Collins. Verse II, Ode on the popular superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland considered as the subject of poetry, William Collins
- Such airy beings awe th' untutored swain,
Nor thou, tho' learn'd, his homelier thoughts neglect.
In common with other countries, particularly the Highlands of Scotland, a traditional belief exists amongst the Irish peasantry in those romantic little sprites denominated Fairies; and it is wonderful, considering their being creatures of imagination, that the superstitions respecting them should have remained so much confined, and so very similar. Whether the fairy mythology of Ireland has been derived from the East, and transmitted thence through the medium of Spain, or has, as some believe, a northern origin, it is of little import to inquire, particularly as nothing more than conjecture can now be advanced on the subject. It is, however, evident, that the present fairies of Ireland, if not Gothic creations, were at least modelled in the same school and age with the elves of northern Europe.
There is an odd mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime in the prevalent notions respecting such beings. Nor could there have been invented a more extraordinary medium between Man and his Maker.
Sir Walter Scott, The Monastery Chapter 9.
- That, which is neither ill nor well;
That, which belongs not to Heaven or Hell;
A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream,
'Twixt a waking thought, and a sleeping dream,
A form that men spy
With the half-shut eye,
In the beams of the setting sun am I!
Partaking both of the human and spiritual nature, having immaterial bodies, with the feelings and passions of mortality, fairies are supposed to possess both the power and the inclination to revenge an affront; and the motive of fear, which induces some savage nations to worship the Devil, prompts the vulgar in Ireland to term fairies ‘good people,’ and in Scotland ‘guid folk;’ nor is it uncommon to see a rustic, before drinking, spill a small part of his draught upon the ground, as a complimentary libation to the fairies. Such as use the word fairy, are often corrected in a whisper, which caution arises from conceiving that these beings are invisibly present, and the appellation is considered offensive, as denoting an insignificant object. Thus, hoping to deceive by flattery, the maxim most attended to in the intercourse with these ‘little great ones,’ is, that ‘civility begets civility.’ Doubtless, on the same principle, the Greeks, as observed by Augustus Schlegel, called their fairies Eumenides, or the benevolent, and assigned for their habitation a beautiful grove. ‘I cannot think of this policy,’ said my friend C — , ‘without fancying a grin on Medusa, and those little urchins the northern fairies, holding their sides with laughter.’ The same system of fear and flattery seems to have existed amongst the Irish, even towards animals, in the time of Elizabeth; for Camden tells us, ‘they take unto them wolves, ta be their godsibs (gossips), whom
The circular intrenchments and barrows, known by the name of Danish forts,6 in Ireland, are pointed out as the abode of fairy communities, and to disturb their habitation, in other words to dig, or plough up a rath or fort, whose construction the superstitious natives ascribe to the labour and ingenuity of the ‘good people,’ is considered as unlucky and entailing some severe disaster on the violator and his kindred. An industrious peasant, who purchased a farm in the neighbourhood of Mallow, from a near relative of mine, commenced his improvements by building upon it a good stone house, together with a lime kiln. Soon after, he waited on the proprietor, to state ‘the trouble he was come to by reason of the old fort, the fairies not approving of his having placed the lime-kiln so near their dwelling; — he had lost his sow with nine bonniveens (sucking pigs), his horse fell into a quarry and was killed, and three of his sheep died, ‘all through the means of the fairies’.’ Though the lime-kiln had cost him five guineas, he declared he would never burn another stone in it, but take it down, without delay, and build one away from the fort, saying, he was wrong in putting that kiln in the way of the ‘good people,’ who were thus obliged to go out of their usual track. The back door of his house unfortunately also faced the same fort, but this offence was obviated by almost closing it up, leaving only a small hole at the top, to allow the good people free passage, should they require it. In these raths, fairies are represented as holding their festive meetings, and entering into all the fantastic and wanton mirth that music and glittering banquets are capable of inspiring. A fairy chieftain, of much local celebrity, named Knop, is supposed to hold his court in a rath, on the road side between Cork and Youghall,
and the delicious viands change into carrion. The crystal goblets become rugged pebbles, and the whole furniture of the feast undergoes a similar metamorphosis.7
- The village cock gave note of day,
Up sprang in haste the airy throng;
The word went round, 'away! away!'
