Poets and Dreamers Part 10

Outcasts and widows crying aloud Without right judgment to be had or punishment.

We were never agreed together, But as one ox bound and one free from the yoke; No right humility to be found.

All trying for the headship of Ireland At the time when her enemies were doing their work.

No settlement to be made of any quarrel, The share of the wheat-ear for the man that was strongest; It is long that this has been the hurt of Ireland; It is thus that the battle ended with the Gael.

Let us turn now and change our manners, Let us make repentance of our sins together-- It is thus that the Israelites came out of Egypt; Nineveh was given pardon for all its sins, And even Peter for denying Christ.

O saints of Ireland, arise now together; O Patrick, who hast care of us, bless this flock; We who are exiled, we who are forsaken, This sod is gone out unless thou blow upon it; Is thy sleep heavy or is thy hearing slow That thou dost not give an answer to us?

Awake quickly; let it not be as a tale with thee That there is no help for the fate of the Gael.

This, Patrick, is my own quarrel with thee That every enemy of thy flock is saying That thy ears are not ears that listen, That thou art not troubled by the sight of thy people, That if they did trouble thee thou wouldst not deny them.

Be with us nevertheless with thy strong power.

Make our enemies to quit Ireland for ever.

1900.

MOUNTAIN THEOLOGY

Mary Glyn lives under Slieve-nan-Or, the Golden Mountain, where the last battle will be fought in the last great war of the world; so that the sides of Gortaveha, a lesser mountain, will stream with blood. But she and her friends are not afraid of this; for an old weaver from the north, who knew all things, told them long ago that there is a place near Turloughmore where war will never come, because St. Columcill used to live there. So they will make use of this knowledge, and seek a refuge there, if, indeed, there is room enough for them all. There is a river by her house that marks the boundary between Galway and Clare; and there are stepping-stones in the river, so that she can cross from Connaught to Munster when she has a mind. But she cannot do her marketing when she has a mind; for the nearest town, Gort, is ten miles away. The roof of her little cabin is thatched with rushes, and a garden of weeds grows on it, and the rain comes through. But she is soon to have a new thatch; for she thinks she won't live long, and she wouldn't like the rain to be coming down on her when she is dead and laid out.

There is heather in blow on the hills about her home, and foxglove reddens the clay-banks, and loosetrife the marshy hollows; and rush-cotton waves its little white flags over the bogs. Mary Glyn's neighbours come to see her sometimes, when the sun is going down, and the hurry of the day is over. Old Mr. Saggarton is one of them; he had his learning from a hedge-schoolmaster in the old times; and he looks down on the narrow teaching of the National Schools; and he was once in jail for nine months, having been taken in the very act of making _poteen_. And Mrs. Casey comes and looks at the stepping-stones now and again, for she is a Clare woman; and though she has lived fifty years in Connaught, she is not yet quite reconciled to it, and would never have made it her home if she could have seen it before she came. And some who do not live among the bogs and the heather, but among the green pastures and the grey stones of Aidne, come to Slieve Echtge and learn unwritten truths from the lips of Mary and her friends.

The duty of giving is taught as well as practised by these poor hill-people. 'For,' says Mary Glyn, 'the best road to heaven is to be charitable to the poor.' And old Mrs. Casey agrees, and says: 'There was a poor girl walking the road one night with no place to stop; and the Saviour met her on the road, and He said: "Go up to the house you see a light in; there's a woman dead there, and they'll let you in." So she went and she found the woman laid out, and the husband and other people; but she worked harder than they all, and she stopped in the house after; and after two quarters the man married her. And one day she was sitting outside the door, picking over a bag of wheat, and the Saviour came again, with the appearance of a poor man, and He asked her for a few grains of the wheat. And she said: "Wouldn't potatoes be good enough for you?" and she called to the girl within to bring out a few potatoes. But He took nine grains of the wheat in His hand and went away; and there wasn't a grain of wheat left in the bag, but all gone.

