Celtic Lore & Legend (16 page)

[
Editor’s Note
: Not only are there variants of the tale in Denmark, but the story also has various permutations all over Ireland. In the County Down, for example, a fairy approaches a serving man to inquire from a priest if there is any hope of salvation for the fairy kind. The servant conveys a reply from the cleric, which states that Christ died for all of Adam’s children and if there is but one drop of Adam’s blood in fairy veins, then they shall be saved and shall see Heaven. This reply sends the fairy away in great distress. It was generally accepted that the fairies were not covered by Christ’s sacrifice and were so condemned to Hell on the great Day of Judgement.]

As did many other ancient peoples, the Celts viewed borders and thresholds with suspicion and fear. Thresholds and crossings were places where dark powers—many inimical to Mankind—tended to gather. Even the transition of one time-period into another, such as at midnight or noonday, was fraught with danger. Celtic lore is filled with stories of strange happenings that occur as one day merges into another, or morning moves into afternoon. The thresholds of houses were also sinister places. In some areas of rural Ireland, for example, open scissors or naked iron blades were left under doormats to ward away witches, fairies, or the returning dead who were supposed to congregate there.

If thresholds and crossings were supernaturally troublesome places, crossroads were twice as dangerous. At crossroads, ghosts and fairies thronged, and travelers had to be wary (or adequately protected by holy charms) before approaching them.

Nowhere was the lore of crossroads more prevalent than in Brittany. Here, at the crossing of trails and paths, such spectral terrors as ghouls, Midnight Washerwomen (who washed the shrouds of those who were about to die), and Night Dancers (fairies who often danced to tunes unheard by mortal ears) waited to waylay passersby. To those who ignored them, they could mete out awful punishment, but to those who showed proper respect they could dispense largesse.

Variants of the following Breton story, which comes from the rural Breton folktales collected by F. M. Luzel during the mid-19th century, can be found all over the Celtic world. Even in Brittany itself another variation, “The Two Hunchbacks and the Dwarves,” can still be found, and in Ireland it is known as “The Legend of Knockgrafton.” It also contains many elements of a traditional fairy-tale.

Listen if you wish

Here’s a pretty little tale,

In which there’s never a lie,

Except perhaps a word or two.

collected by F.M. Luzel

Once there was a rich widow who married a rich widower.

The man had a pretty well behaved daughter by his previous wife called Levenes. The widow also had a daughter by her first husband, called Margot, who was bad and ugly.

The husband’s daughter, as so often happens in such cases, was detested by her stepmother. They lived in a fine manor house at Guernaour, near Coathuel. At the crossroads at Croazann-neud, which is on the road going from Guernaour
to the village of Plouaret, the night dancers were often seen in those days, or so they say, and whoever passed them as they danced in circles in the moonlight and did not wish to dance with them, became a victim of their bad humour.

The Lady of Guernaour knew this well and one Sunday evening, after supper, she said to Levenes:

“Go and fetch my book of hours, which I’ve left in church beneath my pew.”

“Yes mother” replied the young girl.

And she went alone, although night had already fallen

It was a clear moonlit night. When she reached the crossroads, she saw a crowd of little men who were dancing in a circle holding hands. She was afraid, poor child, and thought of going back, but her stepmother would grumble and perhaps beat her so she resolved to pass them. One of the dancers ran after her and said:

“Would you like to dance with us pretty girl?”

“Willingly” she replied, trembling.

And she joined in the circle and danced.

Then one of the dancers said to the others.

“What present should we give this charming girl for dancing with us?”

“She’s quite pretty, but she should become even prettier,” said one of the dancers.

“And with each word she speaks, a pearl should fall from her mouth” said a second.

“And everything she touches with her hand should change to gold if she wishes it to” said a third.

“Yes, yes,” cried all the others together.

“Many thanks sirs, I’m much obliged,” she said with a curtsy.

Then she went on her way.

When she reached the village, she went to the sacristan’s for the church was locked, and told him why she had come.

The sacristan went with her and unlocked the door. She touched the door with her hand and it became gold and with every word she spoke, a pearl fell from her mouth. The sacristan could not believe his eyes and was dumbfounded. He picked up the pearls and put them in his pocket. Levenes went inside, took her stepmother’s book from her pew, and went straight back home.

The night dancers were no longer at the crossroads when she passed by.

“Here’s your book of hours mother” she said giving her a golden book.

“What” she asked her, surprised to see her unharmed, “you didn’t see the night dancers?”

“Yes I did” she replied, “I saw them at the crossroads.”

“And they didn’t hurt you?”

“No, quite the opposite; they’re very pleasant, these little men, they invited me to dance with them”

“And did you?”

“Yes I did”

“That’s good, go to bed”

The stepmother had noticed her stepdaughter’s extraordinary beauty and also the pearls that fell from her mouth each time she spoke, and the way her book of hours had changed to gold, but she pretended not to notice but inside herself she thought:

“Good! I know what to do. Tomorrow night I’ll send my own daughter to the night dancers. These little men have inexhaustible treasures of gold and pearls hidden underground and amongst the rocks”

Next day, at the same time, she said to her daughter Margot.

“Margot, you must go and fetch me another book of hours from my pew in the church”.

“No, I won’t go,” replied Margot

“I want you to and you’re going”, replied the mother, “and when you pass by the crossroads if you see the night dancers and they invite you to dance with them, have no fear; they’ll do you no harm, but quite the contrary, they’ll give you a fine present.”

Margot answered rudely and her mother had to threaten her with a stick to make her go.

When she reached the crossroads, the night dancers were dancing in circles in the moonlight. One of them ran up to Margot and politely invited her to dance with them.

“Shit,” she replied.

