“Catsup,” said Jack, who, when he found that the two lads (for the second had followed his brother) were both laughing in the middle of the fairies, had dismounted and advanced slowly—“What do you mean by catsup?”
“Nothing,” replied Tom, “but that they are mushrooms (as indeed they were:) and your Oberon is merely this overgrown puff-ball.”
Poor Mulligan gave a long whistle of amazement, staggered back to his horse without saying a word, and rode home in a hard gallop, never looking behind him. Many a long day was it before he ventured to face the laughers at Ballybegmullinahone; and to the day of his death the people of the parish, ay, and five parishes round called him nothing but musharoon Jack, such being their pronunciation of mushroom.
I should be sorry if all my fairy stories ended with so little dignity: but—
“These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air—into thin air.”
The name Shefro, by which the foregoing section is distinguished, literally signifies a fairy house or mansion, and is adopted as a general name for the Elves who are supposed to live in troops or communities, and were popularly supposed to have castles or mansions of their own.—See Stewart’s Popular Superstitions of the Highlands, 1823, pp. 90, 91, &c.
Sia, sigh, sighe, sigheann, siabhra, siachaire, siogidh, are Irish words, evidently springing from a common Celtic root, used to express a fairy or goblin, and even a hag or witch. Thus we have the compounds Leannan-sighe, a familiar, from Leannan, a pet, and Sioghdhraoidheachd, enchantment with or by spirits.
Sigh gàoithe or siaheann-gàoithe, a whirlwind, is so termed because it is said to be raised by the fairies. The close of day called Sia, because twilight,
“That sweet hour, when day is almost closing,”
is the time when the fairies are most frequently seen. Again, Sigh is a hill or hillock, because the fairies are believed to dwell within. Sidhe, sidheadh, and sigh, are names for a blast or blight, because it is supposed to proceed from the fairies.
The term Shoges, i.e. Sigh oges (young or little spirits,) Fairies, is used in a curious poem printed under the name of “The Irish Hudibras,” 1689, pp. 23, and 81; a copy of which, entitled “The Fingallian Travesty,” is among the Sloane MSS. No. 900. In the Third Part of O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, it is related that St. Patrick and some of his followers, who were chanting matins beside a fountain, were taken for “Sidhe, or fairies,” by some pagan ladies.
“The Irish,” according to the Rev. James Hely’s translation of O’Flaherty, “call these Sidhe, aërial spirits or phantoms, because they are seen to come out of pleasant hills, where the common people imagine they reside, which fictitious habitations are called by us Sidhe or Siodha.”
For a similar extended use of the German word Alp, Elf, &c. see Introductory Essay to the Grimms’ Irische Elfenmärchen, pp. 55-62.