Celtic Fairy Stories

• Initial Mentions
• Stories from Ireland

Initial Mentions

Dr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz

The Collector and Author

From His Dedication

Stories from Ireland

In Ireland

I can bear witness to the fidelity with which Mr. Wentz has done his work on Irish soil, for to a great number of the beliefs which he records I have myself heard parallels, sometimes I have heard near variants of the stories, sometimes the identical stories. So we may, I think, unhesitatingly accept his subject-matter. . . .

Different parts of the Irish soil cherish different bodies of supernatural beings. The North of Ireland believes in beings unknown in the South, and North-East Leinster has spirits unknown to the West.

DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D., D. Litt., M.R.I.A. (An Craoibhin Aoibhinn), President of the Gaelic League; author of A Literary History of Ireland, etc. - Written in September 1910.

THE FAIRY FOLK OF TARA

Throughout Ireland there are many ancient, often prehistoric, earth-works or tumuli, which are popularly called forts, raths, or duns, and in folk-belief these are considered fairy hills or the abodes of various orders of fairies. . . . we shall see how important and varied a part these earthworks play in the Irish Fairy-Faith (cf. chapter viii, on Archaeology).

"Whenever the good people play, you hear their music all through the field as plain as can be; and it is the grandest kind of music. It may last half the night, but once day comes, it ends." - John Graham, an old man over seventy years of age, who has lived near Tara most of his life

"People killed and murdered in war stay on earth till their time is up, and they are among the good people. - John Graham

"Because there are so many spirits knocking (going) about they must appear to some people. The old folk saw the good people here on the Hill a hundred times, and they'd always be talking about them. The good people can see everything, and you dare not meddle with them. They live in raths, and their houses are in them. The opinion always was that they are a race of spirits, for they can go into different forms, and can appear big as well as little." - John Graham

Recordings from Kilmessan, near Tara

"There is said to be a whole tribe of little red men living in Glen Odder, between Ringlestown and Tara; and on long evenings in June they have been heard. There are other breeds or castes of fairies; and it seems to me, when I recall our ancient traditions, that some of these fairies are of the Fir Bolgs, some of the Tuatha De Danann, and some of the Milesians. All of them have been seen serenading round the western slope of Tara, dressed in ancient Irish costumes. Unlike the little red men, these fairy races are warlike and given to making invasions. Long processions of them have been seen going round the King's Chair (an earthwork on which the Kings of Tara are said to have been crowned); and they then would appear like soldiers of ancient Ireland in review." - John Boylin

"We were told as children, that, as soon as night fell, the fairies from Rath Ringlestown would form in a procession, across Tara road, pass round certain bushes which have not been disturbed for ages, and join the gangkena (?) or host of industrious folk, the red fairies. We were afraid, and our nurses always brought us home before the advent of the fairy procession. One of the passes used by this procession happened to be between two mud-wall houses; and it is said that a man went out of one of these houses at the wrong time, for when found he was dead: the fairies had taken him because he interfered with their procession." - John Boylin

"A man named Caffney cut as fuel to boil his pot of potatoes some of these undisturbed bushes round which the fairies pass. When he put the wood under the pot, though it spat fire, and lire-sparkles would come out of it, it would not burn. The man pined away gradually. In six months after cutting the fairy-bushes, he was dead. Just before he died, he told his experiences with the wood to his brother, and his brother told me . - John Boylin

"According to the local belief, fairies are the spirits of the departed. Tradition says that Hugh O'Neil in the sixteenth century, after his march to the south, encamped his army on the Rath or Fort of Ringlestown, to be assisted by the spirits of the mighty dead who dwelt within this rath." - John Boylin

"Rose Carroll was possessed by a fairy-spirit. It is known that her father held communion with evil spirits, and it appears that they often assisted him. The Carrolls' house was built at the end of a fairy fort, and part of it. was scooped out of this fort. Rose grew so peculiar that her folks locked her up. After two years she was able to shake off the fairy possession by being taken to Father Robinson's sisters, and then to an old witch-woman in Drogheda." - John Boylin

In the Valley of the Boyne

How the Shoemaker's Daughter became the Queen of Tara

The "good people" of the Boyne are little men usually dressed in red.

The "Good People" at New Grange

From an Irish Priest

Knock Ma Fairies

Safeguards against Fairies

Milk and Butter for Fairies

Crossing a Stream, and Fairies

Fairy Preserves

Fairy Control over Crops

November Eve and Fairies

Fairies as Flies

Those who Return from Faerie

A Galway Piper

According to our next witness, Steven Ruan, a piper of Galway, with whom I have often talked, there is one class of fairies "who are nobody else than the spirits of men and women who once lived on earth'; and the banshee is a dead friend, relative, or ancestor who appears to give a warning. - According to Steven Ruan

A Fairy Dog

An Old Piper in Fairyland

From "Old Patsy" of Aranmore

Aranmore Fairies

A Fairy Beating — in a Dream

Where Fairies Live

The Testimony of a Roman Catholic Theologian

Of Magic and Place-spirits

Passed on by the Town Clerk of Tuam

Fairies of the Tuam Country

Famine of 1846-7 caused by Fairies

Fairyland and the Seeress

Fairies on May Day

The Three Fairy Drops

Food of Fairies

Fairy Warfare

County Sligo, and What a Peasant Informed

On September 8, 1909, about a year after this testimony was given, Mr. —, our seer-witness, at his own home near Grange, told to me again the same essential facts concerning his psychical experiences as during my first interview with him, and even repeated word for word the expressions the "gentry" used in communicating with him. Therefore I feel that he is thoroughly sincere in his beliefs and descriptions, whatever various readers may think of them. As his neighbours said to me about him— and I interviewed a good many of them — "Some give in to him and some do not'; but they always spoke of him with respect, though a few naturally consider him eccentric. At the time of our second meeting (which gave me a chance to revise the evidence as first taken down) Mr. ---- made this additional statement: "The gentry do not tell all their secrets, and I do not understand many things about them, nor can I be sure that everything I tell concerning them is exact." - A "Seer-Witness"

Ben Bulbin is the very place where the "gentry" have their chief abode. Even on its broad level summit, for it is a high square table-land like a mighty cube of rock set down upon the earth by some antediluvian god, there are treacherous holes, wherein more than one hunter may have been lost for ever, penetrating to unknown depths; and by listening one can bear the tides from the ocean three or four miles away surging in and out through ancient subterranean channels, connected with these holes. In the neighbouring mountains there are long caverns which no man has dared to penetrate to the end, and even dogs, it is said, have been put in them never to emerge, or else to come out miles away.
      One day when the heavy white fog-banks hung over Ben Bulbin and its neighbours, and there was a weird almost-twilight at midday over the purple heather bog-lands at their base, and the rain was falling, I sat with my friend before a comfortable fire of fragrant turf in his cottage and heard about the "gentry" – W. Y. E.-W.