The night is short, the way is long.
An eddy of dust, raised by the wind, is attributed to the fairies journeying from one of their haunts to another; on perceiving which, the peasant will obsequiously doff his hat, muttering, ‘God speed ye, God speed ye, Gentlemen;’ and returns it to his head, with the remark, ‘good manners are no burthen,’ as an apology for the motive, which he is ashamed to acknowledge. Should he, however, instead of such friendly greeting, repeat any short prayer, or devoutly cross himself, using a religious response, the fairy journey is interrupted, and if any mortals are in their train, the charm by which they were detained is broken, and they are restored to human society. On these occasions, the production of a black-hafted knife is considered as extremely potent in dissolving the spell. This weapon is believed to be effective not only against fairy incantation, but also against any supernatural being; and accounts of many twilight
A stanza, containing the truck of a fairy procession, is preserved by Dr. Neilson in his Irish Grammar; and, as a curiosity, the translation may be worth copying:
Paying a fleeting visit to many an ‘airy castle, rath, and mount,’ Finvar and his troop hold their course, from dawn of morn till fall of night, on beautiful winged coursers
the latter name signifying in English, the Musical Hill, so called from the supernatural strains supposed occasionally to proceed from it.
- Around Knock Grein and Nock na Rae,
Bin Builvin and Keis Corain
To Bin Eachlan and Loch Da can,
From thence north-east to Sleive Guilin
They traversed the lofty hills of Mourne,
Round high Sleive Denard, and Balachanèry,
Down to Dundrin, Dundrum and Dunardalay,
Right forward to Knock na Feadalea
The most romantic dells are also pointed out as scenes of fairy resort, and distinguished by the term, ‘gentle places;’ beetling linen by the side of a rocky stream that murmurs through an unfrequented glen, is represented as a favourite, or rather common female fairy occupation, where they chaunt wild and pathetic melodies, beating time with their beetles. The herbs and plants, with which such glens abound, are considered as under fairy influence, and are collected, with many ceremonies, for charms, by cunning old women, termed ‘Fairy Doctors,’ or, sometimes, from their professed knowledge of surgery, ‘Bone Setters’ A confidence in superstitious
Fairies are represented as exceedingly diminutive in their stature,having an arch and malicious expression of countenance, and generally habited in green, with large scarlet caps; hence the beautiful plant Digitalis Purpurea is named ‘Fairy Cap’ by the vulgar, from the supposed resemblance of its bells to this part of fairy dress. To the same plant, many rustic superstitions are attached, particularly its salutation of supernatural beings, by bending its long stalks in token of recognition.
Old and solitary thorns, in common with the digitalis, are regarded with reverence by the peasantry, and considered as sacred to the revels of these eccentric little sprites, whose vengeance follows their removal. Any antique implement casually discovered by the labourer is referred to the fairies, and supposed to have been dropped or forgotten by them; small and oddly-shaped tobacco pipes, frequently turned up by the spade or the plough, the finder instantly destroys, to avert the evil agency of their former spiritual owners. Amongst those remains may be noticed the flint arrowheads,
The fairies are believed to visit the farm-houses in their district on particular nights, and the embers are collected, the hearth swept, and a vessel of water placed for their use before the family retire to rest. But these dubious divinities seem to preside more especially over cattle, corn, fruits, and agricultural objects. Milking the cows, upsetting the dairy pans, and disarranging whatever may have been carefully placed in order, are amongst their mischievous proceedings. Cluricaune or Leprehaune is the name given to the Irish Puck. The character of this goblin is a compound of that of the Scotch Brownie and the English Robin Good fellow. He is depicted (for engraved portraits of the Irish Leprehaune are in existence) as a small and withered old man, completely equipped in the costume of a cobler, and employed in repairing a shoe. A paragraph recently appeared in a Kilkenny paper stating, that a labourer, returning home in the dusk of the evening, discovered a Leprehaune at work, from whom he bore away the shoe which he was mending; as a proof of the veracity of his story it was further stated, that the shoe lay for the inspection of the curious at the newspaper office. The most prominent feature in the vulgar creed respecting the Leprehaune is, his being the possessor of a purse, supposed to be, like that of Fortunatus, inexhaustible; and many persons, who have surprized one of these fairies occupied in shoe-making, have endeavoured to compel him to deliver it; this he has ingeniously avoided, averting the eye of his antagonist by some stratagem, when he disappears, which it seems he has not the power of doing as long as any person's gaze is fixed upon him.
