The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 54

[18] It happened that I had in my pocket a fossil, picked out of the neighbouring sea-cliff rocks, which are very rich in fossils. I showed this to Pat to ascertain if what he had had in his hand looked anything like it, and he at once said 'No'.

[19] After this Ossianic fragment, which has been handed down orally, I asked Pat if he had ever heard the old people talk about Dermot and Grania, and he replied:--'To be sure I have. Dermot and Grania used to live in these parts. Dermot stole Finn MacCoul's sister, and had to flee away. He took with him a bag of sand and a bunch of heather; and when he was in the mountains he would put the bag of sand under his head at night, and then tell everybody he met that he had slept on the sand (the sea-sh.o.r.e); and when on the sand he would use the bunch of heather for a pillow, and say he had slept on the heather (the mountains). And so n.o.body ever caught him at all.'

[20] As to probable proof that there was an Atlantis, see p. 333 n.

[21] This refers to Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, who wrote _The Secret Commonwealth_ (see this study, p. 85 n.).

[22] In going from East Ireland to Galway, during the summer of 1908, I pa.s.sed through the country near Mullingar, where there was then great excitement over a leprechaun which had been appearing to school-children and to many of the country-folk. I talked with some of the people as I walked through part of County Meath about this leprechaun, and most of them were certain that there could be such a creature showing itself; and I noticed, too, that they were all quite anxious to have a chance at the money-bag, if they could only see the little fellow with it. I told one good-natured old Irishman at Ballywillan--where I stopped over night--as we sat round his peat fire and pot of boiling potatoes, that the leprechaun was reported as captured by the police in Mullingar. 'Now that couldn't be, at all,' he said instantly, 'for everybody knows the leprechaun is a spirit and can't be caught by any blessed policeman, though it is likely one might get his gold if they got him cornered so he had no chance to run away. But the minute you wink or take your eyes off the little devil, sure enough he is gone.'

[23] Cf. David Fitzgerald, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, in _Rev. Celt._, iv. 185-92; and _All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. 'This woman guardian of the lake is called Toice Bhrean, "untidy" or "lazy wench".

According to a local legend, she is said to have been originally the guardian of the sacred well, from which, owing to her neglect, Lough Gur issued; and in this role she corresponds to Liban, daughter of Eochaidh Finn, the guardian of the sacred well from which issued Lough Neagh, according to the _Dinnshenchas_ and the tale of Eochaidh MacMairido.'--J. F. LYNCH.

[24] It was on the bank of the little river Camog, which flows near Lough Gur, that the Earl of Desmond one day saw Aine as she sat there combing her hair. Overcome with love for the fairy-G.o.ddess, he gained control over her through seizing her cloak, and made her his wife. From this union was born the enchanted son Geroid Iarla, even as Galahad was born to Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake. When Geroid had grown into young manhood, in order to surpa.s.s a woman he leaped right into a bottle and right out again, and this happened in the midst of a banquet in his father's castle. His father, the earl, had been put under taboo by Aine never to show surprise at anything her magician son might do, but now the taboo was forgotten, and hence broken, amid so unusual a performance; and immediately Geroid left the feasting and went to the lake. As soon as its water touched him he a.s.sumed the form of a goose, and he went swimming over the surface of the Lough, and disappeared on Garrod Island.

According to one legend, Aine, like the Breton _Morgan_, may sometimes be seen combing her hair, only half her body appearing above the lake.

And in times of calmness and clear water, according to another legend, one may behold beneath Aine's lake the lost enchanted castle of her son Geroid, close to Garrod Island--so named from Geroid or 'Gerald'.

Geroid lives there in the under-lake world to this day, awaiting the time of his normal return to the world of men (see our chapter on re-birth, p. 386). But once in every seven years, on clear moonlight nights, he emerges temporarily, when the Lough Gur peasantry see him as a phantom mounted on a phantom white horse, leading a phantom or fairy cavalcade across the lake and land. A well-attested case of such an apparitional appearance of the earl has been recorded by Miss Anne Baily, the percipient having been Teigue O'Neill, an old blacksmith whom she knew (see _All the Year Round_, New Series, iii. 495-6, London, 1870). And Moll Riall, a young woman also known to Miss Baily, saw the phantom earl by himself, under very weird circ.u.mstances, by day, as she stood at the margin of the lake washing clothes (ib., p. 496).

