The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 7

And this statement has been confirmed to me by three partic.i.p.ants in such collective visions, who separately at different times have seen in company with our witness the same vision at the same moment. On another occasion, on the Greenlands at Rosses Point, County Sligo, the same _Sidhe_ being was seen by our present witness and a friend with him, also possessing the faculty of seership, at a time when the two percipients were some little distance apart, and they hurried to each other to describe the being, not knowing that the explanation was mutually unnecessary. I have talked with both percipients so much, and know them so intimately that I am fully able to state that as percipients they fulfil all necessary pathological conditions required by psychologists in order to make their evidence acceptable.

PARALLEL EVIDENCE AS TO THE _SIDHE_ RACES

In general, the rare evidence above recorded from the Irish seer could be paralleled by similar evidence from at least two other reliable Irish people, with whom also I have been privileged to discuss the Fairy-Faith. One is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the other is the wife of a well-known Irish historian; and both of them testify to having likewise had collective visions of _Sidhe_ beings in Ireland.

This is what Mr. William B. Yeats wrote to me, while this study was in progress, concerning the Celtic Fairy Kingdom:--'I am certain that it exists, and will some day be studied as it was studied by Kirk.'[21]

INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE FROM THE _SIDHE_ WORLD

One of the most remarkable discoveries of our Celtic researches has been that the native population of the Rosses Point country, or, as we have called it, the _Sidhe_ world, in most essentials, and, what is most important, by independent folk-testimony, substantiate the opinions and statements of the educated Irish mystics to whom we have just referred, as follows:--

_John Conway's Vision of the 'Gentry'._--In Upper Rosses Point, Mrs. J.

Conway told me this about the 'gentry':--'John Conway, my husband, who was a pilot by profession, in watching for in-coming ships used to go up on the high hill among the Fairy Hills; and there he often saw the _gentry_ going down the hill to the strand. One night in particular he recognized them as men and women of the _gentry_; and they were as big as any living people. It was late at night about forty years ago.'

_Ghosts and Fairies._--When first I introduced myself to Owen Conway, in his bachelor quarters, a cosy cottage at Upper Rosses Point, he said that Mr. W. B. Yeats and other men famous in Irish literature had visited him to hear about the fairies, and that though he knew very little about the fairies he nevertheless always likes to talk of them.

Then Owen began to tell me about a man's ghost which both he and Bran Reggan had seen at different times on the road to Sligo, then about a woman's ghost which he and other people had often seen near where we were, and then about the exorcizing of a haunted house in Sligo some sixty years ago by Father McGowan, who as a result died soon afterwards, apparently having been killed by the exorcized spirits. Finally, I heard from him the following anecdotes about the fairies:--

_A Stone Wall overthrown by 'Fairy' Agency._--'Nothing is more certain than that there are fairies. The old folks always thought them the fallen angels. At the back of this house the fairies had their pa.s.s. My neighbour started to build a cow-shed, and one wall ab.u.t.ting on the pa.s.s was thrown down twice, and nothing but the fairies ever did it. The third time the wall was built it stood.'

_Fairies pa.s.sing through Stone Walls._--'Where MacEwen's house stands was a noted fairy place. Men in building the house saw fairies on horses coming across the spot, and the stone walls did not stop them at all.'

_Seeing the 'Gentry'._--'A cousin of mine, who was a pilot, once went to the watch-house up there on the Point to take his brother's place; and he saw ladies coming towards him as he crossed the Greenlands. At first he thought they were coming from a dance, but there was no dance going then, and, if there had been, no human beings dressed like them and moving as they were could have come from any part of the globe, and in so great a party, at that hour of the night. Then when they pa.s.sed him and he saw how beautiful they were, he knew them for the _gentry_ women.'

'Michael Reddy (our next witness) saw the _gentry_ down on the Greenlands in regimentals like an army, and in daylight. He was a young man at the time, and had been sent out to see if any cattle were astray.'

And this is what Michael Reddy, of Rosses Point, now a sailor on the ship _Tartar_, sailing from Sligo to neighbouring ports on the Irish coast, a.s.serts in confirmation of Owen Conway's statement about him:--'I saw the _gentry_ on the strand (at Lower Rosses Point) about forty years ago. It was afternoon. I first saw one of them like an officer pointing at me what seemed a sword; and when I got on the Greenlands I saw a great company of _gentry_, like soldiers, in red, laughing and shouting.

