Meeting the Other Crowd

by Eddie Lenihan

  “God bless the work.”

  He looked back. There, leaning on the fence, watching him, was an old traveling man, a beggar man, you know. There used to be dozens of ’em on every road in them days, so he wasn’t a bit surprised to see him there.

  “You’re thinking o’ building, I see.”

  “I’m not thinking about it, at all,” says he. “I’m doing it.”

  The old beggar man looked at him. “I wouldn’t, if I was you. That’s the wrong place. If you build there you won’t be short o’ company, whatever else.”

  “Well, you’re not me. This is my land and I’ll build wherever I like.”

  He was ever a man like that, my grandfather. Hasty, you know. And stubborn.

  “Oh, do. Build where you like,” says the old man. “ ’Tis nothing to me, but you won’t have much comfort in it. I can promise you that much.”

  He went off about his business and my grandfather forgot about him. The building o’ the house went on and he did most of it himself. Some o’ the neighbors helped him to roof it, and I heard that the timber for that roof came from Aghadoe. That’s somewhere around Killarney, isn’t it?

  ’Twas whitewashed then, and they moved in their bits o’ furniture from the old house. They hadn’t much—the bed, table, a couple o’ chairs, pots and pans, and o’ course the dresser. A fine big dresser made out o’ bog deal.

  And when everything was ready the priest came and said Mass in the house. That was the custom in them days, to bring a blessing on a new house. ’Tis still done by a lot o’ people today.

  When the praying was done, anyway, there was a bit of a party; nothing big, you know, just a half-tierce o’ Guinness, a few bottles o’ whiskey and poitín—and plenty tea, o’ course.

  The priest didn’t stay too long and when he was gone the party started in earnest. They drank what was there, but they didn’t get drunk. They did not, ’cause all of ’em had to be up early in the morning—farming people, you know. But they enjoyed themselves while they were in it, and they wished my grandparents well in the new house: “Go bhfanfaidh sibh sámh agus socair ann.” (May ye live secure and peaceful in it.)

  Then, coming on midnight, they started to leave, until there was no one left—only the two themselves. After all the excitement o’ the day, all they wanted was to get a bit o’ sleep. So they left everything there after the party. They could clear it up in the morning.

  They took to the room, anyway, went to bed, thinking they’d sleep sound. But they didn’t. Their heads were hardly on the pillow and their eyes closed, when there was this almighty crash below in the kitchen! Down came the big heavy dresser, down on the floor. They jumped up in the bed and heard the cutlery scattering, the crockery breaking. Their first thought—and would you blame ’em?—was, Merciful God, there’s someone in the house! Robbers! Next thing, they heard the table and chairs dancing around the kitchen floor.

  They leaped out o’ the bed, ran to the room door, looked down—and there was everything where it should be. Table. Chairs. And the dresser standing by the wall. Nothing at all disturbed.

  They stood there a couple o’ minutes, staring, wondering if they were dreaming. But my grandfather, he was no coward, whatever else he was.

  “I’ll go out,” he says. “There’s someone blackguarding, trying to frighten us.”

  And he did go out, in his nightshirt, out the door and all around the house, to make sure there was no one there. But there was no one, not a sound. And their dog, he was sleeping on the flagstone outside the door. Surely to God, if there was someone there, the dog would have barked!

  He was scratching his head when he came back to his wife, and said, “No one there. Maybe ’twas a dream we had.”

  They went back to bed, anyway. But, their eyes were hardly closed when the very same thing happened again—crash! Down came the dresser . . . cutlery scattering . . . crockery breaking . . . table and chairs dancing around the kitchen! They jumped out o’ the bed again, ran to the door, looked down—nothing. Everything below was just the way it should be.

  They went to bed again, but they got no more sleep that night. Or the following night. Or the one after that. By the time they had four nights put by ’em without sleep, they were walking around like two zombies. And remember, now, they still had to do all the work on the farm.

