Part 13

I was over at Phayre's mill one time to get some boards sawed and they said I must wait an hour or so, where the mill wasn't free. And I had a load of turf to get, and I went along the road. And I heard something coming after me in the gutter, and it stood up over me like an elephant, and I put my hands behind me and I said, "Madad Fior," and he went away. It was just at the bridge he was, near Kilchriest, and when I was coming back after a while, just when I got to the bridge there, he was after me again. But I never saw him since then.

* * * * *

One time I was at the fair at Ballinasloe, and I but a young lad at the time, and a comrade with me that was but a young lad too. We brought in the sheep the Monday evening, and they were sold the Tuesday morning, and the master bid us to go home on the train. "Bad cess," said my comrade, "are we to get no good at all out of the fair? Let us stop," says he, "and get the good of it and go back by the mail train." So we went through the fair together and went to a dance, and the master never knew, and we went home on the mail train together. We got out at Woodlawn and we were going home, and we heard a sort of a groaning and we could see nothing, and the boy that was with me was frightened, for though he was a strong boy, he was a timorous man. We found then the groaning coming from beyond the wall, and I went and put my two fists on the wall and looked over it. There were two trees on the other side of the wall, and I saw walking off and down from one tree to the other, something that was like a soldier or a sentry. The body was a man's body, and there was a black suit on it, but it had the head of a bear, the very head and _puss_ of a bear. I asked what was on him. "Don't speak to me, don't speak to me," he said, and he stopped by the tree and was groaning and went away.

That is all that ever I saw, and I herding sheep in the lambing season, and falling asleep as I did sometimes, and walking up and down the field in my sleep.

* * * * *

My father told me that in the bad times, about the year '48, he used to be watching about in the fields, where the people did be stealing the crops. And there was no field in Coole he was afraid to go into by night except one, that is number three in the Lake Farm. For the dog that was about in those times stopped the night in the clump there. And Johnny Callan told me one night passing that field he heard the noise of a cart of stones thrown against the wall. But when he went back there in the morning there was no sign of anything at all. My father never saw the dog himself but he was known to be there and he felt him.

And as for the monster, I never saw it in Coole Lake, but one day I was coming home with my two brothers from Tirneevan school, and there as we passed Dhulough we heard a great splashing, and we saw some creature put up its head, with a head and a mane like a horse. And we didn't stop but ran.

But I think it was not so big as the monster over here in Coole Lake, for Johnny Callan saw it, and he said it was the size of a stack of turf. But there's many could tell about that for there's many saw it, Dougherty from Gort and others.

* * * * *

As to the dog that used to be in the road, a friend of his own was driving Father Boyle from Kinvara late one night and there it was--first on the right side and then on the left of the car. And at last he told Father Boyle, and he said, "Look out now for it, and you'll see it no more," and no more he did, and that was the last of it.

But the driver of the mail-car often seen a figure of a woman following the car till it came to the churchyard beyond Ardrahan, and there it disappeared.

Father Boyle was a good man indeed--a child might speak to him. They said he had the dog or whatever it may be banished from the road, but of late I heard the driver of the mail-car saying he sees it on one spot on the road every night. And there's a very lonely hollow beyond Doran's house, and I know a man that never passed by that hollow but what he'd fall asleep. But one night he saw a sort of a muffled figure and he cried out three times some good wish--such as "God have mercy on you"--and then it gave a great laugh and vanished and he saw it no more. As to the forths or other old places, how do we know what poor soul may be shut up there, confined in pain?

* * * * *

Sure a man the other day coming back from your own place, Inchy, when he came to the big tree, heard a squealing, and there he saw a sort of a dog, and it white, and it followed as if holding on to him all the way home. And when he got to the house he near fainted, and asked for a glass of water.

* * * * *

There's some sort of a monster at Tyrone, rising and slipping up and down in the sun, and when it cries, some one will be sure to die.

* * * * *

I didn't believe in them myself till one night I was coming home from a wedding, and standing on the road beside me I saw John Kelly's donkey that he always used to call Neddy. So he was standing in my way and I gave a blow at him and said, "Get out of that, Neddy." And he moved off only to come across me again, and to stop me from going in. And so he did all the way, till as I was going by a bit of wood I heard come out of it two of the clearest laughs that ever you heard, and then two sorts of shouts. So I knew that it was having fun with me they were, and that it was not Neddy was there, but his likeness.

I knew a priest was stopped on the road one night by something in the shape of a big dog, and he couldn't make the horse pass it.