Encounters with the "Gentry"

'Gentry" Protection

'Gentry" Stations

'Gentry" Control Over Human Affairs

The "Gentry" Described

I have been told by a friend in California . . . that there exist in certain parts of that state, notably in the Yosemite Valley . . . invisible races exactly comparable to the "gentry" of this Ben Bulbin country such as our seer-witness describes them and as other seers in Ireland have described them, and quite like the "people of peace" as described by Kirk, the seventh son, in his Secret Commonwealth (see this study, p. 85 n.). These California races are said to exist now, as the Irish and Scotch invisible races are said to exist now, by seers who can behold them; and . . . are described as a distinct order of beings who have never been in physical embodiments. . . . Equally with their Celtic relatives they are described as a warlike race with more than human powers over physical nature, and as able to subject or destroy men. - W. Y. E.-W.

Recordings from Grange

The Flax-Seller's Return from Faerie

A Wife Recovered from the "Gentry"

A Tailor's Testimony

The Lost Bride

The Invisible Island

A Dream

Patrick remarked about dreams that "People believe themselves to be with the dead in dreams."

The story about Father Patrick and Father Dominick

A Druid Enchantment

It happened that I had in my pocket a fossil, picked out of the neighbouring sea-cliff rocks, which are very rich in fossils. I showed this to Pat to ascertain if what he had had in his hand looked anything like it, and he at once said "No".

The Fairy Tribes Classified

Bridget O'Conner's Testimony

The Irish Legend of the Dead

A Midwife Story

The Spirit World at Carns

A "Gentry" Medium

Here we have, clearly enough, a case of "mediumship", or of communication with the dead, as in modern Spiritualism. And the following story, which like this last has numerous Irish parallels, illustrates an ancient and world-wide animistic belief, that in sickness — as in dreams — the soul goes out of the body as at death, and meets the dead in their own fairy world.

The Clairvoyance of Mike Farrell

The "Gentry" Army

The Seership of Dan Quinn

Under the Shadow of Ben Bulbin and Ben Waskin

The "Gentry" Huntsmen

The "Taking" of the Turf-Cutter

"A man was cutting turf out on the side of Ben Bulbin when a strange man came to him and said, "You have cut enough turf for today. You had better stop and go home."
      The turf-cutter looked around in surprise, and in two seconds the strange man had disappeared; but he decided to go home. And as soon as he was home, such a feeling came over him that he could not tell whether he was alive or dead. Then he took to his bed and never rose again."

Hearing the " Gentry" Music

"One dark night, about one o'clock, myself and another young man were passing along the road up there round Ben Bulbin, when we heard the finest kind of music. All sorts of music seemed to be playing. We could see nothing at all, though we thought we heard voices like children's. It was the music of the gentry we heard." - William Barber

My next friend to testify is Pat Ruddy, eighty years old, one of the most intelligent and prosperous farmers living beside Ben Bulbin. He greeted me in the true Irish way, but before we could come to talk about fairies his good wife induced me to enter another room where she had secretly prepared a great feast spread out on a fresh white cloth, while Pat and myself had been exchanging opinions about America and Ireland. When I returned to the kitchen the whole family were assembled round the blazing turf fire, and Pat was soon talking about the "gentry"

Seeing the "Gentry" Army

An Ossianic Fragment

I asked Pat if he had ever heard the old people talk about Dermot and Grania, and he replied: "To be sure I have. Dermot and Grania used to live in these parts. Dermot stole Finn MacCoul's sister, and had to flee away. He took with him a bag of sand and a bunch of heather; and when he was in the mountains he would put the bag of sand under his head at night, and then tell everybody he met that he had slept on the sand (the sea-shore); and when on the sand he would use the bunch of heather for a pillow, and say he had slept on the heather (the mountains). And so nobody ever caught him at all."

A Schoolmaster's Testimony

With the Irish Mystics in the Sidhe World

(1) One of the commonest legends among all Celtic peoples is about some lost city . . . or some lost land or island . . .; and we can be quite sure that if, as some scientists now begin to think . . . Atlantis once existed, its disappearance must have left from a prehistoric epoch a deep impress on folk-memory. [Can we be quite sure?] . . . The real evolutionary process, granting the disappearance of this island continent, would seem rather to have been one of localizing and anthropomorphosing very primitive Aryan and pre-Aryan beliefs about a heaven-world . . . [Is that so?] [From Dr. Evans-Wentz' note on p. 333]

An Irish Mystic's Testimony

Visions

Otherworlds

Classification of the Sidhe

Conditions of Seership

The Shining Beings

The Opalescent Beings

Stature of the Sidhe

The worlds of the Sidhe

Nature of the Sidhe

Influence of the Sidhe on Men

Water Beings Described

Wood Beings Described

Reproduction and Immortality of the Sidhe

Q.Does sexual differentiation seem to prevail among the Sidhe races?
      A. "I have seen forms both male and female, and forms which did not suggest sex at all."

Sidhe and Human Life

Q. (1) is it possible, as the ancient Irish thought, that certain of the higher Sidhe beings have entered or could enter our plane of life by submitting to human birth?
      (2) On the other hand, do you consider it possible for men in trance or at death to enter the Sidhic world?
      A. (1) "I cannot say." (2) "Yes; both in trance and after death. I think any one who thought much of the Sidhe during his life and who saw them frequently and brooded on them would likely go to their world after death."
     

