The Fairies are the Dead.—‘When I was a youngster near Armagh, I was kept good by being told that the fairies could take bad boys away. The sane belief about the fairies, however, is different, as I discovered when I grew up. The old people in County Armagh seriously believe that the fairies are the spirits of the dead; and they say that if you have many friends deceased you have many friendly fairies, or if you have many enemies deceased you have many fairies looking out to do you harm.’
Food-Offerings to Place-Fairies.—‘It was very usual formerly, and the practice is not yet given up, to place a bed, some other furniture, and plenty of food in a newly-constructed dwelling the night before the time fixed for moving into it; and if the food is not consumed, and the crumbs swept up by the door in the morning, the house cannot safely be occupied. I know of two houses now that have never been occupied, because the fairies did not show their willingness and goodwill by taking food so offered to them.’
On the Slopes of Slieve Gullion
In climbing to the summit of Cuchulainn’s mountain, which overlooks parts of the territory made famous by the ‘Cattle Raid of Cooley’, I met John O’Hare, sixty-eight years old, of Longfield Townland, leading his horse to pasture, and I stopped to talk with him about the ‘good people’.
‘The good people in this mountain,’ he said, ‘are the people who have died and been taken; the mountain is enchanted.’
The ‘Fairy’ Overflowing of the Meal-Chest.—‘An old woman came to the wife of Steven Callaghan and told her not to let Steven cut a certain hedge. “It is where we shelter at night,” the old woman added; and Mrs. Callaghan recognized the old woman as one who had been taken in confinement. A few nights later the same old woman appeared to Mrs. Callaghan and asked for charity; and she was offered some meal, which she did not take. Then she asked for lodgings, but did not stop. When Mrs. Callaghan saw the meal-chest next morning it was overflowing with meal: it was the old woman’s gift for the hedge.’
The Testimony of two Dromintee Percipients
After my friend, the Rev. Father L. Donnellan, C.C., of Dromintee, County Armagh, had introduced me to Alice Cunningham, of his parish, and she had told much about the ‘gentle folk’, she emphatically declared that they do exist—and this in the presence of Father Donnellan—because she has often seen them on Carrickbroad Mountain, near where she lives. And she then reported as follows concerning enchanted Slieve Gullion:—
The ‘Sidhe’ Guardian of Slieve Gullion.—‘The top of Slieve Gullion is a very gentle place. A fairy has her house there by the lake, but she is invisible. She interferes with nobody. I hear of no gentler places about here than Carrickbroad and Slieve Gullion.’
Father Donnellan and I called next upon Thomas McCrink and his wife at Carrifamayan, because Mrs. McCrink claims to have seen some of the ‘good people’, and this is her testimony:—