The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings

by Haining, Peter

  THE PHANTOM SHIP

  Location and date: Galway, Ireland, 1932

  Crossing the Atlantic between New York and Galway in the late spring of 1932, I was standing at the rail of the steamer a little after dawn on the morning of the day we were to arrive at Galway. A fine, brilliant morning it was, I remember, the ocean in a calmer frame of mind than is usual along this North Atlantic sea lane.

  At the first crack of sunrise, I had come up to the top deck, for we were just passing the Headland of Mallin More in County Donegal. Ireland spread its burning green mountains on our left, and I had a very special reason for my early vigil. The night before, as we were off Rathlin Island Light, which guards the northeast extremity of Ireland, I had seen, moving silently along the starlit horizon, slightly ahead of our own ship, a ghostly escort – the Bridal Barge of Aran Roe.

  This was the third time I had seen the ghostly barge. Once before, during a midwinter crossing, the cold clear night had seemed to open its indigo portals and in almost the same place, near Rathlin Light, the Bridal Barge had appeared, pursued its unhurried way slightly ahead of my ship, and disappeared again into the night, leaving no wake.

  Always at night I had seen the Barge, for the second time was a night in August. A full moon bathed all Clew Bay in Connaught in luminous light. Suddenly I stood spellbound, for into my line of vision, about a mile out to sea, sped the dazzling gold and red of the Bridal Barge. For only a moment, the moon pointed up the gilded shields on the prow and turned into fiery streamers the crimson pall flung across the bier high upon the stern; then, silently gliding into the middle-mist whence it had come, the phantom ship passed into the night.

  Many people tell of having seen the Bridal Barge in full daylight. Fishermen gathering their catch off the rocks of Erris Head and Inishmurray say the Barge sometimes looms out of the sea spray or early morning mist, so close that it seems almost to scrape the sides of their small fishing curraghs; so close that the gaping fishermen clearly see the set faces of the fifty golden warriors who forever guard the corpse of Aran Roe.

  Realizing the morning was ripening into breakfast time, and since I’d seen no sign of the Barge on either side of the ship, I started down to have coffee. Standing at the inshore rail on the deck below was a man who turned as he heard my footsteps on the companionway and came towards me. “Mr Reynolds, let me introduce myself,” he said. “I am Charles Tyrell, professor of history at Notre Dame. I am on sabbatical year. Mostly I shall be at Trinity College doing research on Gaelic legends. I wonder if you would answer a question for me.” He paused, seemed undecided, then smiled, “Well, here goes. Did you ever hear of the Bridal Barge of Aran Roe?”

  I looked at the man for a moment; then, without batting an eyelash, replied, “But of course. I saw the Barge last night off Rathlin Light.”

  For a moment the professor looked around, up and down the deck, out to sea, bewildered. Sitting down on the foot-rest of an open deck chair he said, “So it’s true. I saw it as well, last night, all red and gold, just the way I had heard about it. I’ve been told I’d see plenty of ghosts in Ireland; now, even before I set foot on the sod, I see the phantom Barge of Aran Roe.”

  Here, I realized, was a perfect listener, and, what was even better, a believer. I suggested we ring for a steward, order breakfast brought us there on deck, drink our coffee slowly in the freshness of the lovely morning, and then I would tell him the story of Aran Roe.

  Sometime in the early part of the eleventh century there lived on Rathlin Island, an expanse of craggy, barren rock off the Antrim coast, a young warrior prince. Men called him Aran Roe, Aran of the Red Hood, partly because of the scarlet hood of heavy wool which Aran wore thrown back from his brow, but more, perhaps, because of the dark red of his long hair, worn, as was the manner of the time, hanging to his shoulder blades in a thick mane. In front it was cut across in a line with his eyebrows.

  The people of Rathlin were vastly proud of their handsome young prince, for he was fearless in battle, could sail a ship unfalteringly among the perilous channels along the coast, which only Rathlin men knew, and was of happy disposition into the bargain. The day he became king would be a fine, wide day.

  At this time Arghan, King of Rathlin Island, was nearing the end of his coil. He sat the day’s length in front of a roaring fire, for his bones were always cold. Wasted and brooding, he pondered upon his long reign, a masterpiece of ill-fortune. It would not be long before the Old Woman of Gonn would beckon to the king. Then young Aran Roe would take the helm and Rathlin would again prosper.

