Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

by Edited

  All the people at his own home thought that he must have left the country, and they rejoiced greatly when they saw him come back. Everyone began asking him where he had been, but he would not tell anyone except his father.

  He was a changed man from that day. He never drank too much; he never lost his money over cards; and especially he would not take the world and be out late by himself of a dark night.

  He was not a fortnight at home until he married Mary, the girl he had been in love with; and it’s at their wedding the sport was, and it’s he was the happy man from that day forward, and it’s all I wish that we may be as happy as he was.

  GLOSSARY.—Rann, a stanza; kailee (céilidhe), a visit in the evening; wirra (a mhuire), “Oh, Mary!” an exclamation like the French dame; rib, a single hair (in Irish, ribe); a lock (glac), a bundle or wisp, or a little share of anything; kippeen (cipin), a rod or twig; boreen (bóithrin), a lane; bodach, a clown; soorawn (suarán), vertigo. Avic (a Mhic) = my son, or rather, Oh, son. Mic is the vocative of Mac.

  PADDY CORCORAN’S WIFE

  WILLIAM CARLETON

  Paddy Corcoran’s wife was for several years afflicted with a kind of complaint which nobody could properly understand. She was sick, and she was not sick; she was well, and she was not well; she was as ladies wish to be who love their lords, and she was not as such ladies wish to be. In fact, nobody could tell what the matter with her was. She had a gnawing at the heart which came heavily upon her husband; for, with the help of God, a keener appetite than the same gnawing amounted to could not be met with of a summer’s day. The poor woman was delicate beyond belief, and had no appetite at all, so she hadn’t, barring a little relish for a mutton-chop, or a “staik,” or a bit o’ mait, anyway; for sure, God help her! she hadn’t the laist inclination for the dhry pratie, or the dhrop o’ sour buttermilk along wid it, especially as she was so poorly; and, indeed, for a woman in her condition—for, sick as she was, poor Paddy always was made to believe her in that condition—but God’s will be done! she didn’t care. A pratie an’ a grain o’ salt was a welcome to her—glory be to his name!—as the best roast an’ boiled that ever was dressed; and why not? There was one comfort: she wouldn’t be long wid him—long troublin’ him; it matthered little what she got; but sure she knew herself, that from the gnawin’ at her heart, she could never do good widout the little bit o’ mait now and then; an’, sure, if her own husband begridged it to her, who else had she a better right to expect it from?

  Well, as we have said, she lay a bedridden invalid for long enough, trying doctors and quacks of all sorts, sexes, and sizes, and all without a farthing’s benefit, until, at the long run, poor Paddy was nearly brought to the last pass, in striving to keep her in “the bit o’ mait.” The seventh year was now on the point of closing, when, one harvest day, as she lay bemoaning her hard condition, on her bed beyond the kitchen fire, a little weeshy woman, dressed in a neat red cloak, comes in, and, sitting down by the hearth, says:

  “Well, Kitty Corcoran, you’ve had a long lair of it there on the broad o’ yer back for seven years, an’ you’re jist as far from bein’ cured as ever.”

  “Mavrone, ay,” said the other; “in throth that’s what I was this minnit thinkin’ ov, and a sorrowful thought it’s to me.”

  “It’s yer own fau’t, thin,” says the little woman; “an’, indeed, for that matter, it’s yer fau’t that ever you wor there at all.”

  “Arra, how is that?” asked Kitty. “Sure I wouldn’t be here if I could help it? Do you think it’s a comfort or a pleasure to me to be sick and bedridden?”

  “No,” said the other, “I do not; but I’ll tell you the truth: for the last seven years you have been annoying us. I am one o’ the good people; an’ as I have a regard for you, I’m come to let you know the raison why you’ve been sick so long as you are. For all the time you’ve been ill, if you’ll take the thrubble to remimber, your childhre threwn out yer dirty wather afther dusk an’ before sunrise, at the very time we’re passin’ yer door, which we pass twice a-day. Now, if you avoid this, if you throw it out in a different place, an’ at a different time, the complaint you have will lave you: so will the gnawin’ at the heart; an’ you’ll be as well as ever you wor. If you don’t follow this advice, why, remain as you are, an’ all the art o’ man can’t cure you.” She then bade her good-bye, and disappeared.

  Kitty, who was glad to be cured on such easy terms, immediately complied with the injunction of the fairy; and the consequence was, that the next day she found herself in as good health as ever she enjoyed during her life.

  CUSHEEN LOO

  TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH BY J. J. CALLAHAN

  [This song is supposed to have been sung by a young bride, who was forcibly detained in one of those forts which are so common in Ireland, and to which the good people are very fond of resorting. Under pretence of hushing her child to rest, she retired to the outside margin of the fort, and addressed the burthen of her song to a young woman whom she saw at a short distance, and whom she requested to inform her husband of her condition, and to desire him to bring the steel knife to dissolve the enchantment.]

  Sleep, my child! for the rustling trees,

  Stirr’d by the breath of summer breeze,

  And fairy songs of sweetest note,

  Around us gently float.