“What present should we give this girl for the way she has welcomed our proposition?” said the dwarf to his companions.

“She’s quite ugly, but she could become uglier yet,” replied one of them.

“She should have only one eye in the middle of her head,” said another.

“A toad shall fall out of her mouth with every word she speaks, and everything she touches should turn dirty”, said a third.

“That’s what should happen,” cried all the others in a chorus.

Then Margot went to church, took her mother’s book from her pew and went back home.

“Here’s your book,” she said, throwing it at her, all dirty and smelly.

And at the same time three toads fell from her mouth.

“What’s happened to you my poor child?” cried the mother, upset. “What a mess you’ve come back in!...... Who did this to you? Did you see the night dancers, and did you dance with them?”

“Me?. . . . . Dance with such ugly creatures! Shit on them!”

And again she spat as many toads as the words.

“Go to bed daughter,” said her mother, furious at what she saw, and promising herself revenge on Levenes.

But fortunately, the stepdaughter was married shortly afterwards, to a young gentleman of the land who took her to his castle, and the stepmother and her daughter almost died of spite and jealousy.

To the ancient Celts, death meant something far different than it does today. Nowadays we consider it to be the end of our involvement in the affairs of the world, but for them it was no more than a transition from one sphere of existence to another. From a place known as the Otherworld, a sort of halfway house between this world and some half-imagined Eternity, the dead watched the lives of their descendants with a mixture of concern and pride. And they had the power to come back into the world to carry out certain tasks on their descendants’ behalf or to complete business that they’d left unfinished when alive. These, of course, were not the wispy, ethereal phantoms of Victorian ghost-lore. These were the substantial, corporeal entities that could eat, drink, and work as they had done when alive. For the most part, many of the dead returned for altruistic motives to warn, advise, or reward their descendants, but occasionally some came back from the grave with a more malign purpose. They could, for example, punish their descendants for some slight against them. Indeed, this was
what the Church itself taught. If congregations were remiss in remembering their loved ones in Masses for the dead—a regular source of income for local priests, then their ancestors, condemned to another time in Purgatory, would return to take vengeance on their neglect. Thus the seeds for an idea of the hostile dead were sewn. The following story from Ireland, taken from Jeremiah Curtin’s (1835–1906)
Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World from Oral Tradition in South-West Munster
(1895), reflects this popular belief and presents a cadaver so terrible that it might have come from a modern horror story.

by Jeremiah Curtin

There was a young man in the parish of Drimalegue, county Cork, who was courting three girls at one time and he didn’t know which one of them would he take, they had equal fortunes and any of them was a pleasing to him as any other. One day, when he was coming home from the fair with his two sisters, the sisters began:

“Well John” said one of them “why don’t you get married? Why don’t you take either Mary, or Peggy, or Kate?”

“I can’t tell you that” said John, “‘till I find which of them has the best wish for me.”

“How will you know?” asked the other.

“I will tell you that as soon as any person will die in the parish.”

In three weeks time from that day an old man died. John went to the wake and then to the funeral. While they were burying the corpse in the graveyard John went and stood near
a tomb which was next to the grave and when all were going away after burying the old man, he remained standing a while by himself, as if thinking of something, then he put his black-thorn stick on top of the tomb, stood a while longer, and on going from the graveyard left the stick behind him. He went home and ate his supper. After supper, John went to a neighbour’s house where young people used to meet of an evening, and the three girls happened to be there that time. John was very quiet so that every one noticed him.

“What is troubling you this evening John?” asked one of the girls.

“Oh I am sorry for my beautiful blackthorn,” said he.

“Did you lose it?”

“I did not,” said John “but I left it on the top of the tomb next to the grave of the man who was buried today and whichever of you three will go for it is the woman I’ll marry. Well Mary, will you go for my stick?” he asked.

“Faith then, I will not,” said Mary.

“Well Peggy, will you go?”

“If I were without a man for ever” said Peggy “I wouldn’t go”

“Well Kate” said he to the third, “Will you go for my stick? If you go I’ll marry you”

“Stand to your word” said Kate “and I’ll bring the stick”

“Believe me, that I will” said John

Kate left the company behind her and went for the stick. The graveyard was three miles away and the walk was a long one. Kate came to the place at last and made out the tomb by the fresh grave. When she had her hand on the blackthorn, a voice called from the tomb:

“Leave the stick where it is and open the tomb for me”

Kate began to tremble and was greatly in dread but something was forcing her to open the tomb—she couldn’t help herself.

“Take the lid off now,” said the dead man when Kate had the door open and was inside the tomb “and take me out of this—take me on your back”

Afraid to refuse, she took the lid from the coffin and raised the dead man on her back and walked on in the way he directed. She walked about the distance of a mile. The load, being very heavy, was near breaking her back and killing her. She walked half a mile further and came to a village; the houses were at the side of the road.

“Take me to the first house” said the dead man.

She took him.

“Oh we cannot go in here,” said he when they came near. “The people have clean water inside, and they have holy water too. Take me to the next house.”

She went to the next house.

“We cannot go in there,” said he, when they stopped in front of the door. “They have clean water, and there is holy water as well.”

She went to the third house.

“Go in there” said the dead man. “There is neither clean water nor holy water in this place; we can stop in it”

They went in.

“Bring a chair now and put me sitting at the side of the fire. Then find me something to eat and to drink”

She placed him in a chair by the hearth, searched the house and found a dish of oatmeal and brought it. “I have nothing to give you to drink but dirty water” said she.

“Bring me a dish and a razor”

She brought the dish and the razor.

“Come now” said he “to the room above.”

They went up to the room, where three young men, sons of the man of the house, were sleeping in bed, and Kate had to hold the dish while the dead man was drawing their blood.