* * * * *

One night I saw the dog myself, in the boreen near my house. And that was a bad bit of road, two or three were killed there.

And one night I was between Kiltartan Chapel and Nolan's gate where I had some sheep to look after for the priest. And the dog I had with me ran out into the middle of the road, and there he began to yelp and to fight. I stood and watched him for a while, and surely he was fighting with another dog, but there was nothing to be seen.

And in the same part of the road one night I heard horses galloping, galloping past me. I could hear their hoofs, and they shod, on the stones of the road. But though I stood aside and looked--and it was bright moonlight--there were no horses to be seen. But they were there, and believe me they were not without riders.

* * * * *

Well, myself I once slept in a house with some strange thing. I had my aunt then, Mrs. Leary, living near, and I but a small little girl at the time. And one day she came to our house and asked would I go sleep with her, and I said I would if she'd give me a ride on her back, and so she did. And for many a night after that she brought me to sleep with her, and my mother used to be asking why, and she'd give no reason.

Well, the cause of her wanting me was this. Every night so sure as she put the candle out, _it_ would come and lie upon her feet and across her body and near smother her, and she could feel it breathing but could see nothing. I never felt anything at all myself, I being sound asleep before she quenched the light. At last she went to Father Smith--God rest his soul!--and he gave her a prayer to say at the moment of the Elevation of the Mass. So the next time she attended Mass she used it, and that night it was wickeder than ever it had been.

So after that she wrote to her son in America to buy a ticket for her, and she went out to him and remained some years. And it was only after she came back she told me and my mother what used to happen on those nights, and the reason she wanted me to be beside her.

* * * * *

There was never any one saw so many of those things as Johnny Hardiman's father on this estate, and now he's old and got silly, and can't tell about them any more. One time he was walking into Gort along the Kiltartan road, and he saw one of them before him in the form of a tub, and it rolling along.

Another time he was coming home from Kinvara, and a black and white dog came out against him from the wall, but he took no notice of it. But when he got near his own house it came out against him again and bit him in the leg, and he got hold of it and lifted it up and took it by the throat and choked it; and when he was sure it was dead he threw it by the roadside. But in the morning he went out first thing early to look at the body, and there was no sign at all of it there.

* * * * *

So I believe indeed that old Michael Barrett hears them and sees them. But they do him no mischief nor harm at all. They wouldn't, and he such an old resident. But there's many wouldn't believe he sees anything because they never seen them themselves.

I never did but once, when I was a slip of a girl beyond at Lissatiraheely, and one time I went across to the big forth to get a can of water. And when I got near to it I heard voices, and when I came to where the water runs out they were getting louder and louder. And I stopped and looked down, and there in the passage where the water comes I seen a dog within, and there was a great noise--working I suppose they were. And I threw down the can and turned and ran, and never went back for it again. But here since I lived in Coole I never seen anything and never was afeared of anything except one time only in the evening, when I was walking down the little by-lane that leads to Ballinamantane. And there standing in the path before me I seen the very same dog that was in the old forth before. And I believe I leaped the wall to get away into the high-road. And what day was that but the very same day that Sir William--the Lord be with his soul!--was returned a Member of Parliament, and a great night it was in Kiltartan.

But I'm noways afeared of anything and I give you my word I'd walk in the dead of night in the nut-wood or any other place--except only the cross beyond Inchy, I'd sooner not go by there. There's two or three has their life lost there--Heffernan of Kildesert, one of your ladyship's own tenants, he was one. He was at a fair, and there was a horse another man wanted, but he got inside him and got the horse. And when he was riding home, when he came to that spot it reared back and threw him, and he was taken up dead. And another man--one Gallagher--fell off the top of a creel of turf in the same place and lost his life. And there was a woman hurted some way another time. What's that you're saying, John--that Gallagher had a drop too much taken? That might be so indeed; and what call has a man that has drink taken to go travel upon top of a creel of turf?

That dog I met in the boreen at Ballinamantane, he was the size of a calf, and black, and his paws the size of I don't know what. I was sitting in the house one day, and he came in and sat down by the dresser and looked at me. And I didn't like the look of him when I saw the big eyes of him, and the size of his legs. And just then a man came in that used to make his living by making mats, and he used to lodge with me for a night now and again. And he went out to bring his cart away where he was afraid it'd be knocked about by the people going to the big bonefire at Kiltartan cross-roads. And when he went out I looked out the door, and there was the dog sitting under the cart. So he made a hit at it with a stick, and it was in the stones the stick stuck, and there was the dog sitting at the other side of him. So he came in and gave me abuse and said I must be a strange woman to have such things about me. And he never would come to lodge with me again. But didn't the dog behave well not to do him an injury after he hitting it? It was surely some man that was in that dog, some soul in trouble.