  Sleep! for the weeping flowers have shed

  Their fragrant tears upon thy head,

  The voice of love hath sooth’d thy rest,

  And thy pillow is a mother’s breast.

  Sleep, my child!

  Weary hath pass’d the time forlorn,

  Since to your mansion I was borne,

  Tho’ bright the feast of its airy halls,

  And the voice of mirth resounds from its walls

  Sleep, my child!

  Full many a maid and blooming bride

  Within that splendid dome abide,—

  And many a hoar and shrivell’d sage,

  And many a matron bow’d with age.

  Sleep, my child!

  Oh! thou who hearest this song of fear,

  To the mourner’s home these tidings bear.

  Bid him bring the knife of the magic blade,

  At whose lightning-flash the charm will fade.

  Sleep, my child!

  Haste! for to-morrow’s sun will see

  The hateful spell renewed for me;

  Nor can I from that home depart,

  Till life shall leave my withering heart.

  Sleep, my child!

  Sleep, my child! for the rustling trees,

  Stirr’d by the breath of summer breeze,

  And fairy songs of sweetest note,

  Around us gently float.

  THE WHITE TROUT; A LEGEND OF CONG

  S. LOVER

  There was wanst upon a time, long ago, a beautiful lady that lived in a castle upon the lake beyant, and they say she was promised to a king’s son, and they wor to be married, when all of a sudden he was murthered, the crathur (Lord help us), and threwn into the lake above, and so, of course, he couldn’t keep his promise to the fairy lady—and more’s the pity.

  Well, the story goes that she went out iv her mind, bekase av loosin’ the king’s son—for she was tendher-hearted, God help her, like the rest iv us!—and pined away after him, until at last, no one about seen her, good or bad; and the story wint that the fairies took her away.

  Well, sir, in coorse o’ time, the White Throut, God bless it, was seen in the sthrame beyant, and sure the people didn’t know what to think av the crathur, seein’ as how a white throut was never heard av afor, nor since; and years upon years the throut was there, just where you seen it this blessed minit, longer nor I can tell—aye throth, and beyant the memory o’ th’ ouldest in the village.

  At last the people began to think it must be a fairy; for what else could it be?—and no hurt nor harm was iver put an the white throut, until some wicked sinners of sojers kem to these parts, and laughed at all t
he people, and gibed and jeered them for thinkin’ o’ the likes; and one o’ them in partic’lar (bad luck to him; God forgi’ me for saying it!) swore he’d catch the throut and ate it for his dinner—the blackguard!

  Well, what would you think o’ the villainy of the sojer? Sure enough he cotch the throut, and away wid him home, and puts an the fryin’-pan, and into it he pitches the purty little thing. The throut squeeled all as one as a christian crathur, and, my dear, you’d think the sojer id split his sides laughin’—for he was a harden’d villain; and when he thought one side was done, he turns it over to fry the other; and, what would you think, but the divil a taste of a burn was an it at all at all; and sure the sojer thought it was a quare throut that could not be briled. “But,” says he, “I’ll give it another turn by-and-by,” little thinkin’ what was in store for him, the haythen.

  Well, when he thought that side was done he turns it agin, and lo and behold you, the divil a taste more done that side was nor the other. “Bad luck to me,” says the sojer, “but that bates the world,” says he; “but I’ll thry you agin, my darlint,” says he, “as cunnin’ as you think yourself;” and so with that he turns it over and over, but not a sign of the fire was on the purty throut. “Well,” says the desperate villain—(for sure, sir, only he was a desperate villain entirely, he might know he was doing a wrong thing, seein’ that all his endeavors. was no good)—“Well,” says he, “my jolly little throut, maybe you’re fried enough, though you don’t seem over well dress’d; but you may be better than you look, like a singed cat, and a tit-bit afther all,” says he; and with that he ups with his knife and fork to taste a piece o’ the throut; but, my jew’l, the minit he puts his knife into the fish, there was a murtherin’ screech, that you’d think the life id lave you if you hurd it, and away jumps the throut out av the fryin’-pan into the middle o’ the flure; and an the spot where it fell, up riz a lovely lady—the beautifullest crathur that eyes ever seen, dressed in white, and a band o’ goold in her hair, and a sthrame o’ blood runnin’ down her arm.

  “Look where you cut me, you villain,” says she, and she held out her arm to him—and, my dear, he thought the sight id lave his eyes.

  “Couldn’t you lave me cool and comfortable in the river where you snared me, and not disturb me in my duty?” says she.

  Well, he thrimbled like a dog in a wet sack, and at last he stammered out somethin’, and begged for his life, and ax’d her ladyship’s pardin, and said he didn’t know she was on duty, or he was too good a sojer not to know betther nor to meddle wid her.

  “I was on duty, then,” says the lady; “I was watchin’ for my true love that is comin’ by wather to me,” says she, “an’ if he comes while I’m away, an’ that I miss iv him, I’ll turn you into a pinkeen, and I’ll hunt you up and down for evermore, while grass grows or wather runs.”