  In a measure the wish of the Rathlin men came to pass. One wild night, surely, the Old Gray Woman of Gonn rode into the bedchamber of King Arghan and flew away with him on her back.

  The next morning the day broke bright and clear. Arghan’s death was discovered. Aran Roe donned his scarlet-hooded cape and fastened it on one shoulder with a heavy gold and bronze lunula. He put studded bands of gold upon his arms. Grasping the great Sword of Rathlin in his right hand and a square shield of gilded oxhide in his left, he strode through the halls of Castle Roe.

  In the wide courtyard before the Sea-Wall Gate, Aran was proclaimed King of Rathlin. Every man on the island cheered until his throat cracked.

  On the day the men of Rathlin Island were cracking their throats with joy over the young king, a barge with twenty-four oars was setting out from Sligo Bay. It was the marriage barge of Mourne O’Glanny, one of the most beautiful and powerful women in the West of Ireland. The O’Glanny were an ancient clan, even in 1115. Soldiers of fortune, they had pirated most of their wealth, raiding lonely castles along the coasts of Ireland and Scotland and plundering Spanish merchantmen. The O’Glanny coffers had been greatly swelled by the dowry brought to Nial O’Glanny by a rich woman from the Glen of Mourne in County Down. This probably explains the first name given to Nial’s daughter, Mourne.

  A year before this story opens, the Battle of Clontarf had taken place, the great battle in which Brian Boru drove the Danes out of the South of Ireland. O’Glannys appeared in great array at the Battle of Clontarf, and with their spoils they next appear as lords of Sligo Rock in County Sligo. Just why Sligo Rock continued for centuries to arouse men’s greed remains a mystery. A vast, ungainly barracks of a house, it has never had a shred of architectural elegance, and is not impregnable, for it has changed hands, time out of mind.

  Sligo Rock dominates a formidable seacoast position and overlooks a fine small harbour. Its iron-spiked walls and steep stone staircases have run with so much blood, down the centuries, it is small wonder that, like ancient Castle Swords at the mouth of the Liffey River in County Dublin, it reeks of treachery. Its walls exude a stench of dried and clotted blood of saint and sinner alike.

  From this perfidious house set out Mourne O’Glanny in her wedding barge, painted purple, green, and gold, loaded with wines, spices, richly dyed stuffs, beaten gold gorgets, and sharp bronze spearheads. The finest gift of all, she thought, were bales of softly tanned hides, to wear under armour, and thick animal skins, shaggy with warm fur, for cold stone Antrim floors.

  In Ireland in the days of Aran Roe and Mourne O’Glanny, marriage customs were as rigid as they were flamboyant. Every move made by the man and woman, once they were betrothed, was according to tradition. Woe to the one who broke it.

  The ceremony of the Bridal Barge took months, even years, of preparation.

  In eleventh-century Ireland the procedure ran thus. The betrothed woman loaded a barge with her household gear, as well as with splendid presents for her future husband and his family. Naturally this display must be as fine as she could afford. On an appointed day the woman set out from a point of her own choosing. Halfway to the place where her future husband lived, her barge was to halt and await his arrival in a magnificent ship with an imposing display of men-at-arms. The woman joined him at this stage. They then returned to his castle, her well-laden barge following behind. These barges were carved and painted in brilliant colours. Ancient
Gaelic runes were embroidered on ribbon-like banners which streamed out behind. Manned by twenty to forty oars, these craft attained a fair speed and moved over the water silently. A high platform was erected in the stern and richly coloured cloths were flung over it. Couches were arranged on the dais. Bards and minstrels grouped themselves about the deck. Lutes and harps made music. It was a veritable Tristan und Isolde tableau.

  For two days, through cool, golden weather, the purple barge of Mourne O’Glanny noiselessly split the waves in the direction of Rathlin Island. It had been arranged that Aran Roe should proceed from his castle to Dunaff Head, put in at the walled village of Dunaff, and await Mourne O’Glanny at Ballyliffin Castle in Donegal.

  Three days out on her journey, when they were off Dungloe, Mourne awoke to broad daylight and a clamour. Voices rose in confusion in the prow of the barge. Looking away over the sea Mourne saw small, swift sailing curraghs, the kind that have red latteen sails and dart among the rocky inlets of County Antrim. When she asked what this was all about, a pageboy ran toward her. She hastily took the rolled parchment from his hand and, spreading it on the broad handrail, she read:

  Fair Mourne O’Glanny—

  Come no further towards Ballyliffin.

