Celtic Lore & Legend (15 page)

There she was mounted, “Gee wup; gee wup; k’up; k’up; k’up.” The horse would not budge. Busy were Joan’s heels rattling against the ribs of the poor horse and thwack, thwack went a thorn stick over his tail, and by and by the old blind brute began to walk. Joan beat and kicked and k’uped and coaxed, the horse went but little faster until it got to the top of the hill.

Then away, away like the wind it went through Toldava Lanes, and it swelled out until the horse became as high as the tower. Over hedges and ditches, across all the corners that came into the road, on went the horse. Joan held on by the mane with both hands and shouted: “Woa! Woa! Woey!” until she could shout no longer.

At length they came to Toldava Moor: the “ugly brute” took right away down towards the fowling-pool when Joan fearing he might plunge in and drown her, let go her hold.

The wind was blowing so strong, and the pair were going so fast against it, that Joan was lifted off over the hindquarters of the horse and by luck she fell soft on the rushes at the very edge of the fowling-pool.

When she looked up, Joan saw whatever she had been riding going down to the “bottom” in a blaze of fire, and the devil riding after with lots of men, horses and hounds, all without heads. All the marketing was lost; and in getting through the bogs, Joan had her shoes dragged from her feet. At last she
got to Trove Bottoms and seeing the Bouge (sheep house), she clambered over the hedge as best she could, got into it and, laying herself down amongst the sheep, she soon fell fast asleep, thoroughly wearied out.

She would have slept for a week, I believe, if she had not been disturbed. But, according to custom on Sunday morning, the Squire and his boys came out to the Downs to span the sheep and there, greatly to their surprise, they found her.

They got the miserable woman home between them. The Squire charged her with having got drunk and said her eye had been scratched out by a furze-bush; but Joan never wandered from her story, and to the day of her death she said it to all young women, warning them never to meddle with “Fairy salve.”

[
Editor’s Note
: The folklore motif of the mad dash through the countryside appears in many Celtic legend, comprising the Wild Hunt in England and Brittany and a number of tales concerning the Pooka—the fairy horse—in Ireland, but this is one of the few known stories in which it is directly linked to the fairy ointment.]

All across the Celtic world, the fairies were regarded as another race. In Ireland they are referred to as “the Good folk,” “the Other Kind,” “the Other Crowd”; in Scotland they were known as “the Host” or “the Sluagh” (giving us our word
slogan
; sluagh gairn “the cry of the Host”). For the pagan peoples, the fairies were all powerful, and they were everywhere. As Christianity began to move slowly across the West however, debates arose as to what manner of beings the fairies were, particularly in Ireland where the fairy faith was strong. Did they have immortal souls, for example? Did they acknowledge God as Lord of the World? Or, as many suspected, were they instruments of the Devil? Actual Church teaching tended towards the latter view: that fairies were the servants of the Enemy of All Mankind and their ultimate aim was to lead God’s people astray and into wickedness. Trafficking with them was forbidden. And yet, speculation about their true nature persisted. Were they bound for Heaven, people asked? Several old tales attempt to answer that question. There were stories, for instance, of the fairies at
certain times of the year escorting the souls of the dead to the very Gates of Heaven, which they themselves were not allowed to enter. There are stories of fairy mothers attempting to get their supernatural offspring baptized by a Christian priest in order to gain them some hope of Salvation. Some people asserted that they were actually fallen angels, cast out of Heaven during the rebellion of Lucifer—not good enough to remain, but not evil enough to be condemned to Hell, and therefore unable to return to the place of their origin. This ancient tale, which queries the suitability of the fairies for Heaven, is particularly well known all over Ireland. There are several variations of the story; arguably the most famous one being given by Kate Ahern, the celebrated Limerick storyteller. This version together with commentary, however, comes from Thomas Crofton Croker’s (1798–1854) “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland” (first published in 1825) and closely parallels Kate Ahern’s story.

by Thomas Crofton Croker

It is said by those who ought to understand such things, that the good people, or the fairies, are some of the angels who were turned out of heaven, and who landed on their feet in this world, while the rest of their companions who had more sin to sink them went down further to a worse place. Be this as it may, there was a marry troop of fairies, dancing and playing all manner of wild tricks on a bright moonlit evening towards the end of September. The scene of their merriment was not far distant from Inchegeela, in the west of County Cork—a poor village although it had a barrack for soldiers; but great mountains and barren rocks, like those round about it, enough to strike poverty into any place: however fairies can have anything they want for wishing; poverty does not trouble them much and all their care is to seek out unfrequented rocks and places where it is not likely that any one will come to spoil their sport.

Two warriors share a terrifying tale of great valour.

On a nice green sod by the river’s side were the little fellows dancing in a ring as gaily as may be, with their red caps wagging about at every bound in the moonshine; and so light were these bounds that the lobes of dew, although they trembled under their feet were not disturbed by their capering. Thus did they carry on their gambols, spinning round and round and twirling and bobbing and diving and going through all manner of figures, until one of them chirped out:

“
Cease, cease with your drumming,

Here’s an end to all your mumming,

By my smell,

I can tell,

A priest this way is coming!
”

And every one of the fairies scampered off as hard as they could, concealing themselves under the green leaves of the lusmore, where if their little red caps should happen to peep out, they would only look like its crimson bells; and more hid themselves at the shady side of stones, and brambles and others under the bank of the river, and in holes and crannies of one kind or another.

