The Anthology of Irish Folk Tales: Volume II E-Book

Folk Tales Authors

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 581

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

This enchanting collection of stories once again gathers together legends and lore from across Ireland in one special volume. Drawn from The History Press' popular Folk Tales series, herein lies a second treasure trove of tales from a wealth of authentic Irish storytellers. From fairies, mermaids and enchanted caves to devils, witches and ancient gods, this collection honours the distinct character of Ireland's different customs, beliefs and dialects, and belongs on the bookshelves of all who enjoy a well-told story.

Leseprobe

First published 2025

The History Press

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Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© The Authors, 2025

The right of The Authors to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 946 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books, Padstow, Cornwall.

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This book is dedicated to all Irish storytellers, past and present.

CONTENTS

1. DERRY

The Lovesick Leannan Sidhe

Brogey McDaid and the Wee Folk

2. ANTRIM

Martha Clark and Johnny Brady

Monterloney: A Rural Reminiscence

3. TYRONE

The Ghosts of Lissan House

The Fintona Railway

4. ARMAGH

Lived Once, Buried Twice

Drain Jumper

5. DOWN

The Rapparee: Redmond O’Hanlon

Black Dermod

6. FERMANAGH

The Remarkable Rocket

The Cooneen Ghost

7. DONEGAL

The Bee, the Harp, the Mouse and the Bum-Clock

Ghost Lights in Ramelton

8. LEITRIM

Jack Birchall

Francisco de Cuellar

9. CAVAN

Bricín the Surgeon

St Patrick and the Idol of Crom Cruach

10. MONAGHAN

John O’Neill and the Three Dogs

The Wilde Sisters

11. MAYO

An Gorta Mór

The White Trout of Cong

12. SLIGO

The Ship-sinking Witch

Soden’s Ghost

13. ROSCOMMON

The Price of a Priest

The Engagement Ring

14. LONGFORD

Longford and the Titanic

The Cannon Chains and Gunner Magee

15. MEATH

Garrawog

The Gormanston Foxes

16. LOUTH

Origin of the River Boyne

The Birth of Cuculan and New Grange

17. GALWAY

Enda and Brecan

The Last of the Superheroes

18. KILDARE

Dan Donnelly, The King of the Curragh

The Devil at Castletown House

19. DUBLIN

The Ha’penny Bridge

Dead Cat Bounce

20. CLARE

Inchiquin Lake

The Fairies’ Dance in Glendree

21. TIPPERARY

The Pipes of Fortune

Knockshegowna

22. LAOIS

The Red Fairy of Grantsown

The Tales of Jenny McGlynn

23. WICKLOW

A Cure for Baldness

Derrybawn Cow

24. CARLOW

Eileen Kavanagh

The Mermaid and the King’s Sons

25. KILKENNY

The Rose of Mooncoin

The Last Fitzgerald in Cluan Castle (Clonamery)

26. WEXFORD

Three Geese

Crossing the Water

27. WATERFORD

The Tunnel Beneath the River Suir?

An Bídeach

28. LIMERICK

Joan Grogan, Bean Feasa

Sean O’Hea and the Woman in the White Dress

29. KERRY

The Siege of Smerwick and the Downfall of the Geraldines

Marie Antoinette and Rice House

30. CORK

Goibhniu the Wonder Smith and the Cow of Plenty

The Cailleach Bhéarra

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

DERRY

MADELINE MCCULLY

THE LOVESICK LEANNAN SIDHE

But like a lovesick leannan sidhe

She hath my heart enthralled,

Nor life I own, nor liberty

For love is lord of all.

From ‘My Lagan Love’

Every county in Ireland has its own tale of the Leannan Sidhe, the fairy lover, and County Derry is no different. The story is told of a young man trying to withstand the romantic wiles of a fairy woman.