Their leader was a big man, and they were ordinary human size. As a result [of this vision] I took to my bed and lay there for weeks. Upon another occasion, late at night, I was with my mother milking cows, and we heard the _gentry_ all round us talking, but could not see them.'

_Going to the 'Gentry' through Death, Dreams, or Trance._--John O'Conway, one of the most reliable citizens of Upper Rosses Point, offers the following testimony concerning the 'gentry':--'In olden times the _gentry_ were very numerous about _forts_ and here on the Greenlands, but rarely seen. They appeared to be the same as any living men. When people died it was said the _gentry_ took them, for they would afterwards appear among the _gentry_.'

'We had a ploughman of good habits who came in one day too late for his morning's work, and he in excuse very seriously said, "May be if you had travelled all night as much as I have you wouldn't talk. I was away with the _gentry_, and save for a lady I couldn't have been back now. I saw a long hall full of many people. Some of them I knew and some I did not know. The lady saved me by telling me to eat no food there, however enticing it might be."'

'A young man at Drumcliffe was _taken_ [in a trance state], and was with the _Daoine Maithe_ some time, and then got back. Another man, whom I knew well, was haunted by the _gentry_ for a long time, and he often went off with _them_' (apparently in a dream or trance state).

_'Sidhe' Music._--The story which now follows substantiates the testimony of cultured Irish seers that at Lower Rosses Point the music of the _Sidhe_ can be heard:--'Three women were gathering sh.e.l.l-fish, in the month of March, on the lowest point of the strand (Lower Rosses or Wren Point) when they heard the most beautiful music. They set to work to dance with it, and danced themselves sick. They then thanked the invisible musician and went home.'

THE TESTIMONY OF A COLLEGE PROFESSOR

Our next witness is the Rev. Father ----, a professor in a Catholic college in West Ireland, and most of his statements are based on events which happened among his own acquaintances and relatives, and his deductions are the result of careful investigation:--

_Apparitions from Fairyland._--'Some twenty to thirty years ago, on the borders of County Roscommon near County Sligo, according to the firm belief of one of my own relatives, a sister of his was _taken_ by the fairies on her wedding-night, and she appeared to her mother afterwards as an apparition. She seemed to want to speak, but her mother, who was in bed at the time, was thoroughly frightened, and turned her face to the wall. The mother is convinced that she saw this apparition of her daughter, and my relative thinks she might have saved her.

'This same relative who gives it as his opinion that his sister was _taken_ by the fairies, at a different time saw the apparition of another relative of mine who also, according to similar belief, had been _taken_ by the fairies when only five years old. The child-apparition appeared beside its living sister one day while the sister was going from the yard into the house, and it followed her in. It is said the child was _taken_ because she was such a good girl.'

_Nature of the Belief in Fairies._--'As children we were always afraid of fairies, and were taught to say "G.o.d bless _them_! G.o.d bless _them_!"

whenever we heard them mentioned.

'In our family we always made it a point to have clean water in the house at night for the fairies.

'If anything like dirty water was thrown out of doors after dark it was necessary to say "_Hugga, hugga salach!_" as a warning to the fairies not to get their clothes wet.

'Untasted food, like milk, used to be left on the table at night for the fairies. If you were eating and food fell from you, it was not right to take it back, for the fairies wanted it. Many families are very serious about this even now. The luckiest thing to do in such cases is to pick up the food and eat just a speck of it and then throw the rest away to the fairies.

'Ghosts and apparitions are commonly said to live in isolated thorn-bushes, or thorn-trees. Many lonely bushes of this kind have their ghosts. For example, there is f.a.n.n.y's Bush, Sally's Bush, and another I know of in County Sligo near Boyle.'

_Personal Opinions._--'The fairies of any one race are the people of the preceding race--the Fomors for the Fir Bolgs, the Fir Bolgs for the Dananns, and the Dananns for us. The old races died. Where did they go?

They became spirits--and fairies. Second-sight gave our race power to see the inner world. When Christianity came to Ireland the people had no _definite_ heaven. Before, their ideas about the other world were vague.

But the older ideas of a spirit world remained side by side with the Christian ones, and being preserved in a subconscious way gave rise to the fairy world.'

EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ROSCOMMON

Our next place for investigation will be the ancient province of the great fairy-queen Meave, who made herself famous by leading against Cuchulainn the united armies of four of the five provinces of Ireland, and all on account of a bull which she coveted. And there could be no better part of it to visit than Roscommon, which Dr. Douglas Hyde has made popular in Irish folk-lore.