The fairy speaker was not mistaken, for along the road, within view of the river, came Father Harrigan on his pony, thinking to himself that it was so late he would make an end of his journey at the first cabin he came to and, according to this determination, he stopped at the dwelling of Dermod Leary, lifted the latch and entered with “My blessing on all here.”

I need not say that Father Harrigan was a welcome guest wherever he went, for there was no man more pious or better beloved in the country. Now it was a great trouble to Dermod that he had nothing to offer his reverence for his supper as a relish to the potatoes which “the old woman”, for so Dermod called his wife though she was not much past twenty, had down boiling in the pot over the fire: he thought of the net which he had in the river, but as it had been there only a short time, the chances were against his finding a fish in it. “No matter”, thought Dermod “there can be no harm in stepping down to try and may be as I want the fish for the priest’s supper that it will be there before me.”

Down to the river side went Dermod, and he found in the net as fine a salmon as ever jumped out of the bright waters of “the spreading Lee”; but as he was going to take it out, the net was pulled from him, he could not tell how or by whom, and away got the salmon and went swimming along with the current as gaily as if nothing had happened.

Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake which the fish had left upon the water, shining like a line of silver in the moonlight, and then with an angry motion of his right hand, and a stamp of his foot, gave vent to his feelings by muttering: “May bitter bad luck attend you day and night for a blackguard schemer of a salmon, wherever you go! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, if there’s any shame in you, to give me the slip after this fashion! And I’m clear in my own mind you’ll come to no good for some sort of evil thing or other helped you—did I not feel it pull the net against me as strong as the devil himself”.

“That’s not true for you”, said one of the little fairies, who had scampered off at the approach of the priest, coming up to Dermod Leary, with a whole throng of companions at his heels, “there was only a dozen and a half of us pulling against you.”

Dermod gazed on the tiny speaker with wonder, who continued: “Make yourself no way uneasy about the priest’s
supper, for if you will go back and ask him one question from us, there will be as fine a supper as ever was put on a table spread out before him in less than no time”.

“I’ll have nothing at all to do with you,” replied Dermod, in a tone of determination: and after a pause, he added, “I’m much obliged to you for your offer, sir, but I know better than to sell myself to you or the like of you for a supper, and more than that, I know Father Harrigan has more regard for my soul than to wish me to pledge it for ever, out of regard of any thing you could put before him—and there’s an end to the matter”.

The little speaker, with a pertinacity not to be repulsed by Dermods manner, continued. “Will you ask the priest one civil question for us?”

Dermod considered for some time and he was right in doing so, but he thought that no one would come to harm out of asking a civil question. “I see no objection to do that same gentlemen,” said Dermod; “but I will have nothing in life to do with your supper,—mind that”.

“Then,” said the little speaking fairy, whilst the rest came crowding after him from all parts, “go and ask Father Harrigan to tell us whether our souls will be saved on the last day, like the souls of good Christians; and if you wish us well, bring back word what he says without delay.”

Away went Dermod to his cabin, where he found the potatoes thrown out on the table and his good woman handing the biggest of them all, a beautiful laughing red apple, smoking like a hard ridden horse on a frosty night, over to Father Harrigan.

“Please your reverence”, said Dermod after some hesitation, “may I make bold as to ask your honour one question?”

“What may that be?” asked Father Harrigan.

“Why then, begging your reverences’s pardon for my freedom it is, if the souls of the good people are to be saved at the last day?”

“Who bid you ask me that question Leary?” said the priest, fixing his eyes upon him very sternly, which Dermod could not stand before at all.

“I’ll tell no lies about the matter, and nothing in live but the truth”, said Dermod. “It was the good people themselves who sent me to ask the question, and they are in thousands down on the bank of the river waiting for me to go back with the answer”.

“Go back by all means”, said the priest, “and tell them if they want to know, to come here to me by themselves and I’ll answer that or any other question they are pleased to ask, with the greatest pleasure in life”.

Dermod accordingly returned to the fairies who came swarming around him to hear what the priest had said in reply; and Dermod spoke out among them like a bold man as he was; but when they heard that they must go to the priest, away they fled, some here and more there; some this way and more that, whisking by poor Dermod so fast and in such numbers, as he was quite bewildered.

When he came to himself, which was not for a long time, back he went to his cabin and ate his dry potatoes along with Father Harrigan, who made quite light of the thing; but Dermod could not help thinking it a mighty hard case that his reverence, whose words had the power to banish the fairies at such a rate; should have some sort of relish to his supper, and that the fine salmon he had in the net should have got away from him in such a manner.

It is curious to observe the similarity of legends, and of ideas concerning imaginary beings, among nations that for ages have had scarcely any communication. In the 4th vol of the
Danske Folkesagan
or Danish Popular Legends lately collected by Mr. Thiele, the following story occurs which has a great resemblance to the adventure of Dermod Leary: “A priest was going in a carriage one night from Kjeslunde to Roeskilde,
in the island of Zealand and on his way passed by a hill, in which there was music and dancing and other merry-making going on. Some dwarfs suddenly jumped out of the hill, stopped the carriage and asked, “Where are you going?” “To the chapter-house” said the priest. They then asked him whether he thought they could be saved; to which he replied, that at present he could not tell: on which they begged him to meet with them with an answer that day twelvemonth. Notwithstanding, the next time the coachman drove that way, an accident befell him, for he was thrown on the level ground and severely hurt. When the priest returned at the end of the year, they asked him the same question to which he answered “No you are all damned!” and scarcely had he spoken the word, when the whole hill was enveloped in a bright flame.”