Social Organization of the Sidhe

Q. You refer to chieftain-like or prince-like beings, and to a king among water beings; is there therefore definite social organization among the various Sidhe orders and races, and if so, what is its nature?
      A. "I cannot say about a definite social organization. I have seen beings who seemed to command others, and who were held in reverence. This implies an organization, but whether it is instinctive like that of a hive of bees, or consciously organized like human society, I cannot say."

Lower Sidhe as Nature Elementals

Q. You speak of the water-being king as an elemental king; do you suggest thereby a resemblance between lower Sidhe orders and what mediaeval mystics called elementals?
      A. "The lower orders of the Sidhe are, I think, the nature elementals of the mediaeval mystics."

Nourishment of the Higher Sidhe

Q. The water beings as you have described them seem to be nourished and kept alive by something akin to electrical fluids; do the higher orders of the Sidhe seem to be similarly nourished?
      A. "They seemed to me to draw their life out of the Soul of the World."

Collective Visions of Sidhe Beings

Q. Have you had visions of the various Sidhe beings in company with other persons?
      A. "I have had such visions on several occasions."

And this statement has been confirmed to me by three participants in such collective visions, who separately at different times have seen in company with our witness the same vision at the same moment. On another occasion, on the Greenlands at Rosses Point, County Sligo, the same Sidhe being was seen by our present witness and a friend with him, also possessing the faculty of seership, at a time when the two percipients were some little distance apart, and they hurried to each other to describe the being, not knowing that the explanation was mutually unnecessary. I have talked with both percipients so much, and know them so intimately that I am fully able to state that as percipients they fulfil all necessary pathological conditions required by psychologists in order to make their evidence acceptable.

Parallel Evidence as to the Sidhe Races

In general, the rare evidence above recorded from the Irish seer could be paralleled by similar evidence from at least two other reliable Irish people, with whom also I have been privileged to discuss the Fairy-Faith. One is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the other is the wife of a well-known Irish historian; and both of them testify to having likewise had collective visions of Sidhe beings in Ireland.
      This is what Mr. William B. Yeats wrote to me, while this study was in progress, concerning the Celtic Fairy Kingdom: "I am certain that it exists, and will some day be studied as it was studied by Kirk (1)."

(1) Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, who wrote The Secret Commonwealth (see this study, p. 85 n.).

Independent Evidence from the Sidhe World One of the most remarkable discoveries of our Celtic researches has been that the native population of the Rosses Point country, or, as we have called it, the Sidhe world, in most essentials, and, what is most important, by independent folk-testimony, substantiate the opinions and statements of the educated Irish mystics to whom we have just referred, as follows:

John Conway's Vision of the "Gentry"

In Upper Rosses Point, Mrs. J. Conway told me this about the "gentry":
      "John Conway, my husband, who was a pilot by profession, in watching for in-coming ships used to go up on the high hill among the Fairy Hills; and there he often saw the gentry going down the hill to the strand. One night in particular he recognized them as men and women of the gentry and they were as big as any living people. It was late at night about forty years ago."

Ghosts and Fairies

When first I introduced myself to Owen Conway, in his bachelor quarters, a cosy cottage at Upper Rosses Point, he said that Mr. W. B. Yeats and other men famous in Irish literature had visited him to hear about the fairies, and that though he knew very little about the fairies he nevertheless always likes to talk of them. Then Owen began to tell me about a man's ghost which both he and Bran Reggan had seen at different times on the road to Sligo, then about a woman's ghost which he and other people had often seen near where we were, and then about the exorcizing of a haunted house in Sligo some sixty years ago by Father McGowan, who as a result died soon afterwards, apparently having been killed by the exorcized spirits. Finally, I heard from him the following anecdotes about the fairies:
     

A Stone Wall overthrown by "Fairy" Agency

"Nothing is more certain than that there are fairies. The old folks always thought them the fallen angels. At the back of this house the fairies had their pass. My neighbour started to build a cow-shed, and one wall abutting on the pass was thrown down twice, and nothing but the fairies ever did it. The third time the wall was built it stood."

Fairies passing through Stone Walls

"Where MacEwen's house stands was a noted fairy place. Men in building the house saw fairies on horses coming across the spot, and the stone walls did not stop them at all."

Seeing the "Gentry"

"A cousin of mine, who was a pilot, once went to the watch-house up there on the Point to take his brother's place; and he saw ladies coming towards him as he crossed the Greenlands. At first he thought they were coming from a dance, but there was no dance going then, and, if there had been, no human beings dressed like them and moving as they were could have come from any part of the globe, and in so great a party, at that hour of the night. Then when they passed him and he saw how beautiful they were, he knew them for the gentry women."
      "Michael Reddy (our next witness) saw the gentry down on the Greenlands in regimentals like an army, and in daylight. He was a young man at the time, and had been sent out to see if any cattle were astray."
      And this is what Michael Reddy, of Rosses Point, now a sailor on the ship Tartar, sailing from Sligo to neighbouring ports on the Irish coast, asserts in confirmation of Owen Conway's statement about him:
      "I saw the gentry on the strand (at Lower Rosses Point) about forty years ago. It was afternoon. I first saw one of them like an officer pointing at me what seemed a sword; and when I got on the Greenlands I saw a great company of gentry, like soldiers, in red, laughing and shouting. Their leader was a big man, and they were ordinary human size. As a result [of this vision] I took to my bed and lay there for weeks. Upon another occasion, late at night, I was with my mother milking cows, and we heard the gentry all round us talking, but could not see them."

Going to the "Gentry" through Death, Dreams, or Trance

John O'Conway, one of the most reliable citizens of Upper Rosses Point, offers the following testimony concerning the "gentry": "In olden times the gentry were very numerous about forts and here on the Greenlands, but rarely seen. They appeared to be the same as any living men. When people died it was said the gentry took them, for they would afterwards appear among the gentry."
      "We had a ploughman of good habits who came in one day too late for his morning's work, and he in excuse very seriously said, "May be if you had travelled all night as much as I have you wouldn't talk. I was away with the gentry, and save for a lady I couldn't have been back now. I saw a long hall full of many people. Some of them I knew and some I did not know. The lady saved me by telling me to eat no food there, however enticing it might be."
      "A young man at Drumcliffe was taken [in a trance state], and was with the Daoine Maithe some time, and then got back. Another man, whom I knew well, was haunted by the gentry for a long time, and he often went off with them" (apparently in a dream or trance state).