_Dr. Hyde and the Leprechaun._--One day while I was privileged to be at Ratra, Dr. Hyde invited me to walk with him in the country. After we had visited an old _fort_ which belongs to the 'good people', and had noticed some other of their haunts in that part of Queen Meave's realm, we entered a straw-thatched cottage on the roadside and found the good house-wife and her fine-looking daughter both at home. In response to Dr. Hyde's inquiries, the mother stated that one day, in her girlhood, near a hedge from which she was gathering wild berries, she saw a leprechaun in a hole under a stone:--'He wasn't much larger than a doll, and he was most perfectly formed, with a little mouth and eyes.' Nothing was told about the little fellow having a money-bag, although the woman said people told her afterwards that she would have been rich if she had only had sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance.[22]

_The Death Coach._--The next tale the mother told was about the death coach which used to pa.s.s by the very house we were in. Every night until after her daughter was born she used to rise up on her elbow in bed to listen to the death coach pa.s.sing by. It pa.s.sed about midnight, and she could hear the rushing, the tramping of the horses, and most beautiful singing, just like fairy music, but she could not understand the words.

Once or twice she was brave enough to open the door and look out as the coach pa.s.sed, but she could never see a thing, though there was the noise and singing. One time a man had to wait on the roadside to let the fairy horses go by, and he could hear their pa.s.sing very clearly, and couldn't see one of them.

When we got home, Dr. Hyde told me that the fairies of the region are rarely seen. The people usually say that they hear or feel them only.

_The 'Good People' and Mr. Gilleran._--After the mother had testified, the daughter, who is quite of the younger generation, gave her own opinion. She said that the 'good people' live in the _forts_ and often take men and women or youths who pa.s.s by the _forts_ after sunset; that Mr. Gilleran, who died not long ago, once saw certain dead friends and recognized among them those who were believed to have been _taken_ and those who died naturally, and that he saw them again when he was on his death-bed.

We have here, as in so many other accounts, a clear connexion between the realm of the dead and Fairyland.

THE TESTIMONY OF A LOUGH DERG SEER

Neil Colton, seventy-three years old, who lives in Tamlach Townland, on the sh.o.r.es of Lough Derg, County Donegal, has a local reputation for having seen the 'gentle folk', and so I called upon him. As we sat round his blazing turf fire, and in the midst of his family of three st.u.r.dy boys--for he married late in life--this is what he related:--

_A Girl Recovered from Faerie._--'One day, just before sunset in midsummer, and I a boy then, my brother and cousin and myself were gathering bilberries (whortleberries) up by the rocks at the back of here, when all at once we heard music. We hurried round the rocks, and there we were within a few hundred feet of six or eight of the _gentle folk_, and they dancing. When they saw us, a little woman dressed all in red came running out from them towards us, and she struck my cousin across the face with what seemed to be a green rush. We ran for home as hard as we could, and when my cousin reached the house she fell dead.

Father saddled a horse and went for Father Ryan. When Father Ryan arrived, he put a stole about his neck and began praying over my cousin and reading psalms and striking her with the stole; and in that way brought her back. He said if she had not caught hold of my brother, she would have been _taken_ for ever.'

_The 'Gentle Folk'._--'The _gentle folk_ are not earthly people; they are a people with a nature of their own. Even in the water there are men and women of the same character. Others have caves in the rocks, and in them rooms and apartments. These races were terribly plentiful a hundred years ago, and they'll come back again. My father lived two miles from here, where there were plenty of the _gentle folk_. In olden times they used to take young folks and keep them and draw all the life out of their bodies. n.o.body could ever tell their nature exactly.'

EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY FERMANAGH

From James Summerville, eighty-eight years old, who lives in the country near Irvinestown, I heard much about the 'wee people' and about banshees, and then the following remarkable story concerning the 'good people':--

_Travelling Clairvoyance through 'Fairy' Agency._--'From near Ederney, County Fermanagh, about seventy years ago, a man whom I knew well was taken to America on Hallow Eve Night; and _they_ (the _good people_) made him look down a chimney to see his own daughter cooking at a kitchen fire. Then _they_ took him to another place in America, where he saw a friend he knew. The next morning he was at his own home here in Ireland.

'This man wrote a letter to his daughter to know if she was at the place and at the work on Hallow Eve Night, and she wrote back that she was. He was sure that it was the _good people_ who had taken him to America and back in one night.'

EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY ANTRIM