  Things couldn’t go on like that. It looked like they’d have to move out, back to the old house again, miserable and all as ’twas. At least they’d be able to get their night’s sleep in it.

  On the fifth day, his wife said to him, “Look, go to the priest. Explain to him what’s happening and maybe he might be able to do something for us.”

  And he did, that very same day.

  But as he made his way up Brosna village—the presbytery is above at the top o’ the village, you know—he was getting more and more nervous with every step. And when he came to the gate, he stopped. How could he face the priest with a stupid story like that? Sure the holy man’d laugh at him, tell him to go away and have sense for himself.

  But then he thought of his wife waiting at home and what he knew was sure to happen that night again if he didn’t do something. So he knocked at the door. And as soon as the priest came out and saw his face, he knew there was something wrong. Why wouldn’t he, and my grandfather falling with the tiredness? He invited him in, sat him down, and asked him what could he do for him.

  The story came out, anyway, and d’you think the priest laughed? He did not.

  “Yes, indeed,” says he. “Things like that have been known to happen. Look, I’ll go back with you and I’ll do what I can.”

  That’s exactly what he did. He took his prayer book and whatever else he needed, and they tackled up his horse and trap, and they went back to the house.

  The prayers were said—for some kind of an exorcism, I s’pose—“And now,” he says, “you should be able to get your night’s sleep.”

  Well, that night they went to bed early. They had plenty sleep to catch up on, I can tell you! But ’twas little sleeping they did! Their eyes were hardly closed when the very same thing happened all over again. Down came the dresser with a crash, down on the floor, smashing crockery, scattering cutlery. Then the table and chairs started their dancing again, around the floor.

  “God Almighty help us!” they said. “Not again, surely!”

  But it was again. Not a wink o’ sleep that night either.

  The morning came, and she says, “I’m staying in this house no more.”

  But isn’t it strange, too, how things turn out sometimes? What saved ’em was a complete accident. Or maybe ’twasn’t. Maybe there’s things that we don’t know nothing about.

  The rent day was coming up—the gale day, as they called it in them times. That was the day, twice a year, that Irish people had to pay the rent to the landlord’s agent. And if you hadn’t it, cash in hand, you’d be evicted, yourself and your family. And it didn’t matter if you had ten children or two, out you’d go if you hadn’t the money. And if the agent didn’t like you, he’d send in the “crowbar brigade” to level the house so you couldn’t come back.

  Anyway . . . the gale day was nearly on ’em. And they had no money, but they had two cows they could sell.

  The poor man could hardly stand, but he says to his wife, “Look, I’ll take the cows to Castleisland fair in the morning. Maybe I’ll get enough for ’em to pay the rent.”

  Castleisland is the nearest town to here, you know. Nine miles away. The following morning, he hit the road early. She wished him well, but he hardly heard her, he was so tired. Out by Cordal he went and, sure, the poor man hardly saw the road. ’Twas the cows were leading him, instead of him driving them.

  But, at last, he got to Castleisland. And if you were ever there, you’d notice something unusual about it. ’Tis only a small town, but it has a fierce wide main street—the third widest in Ireland, they say—and ideal for cattle fairs, plenty space in it.

  When he arrived
there that morning ’twas full, that street, crowded with cattle and people, all kinds o’ trading and buying and selling going on.

  He wasn’t there half an hour when he sold the two cows. He was well known, you see, and honest, so he had no trouble getting rid of ’em. But the last thing he wanted to do was go home. He was so tired he couldn’t face it. He had to sit down someplace, rest for a while, have a drink, and think. So he went down to a pub there on the street—the one he always went into when he’d be in town. But as soon as he opened the door, a blast o’ smoke and noise came out against him! The place was full up with people doing business, finishing up bargains, and all the rest of it.