Sidhe Music

The story which now follows substantiates the testimony of cultured Irish seers that at Lower Rosses Point the music of the Sidhe can be heard:
      "Three women were gathering shell-fish, in the month of March, on the lowest point of the strand (Lower Rosses or Wren Point) when they heard the most beautiful music. They set to work to dance with it, and danced themselves sick. They then thanked the invisible musician and went home."

The Testimony of a College Professor

Our next witness is the Rev. Father — a professor in a Catholic college in West Ireland, and most of his statements are based on events which happened among his own acquaintances and relatives, and his deductions are the result of careful investigation:

Apparitions from Fairyland

"Some twenty to thirty years ago, on the borders of County Roscommon near County Sligo, according to the firm belief of one of my own relatives, a sister of his was taken by the fairies on her wedding-night, and she appeared to her mother afterwards as an apparition. She seemed to want to speak, but her mother, who was in bed at the time, was thoroughly frightened, and turned her face to the wall. The mother is convinced that she saw this apparition of her daughter, and my relative thinks she might have saved her.
      "This same relative who gives it as his opinion that his sister was taken by the fairies, at a different time saw the apparition of another relative of mine who also, according to similar belief, had been taken by the fairies when only five years old. The child-apparition appeared beside its living sister one day while the sister was going from the yard into the house, and it followed her in. It is said the child was taken because she was such a good girl." "As children we were always afraid of fairies, and were taught to say " God bless them! God bless them!" whenever we heard them mentioned.
      "In our family we always made it a point to have clean water in the house at night for the fairies.
      "If anything like dirty water was thrown out of doors after dark it was necessary to say " Hugga, hugga salach!" as a warning to the fairies not to get their clothes wet.
      "Untasted food, like milk, used to be left on the table at night for the fairies. If you were eating and food fell from you, it was not right to take it back, for the fairies wanted it. Many families are very serious about this even now. The luckiest thing to do in such cases is to pick up the food and eat just a speck of it and then throw the rest away to the fairies.
      "Ghosts and apparitions are commonly said to live in isolated thorn-bushes, or thorn-trees. Many lonely bushes of this kind have their ghosts. For example, there is Fanny's Bush, Sally's Bush, and another I know of in County Sligo near Boyle."

Personal Opinions

"The fairies of any one race are the people of the preceding race—the Fomors for the Fir Boigs, the Fir Boigs for the Dananns, and the Dananns for us. The old races died. Where did they go? They became spirits — and fairies. Second-sight gave our race power to see the inner world. When Christianity came to Ireland the people had no definite heaven. Before, their ideas about the other world were vague. But the older ideas of a spirit world remained side by side with the Christian ones, and being preserved in a subconscious way gave rise to the fairy world."

Recordings from County Roscommon

Our next place for investigation will be the ancient province of the great fairy-queen Meave, who made herself famous by leading against Cuchulainn the united armies of four of the five provinces of Ireland, and all on account of a bull which she coveted. And there could be no better part of it to visit than Roscommon, which Dr. Douglas Hyde has made popular in Irish folk-lore.

Dr. Hyde and the Leprechaun

One day while I was privileged to be at Ratra, Dr. Hyde invited me to walk with him in the country. After we had visited an old fort which belongs to the "good people", and had noticed some other of their haunts in that part of Queen Meave's realm, we entered a straw-thatched cottage on the roadside and found the good house-wife and her fine-looking daughter both at home. In response to Dr. Hyde's inquiries, the mother stated that one day, in her girlhood, near a hedge from which she was gathering wild berries, she saw a leprechaun in a hole under a stone:
      "He wasn't much larger than a doll, and he was most perfectly formed, with a little mouth and eyes."
      Nothing was told about the little fellow having a money-bag, although the woman said people told her afterwards that she would have been rich if she had only had sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance. (1)

(1) A Little Fellow with a Money Bag

"In going from East Ireland to Galway, during the summer of 1908, I passed through the country near Mullingar, where there was then great excitement over a leprechaun which had been appearing to school-children and to many of the country-folk. I talked with some of the people as I walked through part of County Meath about this leprechaun, and most of them were certain that there could be such a creature showing itself; and I noticed, too, that they were all quite anxious to have a chance at the money-bag, if they could only see the little fellow with it. I told one good-natured old Irishman at Ballywillan — where I stopped over night — as we sat round his peat fire and pot of boiling potatoes, that the leprechaun was reported as captured by the police in Mullingar.
      "Now that couldn't be, at all," he said instantly, "for everybody knows the leprechaun is a spirit and can't be caught by any blessed policeman, though it is likely one might get his gold if they got him cornered so he had no chance to run away. But the minute you wink or take your eyes off the little devil, sure enough he is gone."

The Death Coach

The next tale the mother told was about the death coach which used to pass by the very house we were in. Every night until after her daughter was born she used to rise up on her elbow in bed to listen to the death coach passing by. It passed about midnight, and she could hear the rushing, the tramping of the horses, and most beautiful singing, just like fairy music, but she could not understand the words. Once or twice she was brave enough to open the door and look out as the coach passed, but she could never see a thing, though there was the noise and singing. One time a man had to wait on the roadside to let the fairy horses go by, and he could hear their passing very clearly, and couldn't see one of them.
      When we got home, Dr. Hyde told me that the fairies of the region are rarely seen. The people usually say that they hear or feel them only.

The "Good People" and Mr. Gilleran

After the mother had testified, the daughter, who is quite of the younger generation, gave her own opinion. She said that the "good people" live in the forts and often take men and women or youths who pass by the forts after sunset; that Mr. Gilleran, who died not long ago, once saw certain dead friends and recognized among them those who were believed to have been taken and those who died naturally, and that he saw them again when he was on his death-bed.
      We have here, as in so many other accounts, a clear connexion between the realm of the dead and Fairyland.

