Hayden:_

My father was gardener here at Coole in the time of Mr. Robert's grandfather. He was sick one time, and he thought to go to the friars at Esker for a cure, and he asked Mr. Gregory for the loan of a horse, and he bade him to take it. So he saddled and bridled the horse, and he set out one morning and went to the friars, and whatever they did they cured him, and he came back again. But in the morning the horse was found dead in the stable. I suppose whatever they took off him they put upon the horse. And when Mr. Gregory came out in the morning, "How is Pat?" he says to one of the men. "Pat is well," says he, "but the horse he brought with him is dead in the stable." "So long as Pat is well," said Mr. Gregory, "I wouldn't mind if five horses in the stable were dead."

_Mrs. Manning:_

There was a friar in Esker could do cures. Many I've seen brought to him tied in a cart, and able to walk home after. Father Callaghan he was. There was one man brought to him, wrong in his head he was, and he cured him and he gave him some sort of a Gospel rolled up, and bid him to put it about his neck, and never to take it off. Well, he went to America after that and was as well as another and got work, and sent home £10 one time to Father Callaghan he was that grateful to him.

But one day in America he was shaving, and whether he cut the string or that he took it off I don't know, but he laid the charm down on a table. And when he looked for it again, if he was to burn the house down he couldn't find it. And it all came back on him again, and he was as bad as he was before.

So the wife wrote home to Father Callaghan, and he sent out another thing of the same sort; and bid him wear it, and from the time he put it on, he got well again. A priest has the power to do cures, but if he does he can keep nothing, one thing will die after another.

Biddy Early could do the same thing, she had to cast the sickness on some other thing--it might be a dog or a goat or a bird.

* * * * *

Priests can do cures if they will, but they are afraid to do them because their stock will die, and because they are afraid of loss in the other world as well as in this. There's a neighbour of your own lost his milch cow the other day for a small one he did,--Father Mulhall that is.

* * * * *

There was Father Rivers was called in to a woman that was bad, between Roxborough and Dunsandle. And he said to the father, "Which would you sooner keep, the wife or the child?" And he said, "Sure I'd sooner have the wife than all the children of the world." So Father Rivers went in and cured her so that she got well, but he put whatever she had on the son, so that he grew up an idiot. Harmless he used to be, not doing much. Well, when he came to twenty years, the mother said, "Come outside into the field, and cut the eyes of a few stone of potatoes for me." But he took up the graip that was at the door and made at her to kill her. And she ran in and shut the door, and then he made for the window and broke it. And at that time Mr. Singleton from Ceramina was passing by, and he stopped and called some men and they took him and took the graip from him, and he was brought away to Ballinasloe Asylum, but he didn't live more than six months after. Waiting all that time he was to do his revenge, but hadn't the power to do it till the twenty years were up.

* * * * *

There is a man that is living strong and well in the village of Lochlan and that has sixteen or seventeen children, and one time something came on him and he wore away till there was no more strength in him than in that thraneen. And there was an old woman used to be doing cures with herbs, and he sent for her, and she went out into the field and she picked two or three leaves of a plant she knew of. And as she was carrying it through the fields to the house she fell dead.

And his strength came back to him when the death fell on her and he was as well and as strong as ever he was. I will bring you three of those leaves if I have to walk two miles--three-cornered leaves they are (penny royal). No harm will come upon me, for I am nothing but an old hag. Before sunrise they must be picked, and the best day to do it is a Friday.

_An Old Army Man:_

I knew a man had charms for headache and for toothache and other things, and he did a great many cures, but all his own children began to die. So then he put away the charms, and made a promise not to do cures for others again; and after that he lost no more children.

* * * * *

Priests can do cures as well as Biddy Early did, and there was a man of the neighbours digging potatoes in that field beyond, and a woman passed by, and she never said anything. And presently the top of his fingers got burned off, and he called out with the pain, a blast he got from her as she passed. Often he'd come into this house, and crying out with the hurt of the pain. And at last he went to the priests at Esker, and they cured him, but they said, "Your own priests could have done the same for you." And when he came back there were two cows dead.

And the same thing when Carey's wife--that is a tenant of your own--was sick, they called in Father Gardiner and he cured her, and he told them to watch by her for two or three days. And then the priest went out to see the stabling, and Carey with him, for Carey had always a pair of good horses. And when they went into the stable, the horses were dead before them.

* * * * *

It was Flaherty gave his life for my sister that was his wife. When she fell sick he brought her to Biddy Early in the mountains beyond. And she cured her the first time. But she said, "If you bring her again, you'll pay the penalty." But when she fell sick again he brought her, but he stopped a mile from the house. But she knew it well, and told the wife where he was, and that time the horse died. But the third time she fell sick he went again, knowing full well he'd pay the penalty; and so he did and died. But she was cured; and married one O'Dea afterwards.

The priests know well about these things, but they won't let on to have seen them, and the people don't much like to be telling them about them. But there was Father Gallagher that did cures by means of them, and at last he got a touch himself, and was sent for a while to an asylum, and now he has promised to leave them alone. Fallen angels some say they are. I know a man that saw them hurling up there in Hanlon's field. Red caps they wore and looked very diminutive, but they were hurling away like Old Boots.

* * * * *

The way the bad luck came on Tom Hurley was when a cow fell sick on him and lay like dead. He had a right to leave it or to kill it; but the father-in-law cut a bit off the leg of it and it rose again, and they sold it for seven pounds at the fair of Tubber. But he had no luck since then, but lost four or five head of cattle, near all that he owned.