Fairy children, I have been assured, are frequently seen in lonely glens, engaged in mimic fights and juvenile gambols. A story, related by Gervase of Tilbury, in the Otia Imperialia, and mentioned
A woman, who had been abstracted to nurse a young fairy, during her residence amongst the supernatural community, accidentally anointed one of her eyes with a substance entrusted to her for the use of her infant charge. On being emancipated from captivity, the ‘good people’ still remained visible to the eye which had been touched by the magic ointment, and hence she daily beheld them engaged (like the sylphs in Pope's Rape of the Lock) in their various fairy avocations. The woman, however, remained a silent spectator, until, happening to recognise, sporting amongst others, the fairy child whom she had nursed, in all the delicate bloom and beauty of unearthly youth, her prudence forsook her, and, at the sight, she was betrayed by her feelings into an exclamation of delight; on hearing which, the young fairy approached his nurse, and inquired by what means she was conscious of his presence. — She pointed to the anointed eye, into which he instantly darted a spear that he held in his hand, and thus, by destroying the organ, shut out for ever the secrets of the invisible world from the mortal eye to which they had been revealed.
When a child appears delicate, or a young woman consumptive, the conclusion is, that they are carried off to be made a playmate or nurse to the young fairies, and that a substitute, resembling the person taken away, is deposited in their place, which gradually declines, and ultimately dies. The inhuman means used by ignorant parents to discover if an unhealthy child be their offspring or a changeling:, The following text is reproduced from a note:
- From thence a fairy thee unweeting reft,
There as thou slepst in tender swadling band,
And her base elfin brood there, for thee left:
Such, men do changelings call, so chang'd by fairies theft.
Spenser (the name given to the
A pleasing ballad, by my friend Mr. Anster, has been founded on this superstition; the mother is supposed to speak.
John Anster, The Fairy Child
- The summer sun was sinking
With a mild light calm and mellow,
It shone on my little boy's bonny cheeks,
And his loose locks of yellow.- The robin was singing sweetly,
And his song was sad and tender;
And my little boy's eyes, as he heard the song,
Smiled with a sweet soft splendour.- My little boy lay on my bosom,
While his soul the song was quaffing;
The joy of his soul had ting'd his cheek,
And his heart and his eye were laughing.- I sat alone in my cottage,
The midnight needle plying;
I feared for my child, for the rush's light
In the socket now was dying.- There came a hand to my lonely latch,
Like the wind at midnight moaning,
I knelt to pray — but rose again
For I heard my little boy groaning!- I crossed my brow, and I crossed my breast,
But that night my child departed!
They left a weakling in his stead,
And I am broken-hearted!
- Oh! it cannot be my own sweet boy,
For his eyes are dim and hollow,
My little boy is gone to God,
And his mother soon will follow.- The dirge for the dead will be sung for me,
And the mass be chaunted meetly;
And I will sleep with my little boy
In the moon-light churchyard sweetly.