The Testimony of a Lough Derg Seer

Neil Colton, seventy-three years old, who lives in Tamlach Towniand, on the shores of Lough Derg, County Donegal, has a local reputation for having seen the "gentle folk", and so I called upon him. As we sat round his blazing turf fire, and in the middle of his family of three sturdy boys—for he married late in life—this is what he related:

A Girl Recovered from Faerie

"One day, just before sunset in midsummer, and I a boy then, my brother and cousin and myself were gathering bilberries (whortleberries) up by the rocks at the back of here, when all at once we heard music. We hurried round the rocks, and there we were within a few hundred feet of six or eight of the gentle folk, and they dancing. When they saw us, a little woman dressed all in red came running out from them towards us, and she struck my cousin across the face with what seemed to be a green rush. We ran for home as hard as we could, and when my cousin reached the house she fell dead. Father saddled a horse and went for Father Ryan. When Father Ryan arrived, he put a stole about his neck and began praying over my cousin and reading psalms and striking her with the stole; and in that way brought her back. He said if she had not caught hold of my brother, she would have been taken for ever."

The "Gentle Folk"

"The gentle folk are not earthly people; they are a people with a nature of their own. Even in the water there are men and women of the same character. Others have caves in the rocks, and in them rooms and apartments. These races were terribly plentiful a hundred years ago, and they"ll come back again. My father lived two miles from here, where there were plenty of the gentle folk. In olden times they used to take young folks and keep them and draw all the life out of their bodies. Nobody could ever tell their nature exactly."

Recordings from County Fermanagh

From James Summerville, eighty-eight years old, who lives in the country near Irvinestown, I heard much about the "wee people" and about banshees, and then the following remarkable story concerning the "good people":

Travelling Clairvoyance through "Fairy" Agency

From near Ederney, County Fermanagh, about seventy years ago, a man whom I knew well was taken to America on Hallow Eve Night; and they (the good people) made him look down a chimney to see his own daughter cooking at a kitchen fire. Then they took him to another place in America, where he saw a friend he knew. The next morning he was at his own home here in Ireland.
      "This man wrote a letter to his daughter to know if she was at the place and at the work on Hallow Eve Night, and she wrote back that she was. He was sure that it was the good people who had taken him to America and back in one night."

Recordings from County Antrim

At the request of Major R. G. Berry, M.R.I.A., of Richill Castle, Armagh, Mr. H. Higginson, of Glenavy, County Antrim, collected all the material he could find concerning the fairy-tradition in his part of County Antrim, and sent to me the results, from which I have selected the very interesting, and, in some respects, unique tales which follow:

The Fairies and the Weaver

"Ned Judge, of Sophys Bridge, was a weaver. Every night after he went to bed the weaving started of itself, and when he arose in the morning he would find the dressing which had been made ready for weaving so broken and entangled that it took him hours to put it right. Yet with all this drawback he got no poorer, because the fairies left him plenty of household necessaries, and whenever he sold a web [of cloth~ he always received treble the amount bargained for."

Meeting Two Regiments of "Them "

"William Megarry, of Ballinderry, as his daughter who is married to James Megarry, J.P., told me, was one night going to Crumlin on horseback for a doctor, when after passing through Glenavy he met just opposite the Vicarage two regiments of them (the fairies) coming along the road towards Glenavy. One regiment was dressed in red and one in blue or green uniform. They were playing music, but when they opened out to let him pass through the middle of them the music ceased until he had passed by."

In Cuchulainn's Country: A Civil Engineer's Testimony

In the heroic days of pagan Ireland, as tradition tells, the ancient earthworks, now called the Navan Rings, just outside Armagh, were the stronghold of Cuchulainn and the Red Branch Knights; and, later, under Patrick, Armagh itself, one of the old mystic centres of Erin, became the ecclesiastical capital of the Gaels. And from this romantic country, one of its best informed native sons, a graduate civil engineer of Dublin University, offers the following important evidence:

The Fairies are the Dead

"When I was a youngster near Armagh, I was kept good by being told that the fairies could take bad boys away. The sane belief about the fairies, however, is different, as I discovered when I grew up. The old people in County Armagh seriously believe that the fairies are the spirits of the dead; and they say that if you have many friends deceased you have many friendly fairies, or if you have many enemies deceased you have many fairies looking out to do you harm."

Food-Offerings to Place-Fairies

"It was very usual formerly, and the practice is not yet given up, to place a bed, some other furniture, and plenty of food in a newly-constructed dwelling the night before the time fixed for moving into it; and if the food is not consumed, and the crumbs swept up by the door in the morning, the house cannot safely be occupied. I know of two houses now that have never been occupied, because the fairies did not show their willingness and goodwill by taking food so offered to them."

On the Slopes of Slieve Gullion

In climbing to the summit of Cuchulainn's mountain, which overlooks parts of the territory made famous by the "Cattle Raid of Cooley", I met John O'Hare, sixty-eight years old, of Longfield Towniand, leading his horse to pasture, and I stopped to talk with him about the "good people".
      "The good people in this mountain," he said, "are the people who have died and been taken; the mountain is enchanted."

The "Fairy" Overflowing of the Meal-Chest

"An old woman came to the wife of Steven Callaghan and told her not to let Steven cut a certain hedge. "It is where we shelter at night," the old woman added; and Mrs. Callaghan recognized the old woman as one who had been taken in confinement. A few nights later the same old woman appeared to Mrs. Callaghan and asked for charity; and she was offered some meal, which she did not take. Then she asked for lodgings, but did not stop. When Mrs. Callaghan saw the meal-chest next morning it was overflowing with meal: it was the old woman's gift for the hedge."