  Turn and make with all speed to Sligo

  Rock. The O’Flaherty are abroad again,

  pillaging the North Coast. In a battle

  on the mainland at Dunluce Castle I

  was wounded. Soon I will come to Sligo.

  Aran Roe

  Springing from warrior stock, Mourne first thought to continue on her journey. If she encountered the Black O’Flaherty she would engage them. She had hundreds of spears and small arms in the barge, and thirty men-at-arms. When her mind calmed, she realized it would be useless. She could never overcome the O’Flaherty with her small force. Sadly, and in black anger at this bitter turn of fate, she ordered the barge turned round. As the sun sank in a riot of flaming clouds behind the Bloody Foreland, her oarsmen pulled all out for the protection of Sligo Rock.

  Day after day and far into the nights, Mourne O’Glanny paced the spray-wet stones on the battlements of Sligo Rock. Always her eyes searched the miles of dun-grey Atlantic for some sign of Aran Roe. No messenger had come, either by sea or land. It was autumn now; high winds prevailed, and storms attacked the coast, scattering driftwood and cordage from wrecked ships along the beaches.

  After waiting for weeks, with no word, Mourne had sent couriers by inland roads and secret goat tracks to try and find what was happening in the North. Two couriers never returned; a third was sent back to Sligo Rock, mutilated and gibbering, the O’Flaherty cattle brand of a black spearhead burned into his cheek.

  As months strung out, and no word came, Mourne O’Glanny became desperate with anxiety. When finally snatches of news came to her lonely house, it was bad news, surely.

  The O’Flaherty had sacked the Castles of Dunluce, Armoy, and Carnlough. O’Flaherty himself, with his savage men-at-arms, had holed up for the winter in a glen in County Down, near the smoking ruins of Portglenone. Still no news of Aran Roe.

  The long winter dragged on, a winter of iron cold. Few men walked the roads and no ships were seen in the bay. Even the gulls were frozen stiff on the pinnacles of Renvyle. Mostly, during these drear days, Mourne O’Glanny sat huddled in a cloak before a leaping fire. Flames and sparks roared up the flues; her thoughts soared with them, speeding on to Castle Roe.

  One night Mourne O’Glanny barred the doors of The Rock, as the fishermen thereabouts called the castle, took a flaming oak-knot from the banked fire, and mounted the stairs to her chamber. She had chosen this room, bitterly cold as it was, because from its one great window she could look away to Rathlin Island, hidden behind the Dunamanagh Mountains. She lay staring into the shadowed vaultings of the room for a while, then fitfully she slept. Often during the night the clash of wind wakened her, the sound of bumping, and the drag of chains rasping against rock. “Wreckage,” she murmured to the night, and sank into sleep. Before dawn, she wakened sharply and rose from her bed. That bumping again. Pulling aside an oxhide curtain which hung across a window in the wall facing the sea, she looked down. Dawn had not cracked yet. In the foggy darkness she saw a storm-driven hulk, with lines of chains dragging away from it, bumping against the ramp of Sligo Rock. Some hapless ship sucked in by the strong currents. Well, when morning came the men-at-arms could deal with it.

  When morning came there was more than a hapless ship to deal with. After a disturbed night, Mourne slept soundly. She stirred, slowly wakened, hearing the sound of clamour, just like that morning last summer when her wedding barge lay off Dungloe and a messenger from Aran Roe had come aboard. This time the clamour seemed more intense, with loud shouting and the sound of many running feet. As she lay listening, there were hurrying feet on the stairs and in the passage, and then the door was flung wide. Garda, her serving woman, stood there, her eyes wide with fear, one hand clutching her mouth to stifle tearing sobs.

  Mourne O’Glanny leaped from her bed, flung a cloak across her shoulders. “Garda!” she cried. “What is it – where?” Garda only moaned, pointing outside towards the sea, “Aran Roe – Aran Roe.”

  Mourne O’Glanny stood motionless on the top step of the water gate, looking down. Thud, thud, bump, bump, in the ebb and flow of the ocean swell, this she had heard all night, a broken barge dragging seaweed-crusted chains.

  Servants and men-at-arms crowded below her on the steps and looked hard at Mourne O’Glanny. Not a sound came from their lips. They watched to see what she would do.