So she ran after Him then to ask Him to forgive her; and she overtook Him on the road, and she asked forgiveness. And He said: "Don't you remember the time you had no house to go to, and I met you on the road, and sent you to a house where you'd live in plenty? and now you wouldn't give Me a few grains of wheat." And she said: "But why didn't You give me a heart that would like to divide it?" That is how she came round on Him. And He said: "From this out, whenever you have plenty in your hands, divide it freely for My sake."'

And this is a marvel that might occur again at any time; for Mary Glyn says further:--

'There was a woman I knew was very charitable to the poor; and she'd give them the full of her ap.r.o.n of bread, or of potatoes or anything she had. And she was only lately married; and one day, a poor woman came to the door with her children and she brought them to the fire, and warmed them, and gave them a drink of milk; and she sent out to the barn for a bag of potatoes for them. And the husband came in, and he said: "Kitty, if you go on this way, you won't leave much for ourselves." And she said: "He that gave us what we have, can give more." And the next day when they went out to the barn, it was full of potatoes--more than were ever in it before. And when she was dying, and her children about her, the priest said to her: "Mrs. Gallagher, it's in heaven you'll be at 12 o'clock to-morrow."'

But when death comes, it is not enough to have been charitable; and it is not right to touch the body or lay it out for a couple of hours; for the soul should be given time to fight for itself, and to go up to judgment. And sometimes it is not willing to go; for Mrs. Casey says:--

'The Saviour, one time, told St. Patrick to go and prepare a man that was going to die. And St. Patrick said: "I'd sooner not go; for I never yet saw the soul depart from the body." But then he went, and he prepared the man. And when he was lying there dead, he saw the soul go from the body; and three times it went to the door, and three times it came back and kissed the body. And St. Patrick asked the Saviour why it did that: and He said: "That soul was sorry to part from the body, because it had held it so clean and so honest."'

When the hill-people talk of 'the time of the war,' it is the war that once took place in heaven that is understood. And when '_Those_' are spoken of, the fallen angels are understood, the cloud of witness, the whirling invisible host; and it is only to a stranger that an explanation need be given.

'They were in heaven once,' Mary Glyn says 'and heaven is the first place there was war; and they were all to be done away with; and it was St. Peter asked the Saviour to help them, when he saw Him going to empty the heavens. So He turned His hand like this; and the earth and the sky and the sea were full of them, and they are in every place, and you know that better than I do, because you read books. Resting they do be in the daytime, and going about at night. And their music is the finest you ever heard, like all the fifers, and all the instruments, and all the tunes of the world. I heard it sometimes myself, and there is no music in the world like it; but not all can hear it. Round the hill it comes, and you going in at the door. And they are quiet neighbours if you treat them well. G.o.d bless them, and bring them all to heaven.'

And then, having mentioned Monday (a spell against unseen listeners), and said, 'G.o.d bless the hearers, and the place it is told in'--and her niece, Mary Irwin, having said, 'G.o.d bless all we see, and those we don't see,' they tell--first one speaking and then the other--that: 'One night there were _banabhs_ in the house; and there was a man coming to dig the potato-garden in the morning--and so late at night, Mary Glyn was making stirabout, and a cake to have ready for the breakfast of the _banabhs_ and the man; and Mary's brother Micky was asleep within on the bed. And there came the sound of the grandest music you ever heard from beyond the stream, and it stopped there. And Micky awoke in the bed, and was afraid, and said: "Shut up the door and quench the light," and so we did.' 'It's likely,' Mary says, 'they wanted to come into the house, and they wouldn't when they saw me up and the lights about.' But one time when there were potatoes in the loft, Mary and her brothers were pelted with the potatoes when they sat down to supper. And Mary Irwin got a blow on the side of the face, from one of them, one night in the bed.

'And they have the hope of heaven, and G.o.d grant it to them.' 'And one day, there was a priest and his servant riding along the road, and there was a hurling of them going on in the field. And a man of them came out and stood in the road, and said to the priest: "Tell me this, for you know it, have we a chance of heaven?" "You have not," said the priest.