The Testimony of Two Dromintee Percipients

After my friend, the Rev. Father L. Donnellan, C. C., of Dromintee, County Armagh, had introduced me to Alice Cunningham, of his parish, and she had told much about the "gentle folk", she emphatically declared that they do exist — and this in the presence of Father Donnellan — because she has often seen them on Carrickbroad Mountain, near where she lives. And she then reported as follows concerning enchanted Slieve Gullion:

The Sidhe Guardian of Slieve Gullion

"The top of Slieve Gullion is a very gentle place. A fairy has her house there by the lake, but she is invisible. She interferes with nobody. I hear of no gentler places about here than Carrickbroad and Slieve Gullion."
      Father Donnellan and l called next upon Thomas McCrink and his wife at Carrifamayan, because Mrs. McCrink claims to have seen some of the" good people", and this is her testimony:

Nature of the "Good People"

"I"ve heard and felt the good people coming on the wind; and I once saw them down in the middle field on my father's place playing football. They are still on earth. Among them are the spirits of our ancestors; and these rejoice whenever good fortune comes our way, for I saw them before my mother won her land [after a long legal contest] in the field rejoicing.
      "Some of the good people I have thought were fallen angels, though these may be dead people whose time is not up. We are only like shadows in this world: my mother died in England, and she came to me in the spirit. I saw her plainly. I ran to catch her, but my hands ran through her form as if it were mere mist. Then there was a crack, and she was gone."
      And, finally, after a moment, our percipient said:
      "The fairies once passed down this lane here on a Christmas morning; and I took them to be suffering souls out of Purgatory, going to mass."

The Testimony of a Dromintee Seeress

Father Donnellan, the following day, took me to talk with almost the oldest woman in his parish, Mrs. Biddy Grant, eighty-six years old, of Upper Toughal, beside Slieve Gullion. Mrs. Grant is a fine specimen of an Irishwoman, with white hair, clear complexion, and an expression of great natural intelligence, though now somewhat feeble from age. Her mind is yet clear, however; and her testimony is substantiated by this statement from her own daughter, who lives with her:
      "My mother has the power of seeing things. It is a fact with her that spirits exist. She has seen much, even in her old age; and what she is always telling me scares me half to death."
      The following is Mrs. Grant's direct testimony given at her own home, on September 20, 1909, in answer to our question if she knew anything about the "good people".

Seeing the "Good People" as the Dead

"I saw them once as plain as can be—big, little, old, and young. I was in bed at the time, and a boy whom I had reared since he was born was lying ill beside me. Two of them came and looked at him; then came in three of them. One of them seemed to have something like a book, and he put his hand to the boy's mouth; then he went away, while others appeared, opening the back window to make an avenue through the house; and through this avenue came great crowds. At this I shook the boy, and said to him, "Do you see anything?"
      "No," he said; but as I made him look a second time he said, "I do." After that he got well.
      "These good people were the spirits of our dead friends, but I could not recognize them. I have often seen them that way while in my bed. Many women are among them. I once touched a boy of theirs, and he was just like feathers in my hand; there was no substance in him, and I knew he wasn't a living being. I don't know where they live; I"ve heard they live in the Carrige (rocks). Many a time I"ve heard of their taking people or leading them astray. They can't live far away when they come to me in such a rush. They are as big as we are. I think these fairy people are all through this country and in the mountains."

An Apparition of a" Sidhe" Woman?

"At a wake I went out of doors at midnight and saw a woman running up and down the field with a strange light in her hand. I called out my daughter, but she saw nothing, though all the time the woman dressed in white was in the field, shaking the light and running back and forth as fast as you could wink. "I thought the woman might be the spirit of Nancy Frink, but I was not sure." (Cf. pp. 60 ff., 83, 155, 215.)

Recordings from Lough Gur, County Limerick

One of the most interesting parts of Ireland for the archaeologist and for the folklorist alike is the territory immediately surrounding Lough Gur, County Limerick. Shut in for the most part from the outer world by a circle of low-lying hills on whose summits fairy goddesses yet dwell invisibly, this region, famous for its numerous and well-preserved cromlechs, dolmens, menhirs, and tumuli, and for the rare folk-traditions current among its peasantry, has long been popularly regarded as a sort of Otherworld preserve haunted by fairy beings, who dwell both in its waters and on its land.
      There seems to be no reasonable doubt that in pre-Christian times the Lough Gur country was a very sacred spot, a mystic centre for pilgrimages and for the celebration of Celtic religious rites, including those of initiation. The Lough is still enchanted, but once in seven years the spell passes off it, and it then appears like dry land to any one that is fortunate enough to behold it. At such a time of disenchantment a Tree is seen growing up through the lake-bottom — a Tree like the strange World-Tree of Scandinavian myth. The Tree is covered with a Green Cloth, and under it sits the lake's guardian, a woman knitting (1). The peasantry about Lough Gur still believe that beneath its waters there is one of the chief entrances in Ireland to Tir-na-nog, the "Land of Youth", the Fairy Realm. And when a child is stolen by the Munster fairies, "Lough Gur is conjectured to be the place of its unearthly transmutation from the human to the fairy state." (1)

(1) Cf. David Fitzgerald, Popular Tales of Ireland, in Rev. Celt., iv. 185-92; and All the Year Round, New Series, iii. "This woman guardian of the lake is called Toice Bhrean, "untidy" or "lazy wench". According to a local legend, she is said to have been originally the guardian of the sacred well, from which, owing to her neglect, Lough Gur issued; and in this role she corresponds to Liban, daughter of Eochaidh Finn, the guardian of the sacred well from which issued Lough Neagh, according to the Dinnshenchas and the tale of Eochaidh MacMairido.". — J. F. LYNCH.

To my friend, Count John de Salis, of Balliol College, I am indebted for the following legendary material, collected by him on the fairy-haunted Lough Gur estate, his ancestral home, and annotated by the Rev. J. F. Lynch, one of the best-informed antiquarians living in that part of South Ireland.

The Fairy Goddesses, Aine - and Fennel (or Finnen)

"There are two hills near Lough Gur upon whose summits sacrifices and sacred rites used to be celebrated according to living tradition. One, about three miles south-west of the lake, is called Knock Aine, Aine or Ane being the name of an ancient Irish goddess, derived from an, "bright." The other, the highest hill on the lake-shores, is called Knock Fennel or Hill of the Goddess Fennel, from Finnen or Finnine or Fininne, a form of fin, "white." The peasantry of the region call Aine one of the Good People (1); and they say that Fennel (apparently her sister goddess or a variant of herself) lived on the top of Knock Fennel" (termed Finnen in a State Paper dated 1200).

