'We don't like it,' he answered; 'you will often see them on the top
of the rocks looking up into the heavens, and they crying. We don't
like it at all, and we don't like a cock or hen to break anything in
the house, for we know then some one will be going away. A while
before the man who used to live in that cottage below died in the
winter, the cock belonging to his wife began to fight with another
cock. The two of them flew up on the dresser and knocked the glass
of the lamp off it, and it fell on the floor and was broken. The
woman caught her cock after that and killed it, but she could not
kill the other cock, for it was belonging to the man who lived in
the next house. Then himself got a sickness and died after that.'
I asked him if he ever heard the fairy music on the island.
'I heard some of the boys talking in the school a while ago,' he
said, 'and they were saying that their brothers and another man went
out fishing a morning, two weeks ago, before the cock crew. When
they were down near the Sandy Head they heard music near them, and
it was the fairies were in it. I've heard of other things too. One
time three men were out at night in a curagh, and they saw a big
ship coming down on them. They were frightened at it, and they tried
to get away, but it came on nearer them, till one of the men turned
round and made the sign of the cross, and then they didn't see it
any more.'
Then he went on in answer to another question:
'We do often see the people who do be away with them. There was a
young man died a year ago, and he used to come to the window of the
house where his brothers slept, and be talking to them in the night.
He was married a while before that, and he used to be saying in the
night he was sorry he had not promised the land to his son, and that
it was to him it should go. Another time he was saying something
about a mare, about her hoofs, or the shoes they should put on her.
A little while ago Patch Ruadh saw him going down the road with
brogaarda (leather boots) on him and a new suit. Then two men saw
him in another place.
'Do you see that straight wall of cliff?' he went on a few minutes
later, pointing to a place below us. 'It is there the fairies do be
playing ball in the night, and you can see the marks of their heels
when you come in the morning, and three stones they have to mark the
line, and another big stone they hop the ball on. It's often the
boys have put away the three stones, and they will always be back
again in the morning, and a while since the man who owns the land
took the big stone itself and rolled it down and threw it over the
cliff, yet in the morning it was back in its place before him.'
I am in the south island again, and I have come upon some old men
with a wonderful variety of stories and songs, the last, fairly
often, both in English and Irish, I went round to the house of one
of them to-day, with a native scholar who can write Irish, and we
took down a certain number, and heard others. Here is one of the
tales the old man told us at first before he had warmed to his
subject. I did not take it down, but it ran in this way: -
There was a man of the name of Charley Lambert, and every horse he
would ride in a race he would come in the first.
The people in the country were angry with him at last, and this law
was made, that he should ride no more at races, and if he rode, any
one who saw him would have the right to shoot him. After that there
was a gentleman from that part of the country over in England, and
he was talking one day with the people there, and he said that the
horses of Ireland were the best horses. The English said it was the
English horses were the best, and at last they said there should be
a race, and the English horses would come over and race against the
horses of Ireland, and the gentleman put all his money on that race.
Well, when he came back to Ireland he went to Charley Lambert, and
asked him to ride on his horse. Charley said he would not ride, and
told the gentleman the danger he'd be in. Then the gentleman told
him the way he had put all his property on the horse, and at last
Charley asked where the races were to be, and the hour and the day.
The gentleman told him.
'Let you put a horse with a bridle and saddle on it every seven
miles along the road from here to the racecourse on that day,' said
Lambert, 'and I'll be in it.'
When the gentleman was gone, Charley stripped off his clothes and
got into his bed. Then he sent for the doctor, and when he heard him
coming he began throwing about his arms the way the doctor would
think his pulse was up with the fever.
The doctor felt his pulse and told him to stay quiet till the next
day, when he would see him again.
The next day it was the same thing, and so on till the day of the
races.