("G.o.d forgive him," says Mary Irwin, "a priest to say that!") And the man that was of them said: "Put your fingers in your ears, till you have travelled two miles of the road; for when I go back and tell what you are after telling me to the rest, the crying and the bawling and the roaring will be so great that, if you hear it, you'll never hear a noise again in this world." So they put their fingers then in their ears; but after a while the servant said to the priest: "Let me take out my fingers now." And the priest said: "Do not." And then the servant said again: "I think I might take one finger out." And the priest said: "Since you are so persevering, you may take it out." So he did, and the noise of the crying and the roaring and the bawling was so great, that he never had the use of that ear again.'

Old Mr. Saggarton confirms the story of the fall of the angels and their presence about us, but goes deeper into theology. 'The soul,' he says, 'was the breath of G.o.d, breathed into Adam, and it is the possession of G.o.d ever since. And I could never have believed there was so much power in the shadow of a soul, till I saw _them_ one night hurling. They tempt us sometimes in dreams--may G.o.d forgive me for saying He would allow power to any to tempt to evil. And they would destroy the world but for the hope they have of being saved. Every Monday morning they think the day of judgment may be coming, and that they will see heaven.

'Half the world is with them. And when you see a blast of wind, and it comes sudden and carries the dust with it, you should say, "G.o.d bless them," and throw something after them. For how do you know but one of our own may be in it?

'There never was a funeral they were not at, walking after the other people. And you can see them if you know the way--that is, to take a green rush and to twist it into a ring, and to look through it. But if you do, you'll never have a stim of sight in the eye again.'

HERB-HEALING

_September 28th, 1899._

'HONOURABLE LADY GREGORY,

'I, Bridget Ruane, wish to inform you that there is in the Oratory in London one of the Fathers, a Saint. I do not know his name; but there was a young woman of the name of Meara; she got two falls and could get no cure. She went to London and found this holy man; and he sent her back to Gort, here to me, and I cured her. If your honourable Ladyship could make him out, it would be a wonderful thing, and a great happiness to many a weary heart, and the great G.o.d would have it in store for you and your son. May you enjoy many happy days together is the prayer of your humble servant,

'BRIDGET RUANE.'

This letter was brought to me one morning; and I went down to see the writer, a respectable-looking old woman, dressed in the red petticoat and blue cloak of the country-people. She repeated what she had said in her note, and added: 'Now if you could find out the name of that Saint through the press, he'd tell me his remedies; and between us, all the world would be cured. For I can't do all cures, though there are a great many I can do. I cured Michael Miscail when the doctor couldn't do it, and a woman in Gort that was paralyzed, and her two sons that were stretched. For I can bring back the dead with some of the herbs our Lord was brought back with, the _Garblus_ and the _Slanlus_. But there are some things I can't do. I can't help anyone that has got a stroke from the Queen or the Fool of the Forth.

'It was my brother got the knowledge of cures from a book that was thrown down before him on the road. What language was it written in?

What language would it be but Irish? May be it was G.o.d gave it to him, and may be it was the _other people_. He was a fine strong man; and he weighed fifteen stone; and he went to England, and there he cured all the world, so that the doctors had no way of living. So one time he got in a ship to go to America; and the doctors had bad men engaged to shipwreck him out of the ship; he wasn't drowned, but he was broken to pieces on the rocks, and the book was lost along with him. But he taught me a good deal out of it. So I know all herbs, and I do a good many cures; and I have brought a good many children home to the world, and never lost one, or one of the women that bore them.'

I asked her to teach me some of her fragments of Druids' wisdom, the healing power of herbs. So she came another day, and brought some herbs, and sorted them out on a table, and said: 'This is _Dwareen_ (knapweed); and what you have to do with this, is to put it down with other herbs, and with a bit of threepenny sugar, and to boil it, and to drink it, for pains in the bones; and don't be afraid but it will cure you. Sure the Lord put it in the world for curing.

'And this is _Corn-corn_ [tansy]; it s very good for the heart--boiled like the others.

'This is _Athair-talav_, the father of all herbs (wild camomile). This is very hard to pull; and when you go for it, you must have a black-handled knife. And whatever way the wind is when you begin to cut it, if it changes while you're cutting it, you'll lose your mind. And if you are paid for cutting it, you can do it when you like; but if not, _they_ mightn't like it. I knew a woman was cutting at one time, and a voice, an enchanted voice, called out: "Don't cut that if you are not paid, or you'll be sorry." But if you put a bit of this with every other herb you drink, you'll live for ever. My grandmother used to put a bit with everything she took, and she lived to be over a hundred.