  Tall, she seemed, in her dark red cloak, lifted like wings in the morning wind. Tall, straight, and very fair. Tawny, the bards called her, with golden eyes. Some said she was more beautiful than Maeve. Who could tell? Mourne of the Fair Girdle. Her body was as a young tree in a wood, round and sweet with sap.

  Mourne O’Glanny came to the landing stage. Alone she stepped aboard the barge and walked to the shattered dais where, bound round and round with heavy chains that cut cruelly into his flesh, lay the naked body of Aran Roe. Between his empty eyesockets and on his broad breast, burned black and deep, was the spearhead brand of O’Flaherty. Plundered bridal chests lay heaped in the prow, and the red hooded cloak by which all men knew Aran Roe lay soaked in blood across his mangled feet.

  Mourne O’Glanny, with a face as bleak as the Rocks of Moher, walked twice round the ship. Blood, blood everywhere. Each chain ended in the drowned body of a man, Aran Roe’s guard of honour numbering fifty men. Fifty chains, fifty men. Standing in the centre of the barge Mourne O’Glanny called to her men-at-arms. “Wrap the body of Aran Roe in my cloak, bear him gently to my house, follow me.”

  For seven days Mourne O’Glanny kept silent vigil at the bier of Aran Roe. Washed and anointed with the oil of olive from Spain, rubbed dry with pungent herbs found in the glens of Finncairn, she wrapped him in a cloak of scarlet wool cut in full circle. She had dyed the wool and fashioned the cloak herself for their wedding day. Now she drew the hood well down to hide the despicable spearhead brand. The barge she had had repaired, well caulked, and painted scarlet, with white antlers at the prow, the device of Arghan, the name of his house.

  Then with much ceremony did Mourne O’Glanny prepare what she had to do. The fifty Rathlin men who were slain with Aran Roe and bound in chains to the gunwales of his ship were wrapped in shrounds of heavy linen, only their faces exposed. An old Warn Woman from out beyond the Kyles of Rah in Mayo mixed a brew. This mixture was rubbed upon the faces of the fifty Rathlin men, and on the face and body of Aran Roe. Then they were gilded with the dust of mountain gold. Nor time nor weather would destroy their look of youth. Age or decay would touch them never.

  When this was done, Mourne O’Glanny opened her bridal chests; forth she drew bolts of cloth and mantles, red and gold and white damask, threaded through with copper, gold, and yellow. These she threw across the dais high in the stern of the barge. On this dais, wrapped in his bridal
cloak, was laid the body of Aran Roe. A bronze shield and the great sword of the O’Glanny were placed upon his breast, flagons of spiced wine, oaten bread, and fruits piled at his feet. The fifty gilded Rathlin men were bound upright in the prow, holding their spears at ease. They would gaze always to the chosen course, would guard forever Aran Roe.

  When all was ready, Mourne O’Glanny called to her servants and her men-at-arms: “Fetch to the battlements of the castle bundles of wood and dry rushes; erect there a bier, cover it with the purple mantle in my marriage chest, then wait upon my orders. When the new moon shows in the sky tonight, I will light my bridegroom on his way, for Aran Roe starts out upon a journey – a journey that will never end.”

  Dark descended. The new moon appeared, a pale saffron crescent in the sky. As the moon appeared, so came Mourne O’Glanny from her chamber, robed for her Viking funeral. Tawny hair hung in ropes, crossed with beaten gold and copper. On her brow sat a wide crown fashioned of golden alder leaves and flying birds. Beneath her purple mantle showed a habit of emerald damask heavily sewn in gold and copper threads. Many chains of carnelian, green matrix, and the ruby called “pigeon’s blood” swung from her white throat. Her arms were circled with jewelled golden bands. All about Mourne O’Glanny gleamed, save her eyes. Her eyes were dull.

  Unhurried, Mourne O’Glanny walked to the parapet. Looking down, she called, “Cut the ropes, send forth my bridegroom’s barge.” Mounting the dais, Mourne O’Glanny took a cup filled with wine which stood upon the last step. Holding it high, she drank, long and deeply. For a few moments she watched the scarlet barge ride out of the bay, breast the little phosphorescent waves, shudder slightly as it passed the sand bar, then take gracefully to the open sea.

  Mourne O’Glanny raised high her cup of wine, hurled it far out. It hung suspended for a moment like the moon, then fell into the bay. “A portent to you, Aran Roe! Sail ever through the years, a symbol of my everlasting love, and to the Black O’Flaherty the curses of all women ring with mine, the women you have robbed of all they love.”