* * * * *

There was a man did a cure on his son that came from America sick. He didn't like to see him ailing, and one night he did the cure. But before sunrise the sight of one of his eyes was gone.

_A Mountainy Man:_

There's some people living about three miles from here on Slieve-Mor, and they came from the North at the time of the famine, and they can do cures, but they don't like to say much about it--for the people of the North all have it. Their names are natural, McManus, and Irwin and Taylor. There's one of them gave a cure for a man that was sick, and he grew better, but a calf died. And the son was going to him again, but the mother said: "Let him alone, let him die, or we'll lose all the stock"; for she'd sooner have the husband die than any other beast. So the son was out and he met the man, and he said, "It is to me you're coming?" And the son said it was, for he didn't like to tell about what his mother said or about the death of the calf. So the man got him a bottle, and said he'd come home with him, but when they were on the road they met some one that spoke of the death of the calf. So when the man heard that, he was angry and he said, "If I knew that I wouldn't have helped you," and he broke the bottle against the wall. So the father died, and the wife kept the stock--a very unkind woman she was.

* * * * *

There was a woman of my village never put a shoe on her feet from the time of her birth till the time of her death. Doing a penance she said she was. And she never married and would never eat meat.

* * * * *

As to cures, there's none can do them like the priests can, if they will. There was a woman I knew, and her little boy was sick and couldn't move. And she got the priest to come and do a cure on him, but no one knew what he did. And often he said to the woman: "You have a horse and a pony, and which do you value the most?" And she said she valued the pony the most. And next day the horse had died, but the little boy got well.

_A Man of the Islands:_

There's an old woman here now--there she is passing the road--that does cures with herbs. But last year she got a sore hand and she had to go to the hospital, and before she came back they took two fingers off her. And there's no luck about bone-setters either. There's one here on the island and a good many go to him. But he had but one son and he never did any good, and now he's gone away from him.

_John Curtis:_

When Father Callan was a curate he did a cure for me one time for my cattle, and I gave him half a sovereign in his hand for it, in this road. It was the time I had so much trouble, and my brothers trying to rob me, and but for our landlord I wouldn't have kept the farm. And all my stock began to die. There was hardly a day I'd come out but I'd see maybe two or three sheep lying there in the field with froth at their mouths, and they turning black. The same thing was happening Tommy Hare's stock, and he went to Father Callan and he came to the house and read some sort of a Mass and took the sickness off them. So then I went to him myself, and he said he'd read a Mass in the chapel for me, and so he did. And the stock were all right from that time, and the day he came to see them and that I gave him the money, there ran a dog out of Roche's house and came behind the priest and gave him a bite in the leg, that he had to go to Dublin to cut it out. Why did the dog do it? He did it because he was mad when he saw the stock getting well. And weren't the Roches queer people that they wouldn't kill the dog when the priest wanted it, the way he'd be in no danger if the dog would go mad after?

IV

AWAY

IV

AWAY

_Pwyll, Prince of Dyved ... let loose the dogs in the wood and sounded the horn and began the chase. And as he followed the dogs he lost his companions; and while he listened to the hounds he heard the cry of other hounds, a cry different from his own, and coming in the opposite direction.... And he saw a horseman coming towards him on a large light-grey steed with a hunting horn round his neck, and clad in garments of grey woollen in the fashion of a hunting garb, and the horseman drew near and spoke to him thus:... "A crowned King I am in the land whence I come.... There is a man whose dominions are opposite to mine, who is ever warring against me, and by ridding me of this oppression which thou can'st easily do, shalt thou gain my friendship." "Gladly will I do this," said he. "Show me how I may." "I will show thee. Behold, thus it is thou mayest. I will send thee to Annwyvn in my stead, and I will give thee the fairest lady thou didst ever behold to be thy companion, and I will put my form and semblance upon thee, so that not a page of the chamber nor an officer nor any other man that has always followed me shall know that it is not I. And this shall be for the space of a year from tomorrow and then we will meet in this place." ... "Verily," said Pwyll, "what shall I do concerning my kingdom?" Said Arawn: "I will cause that no one in all thy dominions, neither man nor woman, shall know that I am not thou, and I will go there in thy stead."_--"The Mabinogion."

_I was told by a Man of Slieve Echtge:_

That girl of the Cohens that was away seven year, she was bid tell nothing of what she saw, but she told her mother some things and told of some she met there. There was a woman--a cousin of my own--asked was her son over there, and she had to press her a long time, but at last she said he was. And he was taken too with little provocation, fifty years ago. We were working together, myself and him and a lot of others, making that trench you see beyond, to drain the wood. And it was contract work, and he was doing the work of two men and was near ready to take another piece. And some of them began to say to him, "It's a shame for you to be working like that, and taking the bread out of the hands of another," and I standing there. And he said he didn't care, and he took the spade and sent the scraws out flying, to the right and to the left. And he never put a spade into the ground again, for that night he was taken ill, and died shortly after. Watched he was, and taken by _them_.

* * * * *

As to the woman brought back again, it was told me by a boy going to school there at the time, so I know there's no lie in it. It was one of the Taylors, a rich family in Scariff. His wife was sick and pining away for seven years, and at the end of that time one day he came in he had a drop of drink taken, and he began to be a bit rough with her. And she said, "Don't be rough with me now, after bearing so well with me all these seven years. But because you were so good and so kind to me all that time," says she, "I'll go away from you now and I'll let your own wife come back to you." And so she did, for it was some old hag she was, and the wife came back again and reared a family. And before she went away, she had a son that was reared a priest, and after she came back, she had another son that was reared a priest, so that shows a blessing came on them. (_Note_ 39.)

_A Man on the Beach:_