Some say that Aine's true dwelling-place is in her hill; upon which on every St. John's Night the peasantry used to gather from all the immediate neighbourhood to view the moon (for Aine seems to have been a moon G.o.ddess, like Diana), and then with torches (_cliars_) made of bunches of straw and hay tied on poles used to march in procession from the hill and afterwards run through cultivated fields and amongst the cattle. The underlying purpose of this latter ceremony probably was--as is the case in the Isle of Man and in Brittany (see pp. 124 n., 273), where corresponding fire-ceremonies surviving from an ancient agricultural cult are still celebrated--to exorcise the land from all evil spirits and witches in order that there may be good harvests and rich increase of flocks. Sometimes on such occasions the G.o.ddess herself has been seen leading the sacred procession (cf. the Bacchus cult among the ancient Greeks, who believed that the G.o.d himself led his worshippers in their sacred torch-light procession at night, he being like Aine in this respect, more or less connected with fertility in nature). One night some girls staying on the hill late were made to look through a magic ring by Aine, and lo the hill was crowded with the folk of the fairy G.o.ddess who before had been invisible. The peasants always said that Aine is 'the best-hearted woman that ever lived' (cf. David Fitzgerald, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, in _Rev. Celt._, iv. 185-92).

In _Silva Gadelica_ (ii. 347-8), Aine is a daughter of Eogabal, a king of the Tuatha De Danann, and her abode is within the _sidh_, named on her account '_Aine cliach_, now Cnoc Aine, or Knockany'. In another pa.s.sage we read that Manannan took Aine as his wife (ib., ii. 197). Also see in _Silva Gadelica_, ii, pp. 225, 576.

[25] 'In some local tales the _Bean-tighe_, or _Bean a'tighe_ is termed _Bean-sidhe_ (Banshee), and _Bean Chaointe_, or "wailing woman", and is identified with Aine. In an elegy by Ferriter on one of the Fitzgeralds, we read:--

Aine from her closely hid nest did awake, The woman of wailing from Gur's voicy lake.

'Thomas O'Connellan, the great minstrel bard, some of whose compositions are given by Hardiman, died at Lough Gur Castle about 1700, and was buried at New Church beside the lake. It is locally believed that Aine stood on a rock of Knock Adoon and "keened" O'Connellan whilst the funeral procession was pa.s.sing from the castle to the place of burial.'--J. F. LYNCH.

A Banshee was traditionally attached to the Baily family of Lough Gur; and one night at dead of night, when Miss Kitty Baily was dying of consumption, her two sisters, Miss Anne Baily and Miss Susan Baily, who were sitting in the death chamber, 'heard such sweet and melancholy music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them like distant cathedral music.... The music was not in the house.... It seemed to come through the windows of the old castle, high in the air.' But when Miss Anne, who went downstairs with a lighted candle to investigate the weird phenomenon, had approached the ruined castle she thought the music came from above the house; 'and thus perplexed, and at last frightened, she returned.' Both sisters are on record as having distinctly heard the fairy music, and for a long time (_All the Year Round_, New Series, iii.

496-7; London, 1870).

[26] 'The _Buachailleen_ is most likely one of the many forms a.s.sumed by the shape-shifting Fer Fi, the Lough Gur Dwarf, who at Tara, according to the _Dinnshenchas_ of Tuag Inbir (see _Folk-Lore_, iii; and A. Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_, i. 195 ff.), took the shape of a woman; and we may trace the tales of Geroid Iarla to Fer Fi, who, and not Geroid, is believed by the oldest of the Lough Gur peasantry to be the owner of the lake. Fer Fi is the son of Eogabal of Sidh Eogabail, and hence brother to Aine. He is also foster-son of Manannan Mac Lir, and a Druid of the Tuatha De Danann (cf. _Silva Gadelica_, ii. 225; also _Dinnshenchas_ of Tuag Inbir). At Lough Gur various tales are told by the peasants concerning the Dwarf, and he is still stated by them to be the brother of Aine. For the sake of experiment I once spoke very disrespectfully of the Dwarf to John Punch, an old man, and he said to me in a frightened whisper: "Whisht! he'll hear you." Edward Fitzgerald and other old men were very much afraid of the Dwarf.'--J. F. LYNCH.

