We commence our survey of the lands of Celts and Cymry with Ireland, as being the first in point of importance, but still more as being the land of our birth. It is pleasing to us, now in the autumn of our life, to return in imagination to where we passed its spring—its most happy spring. As we read and meditate, its mountains and its vales, its verdant fields and lucid streams, objects on which we probably never again shall gaze, rise up in their primal freshness and beauty before us, and we are once more present, buoyant with youth, in the scenes where we first heard the fairy-legends of which we are now to treat. Even the forms of the individual peasants who are associated with them in our memory, rise as it were from their humble resting-places and appear before us, again awaking our sympathies; for, we will boldly assert it, the Irish peasantry, with all their faults, gain a faster hold on the affections than the peasantry of any other country. We speak, however, particularly of them as they were in our county and in our younger days; for we fear that they are somewhat changed, and not for the better.

But our present business is with the Irish fairies rather than with the Irish people.

[Pg 363]

The fairies of Ireland can hardly be said to differ in any respect from those of England and Scotland. Like them they are of diminutive size, rarely exceeding two feet in height; they live also in society, their ordinary abode being the interior of the mounds, called in Irish, Raths (Râhs), in English, Moats, the construction of which is, by the peasantry, ascribed to the Danes from whom, it might thence perhaps be inferred, the Irish got their fairies direct and not viâ England. From these abodes they are at times seen to issue mounted on diminutive steeds, in order to take at night the diversion of the chase. Their usual attire is green with red caps. [427] They are fond of music, but we do not in general hear much of their dancing, perhaps because on account of the infrequency of thunder, the fairy-rings are less numerous in Ireland than elsewhere.

Though the fairies steal children and strike people with paralysis and other ailments (which is called being fairy-struck), and shoot their elf-arrows at the cattle, they are in general kind to those for whom they have contracted a liking, and often render them essential service in time of need. They can make themselves visible and invisible, and assume any forms they please. The pretty tiny conical mushrooms which grow so abundantly in Ireland are called Fairy-mushrooms; a kind of nice regularly-formed grass is named Fairy-flax, and the bells of the foxglove called in some places Fairy-bells, are also said to have some connexion with the Little People.

The popular belief in Ireland also is, that the Fairies are a portion of the fallen angels, who, being less guilty than the rest, were not driven to hell, but were suffered to dwell on earth. They are supposed to be very uneasy respecting their condition after the final judgement.

The only names by which they are known in those parts of Ireland in which the English language is spoken are, Fairies, the Good People,[428] and the Gentry, these last terms being placatory, like the Greek Eumenides. When, for example, the peasant sees a cloud of dust sweeping along the road, he raises his hat and says, "God speed you, gentlemen!" for it is the popular belief that it is in these cloudy vehicles[Pg 364] that the Good People journey from one place to another.[429] The Irish language has several names for the fairies; all however are forms or derivations of the word Shia,[430] the proper meaning of which seems to be Spirit. The most usual name employed by the Munster peasantry is Shifra; we are not acquainted with the fairy-belief and terminology of the inhabitants of Connemara and the other wilds of Connaught.[431]

Most of the traits and legends of the Irish fairies are contained in the Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, compiled by Mr. Crofton Croker. As we ourselves aided in that work we must inform the reader that our contributions, both in text and notes, contain only Leinster ideas and traditions, for that was the only province with which we were acquainted. We must make the further confession, that some of the more poetic traits which MM. Grimm, in the Introduction to their translation of this work, give as characteristic of the Irish fairies, owe their origin to the fancy of the writers, who were, in many cases, more anxious to produce amusing tales than to transmit legends faithfully.

The Legend of Knockshegowna (Hill of the Fairy-calf) the first given in that work, relates how the fairies used to torment the cattle and herdsmen for intruding on one of their favourite places of resort which was on this hill. The fairy-queen, it says, having failed in her attempts to daunt a drunken piper who had undertaken the charge of the cattle, at last turned herself into a calf, and, with the piper on her back, jumped over the Shannon, ten miles off, and back again. Pleased with his courage, she agreed to abandon the hill for the future.

The Legend of Knock-Grafton tells how a little hunchback, while sitting to rest at nightfall at the side of a Rath or Moat, heard the fairies within singing over and over again, Da Luan, Da Mart! (i. e. , Monday, Tuesday! ) and added, weary[Pg 365] with the monotony, Agus da Cadin!