Hugh was an adventurous young man and wanted to see the world so, despite the pleadings of his parents, he set off. Well, he’d been travelling for about three years when he got word that his father was very ill and he set sail for home. Unfortunately, his father died before he arrived and his mother was beside herself with grief. He knew that he would have to stay at home. She was a good mother and he just couldn’t leave her, so he set about trying to keep the farm going. To be a good farmer you need to have a love of the land, but since he wasn’t a man of the soil at heart the farm began to get a bit run down. Within a year of his father’s death his mother fell deeper into a decline brought on by melancholia, for she never got over the death of her husband.

Hugh took to the drink, and soon the farm suffered; crops weren’t sown, fences went unmended and the house wanted the lick of whitewash. Sure, it broke his mother’s heart to see her big son falling to pieces, and when she was dying she begged him to catch hold of himself, to stop drinking and to find a wife.

Now, Hugh was a man of his word and he took his mother’s dying words to heart. As her body was committed to the grave he made her a promise. He’d never touch another drop of drink, even when the other mourners were drinking after the funeral. When everyone departed to their own farms he walked around the place and took a good fresh look at it.

‘Right enough,’ he said to himself, ‘it’s a mess of the place. I’ll put this to rights and maybe then I’ll be able to find me a nice girl to marry.’

Now, like most places in Ulster, there are seven girls to every man, so you wouldn’t have too much difficulty finding a nice girl. Hugh was a fine, big man and had a grand way with him, though he was unaware of his own good looks. Sure, wasn’t he the finest looking man ever seen in County Derry? He had hair as black as the raven’s wing, and eyes as blue as the sunlit sea. He was tall and broad of shoulder and under his tanned, windblown skin the powerful muscles rippled, having been built up from hauling in the nets filled with fish from the oceans of the world. Even the dissipation of the past year hadn’t softened him up too much. All he need were the right clothes because, as his mother had often said, ‘Clothes maketh the man.’

He began to clear the fields again for the planting and discovered that once he put the sea out of his mind he liked the land work. Still, at the end of the day it was lonely coming back into the house that had forgotten the touch of a woman. After a particularly hard day clearing the far field of rocks and trying his hand at building a stonewall, he resolved to do the final thing that his mother had asked of him, and that was to find himself a wife.

Knowing that there was a big fair on the Monday at the beginning of August he went into Portstewart to buy himself some decent clothes. Coming out of the tailor’s shop he stopped as if struck by lightning, and indeed it was lightning of a kind, for didn’t he spy the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes upon.

Oh, her hair was like a fire glowing in the sun, her skin was white, and on her cheeks were freckles sprinkled like gold dust. Poor Hugh was besotted at first glance, and as he made his way over to her he wondered if this lovely creature had a husband already. When he reached her side he looked down and she, catching his glance, looked up. Sure, wasn’t that the truth of the saying, ‘It was love at first glance?’

Didn’t they chat as if they’d known each other all their lives, and as the sun began to set in the sky and the market emptied, he asked if he could walk her home.

‘You can,’ said she, ‘but only as far as the bridge, because my father will be waiting near there, and he warned me not to have any truck with strangers.’

Hugh would have walked to the ends of the earth with her, but as they neared the bridge she stopped. ‘No further, Hugh, and thank you.’

Hugh stuttered out the words, ‘Can I call on you, Kate?’

They arranged to meet, and as the summer dipped into autumn they were as deeply in love as any young couple could be. When she decked herself out in her best clothes and went out of an evening, her father suspected that there was a man in the offing. Now, an elderly man depending on a daughter to see to him in his old age gets a bit obstreperous and selfish when a young man is in the offing. He determined that he would put off any man courting Kate, but he didn’t let on to his daughter what was in his mind.

‘Will you marry me, Kate?’ Hugh asked her one night, and her smile lit the heavens, for wasn’t she as besotted with him as he was with her?

‘Aye’ she answered, ‘but you’ll have to square it with my Da. Come round tomorrow night and see him.’