* * * * *

Beasts will sometimes see more than a man will. There were three young chaps I know went up near Ballyturn to hunt coneens (young rabbits) and they threw the dog over the wall. And when he was in the field he gave a yelp and drew back as if something had struck him on the head. And with all they could do, and the rabbits and the coneens running about the field, they couldn't get him to stir from that and they had to come home with no rabbits.

* * * * *

One time I was helping Sully, the butcher in Loughrea, and I had to go to a country house to bring in a measly pig the people had, and that he was to allow them something for. So I got there late and had to stop the night. And in the morning at daylight I looked from the window and saw a cow eating the potatoes, so I went down to drive him off. And in the kitchen there was lying by the hearth a dog, a speckled one, with spots of black and white and yellow. And when he saw me he got up and went over to the door and went out through it. And then I saw that the door was shut and locked. So I went back again and told the people of the house what I saw and they were frightened and made me stop the next night. And in the night the clothes were taken off me and a heavy blow struck me in the chest, and the feel of it was like the feel of ice. So I covered myself up again and put my hand under the bedclothes, and I never came to that house again.

* * * * *

I never seen anything myself, but I remember well that when I was a young chap there was a black dog between Coole gatehouse and Gort for many a year, and many met him there. Tom Miller came running into our house one time when he was after seeing him, and at first sight he thought he was a man, where he was standing with his paws up upon the wall, and then he vanished out of sight. But there never was any common dog the size of him, and it's many a one saw him, and it was Father Boyle that banished him out of it at last.

* * * * *

Except that thing at Inchy Weir, I never saw anything myself. But one evening I parted from Larry Cuniffe in the yard, and he went away through the path in Shanwalla and bid me goodnight. But two hours after, there he was back again in the yard, and bid me light a candle was in the stable. And he told me that when he got into Shanwalla a little chap about as high as his knee, but having a head as big as a man's body, came beside him and led him out of the path and round about, and at last it brought him to the limekiln, and there left him.

* * * * *

There is a dog now at Lismara, black and bigger than a natural dog, is about the roads at night. He wouldn't be there so long if any one had the courage to question him.

* * * * *

Stephen O'Donnell in Connemara told me that one time he shot a hare, and it turned into a woman, a neighbour of his own. And she had his butter taken for the last two years, but she begged and prayed for life on her knees, so he spared her, and she gave him back his butter after that, a double yield.

* * * * *

There was a woman at Glenlough when I was young could change herself into an eel. It was in Galway Workhouse Hospital she got the knowledge. A woman that had the knowledge of doing it by witchcraft asked her would she like to learn, and she said that she would, for she didn't know what it would bring on her. For every time she did it, she'd be in bed a fortnight after with all she'd go through. Sir Martin O'Neill when he was a young lad heard of it, and he got her into a room, and made her do it for him, and when he saw her change to an eel he got frightened and tried to get away, but she got between him and the door, and showed her teeth at him and growled. She wasn't the better of that for a fortnight after.

* * * * *

Indeed the porter did me great good, a good that I'd hardly like to tell you, not to make a scandal. Did I drink too much of it? Not at all, I have no fancy for it, but the nights seemed to be long. But this long time I am feeling a worm in my side that is as big as an eel, and there's more of them in it than that, and I was told to put sea-grass to it, and I put it to the side the other day, and whether it was that or the porter I don't know, but there's some of them gone out of it, and I think it's the porter.

* * * * *

I knew a woman near Clough was out milking her cow, and when she got up to go away she saw one of those worms coming after her, and it eight feet long, and it made a jump about eight yards after her. And I heard of a man went asleep by a wall one time, and one of them went down his throat and he never could get rid of it till a woman from the North came. And what she bade him do was to get a bit of old crock butter and to make a big fire on the hearth, and to put the butter in a half round on the hearth, and to get two men to hold him over it. And when the worms got the smell of the butter they jumped out of his mouth, seven or eight one after another, and it was in the fire they fell and they were burned, and that was an end of them.