  And even though usually there was nothing he liked better than a bit o’ gossip and conversation, he couldn’t face it now. He was too tired. So he peeped into the snug—you know, the little private room where you can have a quiet pint, and order your drink through a little hatch into the bar—and ’twas empty. Talk about relief! He went in there, called the barman and ordered a pint o’ porter. He got it. But all he could do was sit there, stupid with the tiredness, half asleep, hardly able to move or keep his eyes open. Could you blame him? What way would you feel yourself if you were nearly five nights without a wink o’ sleep?

  So he sat there dozing away, waking up, and then dozing off again. But one o’ them times he woke, when he looked out the window, who d’you think he saw passing outside? Only the old traveling man who gave him the warning that day he was starting building the house!

  Well, he was up out o’ that seat like lightning and out the door. By then the old traveling man was gone maybe fifteen or twenty yards up along the footpath. But he called him, and in spite o’ the crowd o’ people between ’em, the old man heard him and stopped. He came back, and my grandfather invited him into the snug, ordered a pint for him, and sat down. But the old man, he didn’t sit down, only looked at my grandfather across the little table.

  He stared at his face and said, very quiet, “You look to me like a man that isn’t getting his sleep. You have company, I’d say.”

  And my grandfather knew straight away what he was talking about!

  “Look,” says he, “what in the name o’ God is wrong with my house? We can get no comfort in it, no sleep or nothing. Even after the priest’s prayers in it. If he can’t help us, what’ll we do?”

  “Didn’t I warn you?” says the traveling man. “There’s no use talking here about it. Finish up your pint and come on back with me. I’ll show you what you did wrong.”

  They finished their drinks, walked out o’ that pub, and out o’ the town o’ Castleisland, back over the hill, nine miles back to the yard o’ his new house—the house we’re sitting in now! There was his wife waiting for him, wondering o’ course, were the cattle sold and had he the money for the rent. When she saw him coming into the yard with the traveling man she was a bit surprised, naturally.

  But the old man, he didn’t even salute her. He just walked to the front door there, where she was standing, pushed her aside—not rough or anything—and called my grandfather.

  “Come here!” he says. And when my grandfather was standing beside him—there in his own doorway—he says to him, “Now, look out there and tell me what do you see.”

  My grandfather looked. “The yard?”

  “No,” he says. “Look again.”

  “The road?”

  “No. Look careful.”

  “Oh, that old whitethorn bush? Sure, that’s there forever. That could be there since the start o’ the world.”

  “D’you tell me that, now?”

  The old man walked out to the gable o’ the house, called my grandfather, then says, “Come over here.”

  He did.

  “Look out there, now, and tell me what do you see?”

  My grandfather was beginning to catch on at this stage. He looked out from that gable end, and there, no farther away than the end o’ the garden, was another whitethorn bush, standing alone.

  “Now,” says the old man, “I told you. I warned you. The fairies’ path is between them bushes and beyond. And you’re after building your house on it.” He walked back to the door.

  “Watch this, now,” he says then. “Come in here with me.”

  They went into the house.

  “Stand here in the middle o’ the kitchen floor.” Which they did.

  Then he says, “Now, look out the front door there. And remember what you saw out the back. D’you realize now what you did? You have ’em stopped from passing through on their path. Every time they pass here at night they strike against the wall. And if you’ll take my advice this time, you’ll knock out a door there in the back wall. Let ’em pass in a straight line between their two bushes, ’cause that’s the way they’re passing since the world began. If you don’t, I’ll tell you this much: You’ll never get a night’s or a day’s peace in this house. Take my advice if you like. If you don’t want to, don’t. I can do no more. Good luck and God guide you.”

  Off he went about his own business again.

  I can tell you this much: They hadn’t to discuss the matter at all! That very day, he did the job himself, broke out a new door in the back wall—the one you’re looking at below there now. And ’tis that way ever since.