(i. e. , and Wednesday! ) The fairies were so delighted with this addition to their song that they brought him into the Moat, entertained him, and finally freed him from the incumbrance of his hump. Another hunchback hearing the story went to the Moat to try if he could meet with the same good fortune.

He heard the fairies singing the amended version of the song, and, anxious to contribute, without waiting for a pause or attending to the rhythm or melody, he added Agus da Hena! (i. e. , and Friday. )[432] His reward was, being carried into the Moat, and having his predecessor's hump placed on his back in addition to his own.

In the story named the Priest's Supper, a fisherman, at the request of the fairies, asks a priest who had stopt at his house, whether they would be saved or not at the last day. The priest desired him to tell them to come themselves and put the question to him, but this they declined doing, and the question remained undecided.

The next three stories are of changelings. The Young Piper, one of our own contributions, will be found in the Appendix. The Changeling has nothing peculiar in it; but the Brewery of Eggshells is one which we find in many places, even in Brittany and Auvergne. In the present version, the mother puts down eggshells to boil, and to the enquiry of the changeling she tells him that she is brewing them, and clapping his hands he says, "Well! I'm fifteen hundred years in the world, and I never saw a brewery of eggshells before!"

In the Capture of Bridget Purcel, a girl is struck with a little switch between the shoulders, by something in the form of a little child that came suddenly behind her, and she pined away and died.

The Legend of Bottle Hill gives the origin of that name, which was as follows. A poor man was driving his only cow[Pg 366] to Cork to sell her. As he was going over that hill he was suddenly joined by a strange-looking little old man with a pale withered face and red eyes, to whom he was eventually induced to give his cow in exchange for a bottle, and both cow and purchaser then disappeared. When the poor man came home he followed the directions of the stranger, and spreading a cloth on the table, and placing the bottle on the ground, he said, "Bottle, do your duty! " and immediately two little beings rose out of it, and having covered the table with food in gold and silver dishes, went down again into the bottle and vanished.

By selling these he got a good deal of money and became rich for one in his station. The secret of his bottle however transpired, and his landlord induced him to sell it to him. But his prosperity vanished with it, and he was again reduced to one cow, and obliged to drive her to Cork for sale. As he journeyed over the same hill he met the same old man, and sold him the cow for another bottle. Having made the usual preparations, he laid it on the ground and said, "Bottle, do your duty!

" but instead of the tiny little lads with their gold and silver dishes, there jumped up out of it two huge fellows with cudgels, who fell to belabouring the whole family. When they had done and were gone back into the bottle, the owner of it, without saying a word, put it under his coat and went to his landlord, who happened to have a great deal of company with him, and sent in word that he was come with another bottle to sell. He was at once admitted, the bottle did its duty, and the men with cudgels laid about them on all present, and never ceased till the original wealth-giving bottle was restored. He now grew richer than ever, and his son married his landlord's daughter, but when the old man and his wife died, the servants, it is recorded, fighting at their wake, broke the two bottles.

The Confessions of Tom Bourke, as it contains a faithful transcript of the words and ideas of that personage, is perhaps the most valuable portion of the work. From this we learn that in Munster the fairies are, like the people themselves, divided into factions. Thus we are told that, on the[Pg 367] occasion of the death of Bourke's mother, the two parties fought for three continuous nights, to decide whether she should be buried with her own or her husband's people (i. e. family).

Bourke also had sat for hours looking at two parties of the Good People playing at the popular game of hurling, in a meadow at the opposite side of the river, with their coats and waistcoats off, and white handkerchiefs on the heads of one, and red on these of the other party.

A man whom Tom knew was returning one evening from a fair, a little elevated of course, when he met a berrin (i. e. funeral), which he joined, as is the custom; but, to his surprise, there was no one there that he knew except one man, and he had been dead for some years. When the berrin was over, they gathered round a piper, and began to dance in the churchyard. Davy longed to be among them, and the man that he knew came up to him, and bid him take out a partner, but on no account to give her the usual kiss.

He accordingly took out the purtiest girl in the ring, and danced a jig with her, to the admiration of the whole company; but at the end he forgot the warning, and complied with the custom of kissing one's partner. All at once everything vanished; and when Davy awoke nest morning, he found himself lying among the tombstones.