(1) Aine

(1) It was on the bank of the little river Camog, which flows near Lough Gur, that the Earl of Desmond one day saw Aine as she sat there combing her hair. Overcome with love for the fairy-goddess, he gained control over her through Seizing her cloak, and made her his wife. From this union was born the enchanted son Geroid larla, even as Galahad was born to Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake. When Geroid had grown into young manhood, in order to surpass a woman he leaped right into a bottle and right out again, and this happened in the middle of a banquet in his father's castle. His father, the earl, had been put under taboo by Aine never to show surprise at anything her magician son might do, but now the taboo was forgotten, and hence broken, amid so unusual a performance; and immediately Geroid left the feasting and went to the lake. As soon as its water touched him he assumed the form of a goose, and he went swimming over the surface of the Lough, and disappeared on Garrod Island.
      According to one legend, Aine, like the Breton Morgan, may sometimes be seen combing her hair, only half her body appearing above the lake. And in times of calmness and clear water, according to another legend, one may behold beneath Aine's lake the lost enchanted castle of her son Geroid, close to Garrod Island—so named from Gerdid or "Gerald".
      Geroid lives there in the under-lake world to this day, awaiting the time of his normal return to the world of men (see our chapter on re-birth, p. 386). But once in every seven years, on clear moonlight nights, he emerges temporarily, when the Lough Gur peasantry see him as a phantom mounted on a phantom white horse, leading a phantom or fairy cavalcade across the lake and land. A well-attested case of such an apparitional appearance of the earl has been recorded by Miss Anne Baily, the percipient having been Teigue O'Neill, an old blacksmith whom she knew (see All the Year Round, New Series, iii. 495-6, London, 1870). And Moll Riall, a young woman also known to Miss Baily, saw the phantom earl by himself, under very weird circumstances, by day, as she stood at the margin of the lake washing clothes (ib., p. 496).
      Some say that Aine's true dwelling-place is in her hill; upon which on every St. John's Night the peasantry used to gather from all the immediate neighbourhood to view the moon (for Aine seems to have been a moon goddess, like Diana), and then with torches (cliars) made of bunches of straw and hay tied on poles used to march in procession from the hill and afterwards run through cultivated fields and amongst the cattle. The underlying purpose of this latter ceremony probably was — as is the case in the Isle of Man and in Brittany (see pp. 124 n., 273), where corresponding fire-ceremonies surviving from an ancient agricultural cult are still celebrated — to exorcise the land from all evil spirits and witches in order that there may be good harvests and rich increase of flocks. Sometimes on such occasions the goddess herself has been seen leading the sacred procession (cf. the Bacchus cult among the ancient Greeks, who believed that the god himself led his worshippers in their sacred torch-light procession at night, he being like Aine in this respect, more or less connected with fertility in nature). One night some girls staying on the bill late were made to look through a magic ring by Aine, and lo the hill was crowded with the folk of the fairy goddess who before had been invisible. The peasants always said that Aine is "the best-hearted woman that ever lived" (cf. David Fitzgerald, Popular Tales of Ireland, in Rev. Celt., iv. 185 — 92).
      In Silva Gadelica (ii. 347-8), Aine is a daughter of Eogabal, a king of the Tuatha De Danann, and her abode is within the sidh, named on her account "Aine cliach, now Cnoc Aine, or Knockany". In another passage we read that Manannan took Aine as his wife (ib., ii. 197). Also see in Silva Gadelica, ii, pp. 225, 576.

The Fairy Boat-Race

"Different old peasants have told me that on clear calm moonlight nights in summer, fairy boats appear racing across Lough Gur. The boats come from the eastern side of the lake, and when they have arrived at Garrod Island, where the Desmond Castle lies in ruins, they vanish behind Knock Adoon. There are four of these phantom boats, and in each there are two men rowing and a woman steering. No sound is heard, though the seer can see the weird silvery splash of the oars and the churning of the water at the bows of the boats as they shoot along. It is evident that they are racing, because one boat gets ahead of the others, and all the rowers can be seen straining at the oars. Boats and occupants seem to be transparent, and you cannot see exactly what their nature is. One old peasant told me that it is the shining brightness of the clothes on the phantom rowers and on the women who steer which makes them visible.
      "Another man, who is about forty years of age, and as far as I know of good habits, assures me that he also has seen this fairy boat-race, and that it can still be seen at the proper season."

The Bean-Tighe (1)

"The Bean-tighe, the fairy housekeeper of the enchanted submerged castle of the Earl of Desmond, is supposed to appear sitting on art ancient earthen monument shaped like a great chair and hence called Suidheachan, the "Housekeeper's Little Seat," on Knock Adoon (Hill of the Fort), which juts out into the Lough. The Bean-tighe, as I have heard an old peasant tell the tale, was once asleep on her Seat, when the Buachailleen (2) or "Little Herd Boy" stole her golden comb. When the Bean-tighe awoke and saw what bad happened, she cast a curse upon the cattle of the Buachailleen, and soon all of them were dead, and then the "Little Herd Boy" himself died, but before his death he ordered the golden comb to be cast into the Lough."(1)

(1) "Compare the tale of Excalibur, the Sword of King Arthur, which King Arthur before his death ordered Sir Bedivere to cast into the lake from where it had come." — J. F. LYNCH.

(1) Wailing Woman, or Bean-Tighe

"In some local tales the Bean-tighe, or Bean a"tighe is termed Beansidhe (Banshee), and Bean Chaointe, or "wailing woman ", and is identified with Aine. In an elegy by Ferriter on one of the Fitzgeralds, we read:

Aine from her closely bid nest did awake,
The woman of wailing from Gur's voicy lake,

"Thomas O'Connellan, the great minstrel bard, some of whose compositions are given by Hardiman, died at Lough Gur Castle about 1700, and was buried at New Church beside the lake. It is locally believed that Aine stood on a rock of Knock Moon and "keened" O'Connellan while the funeral procession was passing from the castle to the place of burial." — J. F. LYNCH.

