In "Folklore as an Historical Science" Sir G. Laurence Gomme has given several variants of the story of the Pedlar of Swaffham and London Bridge. Most of these come from England, Scotland, and Wales, but among them there are also a Breton and a Norse version. I have found a local variant in Donegal. An elderly woman told me that at Kinnagoe a "toon" or small hamlet about three miles from Buncrana, there lived a man whose name, she believed, was Doherty. He dreamt one night that on London Bridge he should hear of a treasure. He set out at once for London, and when he came there walked up and down the bridge until he was wearied. At last a man accosted him and asked him why he loitered there. In reply, Doherty told his dream, upon which the other said: "Ah, man! Do you believe in drames? Why, I dreamt the other night that at a place called Kinnagoe a pot of gold is buried. Would I go to look for it? I might loss my time if I paid attention to drames." "That's true," answered Doherty, who now hurried home, found the pot of gold, bought houses and land, and became a wealthy man.
Whether this story embodies an earlier Irish legend I do not know, but I should say that the mention of London Bridge points to its having been brought over by English settlers. Sir G. L. Gomme tells us that "the earliest version of this legend is quoted from the manuscripts of Sir Roger Twysden, who obtained it from Sir William Dugdale, of Blyth Hall, in Warwickshire, in a letter dated January 29, 1652-53. Sir William says of it that 'it was the tradition of the inhabitants, as it was told me there.'"
May not some of the planters brought over by the Irish Society have carried this legend from their English home, giving it in the name Kinnagoe a local habitation?
Most of our folklore comes, however, from a very early period. Our Irish fairy, although regarded as a fallen angel, is not the medieval elf, who could sip honey from a flower, but a small old man or woman with magical powers, swift to revenge an injury, but often a kindly neighbour. No story is told more frequently than that of the old fairy woman who borrows a "noggin" of meal, repays it honestly, and rewards the peasant woman by saying that her kist will never be empty, generally adding the condition as long as the secret is kept. The woman usually observes the condition until her husband becomes too inquisitive. When she reveals the secret the kist is empty.
Another widespread tale is that of the fairy woman who comes to the peasant's cottage, sometimes to beg that water may not be thrown out at the door, as it comes down her chimney and puts out the fire; sometimes to ask, for a similar reason, that the "byre," or cowhouse, may be removed to another site. In some tales it is a fairy man who makes the request. If it is refused, punishment follows in sickness among the cattle; if complied with, the cows flourish and give an extra supply of milk. In one instance the "wee folk" provided money to pay a mason to build the new cowhouse. We may smile, and ask how the position of the cowhouse could affect the homes of the fairies; but if these small people lived in the souterrains, as tradition alleges, we may even at the present day find these artificial caves under inhabited houses. At a large farmhouse on the border of Counties Antrim and Londonderry I was told one ran under the kitchen. At another farm near Castlerock, Co. Londonderry, the owner opened a trapdoor in his yard, and allowed me to look down into a souterrain. At Finvoy, Co. Antrim, I was shown one of these caves over which a cottage formerly stood. A souterrain also runs under the Glebe House at Donaghmore, Co. Down. The following extract is from a work[84] in preparation, by the Rev. Dr. Cowan, Rector of the parish, who, in describing this souterrain, writes: "The lintel to the main entrance is the large stone which forms the base of the old Celtic cross, which stands a few yards south of the church. Underneath the cross is the central chamber, which is sixty-two feet long, three feet wide and upwards of four feet high, with branches in the form of transepts about thirty feet in length. From these, again, several sections extend ... one due north terminating at the Glebe House (a distance of two hundred yards) underneath the study, where, according to tradition, some rich old vicar in past times fashioned the extreme end into the dimensions of a wine-cellar."
According to another tradition—an older one, no doubt—this chamber under the study was the dressing-room of the small Danes, who after their toilet proceeded through the underground passages to church. They had to pass through many little doors, down stairs, through parlours, until they came to the great chamber under the cross where the minister held forth. I shall not attempt to guess to what old faith this minister or priest belonged, or what were the rites he celebrated; but the stairs probably represent the descent from one chamber to another, and the little doors the bridges found in some souterrains, and, I believe, at Donaghmore, where one stone juts out from the floor, and a little farther on another comes down from the roof, leaving only a narrow passage, so that one must creep over and under these bridges to get to the end of the cave.
The Danes are regarded by the country people as distinctly human, and yet there is much in them that reminds us of the fairies; indeed, I was told by two old men—one in Co. Antrim, and the other in Co. Derry—that they and the wee-folk are much the same. In a former paper[85] I referred to the difference in dress ascribed to the fairies in various parts of the country. I am inclined to believe that this indicates a variety of tribes among the aboriginal inhabitants. In the fairies who dress in green may we not have a tradition of people who stained themselves with woad or some other plant? These fairies are chiefly heard of in North-East Antrim. In some parts of that county they are said to wear tartan, but in other parts of Ulster the fairies are usually, although not universally, described as dressing in red. Do these represent a people who dyed themselves with red ochre, or who simply went naked? In Tory Island I was told the fairies dressed in black; and Keating informs us that the Fomorians, who had their headquarters at Toirinis, or Tory Island, were "sea-rovers of the race of Cam, who fared from Africa."[86]
Stories of the fairies or wee-folk are to be found everywhere in Ulster, and the Danes are also universally known; but one hears of the Pechts, chiefly in the north-east of Antrim, where the Grogach is also known. The following story was told to me in Glenariff, Co. Antrim:
A Grogach herded the cattle of a farmer, and drove them home in the evening. He was about the size of a child, and was naked. A fire was left burning at night so that he might warm himself, and after a time the daughter of the house made him a shirt. When the Grogach saw this he thought it was a "billet" for him to go, and, crying bitterly, he took his departure, and left the shirt behind him. As I pointed out on a former occasion,[87] in many respects the Grogach resembles the Swiss dwarf. The likeness to the Brownie is also very marked. At Ballycastle I was told the Grogach was a hairy man about four feet in height, who could bear heat or cold without clothing.
Patrick Kennedy has described a Gruagach as a giant, and states that the word "Gruagach" has for root gruach—"hair," giants and magicians being