by Bob Curran
Many of these writers had either Celtic backgrounds or were interested in Celtic matters. Relatively recent writers such as American H.P. Lovecraft, with his lurking terrors in the hills of rural Rhode Island, or British writers such as Arthur Machen, with his stories of strange little people hiding in the hollows of rural Wales, owe much to the stories and storytellers of earlier times. They look toward talespinners such as Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who wrote about wizard Earls emerging out of lakes or young girls marrying mouldering corpses (a common theme in some of the more gruesome Irish and Scottish legends); or to the collectors of rural folklore such as Jeremiah Curtin, Elias Owen, or Lady Gregory, with their fearful stories of small children being carried away by shadowy creatures that dwelt amongst (or sometimes under) the gloomy hills. Such stories have provided a basis for much of the fantastic and spine-tingling literature that we have enjoyed over the years.
Even the greatest bogeyman of them all, the dark and cape-clad Count Dracula, may well have his origins in Celtic folktale. Although he is portrayed as a Transylvanian (East European) nobleman, it is possible to argue that the Count may have had his origins in the mists of Celtic folklore. Remember that Dracula’s author, Bram Stoker, was Irish and had been brought up in Dublin, where his family had been attended by serving-maids from County Kerry. Undoubtedly, he would have heard old folktales of the blood-drinking fairies dwelling in the Magillycuddy Reeks Mountains. Later, as a man visiting his old friends Sir William and Lady Wilde, both collectors of folktales, he could have heard old stories of cannibalistic Irish chieftains from North Derry and all of these elements may well have influenced his portrayal of the vampiric Transylvanian nobleman. And similar tales may have also influenced his predecessor, Le Fanu, to pen one of the earliest vampire tales: the celebrated “Carmilla.” Thus novels and even modern-day film may very well have been influenced by the tales told around the Celtic fires of long ago.
Other writers, too, have drawn on Celtic roots for their tales. Stories of unsettled spirits and ancient charms and shehoguey places have been featured in many tales right up to today. Even television series such as the X-Files and more recently Buffy the Vampire Slayer have, from time to time, drawn on Celtic themes and have reawakened interest in these ancient tales. And each year, novels and anthologies appear that reflect, either consciously or unconsciously, many of the motifs and perspectives of an earlier Celtic folklore.
The folktale has come a long way, from the whispered stories in the dark of the night as ancient warriors bedded down for the night; through the yarns and mysteries told and hinted at by local storytellers around the rural hearths as evening drew in; to the books, films, and television series of our fast, “sophisticated,” modern world. Perhaps, in some ways at least, the ancient tales have adapted and have become, almost imperceptibly, a strand of our own culture, serving to show just what a clever animal the folktale is. It will be with us for years to come, for it is a fundamental part of our heritage and culture, and more: it is a fundamental part of us, whether we be Celt or not.
Not to Be Taken at Bedtime
Ever since earliest times, peoples all across the world have sought to influence or change the natural course of events through the use of charms and spells. The Celts were no different. In all probability, their shamans had used incantations and allegedly sorcerous materials to affect the outcomes of battles, of kingship, of day-to-day living. This was, of course, part of a continuing Celtic belief that continued down into relatively modern times. Even as late as the early 20th century, the use of certain magical “rhymes” and of special herbs was still in evidence in many parts of the Celtic countryside.
Nowhere, arguably, was the use of charms, incantations and invocations more widespread than in the attempt to instill love into the heart of a desired one. The Celts used a variety of natural materials—herbs, parts of animals, pieces of sacred objects—that they ground into powders and potions as an aid to their charms. They also used waters from certain wells or extracts squeezed from special plants. Some of the ingredients were more repellent. The more noxious the charm, it seemed, the greater its chances of success. The most grisly of all lovecharms was the burragh-boos or burragh-bos, which had been reputedly handed down from pagan times and which smacked to the later Christian peoples of darkest sorcery.