Sometimes an intricate legal question arises in the case of a young woman being carried off by the fairies, and returning after an absence of several years, which is by no means uncommon, when she finds her husband married to a second wife. More than one instance of this unexpected re-appearance has come within my own knowledge, and I select the relation contained in a letter which I received during the present year, from its being the most recent case. — ‘The day before I left Island Bawn,’ says the writer, ‘I heard of an Irish Kilmeny, in the person of the wife of a labouring cottager, who, having died about twenty years since, and been buried with the usual ceremonies, the poor man allowed a reasonable period to elapse, and subsequently took unto himself another helpmate, with whom he had since continued to live; when one night last winter (1820), they were disturbed by a woman vociferously claiming admission into their cabin, and asserting her right to the full and undisturbed sovereignty of the same, inasmuch as she was the owner's true and lawful wife, whom he supposed deceased and interred, whereas she had only been with the fairies, from whose power she had now emancipated herself. So minute and clear (if not satisfactory) did she make out her title, that both the husband and his second spouse quailed before this unwelcomed visitant from the ‘good people.’ The first wife allowed her locum tenens to remain in the house while she behaved herself respectfully, and all went on smoothly for some time, the stranger supporting the truth of her story by mysteriously telling the
Ballyhogan, 6th January, 1821.’My dear Mrs. L.
In compliance with your brother's request, I have sat down to give you an account of my visit to the fairy woman. On Thursday morning last, having procured a guide to show me the way to her house, I departed on my mission, and, after a walk of about four miles, arrived at the little village of Castle Town, on the Shannon. ‘That white house younder, Miss, is the one the fortune-teller lives in,’ said my guide. I was readily admitted, and found the inside thronged with visitors, to whom the diviner talked in the common gipsy strain. Being more anxious to hear her own story than any thing she could tell me of myself, I asked her if the report respecting her having recently returned from the fairies was correct. Her reply was, that she had been with the ‘good people’ many years, and, as a reward for her conduct while amongst them, they had bestowed the gift of fortune-telling. I then begged her to inform me of some further particulars; and, after considerable hesitation on her part, and persuasion on mine, she gave me the following history, which I will recount verbatim, as highly illustrative of fairy superstition and Irish manners:
My Father, whose name was Thady Donohoe, lived in a little place they call Mount Shannon, near Slain; he was a shoemaker, and supported his family by his work until he lost his health through grief at my folly in not being led by his advice; and I'm sartin shure (certain sure, confident) I suffered all I did for going against my father! He loved me bitter (better) than any of his childer (children),
because he had no deaghter (daughter) but myself; and at eighteen he thought to get me married to a neighbour's son, who was a neat boy (a handsome fellow); and, indeed, not that I say it, I was a neat, clean skinned girl at that time, though I may deny it to-day; but I was fond of a young man who was working as a labouring boy at a farmer's house handy by (adjacent). Well, when I tould (told) Paddy Doody, for that was my lover's name, what my father wished me to do, he said, if I did not run away with him, my father and my brothers would make me marry the other boy, and he should kill himself or go distracted: so I went off with him shure enough (without hesitation), and we were married by his parish priest as soon as we came to Castle Town. I never saw my father till he was dying, which was about six months after: he gave me his blessing and a cow before he died. After the funeral I came back to my husband, and we lived very happily for four years. My eldest little boy died, and I was nursing my second, when one night, about Midsummer, as we were sitting at our supper, I was fairy struck, and fell off my chair. So with that (instantly), poor Paddy ran out for one of the neighbours, who desired him send for the priest, which he did to be shure (as a matter of course). But when he came, he did not know what to do, but said prayers over me, and anointed me for death; and when the holy oil was put on me I was better, and continued to mend for several days, but I was still very weak and low; I had an impression about (oppression on) the heart, and a dimness in my eyes, and a ringing in my ears, and my face was greatly altered. Well, one night after we all lay down to sleep, it was about twelve o'clock, I heard a great noise, and saw a light in the room. I called Paddy, but he could not hear me. My little child was about three months old, and lay asleep by my side. In one minute the house was full of people, men and women, but no one saw them but myself; and one of the women came to the side of the bed, and said, ‘Judy, get up, you are to come with us, and I will put one in your place to nurse your child.’ So with
that they dragged me out of bed, and put an old woman in my place, who took my cratur of a child (creature, a term of endearment) in her arms! I thought I should die, but I could not speak a word. They took me off with them, and there were several horsemen with red caps outside the door, and the women who sat behind them on the horses had blue cloaks. There was a piper on a grey pony that led the way; and when I got to their dwelling I was given a child to nurse. I am not allowed to tell any thing that happened while I was there, all I can say is that I never ate one mouthful of their food: if I did I never could have left them. I came every night to my own house for cold potatoes, and I lived on them. Paddy buried, as he thought, the old woman that was put in my place, but she came away to us. I am twenty years from home, and my husband is married again. This is my son's house. When I came home Paddy would not own me, but I soon made him sinsible (convinced him) I was his wife. I have suffered more than I can tell any one while I was with the ‘good people’; and I promised the Blessed Virgin, if she would release me, to do six months' pinnance (penance) at a holy well in the King's County, where I am going next week; if I live to return, my son will let me pass the rest of my days with him should my husband not allow me.