* * * * *

As to hares, there's something queer about them, and there's some that it's dangerous to meddle with, and that can go into any form where they like. Sure, Mrs. Madden is after having a young son, and it has a harelip. But she says that she doesn't remember that ever she met a hare or looked at one. But if she did, she had a right to rip a small bit of the seam of her dress or her petticoat, and then it would have no power to hurt her at all.

* * * * *

Doran the herd says, he wouldn't himself eat the flesh of a hare. There's something unnatural about it. But as to them being unlucky, that may be all talk. But there's no doubt at all that a cow is found sometimes to be run dry, and the hare to be seen coming away from her.

* * * * *

One time when we lived just behind Gort my father was going to a fair. And it was the custom in those days to set out a great deal earlier than what it is now. So it was not much past midnight when he got up and went out the door, and the moon shining bright. And then he saw a hare walk in from the street and turn down by the garden, and another after it, and another and another till he counted twelve. And they all went straight one after another and vanished. And my father came in and shut the door, and never went out again till it was broad daylight.

* * * * *

There was a man watching the fire where two hares were cooking and he heard them whistling in the pot. And when the people of the house came home they were afraid to touch them, but the man that heard the whistling ate a good meal of them and was none the worse.

* * * * *

There was an uncle of my own lived over near Garryland. And one day himself and another man were going through the field, and they saw a hare, and the hound that was with them gave chase, and they followed.

And the hound was gaining on the hare and it made for a house, where the half-door was open. And the hound made a snap at it and touched it as it leaped the half-door. And when my uncle and the others came up, they could find no hare, but only an old woman in the house--and she bleeding. So there's no doubt at all but it was she took the form of a hare. My uncle spent too much money after, and gave up his land and went to America.

* * * * *

As to hares, there was a man out with his greyhound and it gave chase to a hare. And it made for a house, and went in at the window, and the hound just touched the leg. And when the man came up, he found an old woman in the house, and he asked leave to search the house and so he did in every place, but there was no hare to be seen. But when he came in she was putting a pot on the fire, so he said that he must look in the pot, and he took the cover off, and it was full of blood. And before the hound gave chase, he had seen the hare sucking the milk from a cow.

* * * * *

As to hares, there's no doubt at all there's some that's not natural. One night I was making pot-whiskey up in that hill beyond. Yes indeed, for three year, I did little but run to and fro to the still, and one December, I was making it for the Christmas and I was taken and got nine weeks in gaol for it--and £16 worth of whiskey spilled that night. But there's mean people in the world; and he did it for half a sovereign, and had to leave the country after and go to England. Well, one night, I was watching by the fire where it was too fierce, and it would have burned the oats. And over the hill and down the path came two hares and walked on and into the wood. And two more after that, and then by fours they came, and by sixes, and I'd want a slate and a pencil to count all I saw, and it just at sunrise. And some of them were as thin as thin. And there's no doubt at all that those were not _hares_ I saw that night.

* * * * *

As to hares, they're the biggest fairies of all. Last year the boys had one caught, and I put it in the pot to wash it and it after being skinned, and I heard a noise come from the pot--grr-grr--and nothing but cold water in it. And I ran to save my life, and I told the boys to have nothing to do with it, but they wouldn't mind me. And when they tried to eat it, and it boiled, they couldn't get their teeth into the flesh of it, and as for the soup, it was no different from potato-water.

* * * * *

The village of Lissavohalane has a great name for such things. And it's certain that once one night every year, in the month of November, all the cats of the whole country round gather together there and fight. My own two cats were nearly dead for days after it last year, and the neighbours told me the same of theirs.

* * * * *

There was a woman had a cat and she would feed it at the table before any other one; and if it did not get the first meat that was cooked, the hair would rise up as high as that. Well, there were priests came to dinner one day, and when they were helped the first, the hair rose up on the cat's back. And one of them said to the woman it was a queer thing to give in to a cat the way she did, and that it was a foolish thing to be giving it the first of the food. So when it heard that, it walked out of the house, and never came into it again.

* * * * *

There's something not right about cats. Steve Smith says he knew a keeper that shot one, and it went into a sort of a heap, and when he came near, it spoke, and he found it was some person, and it said it had to walk its seven acres. And there's some have heard them together at night talking Irish.

* * * * *

There was a hole over the door of the house that I used to live in, where Murphy's house is now, to let the smoke out, for there was no chimney. And one day a black cat jumped in at the hole, and stopped in the house and never left us for a year. But on the day year he came he jumped out again at the same hole and didn't go out of the door that was standing open. There was no mistake about it, it was the day year.

* * * * *