In her eerie story “Not to Be Taken at Bedtime” (published in All The Year Round in 1865), Belfast-born Gothic writer Rosa Mulholland (1841–1921) draws upon the lore and traditions of this ghastly charm. This is a story of terrible love and madness that contains echoes of both J.S. Le Fanu and William Carleton. It is the story of the dark Coll Dhu and of the Devil’s Inn.
“Not to Be Taken at Bedtime”
by Rosa Mulholland
This is the legend of a house called the Devil’s Inn, standing in the heather on the top of the Connemara Mountains in a shallow valley between five peaks. Tourists sometimes come in sight of it on September evenings, a crazy and weather-stained apparition, with the sun glaring on it angrily between the hills and striking its shattered window-panes. Guides are known to shun it however.
The house was built by a stranger, who came no one knew whence, and whom the people named Coll Dhu (Black Coll) because of his sullen bearing and solitary habits. His dwelling they called the Devil’s Inn because no tired traveller had ever been asked to rest under its roof or friend known to cross its threshold. No-one bore him company in his retreat but a wizen-faced old man, who shunned the good-morrow of the trudging peasant when he took occasional excursions to the nearest village for provisions for himself and master, and who was as secret as a stone concerning all the antecedents of both.
For the first year of their existence in the country, there had long been much speculation as to who they were and what they did with themselves up among the clouds and eagles. Some said that Coll Dhu was a scion of the old family from whose hands the surrounding lands had passed; and that, embittered by poverty and pride, he had come to bury himself in solitude, and brood over his misfortunes. Others hinted of crime, and flight from another country; others again whispered of those who were cursed from birth, and could never smile, nor yet make friends with a fellow-creature till the day of their death. But when two years had passed, the wonder had somewhat died out, and Coll Dhu was little thought of, except when a herd looking for sheep crossed the track of the big dark man walking the mountains gun in hand to whom he did not dare say ‘Lord save you’ or when a housewife rocking her cradle of a winter’s night, crossed herself as a gust of storm thundered over her cabin-roof, with the exclamation “Oh then, it’s Coll Dhu that has enough o’ that fresh air about his head up there this night, the creature!”
Coll Dhu had lived thus in his solitude for some years, when it became known that Colonel Blake, the new lord of the soil, was coming to visit the country. By climbing one of the peaks encircling his eyrie, Coll could look sheer down a mountain-side and see in miniature beneath him a grey old dwelling with ivied chimneys and weather-slated walls, standing amongst straggling trees and grim, warlike rocks, that gave it the look of a fortress, gazing out onto the Atlantic for ever with the eager eyes of its windows, as if demanding perpetually ‘What tidings from the New World?’
He could see now masons and carpenters crawling about below, like ants in the sun, over-running the old house from base to chimney, daubing here and knocking there, tumbling down walls that looked to Coll, up among the clouds, like a handful of jack-stones and building up others that looked like toy fences to a child’s farm. Throughout several months he must have watched the busy ants at their task of breaking and mending again, disfiguring and beautifying; but when all was done he had not the curiosity to stride down and admire the handsome panelling of the new billiard-room, nor yet the fine view which h the enlarged bay-window in the drawing room commanded of the water highway to Newfoundland.
Deep summer was melting into autumn and the amber streaks of decay were beginning to creep out and trail over the ripe p
urple of the moor and mountains when Colonel Blake, his only daughter and a party of friends arrived in the country. The grey house below was alive with gaiety but Coll Dhu no longer found an interest in observing it from his eyrie. When he watched the sun rise or set, he chose to ascend some crag that looked on no human habitation. When he sallied forth on his excursions, gun in hand, to set his face towards the most isolated wastes, dipping into the loneliest valleys, and scaling the nakedest ridges. When he came by chance within call of other excursionists, gun in hand he plunged into the shade of some hollow, and avoided an encounter. Yet it was fated for all that, that he and Colonel Blake should meet.