[27] 'Compare the tale of Excalibur, the Sword of King Arthur, which King Arthur before his death ordered Sir Bedivere to cast into the lake whence it had come.'--J. F. LYNCH.

[28] 'It is commonly believed by young and old at Lough Gur that a human being is drowned in the Lake once every seven years, and that it is the _Bean Fhionn_, or "White Lady" who thus _takes_ the person.'--J. F.

LYNCH.

[29] It was the belief of the Rev. Robert Kirk, as expressed by him in his _Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies_, that the fairy tribes are a distinct order of created beings possessing human-like intelligence and supernormal powers, who live and move about in this world invisible to all save men and women of the second-sight (see this study, pp. 89, 91 n.).

[30] The Rev. Robert Kirk, in his _Secret Commonwealth_, defines the second-sight, which enabled him to see the 'good people', as 'a rapture, transport, and sort of death'. He and our present witness came into the world with this abnormal faculty; but there is the remarkable case to record of the late Father Allen Macdonald, who during a residence of twenty years on the tiny and isolated Isle of Erisgey, Western Hebrides, acquired the second-sight, and was able some years before he died there (in 1905) to exercise it as freely as though he had been a natural-born seer.

[31] In his note to _Le Chant des Trepa.s.ses_ (_Barzaz Breiz_, p. 507), Villemarque reports that in some localities in Lower Brittany on All Saints Night libations of milk are poured over the tombs of the dead.

This is proof that the nature of fairies in Scotland and of the dead in Brittany is thought to be the same.

[32] 'In many parts of the Highlands, where the same deity is known, the stone into which women poured the libation of milk is called _Leac na Gruagaich_, "Flag-stone of the Gruagach." If the libation was omitted in the evening, the best cow in the fold would be found dead in the morning.'--ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL.

[33] Dr. George Henderson, in _The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1901), p. 101, says:--'_Shony_ was a sea-G.o.d in Lewis, where ale was sacrificed to him at Hallowtide. After coming to the church of St. Mulvay at night a man was sent to wade into the sea, saying: "Shony, I give you this cup of ale hoping that you will be so kind as to give us plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground the ensuing year." As _o_ from Norse would become _o_, and _fn_ becomes _nn_, one thinks of _Sjofn_, one of the G.o.ddesses in the Edda. In any case the word is Norse.' It seems, therefore, that the Celtic stock in Lewis have adopted the name _Shony_ or _Shoney_, and possibly also the G.o.d it designates, through contact with Nors.e.m.e.n; but, at all events, they have a.s.similated him to their own fairy pantheon, as we can see in their celebrating special libations to him on the ancient Celtic feast of the dead and fairies, Halloween.

[34] This, as Dr. Carmichael told me, I believe very justly represents the present state of folk-lore in many parts of the Highlands. There are, it is true, old men and women here and there who know much about fairies, but they, fearing the ridicule of a younger and 'educated'

generation, are generally unwilling to admit any belief in fairies.

[35] The following note by Miss Tolmie is of great interest and value, especially when one bears in mind Cuchulainn's traditional relation with Skye (see p. 4):--'The Koolian range should never be written _Cu-chullin_. The name is written here with a K, to ensure its being correctly uttered and written. It is probably a Norse word; but, as yet, a satisfactory explanation of its origin and meaning has not been published. In Gaelic the range is always alluded to (in the masculine singular) as the Koolian.'

[36] Dr. Alexander Carmichael found that the scene of this widespread tale is variously laid, in Argyll, in Perth, in Inverness, and in other counties of the Highlands. From his own collection of folk-songs he contributes the following verses to ill.u.s.trate the song (existing in numerous versions), which the maiden while invisible used to sing to the cows of Colin:--

_Crodh Chailean! crodh Chailean!

Crodh Chailean mo ghaoil, Crodh Chailean mo chridhe, Air lighe cheare fraoish._

(Cows of Colin! cows of Colin!