A Banshee was traditionally attached to the Baily family of Lough Gur; and one night at dead of night, when Miss Kitty Baily was dying of consumption, her two sisters, Miss Anne Baily and Miss Susan Baily, who were sitting in the death chamber, "heard such sweet and melancholy music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them like distant cathedral music … The music was not in the house … It seemed to come through the windows of the old castle, high in the air." But when Miss Anne, who went downstairs with a lighted candle to investigate the weird phenomenon, had approached the ruined castle she thought the music came from above the house; "and thus perplexed, and at last frightened, she returned."
      Both sisters are on record as having distinctly heard the fairy music, and for a long time (All the Year Round, New Series, iii. 496—7; London, 1870).

(2) The Little Herd-boy

The Buachailleen is most likely one of the many forms assumed by the shape-shifting Fer Fi, the Lough Gur Dwarf, who at Tara, according to the Dinnshenchas of Tuag Inbir (see Folk-Lore, iii; and A. Nutt, Voyage of Bran, i. 195 ff.), took the shape of a woman; and we may trace the tales of Geroid larla to Fer Fi, who, and not Geroid, is believed by the oldest of the Lough Gur peasantry to be the owner of the lake. Fer Fi is the son of Eogabal of Sidh Eogabail, and hence brother to Aine. He is also foster. son of Manannan Mac Lir, and a Druid of the Tuatha De Danann (ci. Silva Gadelica, ii. 225; also Dinnshenehas of Tuag Inbir). At Lough Gur various tales are told by the peasants concerning the Dwarf, and he is still stated by them to be the brother of Aine, For the sake of experiment I once spoke very disrespectfully of the dwarf to John Punch, an old man, and he said to me in a frightened whisper:
      "Whisht! he"ll hear you."
      Edward Fitzgerald and other old men were very much afraid of the Dwarf: J. F. LYNCH.

Lough Gur Fairies in General

"The peasantry in the Lough Gur region commonly speak of the Good People or of the Kind People or of the Little People, their names for the fairies. The leprechaun indicates the place where hidden treasure is to be found. If the person to whom he reveals such a secret makes it known to a second person, the first person dies, or else no money is found: in some cases the money is changed into ivy leaves or into furze blossoms.
      "I am convinced that some of the older peasants still believe in fairies. I used to go out on the lake occasionally on moonlight nights, and an old woman supposed to be a "wise woman" (a Seeress), hearing about my doing this, told me that under no circumstances should I continue the practice, for fear of "Them People" (the fairies). One evening in particular I was warned by her not to venture on the lake. She solemnly asserted that the" Powers of Darkness" were then abroad, and that it would be misfortune for me to be in their path. (1)

(1) It is commonly believed by young and old at Lough Gur that a human being is drowned in the Lake once every seven years, and that it is the Bean Fhionn, or " White Lady" who thus takes the person." — J. F. LYNCH.

"Under ordinary circumstances, as a very close observer of the Lough Gur peasantry informs me, the old people will pray to the Saints, but if by any chance such prayers remain unanswered they then invoke other powers, the fairies, the goddesses Aine and Fennel, or other pagan deities, whom they seem to remember in a vague subconscious manner through tradition."

Testimony from a County Kerry Seer

To another of my fellow students in Oxford, a native Irishman of County Kerry, I am indebted for the following evidence:

A Collective Vision of Spiritual Beings

"Some few weeks before Christmas, 1910, at midnight on a very dark night, I and another young man (who like myself was then about twenty-three years of age) were on horseback on our way home from Limerick. When near Listowel, we noticed a light about half a mile ahead. At first it seemed to be no more than a light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one hundred yards to our right, resembling the light seen first.
      Suddenly each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the middle of each flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights moved toward one another and made contact, whereupon the two beings in them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun, and much brighter than the yellow light or aura surrounding them. So dazzling was the radiance, like a halo, round their heads that we could not distinguish the countenances of the beings; we could only distinguish the general shape of their bodies; though their heads were very clearly outlined because this halo-like radiance, which was the brightest light about them, seemed to radiate from or rest upon the head of each being.
      As we travelled on; a house intervened between us and the lights, and we saw no more of them. It was the first time we had ever seen such phenomena, and in our hurry to get home we were not wise enough to stop and make further examination. But ever since that night I have frequently seen, both in Ireland and in England, similar lights with spiritual beings in them." (Cf. pp. 60 ff., 77, 133, 155, 215, 483.)

Reality of the Spiritual World

"Like my companion, who saw all that I saw of the first three lights, I formerly had always been a sceptic as to the existence of spirits; now I know that there is a spiritual world. My brother, a physician, had been equally sceptical until he saw, near our home at Listowel, similar lights containing spiritual beings and was obliged to admit the genuineness of the phenomena,
      "In whatever country we may be, I believe that we are for ever immersed in the spiritual world; but most of us cannot perceive it on account of the unrefined nature of our physical bodies. Through meditation and psychical training one can come to see the spiritual world and its beings. We pass into the spirit realm at death and come back into the human world at birth; and we continue to reincarnate until we have overcome all earthly desires and mortal appetites. Then the higher life is open to our consciousness and we cease to be human; we become divine beings." (Recorded in Oxford, England, August 12, 1911.)


Literature  
      Glta: Norberg-Schulz, Christian. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. London: Academy, 1980.
      Mme: Kearney, Richard. Modern Movements in European Philosophy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986.
      Tff: Evans-Wentz, Walter Yeeling. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. London: H. Froude, 1911. Online at Sacred-Texts: [www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ffcc/index.htm]
      Tfg: Findhorn Community. The Findhorn Garden: Pioneering a New Vision of Humanity and Nature in Cooperation. Forres: The Findhorn Press, 1979.
      Th: Maclean, Dorothy. To Hear the Angels Sing: An Odyssey of Co-Creation with the Devic Kingdom. Herndon, VA: Lindisfarne Books, 1980.
     


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