Towards the evening of one bright September day, the wind changed and in half an hour the mountains were wrapped in a thick, blinding mist. Coll Dhu was far from his den, but so well had he searched these mountains, and inured himself to their climate, that neither storm, rain, nor fog, had power to disturb him. But while he stalked on his way, a faint and agonised cry from a human voice reached him through the smothering mist. He quickly tracked the sound and gained the side of a man who was stumbling g along in danger of death at every step.
“Follow me!” said Coll Dhu to this man and in an hour’s time, brought him safely to the lowlands and up to the walls of the eager-eyed mansion.
“I am Colonel Blake”, said the frank soldier, who, having left the fog behind him, they stood in the starlight under the lighted windows. “Pray tell me quickly to whom I owe my life.”
As he spoke, he glanced up at his benefactor, a large man with a sombre, sun-burned face.
“Colonel Blake” said Coll Dhu after a strange pause “your father suggested to my father to stake his estates at the gaming table. They were staked, and the tempter won. Both are dead; but you and I live, and I have sworn to injure you.”
The colonel laughed good humouredly at the uneasy face above him.
“And you began to keep your oath tonight by saving my life?” said he. “Come! I am a soldier, and know how to meet an enemy; but I had far rather meet a friend. I shall not be happy till you have eaten my salt. We have merrymaking tonight in honour of my daughter’s birthday. Come in and join us?”
Coll Dhu looked at the earth doggedly.
“I have told you” he said, “who and what I am, and I will not cross your threshold.”
But at this moment (so runs my story) a French window opened among the flower-beds by which they were standing and a vision approached which stayed the words on Coll’s tongue. A stately girl, clad in white satin, stood framed in the ivied window, with the warm light from within streaming about her richly-moulded figure into the night. Her face was as pale as her gown, her eyes were swimming in tears, but a firm smile sat on her lips as she held out both hands to her father. The light behind her touched the glistening folds of her dress—the lustrous pearls around her throat—the coronet of blood-red roses which encircled the knotted braids at the back of her head. Satin, pearls and roses—had Coll Dhu, of the Devil’s Inn, never set eyes upon such things before?
Evleen Blake was no tearful miss. A few quick words—“Thank God! You’re safe; the rest have been home an hour”—and a slight pressure on her father’s fingers between her own jewelled hands, were all that betrayed the uneasiness she had suffered.
“Faith my love I owe my life to this brave gentleman” said the blithe colonel. “Press him to come in and be our guest Evleen. He wants to retreat in his mountains and lose himself again in the fog where I found him; or rather, he found me! Come sir” (to Coll) “you must surrender to this fair besieger.”
An introduction followed. “Coll Dhu!” murmured Evleen Blake, for she had heard the common tales about him; but with a frank welcome she invited her father’s preserver to taste the hospitality of that father’s house.
“I beg you to come in sir,” she said, “but for you our gaiety must have been turned to mourning. A shadow will be upon our mirth if our benefactor disdains to join in it.”
With a sweet grace, mixed with a certain hauteur from which she was never free, she extended her white hand to the tall, looming figure outside the window; to have it grasped and wrung in a way that made the proud girl’s eyes flash their amazement, and the same little hand clench itself in displeasure, when it hid itself like an outraged thing among the shining folds of her gown. Was this Coll Dhu mad, or rude?
The guest no longer refused to enter, but followed the white figure into a little study where a lamp burned and the gloomy stranger, the bluff colonel, and the young m’stress of the house, were fully discovered to each other’s eyes. Evleen glanced at the newcomer’s dark face, and shuddered with a feeling of indescribable dread and dislike, then to her father accounted for the shudder in a popular fashion, saying lightly: “There is someone walking over my grave.”
So Coll Dhu was present at Evleen Blake’s birthday ball. Here he was, under a roof which ought to have been his own, a stranger, known only by a nickname, shunned and solitary. Here he was, who had lived among the eagles and foxes, lying in wait with a fell purpose to be revenged on his father’s foe for poverty and disgrace, for the broken heart of a dead mother, for the loss of a self-slaughtered father, for the dreary scattering of brothers and sisters. Here he stood, a Samson shorn of his strength; and all because a haughty girl had melting eyes, a winning mouth, and looked radiant in satin and roses.