  Well, the sojer thought the life id lave him, at the thoughts iv his bein’ turned into a pinkeen, and begged for mercy; and with that says the lady:

  “Renounce your evil coorses,” says she, “you villain, or you’ll repint it too late; be a good man for the futhur, and go to your duty* reg’lar, and now,” says she, “take me back and put me into the river again, where you found me.”

  “Oh, my lady,” says the sojer, “how could I have the heart to drownd a beautiful lady like you?”

  But before he could say another word, the lady was vanished, and there he saw the little throut an the ground. Well, he put it in a clean plate, and away he runs for the bare life, for fear her lover would come while she was away; and he run, and he run, even till he came to the cave agin, and threw the throut into the river. The minit he did, the wather was as red as blood for a little while, by rayson av the cut, I suppose, until the sthrame washed the stain away; and to this day there’s a little red mark an the throut’s side, where it was cut.†

  Well, sir, from that day out the sojer was an altered man, and reformed his ways, and went to his duty reg’lar, and fasted three times a-week—though it was never fish he tuk an fastin’ days, for afther the fright he got, fish id never rest an his stomach—savin’ your presence.

  But anyhow, he was an altered man, as I said before, and in coorse o’ time he left the army, and turned hermit at last; and they say he used to pray evermore for the soul of the White Throut.

  [These trout stories are common all over Ireland. Many holy wells are haunted by such blessed trout. There is a trout in a well on the border of Lough Gill, Sligo, that some paganish person put once on the gridiron. It carries the marks to this day. Long ago, the saint who sanctified the well put that trout there. Nowadays it is only visible to the pious, who have done due penance.]

  THE FAIRY THORN

  An Ulster Ballad

  SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON

  “Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning-wheel;

  For your father’s on the hill, and your mother is asleep;

  Come up above the crags, and we’ll dance a highland-reel

  Around the fairy thorn on the steep.”

  At Anna Grace’s door ’twas thus the maidens cried,

  Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;

  And Anna laid the rock and the weary wheel aside,

  The fairest of the four, I ween.

  They’re glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,

  Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;

  The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave,

  And the crags in the ghostly air:

  And linking hand in hand, and singing as they go,

  The maids along the hill-side have ta’en their fearless way,

  Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow

  Beside the Fairy Hawthorn gray.

  The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,

  Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;

  The rowan berries cluster o’er her low head gray and dim

  In ruddy kisses sweet to see.

  The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,

  Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem,

  And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go,

  Oh, never caroll’d bird like them!

  But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze

  That drinks away their voices in echoless repose,

  And dreamily the evening has still’d the haunted braes

  And dreamier the gloaming grows.

  And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky

  When the falcon’s shadow saileth across the open shaw,

  Are hush’d the maiden’s voices, as cowering down they lie

  In the flutter of their sudden awe.

  For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath,

  And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between,

  A Power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,

  And they sink down together on the green.

  They sink together silent, and stealing side by side,

  They fling their lovely arms o’er their drooping necks so fair,

  Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,

  For their shrinking necks again are bare.

  Thus clasp’d and prostrate all, with their heads together bow’d,

  Soft o’er their bosom’s beating—the only human sound—

  They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,

  Like a river in the air, gliding round.

  No scream can any raise, no prayer can any say,

  But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three—

  For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away,

  By whom they dare not look to see.

  They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold,

  And the curls elastic falling as her head withdraws;

  They feel her sliding arms from their tranced arms unfold,

  But they may not look to
see the cause:

  For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies

  Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;

  And neither fear nor wonder can open their quivering eyes,

  Or their limbs from the cold ground raise,

  Till out of night the earth has roll’d her dewy side,

  With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;

  When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning tide,

  The maidens’ trance dissolveth so.

  Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,

  And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain—

  They pined away and died within the year and day,

  And ne’er was Anna Grace seen again.

  THE LEGEND OF KNOCKGRAFTON

  T. CROFTON CROKER

  There was once a poor man who lived in the fertile glen of Aherlow, at the foot of the gloomy Galtee mountains, and he had a great hump on his back: he looked just as if his body had been rolled up and placed upon his shoulders; and his head was pressed down with the weight so much that his chin, when he was sitting, used to rest upon his knees for support. The country people were rather shy of meeting him in any lonesome place, for though, poor creature, he was as harmless and as inoffensive as a new-born infant, yet his deformity was so great that he scarcely appeared to be a human creature, and some ill-minded persons had set strange stories about him afloat. He was said to have a great knowledge of herbs and charms; but certain it was that he had a mighty skilful hand in plaiting straws and rushes into hats and baskets, which was the way he made his livelihood.

  Lusmore, for that was the nickname put upon him by reason of his always wearing a sprig of the fairy cap, or lusmore (the foxglove), in his little straw hat, would ever get a higher penny for his plaited work than any one else, and perhaps that was the reason why some one, out of envy, had circulated the strange stories about him. Be that as it may, it happened that he was returning one evening from the pretty town of Cahir toward Cappagh, and as little Lusmore walked very slowly, on account of the great hump upon his back, it was quite dark when he came to the old moat of Knockgrafton, which stood on the right-hand side of his road.