Cows of Colin of my love, Cows of Colin of my heart, In colour of the heather-hen.)

In one of Dr. Carmichael's versions, 'Colin's wife and her infant child had been lifted away by the fairies to a fairy bower in the glen between the hills.' There she was kept nursing the babes which the fairies had stolen, until 'upon Hallow Eve, when all the bowers were open', Colin by placing a steel tinder above the lintel of the door to the fairy bower was enabled to enter the bower and in safety lead forth his wife and child.

[37] In this beautiful fairy legend we recognize the fairy woman as one of the Tuatha De Danann-like fairies--one of the women of the _Sidhe_, as Irish seers call them.

[38] It is interesting to know that the present inhabitants of Barra, or at least most of them, are the descendants of Irish colonists who belonged to the clan Eoichidh of County Cork, and who emigrated from there to Barra in A. D. 917. They brought with them their old customs and beliefs, and in their isolation their children have kept these things alive in almost their primitive Celtic purity. For example, besides their belief in fairies, May Day, Baaltine, and November Eve are still rigorously observed in the pagan way, and so is Easter--for it, too, before being claimed by Christianity, was a sun festival. And how beautiful it is in this age to see the youths and maidens and some of the elders of these simple-hearted Christian fisher-folk climb to the rocky heights of their little island-home on Easter morn to salute the sun as it rises out of the mountains to the east, and to hear them say that the sun dances with joy that morning because the Christ is risen.

In a similar way they salute the new moon, making as they do so the sign of the cross. Finn Barr is said to have been a County Cork man of great sanct.i.ty; and he probably came to Barra with the colony, for he is the patron saint of the island, and hence its name. (To my friend, Mr.

Michael Buchanan, of Barra, I am indebted for this history and these traditions of his native isle.)

[39] '_Sluagh_, "hosts," the spirit-world. The "hosts" are the spirits of mortals who have died.... According to one informant, the spirits fly about in great clouds, up and down the face of the world like the starlings, and come back to the scenes of their earthly transgressions.

No soul of them is without the clouds of earth, dimming the brightness of the works of G.o.d, nor can any win heaven till satisfaction is made for the sins of earth.'--ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL, _Carmina Gadelica_, ii.

330.

[40] This curious tale suggests that certain of the fairy women who entice mortals to their love in modern times are much the same, if not the same, as the _succubi_ of Middle-Age mystics. But it is not intended by this observation to confuse the higher orders of the _Sidhe_ and all the fairy folk like the fays who come from Avalon with _succubi_; though _succubi_ and fairy women in general were often confused and improperly identified the one with the other. It need not be urged in this example of a 'fairy woman' that we have to do not with a being of flesh and blood, whatever various readers may think of her.

[41] '"w.i.l.l.y-the-Fairy," otherwise known as William Cain, is the musician referred to by the late Mr. John Nelson (p. 131). The latter's statement that William Cain played one of these fairy tunes at one of our Manx entertainments in Peel is perfectly correct.'--SOPHIA MORRISON.

[42] This is the Mid-world of Irish seers, who would be inclined to follow the Manx custom and call the fairies 'the People of the Middle World'.

[43] 'May 11 == in Manx _Oie Voaldyn_, "May-day Eve." On this evening the fairies were supposed to be peculiarly active. To propitiate them and to ward off the influence of evil spirits, and witches, who were also active at this time, green leaves or boughs and _sumark_ or primrose flowers were strewn on the threshold, and branches of the _cuirn_ or mountain ash made into small crosses without the aid of a knife, which was on no account to be used (steel or iron in any form being taboo to fairies and spirits), and stuck over the doors of the dwelling-houses and cow-houses. Cows were further protected from the same influences by having the _Bollan-feaill-Eoin_ (John's feast wort) placed in their stalls. This was also one of the occasions on which no one would give fire away, and on which fires were and are still lit on the hills to drive away the fairies.'--SOPHIA MORRISON.

[44] I am wholly indebted to Miss Morrison for these Manx verses and their translation, which I have subst.i.tuted for Mrs. Moore's English rendering. Miss Morrison, after my return to Oxford, saw Mrs. Moore and took them down from her, a task I was not well fitted to do when the tale was told.