Peerless where many were lovely, she moved among her friends, trying to be unconscious of the gloomy fire of those strange eyes which followed her unweariedly wherever she went. And when her father begged her to be gracious to the unsocial guest when he would fain conciliate, she courteously conducted him to see the new picture-gallery adjoining the drawing rooms, explained under what odd circumstances the colonel had picked up this little paining or that; using every delicate art her pride would allow to achieve her father’s purpose, whilst entertaining at the same time her own personal reserve; trying to divert the guest’s oppressive attention from herself to the objects for which she claimed his notice. Coll Dhu followed his conductress and listened to her voice, but what she said mattered nothing; nor did she wring many words of comment or reply from his lips, until they paused in a retired corner where the light was dim, before a window from which the curtain was withdrawn. The sashes were open and nothing was visible but water; the night Atlantic, with the full moon riding high above a bank of clouds, making silvery tracks outward towards the distance of infinite mystery dividing two worlds. Here the following g little scene is said to have been enacted.
“This window of my father’s own planning, is it not creditable to his taste?” said the young hostess, as she stood, herself glittering like a dream of beauty, looking on the moonlight.
Coll Dhu made no answer, but suddenly, it is said, asked her for a rose from a cluster of flowers that nestled in the lace on her bosom.
For the second time that night Evleen Blake’s eyes flashed with no gentle light. But this man was the saviour of her father. She broke off a blossom, and with such good grace, and also with such queen-like dignity as she might assume, presented it to him. Whereupon, not only was the rose seized, but also the hand that gave it, which was hastily covered with kisses.
Then her anger burst upon him.
“Sir,” she cried, “if you are a gentleman you must be mad! If you are not mad, then you are not a gentleman!”
“Be merciful,” said Coll Dhu. “I love you. My God, I never loved a woman before! Ah!” he cried, as a look of disgust crept over her face, “you hate me. You shuddered the first time your eyes met mine. I love you and you hate me!”
“I do,” cried Evleen vehemently, forgetting everything but her indignation. “Your presence is like something evil to me. Love me?—your looks poison me. Pray sir, talk no more to me in this strain”
“I will trouble you no longer”, said Coll Dhu. And, stalking to the window, he placed one powerful hand upon the sash and vaulted from it out of her sight.
Bare-headed as he was, Coll Dhu
strode off to the mountains, but not towards his own home. All the remaining dark hours of that night he is believed to have walked the labyrinths of the hills, until dawn began to scatter the clouds with a high wind. Fasting, and on foot from sunrise the morning before, he was glad enough to see a cabin right in his way. Walking in, he asked for water to drink, and a corner where he might throw himself to rest.
There was a wake in the house, and the kitchen was full of people, all wearied out with the night’s watch, old men were dozing over their pipes in the chimney-corner and here and there a woman was fast asleep with her head on a neighbour’s knee. All who were awake crossed themselves when Coll Dhu’s figure darkened the door, because of his evil name, but an old man of the house invited him in, and offering him milk, and promising him a toasted potato by-and-by, conducted him to a small room off the kitchen, one end of which was strewed with heather, and where there were only two women sitting gossiping over a fire.
A warrior hears strange news from a far land.
“A thraveller”, said the old man nodding his head at the women who nodded back as if to say ‘he has the traveller’s right’. And Coll Dhu flung himself on the heather, in the farthest corner of the narrow room.
The women suspended their talk for a while, but presently guessing the intruder to be asleep, resumed it in voices above a whisper. There was but a patch of window with the grey dawn behind it, but Coll could see the figures by the firelight over which they bent; an old woman sitting forward with her withered hands extended to the embers, and a girl reclining against the hearth wall, with her healthy face, bright eyes and crimson draperies, glowing by turns in the flickering blaze.