Dr. Neilson gives us, with every appearance of authenticity, a more intricate matrimonial case than the foregoing, where the woman, on her return from Fairyland, finding her first husband married, marries again herself. The second wife of the first husband dies, and he, having discovered his former spouse, claims her; but her second husband being unwilling to part with her, denies the claim. The question is referred to an ecclesiastical tribunal, where fairy agency will not be acknowledged, and which, under conflicting testimony, is unable to determine the matter. It, however, ultimately terminates in the friendly arrangement, ‘That both doors of the woman's second husband's house should be set open; that Joyce (her
A curious spirit, and one I believe peculiar to Ireland, is the Banshee, or White Fairy, sometimes called She Frogh, or the House Fairy. The derivation of both these names appears to me obvious from the credulous personification, that of a small and shrivelled old woman with long white hair, supposed to be peculiarly attached to ancient houses or families, and to announce the approaching dissolution of any of the members by mournful lamentations. This fairy attendant is considered as highly honourable, and in part of an elegy on one of the knights of Kerry, still extant, the family Banshee is introduced as deploring, with wailing accents, the knight's impending fate; when every trader at Dingle who hears the strain becomes alarmed lest it should forebode his own death; but the bard assures them, with an air of humorous sarcasm, they have no cause for uneasiness, such warning being given only to those of illustrious descent.
Another species of Irish fairy is the Phooka, the descriptions given of which are so visionary and undefined it is impossible to reduce them to detail. The name of many lonely rocks and glens in Ireland declares them sacred to this spirit. In the county Cork there are two castles called Carrig Phooka, or the Phooka's Rock, one near Doneraile, the other not far from Macroom; and in the county Wicklow, the celebrated waterfall of Poula Phooka, or the Phooka's Cavern, is well known.
Notwithstanding the universal belief in fairy influence, the credence
The most remarkable Irish witch on record is Dame Alice Ketyll (whose history is to be found at length in Camden). Amongst the charges made against her, when examined in 1325, was the sacrificing nine red cocks to her familiar spirit or imp, named Robyn Artysson, ‘at a stone bridge in a certaine foure crosse high-way. Item, that she swept the streets of Kilkenny with beesomes between Complin and Courefew, and in sweeping the filth towards the house of William Utlaw her sonne, by way of conjuring uttered these words:
Unto the house of William, my sonne,
Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town.’
And, amongst ‘the goods and implements of the said Alice, there was a certain holy wafer cake found, having the name of the divell imprinted upon it; there was found also a boxe, and within it an ointment, wherewith she used to besmear or grease a certain piece of wood called coultree, which, being thus anointed, the said Alice, with her complices, could ride and gallop upon the said coultree whithersoever they would, all the world over, through thick and thin, without either hurt or hindrance.’ These things, we are told, were notorious, and dame Ketyll, to avoid punishment, escaped to England; but one of her accomplices, Pernill or Parnell, was burned at Kilkenny, who avouched that Alice's son William ‘deserved
Some more recent account of witches is traditionally preserved in Ireland, particularly of Nanny Steer, whose malign glance produced madness, and the malady of many a wretched lunatic, who wandered about the country, was attributed to her baneful influence.
In the Queen's county a young man, named Rutlidge, on the day of his marriage, is said to have become a victim to one of these dreadful looks, from his having neglected to invite Nanny Steer to the wedding — who appeared an unbidden guest, and casting an evil eye on the bridegroom, he immediately became a maniac.