'And this is _Camal buidhe_ (loose-strife), that will keep all bad things away.

'This is _Cuineal Muire_ (mullein), the blessed candle of our Lady.

'This is the _Fearaban_ (water-b.u.t.tercup); and it's good for every bone of your body.

'This is _Dub-cosac_ (trichomanes), that's good for the heart; very good for a sore heart.

'Here are the _Slanlus_ (plantain) and the _Garblus_ (dandelion); and these would cure the wide world; and it was these brought our Lord from the Cross, after the ruffians that were with the Jews did all the harm to Him. And not one could be got to pierce His heart till a dark man came; and he said: "Give me the spear and I'll do it." And the blood that sprang out touched his eyes and they got their sight. And it was after that, His Mother and Mary and Joseph gathered these herbs and cured His wounds.

'These are the best of the herbs; but they are all good, and there isn't one among them but would cure seven diseases. I'm all the days of my life gathering them, and I know them all; but it isn't easy to make them out. Sunday afternoon is the best time to get them, and I was never interfered with. Seven Hail Marys I say when I'm gathering them; and I pray to our Lord, and to St. Joseph and St. Colman. And there may be _some_ watching me; but they never meddled with me at all.'

A neighbour whom I asked about Bridget Ruane and her brother said:--'Some people call her "Biddy Early" (after a famous witch-doctor). She has done a good many cures. Her brother was _away_ for a while, and it is from him she got her knowledge. I believe it's before sunrise she gathers the herbs; any way no one ever saw her gathering them. She has saved many a woman from being brought away when her child was born by whatever she does; and she told me herself that one night when she was going to the lodge gate to attend the woman there, three magpies came before her and began roaring into her mouth to try and drive her back.

Another neighbour, who has herself some reputation as an herb-doctor, says:--'Monday is a good day for pulling herbs, or Tuesday--not Sunday: a Sunday cure is no cure. The _Cosac_ is good for the heart. There was Mahon in Gort--one time his heart was wore to a silk thread, and it cured him. And the _Slanugad_ (ribgra.s.s) is very good: it will take away lumps. You must go down where it is growing on the scraws, and pull it with three pulls; and mind would the wind change when you are pulling it, or your head will be gone. Warm it on the tongs when you bring it in, and put it on the lump. The _Lus-mor_ is the only one that's good to bring back children that are "_away_."'

Another authority says:--'Dandelion is good for the heart; and when Father Quinn was curate here, he had it rooted up in all the fields about to drink it; and see what a fine man he is. The wild parsnip (_Meacan-buidhe_) is good for the gravel; and for heart-beat there's nothing so good as dandelion. There was a woman I knew used to boil it down; and she'd throw out what was left on the gra.s.s. And there was a fleet of turkeys about the house, and they used to be picking it up. At Christmas they killed one of them; and when it was cut open, they found a new heart growing in it with the dint of the dandelion.'

But an old man says there are no such healers now as there were in his youth:--'The best herb-doctor I ever knew was Connolly up at Kilbecanty.

He knew every herb that grew in the earth. It is said he was away with the fairies one time; and when I saw him he had the two thumbs turned in; and it was said it was the sign they left on him. I had a lump on the thigh one time, and my father went to him, and he gave him an herb for it; but he told him not to come into the house by the door the wind would be blowing in at. They thought it was the evil I had--that is given by _them_ by a touch; and that is why he said about the wind; for if it was the evil there would be a worm in it, and if it smelled the herb that was brought in at the door, it might change to another place.

I don't know what the herb was; but I would have been dead if I had it on another hour--it burned so much--and I had to get the lump lanced after, for it wasn't the evil I had.

'Connolly cured many a one; Jack Hall, that fell into a pot of water they were after boiling potatoes in, and had the skin scalded off him, and that Dr. Lynch could do nothing for, he cured. He boiled down herbs with a bit of lard, and after that was rubbed in three times, he was well.