  That, sure enough, is what I did find myself looking at that day in August 1975 as I talked to the man who told this story. And he made it quite clear that there was never after any disturbance in the house. Once that doorway was opened, once their path was straightened and cleared again, there was no more trouble. Except for one thing: Every three years, the people of the house would wake in the night to the smell of cooking and sizzling down in the kitchen. Each time it would be coming from the same place, under the plasterwork by the back door. And without fail one of their cattle would die three days later. The fairies, the Good People, had their own way of collecting the toll on their road.

  And Tadhg told me something else: that from then on, in his grandfather’s time, in his father’s time, even in his own time, neither of those two doors was ever locked at night.

  “Because,” he said, “you can lock ’em. You can chain ’em. You can bar ’em. But in the morning the two of ’em will be open a couple of inches. They can’t be kept closed.”

  I had no reason to disbelieve him. After all, he had to live there, alone, a man in his late seventies, in an isolated place. Why would he be trying to frighten himself?

  “If you put a wall or barbed wire or a thing on their path they mightn’t like it. A man near here, he planted whitethorns an’ things started going wrong for him. So he went to Biddy Early, an’ she told him to take ’em out of it, that they were in the path o’ the fairies. . . . Seemingly they have feeling, an’ they’d tear themselves on the thorns when they’d be passing. There must be a certain amount o’ natural life in ’em, then, you’d think.”

  CULLANE, TULLA, FEBRUARY 15, 1982

  Planting on a Fairy Path

  THERE’S A PLACE on that old road outside there, the old Dingle road, and you’d be better off to have no dealings with it.

  Over there, going into the land, there was a bit o’ ground between the old road and where the boundary fence was. We were planting potatoes in the field—there’s a couple of acres in it altogether.

  And my father said, “We’ll fit in two ridges between the old road and the fence.”

  ’Twas a hard, cold day from the southeast.

  “I’ll have shelter there,” he says. “After we have the dinner I’ll start, and we’ll plant ’em.”

  We came, anyway, and there was six sheep in the field while we were turning the two ridges. We had the dinner. We came out. And my six sheep, they were in one bunch, dead there. I called my father, Lord have mercy on him. He went over, anyway, and turned back the sods, left it there.

  If they died from grazing, or anything they ate, they wouldn’t be in one little bunch.

  Could anyone tell you the cause o’ that? I s’pose there was a certa
in amount o’ Those People traveling there. I s’pose they’re traveling there all the time.

  For poor people, with little margin between them and hunger, the use of every inch of ground for grazing or tillage was necessary. But such intense land usage had its risks, as we see in this man’s story. I know personally that they could very ill afford to lose the six sheep in question. But note that there is no outburst, no recriminations against the Good People. The old man knows better; he accepts that he has made a mistake in invading fairy property, undoes the damage as far as he is able, and bears his loss. Such stoicism was, no doubt, bred of long experience of the futility of humans measuring themselves against the Good People and their power.

  “Building houses, now, when the foundation of a house was laid out, if the masons came the following morning an’ if there was things knocked, they might remove it. It might be in the path. An’ if a house was built in a path, strange things might happen.”

  MILTOWN, JUNE 27, 1999

  Electricity Poles Moved from Fairy Path

  AT THE TIME they were putting up the poles for the light over in County Cork, they put down a pole, anyway, in a line with the rest of ’em. And, sure, you know most of ’em was down six and seven feet. I see the holes they made here in our place; they were about six feet deep. The pole that was put down there, it was taken up that night and laid down flat in the field. The one pole. There was no digging around it, only pulled up out o’ the hole, and laid down in the field.

  When the ESB (Electricity Supply Board) men came back they put it in again, in the same hole. For, d’you see, they had the poles in a line and they had to put it there.

  By Jeez, didn’t they put it down again.

  And that night it was taken up again! I don’t know, now, about the third time, but they didn’t put it down in that hole then anymore. They changed the ground and put it in another place. And ’twas left there then. I s’pose that was a path, a fairy path.