‘In no case,’ says Camden, speaking of Irish superstitions, ‘must you praise an horse or any other beast, until you say, ‘God save him,’ or unless you spit upon him. If any harm befall the horse within three dayes after, they seeke him that praised him, that he may mumble the Lord's Prayer in his right eare. They think that there bee some that bewitch their horses with looking upon them, and then they use the help of some old hagges, who, saying a few prayers with a loud voice, make them well again.’ This belief in the fatal effects of an evil eye is as prevalent at the present day as when Camden wrote; and few, if any, of the lower orders will speak to or of a child without spitting out, and excusing himself, should a superior be present, with — ‘It's for good luck sure.’ — ‘And God bless the boy, and make a fine man of him.’ So powerful is this superstition that even people of education and above the ordinary rank, are obliged, from policy, to accommodate themselves to it in
Another vulgar superstition regarding witches, is, their power of assuming the shape of some insect or animal — the most favourite forms are those of a fly or a hare; under the latter disguise they are supposed to suck the teats of cows, and thus either deprive them of their milk or communicate an injurious effect to it.
Of the following story numberless variations are in circulation amongst the Irish peasantry. A herdsman having wounded a hare which he discovered sucking one of the cows under his care, tracked it to a solitary cabin, when he found an old woman smeared with blood and gasping for breath, extended almost lifeless on the floor, having, it is presumed, recovered her natural shape.
In churning, should not the milk readily become butter, the machinations of some witch are suspected. As a test, the iron coulter of the plough is heated in the fire, and the witches name solemnly pronounced, with the following charm, on whom this spell is supposed to inflict the most excruciating tortures,
- Come butter, come,
Come butter, come,
Peter stands at the gate
Waiting for a buttered cake,
Come butter, come.
And if the milk has lost its good qualities by means of incantations, it immediately turns to excellent butter.
In the sixteenth century the same opinion existed in Ireland, somewhat tinged with a relic of Pagan or Druidical rites, fire being considered, before the introduction of Christianity, the immediate representative of the Deity, and the first of May as peculiarly sacred to these rites, many relics of which may still be discovered.
‘They take her for a wicked woman and a witch, whatever she be, that commeth to fetch fire from them on May-day, (neither will they give any fire then, but unto a sicke body, and that with a curse,) for because they thinke the same woman will, the next summer, steale away all their butter. If they finde an hare amongst their heards of cattell on the said May-day, they kill her, for they suppose shee is some old trot, that would filch away their butter. They are of opinion that their butter, if it be stollen, will soone after bee restored againe, in case they take away some of the thatch that hangeth over the doore of the house, and cast it into the fire.’
Amongst some Irish manuscripts in my possession, the composition, I apprehend, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is a long description, possessing considerable poetic merit, of a contest between Eogan and ‘Conn of the Hundred Battles,’ part of which presents a picture of the appearance of some supernatural hags to the contending chieftains the night previous to the engagement; the translation is extremely literal.
‘When Eogan came back from the council, three witches stood before him; frightful beyond description, with red and fiery-looking eyes, and long, lank, grizzly hair hanging down dishevelled over cadaverous countenances. The eye-brows of these fiends were large, rough, and grim, growing into each other and forming two curvatures of matted bristles. Their cheeks were hollow, shrivelled, and meagre; and their beaked noses, covered with parched skin, issued forth prominently from the deeply-wrinkled and knobby foreheads of these monstrous and filthy she-devils! — Their blasting tongues with flippant volubility held ceaseless gabble, and their crooked yellow hairy hands and hooked fingers resembled more the talons of an eagle or foul-feeding harpy, than the fingers of a human creature. Thus, supported by small inbent and bony legs, they stood before Eogan.’
‘Whence come ye, furies? asked the chief.’
‘We come from afar by our powers, replied they.’
‘I demand to know your powers? said Eogan, leader of the mighty bands.’
‘We cause the sea to run higher than the mountain tops by our breath; we bring snow on the earth by the nodding of our white heads; we spread flames in dwellings by our words; we alter and change the shape of every person, nay of those in our own occupation, by the rolling of our eyes; we — ’
‘Enough! cried the mighty Eogan. I now demand your names.’