[45] It has been suggested, and no doubt correctly, that these murmuring sounds heard on Dalby Mountain are due to the action of sea-waves, close at hand, washing over shifting ma.s.ses of pebbles on the rock-bound sh.o.r.e. Though this be the true explanation of the phenomenon itself, it only proves the attribution of cause to be wrong, and not the underlying animistic conception of spiritual beings.

[46] In this mythological role, Manannan is apparently a sun G.o.d or else the sun itself; and the Manx coat of arms, which is connected with him, being a sun symbol, suggests to us now ages long prior to history, when the Isle of Man was a Sacred Isle dedicated to the cult of the Supreme G.o.d of Light and Life, and when all who dwelt thereon were regarded as the Children of the Sun.

[47] Sir John Rhys tells me that this Snowdon fairy-lore was contributed by the late Lady Rhys, who as a girl lived in the neighbourhood of Snowdon and heard very much from the old people there, most of whom believed in the fairies; and she herself then used to be warned, in the manner mentioned, against being carried away into the under-lake Fairyland.

[48] Cf. _Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx_, pp. 683-4 n., where Sir John Rhys says of his friend, Professor A. C. Haddon:--'I find also that he, among others, has antic.i.p.ated me in my theory as to the origins of the fairies: witness the following extract from the syllabus of a lecture delivered by him at Cardiff in 1894 on _Fairy Tales_:--"What are the fairies?--Legendary origin of the fairies. It is evident from fairy literature that there is a mixture of the possible and the impossible, of fact and fancy. Part of fairydom refers to (1) spirits that never were embodied: other fairies are (2) spirits of environment, nature or local spirits, and household or domestic spirits; (3) spirits of the organic world, spirits of plants, and spirits of animals; (4) spirits of men, or ghosts; and (5) witches and wizards, or men possessed with other spirits. All these, and possibly other elements, enter into the fanciful aspects of Fairyland, but there is a large residuum of real occurrences; these point to a clash of races, and we may regard many of these fairy sagas as stories told by men of the Iron Age of events which happened to men of the Bronze Age in their conflicts with men of the Neolithic Age, and possibly these, too, handed on traditions of the Paleolithic Age."'

[49] This is the one tale I have found in North Wales about a midwife and fairies--a type of tale common to West Ireland, Isle of Man, Cornwall, and Brittany, but in a reverse version, the midwife there being (as she is sometimes in Welsh versions) one of the human race called in by fairies. If evidence of the oneness of the Celtic mind were needed we should find it here (cf. pp. 50, 54, 127, 175, 182, 205).

There are in this type of fairy-tale, as the advocates of the Pygmy Theory may well hold, certain elements most likely traceable to a folk-memory of some early race, or special cla.s.s of some early race, who knew the secrets of midwifery and the use of medicines when such knowledge was considered magical. But in each example of this midwife story there is the germ idea--no matter what other ideas cl.u.s.ter round it--that fairies, like spirits, are only to be seen by an extra-human vision, or, as psychical researchers might say, by clairvoyance.

[50] After this remarkable story, Mrs. Jones told me about another very rare psychical experience of her own, which is here recorded because it ill.u.s.trates the working of the psychological law of the a.s.sociation of ideas:--'My husband, Price Jones, was drowned some forty years ago, within four miles of Arms Head, near Bangor, on Friday at midday; and that night at about one o'clock he appeared to me in our bedroom and laid his head on my breast. I tried to ask him where he came from, but before I could get my breath he was gone. I believed at the time that he was out at sea perfectly safe and well. But next day, Sat.u.r.day, at about noon, a message came announcing his death. I was as fully awake as one can be when I thus saw the spirit of my husband. He returned to me a second time about six months later.' Had this happened in West Ireland, it is almost certain that public opinion would have declared that Price Jones had been _taken_ by the 'gentry' or 'good people'.

[51] Here we find the _Tylwyth Teg_ showing quite the same characteristics as Welsh elves in general, as Cornish pixies, and as Breton _corrigans_, or _lutins_; that is, given to dancing at night, to stealing children, and to deceiving travellers.