[1] The incidents of this narrative are founded on fact.
[2] Cloaks.
[3] The popular notion that the Mohammedans deny immortality to the souls of women is altogether a mistake, as will be apparent to any one who takes the trouble of looking through the Koran.
OROHOO, THE FAIRY MAN,
A REMINISCENCE OF CONNAUGHT.
Were we to believe the chronicles of our grandmothers, Ireland at one period was held in fee-simple by witches, warlocks, white ladies, fairies, and leprahauns; the earth, the air, and the sky, were peopled by them; every crumbling and desolate cabin on the sterile moor or common was tenanted by a witch; while the margins of our beautiful loughs, the bosoms of our silent and sequestered glens, the recesses of our romantic mountain valleys, the echoing walls of every mouldering edifice, and the mystic circle of each rude hill-fort, were the chosen habitations of unearthly beings.
Nor was this belief held by the uneducated alone; many who moved in respectable situations in society were infected by it; and otherwise sensible and well-informed people on this head were deaf to the voice of reason and the dictates of common sense, and would as soon doubt the truth of Holy Writ as the existence of supernatural agency; and so interwoven was the superstition in the social system, that no event could happen poor mortality from the cradle to the grave, in which the good people were not implicated for good or evil. Did the head or a member of a leading family die, the wail of the banshee was sure to be heard in the twilight. Was a favourite child smitten with disease, the beautiful, the beloved one was believed to be changed for a squalling, ravenous, and decrepid starveling. Did your cattle pine, or was your dairy not productive, your cows were either elf-shot or bewitched. Was the wife of your bosom snatched away in her bloom, in the most interesting though dangerous moment of her existence, the fairies were whispered to be the authors of your misfortune—to have spirited her off, and to have left in her stead a wooden substitute.
Well do I remember the thrill of fear, mingled with a degree of pleasurable awe, with which I listened some forty years since to the narratives of a venerable aunt, who was lingering out the evening of her existence at my father’s fireside—her only occupation being, rocking the cradle and keeping the youngsters from mottling their shins. She was an experienced dame, and withal pious, but would as soon doubt her own identity as that of witches and fairies, and her memory was well stored with instances of their interference. These I then believed most implicitly, particularly as in many of them “the family” was concerned. She could relate how her grandfather one morning detected a hare in the act of milking one of his cows, which he fired at and wounded, and on tracking the blood, discovered it to flow from the thigh of an old crone who inhabited a neighbouring hovel. She also could tell how an elder brother had surprised a leprahaun in the act of making shoes for the gentle people—could describe his dress minutely, and how he had escaped captivity by making a feint with his awl at my uncle’s eye, and causing him to wink when in the very act of seizing him, and thereby marred his fortune. She also knew a child which was taken from its mother’s arms at night, but luckily was missed before he could be conveyed through the key-hole, and on the outcry of the bereaved parent, was dropped “with a whack” on the floor uninjured. It never occurred to her that probably the child had rolled out of the bed accidentally. There was another tale often related by her, which it would be worse than heresy to doubt, as she knew the parties intimately.
An honest man named John M’Kinstrey, who resided near Maheraveely, in the county Monaghan, was once compelled to leave his warm bed in “the witching time of night,” on a certain pressing occasion, and ride post-haste for a worthy dame whose assistance was indispensable. While returning with the “howdy” safely stowed on an ample pillion behind, he heard the strokes of an axe reverberating through a neighbouring wood, and voices in conversation. Curiosity prompted him to draw up and listen, when he distinctly heard the question asked, “What are you doing to-night?” and to his dismay the answer was responded, “I’m making a wife for Jack M’Kinstrey.” “Faith,” said Jack, “you’ll make no wife for me, my man—I’ll do very well with the one I have;” and giving his good beast the spur, regardless of the neck, bones, or outcry of his freight, he never drew rein until he had his better half clasped in his arms, where he held her in a death’s-grip until the crisis was over, and thus baulked the fairies.
Thus was the whole system of society pervaded by the idea of supernatural influence; and the consequence was an undefinable dread and fear, hanging like the sword of Damocles over the heads of all, and embittering existence. ’Tis true the evil was only imaginary, but not on that account the less hurtful; for, being a mental malady, it was the more difficult to be counteracted or eradicated, and often led to real anxiety and distress, as in the care of M’Kinstrey, whose ideas being full of witchcraft and fairy freaks, never reflected that the noise and voices he had heard might be a practical joke of some of his neighbours, and in consequence suffered all the suspense and trouble incident to real danger.