‘Our names, returned the hags, are Ah, Lann and Leana; we are daughters of Trodan the magician, and we have come from remote countries to warn you of your approaching death. — For Eogan shall fall by the keen-edged and bone-cleaving sword of the ever-victorious ‘Conn of the Hundred Battles’.’
‘On your own heads may this prophetic warning light, ye hags of hell, returned Eogan; may your forebodings of Conn sink into nothing on the air, and be unanswered by the voices of the mountains. May the trees bear the brunt of your evil words, the venom of your lips fall harmless on the rocks of the valley, and your malice be given to the waves of the ocean.’
‘It is inevitable destiny we speak, said they. — We have spoken without precipitation or without reward; and muttering of their horrid spells they vanished from Eogan.’
‘That night came the same three hags to the tent of the King of Spain's son, and they boded ill to him; and thence they came where the hostes of Conn of the Hundred Battles lay incamped, and they roused that hero with these words: — ’
‘In thy arm be thy strength; in thy sword be thy safety; in thy face be thy foes; in thy strides thy prosperity. — The pride of Ireland is against thee, in life and in motion. Be thou restless as the treacherous light that gleams to benighted travellers.’8
In the preceding part of the same poem the support and assistance received by Eogan and his tribe from a sorceress named Eadoin, is mentioned; who, in a former engagement, so fascinated the eyes of Eogan's adversaries by her enchantments, that some rocks on the field of battle assumed the appearance of formidable bodies of armed men; and while Goll and the sons Moirne, with their valiant associates, attacked these flinty phantoms, and were occupied in contest with invulnerable and senseless stones, the sorceress conveyed the unwilling Eogan and his followers from the scene of warfare, and embarked them for Spain. ‘The rock,’ adds an English note on this passage of the manuscript, ‘which was converted into the resemblance of Eogan and his troops, is, at this day, called the Scalped Rock — in Irish, Cloch Bhearrha, — in Glean Rogh, near Kin-mare, from the indenture made in it by the arms of Goll, which were shivered and broken into pieces thereon.’
As in England, a worn horseshoe nailed on the threshold, or near the entrance of a house, is considered as a security against witchcraft, but this remedy is used only in the better description of cabins.
Many of the ancient Irish chieftains have received deification, and the credulous believe in their frequent reappearance on earth as the messengers of good tidings, such as a fine season or an abundant harvest. Other shades are compelled to perform certain penitential ceremonies in expiation of crimes committed during life; of the latter may be mentioned an Earl of Kildare, doomed to ride septennially round the Curragh (an extensive common) until the silver shoes of his supernatural steed are worn out. To the former class belongs O'Donoghue, a chief of much celebrity, whose May-day visit on a milk white horse, gliding over the lake of Killarney, to the sound of unearthly music, and attended by troops of spirits scattering delicious spring flowers, has been lyrically preserved by Mr. Moore, and is accurately recorded in a poem by Mr. Leslie on Killarney, and in Mr. Weld's account of that Lake, as also in Derrick's Letters,
Second sight, so common in the Highlands, I believe is unknown in the South of Ireland. Story relates a mysterious appearance of stars, accompanied by heavy groans, that preceded the landing of the rival monarchs William and James, seen by ‘one Mr. Hambleton, of Tollymoore, a justice of the peace in his county, and a sober, rational man;’ in company with others who were journeying towards Dundalk; adding, ‘They have a great many tales of this kind in Ireland, and the Inniskilling men tell you of several such things before their battles.’ I should, however, consider these visions, on account of their northern limits, as derived from Scotland, and not genuine Irish superstitions.
I fear it may be considered that I have dwelt too long upon, and
- Such fancies are the coinage of the brain,
Which oft rebellious to more sober thought
Will these strange phantoms shape; the idle prate
Of fools and nurses, who in infant minds
Plant such mishapen stuff, the scorn and scoff
Of settled reason and of common sense!
On the whole, from what may be collected, the present state of Irish superstition closely resembles that of England during the age of Elizabeth; a strong proof of the correct measurement of those who have stated a space of two centuries to exist between the relative degree of popular knowledge and civilization attained by the sister kingdom.