As Hugh was walking over the mountain road on the way home that night, a wind whistled up out of nowhere and he knew right away that it was no ordinary wind. His mother had warned him about the Leannan Sidhe, a fairy woman of great beauty wanting to carry off handsome young men who were betrothed to another. It was said that once she got her eye on a man he was going to be tortured by her presence until she finally ensnared him. So Hugh pulled his cap down until it almost covered his eyes and kept his head down too, looking only at the road. Didn’t he know that any man, looking into the fairy lover’s eyes was doomed to follow her forever?

Well, that Leannan Sidhe came to his side and wrapped the wind around him like a blanket, and he had to battle against it to move an inch along the way. She pulled and she hauled, but he would not raise his eyes, and eventually she tired of the struggle and let go of him. When the sound of the wind disappeared he looked around and didn’t he catch sight of her on the hill, and she was burying something under a gallan rock (a standing stone). He took note of the spot and hurried on home, determined that the next day he would see what she had buried.

The dawn broke and Hugh rose, pulled on his clothes and went to the hillside, knowing that the fairy lover would not come out in daylight. He pushed the rock aside, for it was powerful heavy and there, underneath it, was a bag made of the softest leather. He looked around, lifted the bag, and it was heavy. When he undid the string he couldn’t believe his eyes for the bag was chock-full of gold coins, bright as the leaves of the buttercups growing in his field. All sorts of thoughts were going through his mind, but the main one was not to tell anyone about his find. He would provide Kate with any treasure she asked for when she was his wife.

That night he dressed in the fine suit the tailor in Portstewart had made for him and went to ask Kate’s father for her hand in marriage. He noted that this farm was as neat as a new pin, that the cows were well fed and content, and the outside of the house was newly whitewashed, unlike his own.

‘Well,’ he thought, ‘with my gold I can fix up my farm and Kate will never want for anything.’

Kate was waiting for him at the door. ‘Me Da’s in a right ‘aul mood and he’ll try to make you lose your temper. Now I’m warning you, hold onto it, for it will do us no good for you to lose it.’

He nodded and she brought him in. Her father was sitting in front of the turf fire and he neither rose nor took Hugh under his notice at all. Hugh went forward with his hand out in greeting.

‘Hello Mr Logan, I’m pleased to meet you. Here,’ he said, ‘Kate told me that you smoke the pipe, I brought you a couple.’ He held out the clay pipes and Kate’s father took them, looked at them then threw them on the hearth, where they smashed. Hugh stood with his mouth open and Kate’s eyes beseeched him not to retaliate. He stepped back and squared his shoulders.

‘I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage, sir,’ he said, his voice was strong with passion.

‘What! If you think that I’d let my daughter marry a ne’er-do-well like you, you have another think coming. You, with not a halfpenny to your name, your run-down farm and dirty house and no cattle. You, who drank like a fish of the sea that you sailed on and drove your poor mother into her grave. How dare you think that you would make a suitable husband for my Kate? Get out of my sight and don’t come back!’

Before he could stop himself, and forgetting what Kate had said about not losing his temper, Hugh retorted.

‘I’ve got plans sir, and gold aplenty, more than every man in this parish put together, and I can tell you that Kate would never want if she marries me!’

‘You! Where would you get gold when you’re scarcely scraping a living out of that dung heap of a place you call a farm?’ By this time, Kate’s father was on his feet and pointing to the door. ‘Come back here when you can prove it. Until then, get out!’

Kate took Hugh’s arm and he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. Outside Hugh held her in his arms. ‘I’ll be back and I’ll show him. Don’t worry. We’ll be married by Advent, I promise you.’

Hugh went on his way home, all the while debating in his mind about showing the gold to Kate’s father, but sure, wasn’t the love of his life worth it? He was so deep in thought that the cloying wind was on him before he had a minute to compose himself. But just in time he remembered, and when the Leannan Sidhe started her pulling and hauling again he was able to resist her. Aw, but he knew she was angry and that it wasn’t the end of her trying out her wiles on him. He was fair exhausted by the time he arrived at his own wee house.

That night he stayed up and scrubbed the place from end to end. He blackened the pots and painted the crook over the fireplace and even whitewashed the side of the chimney. Once he started he couldn’t stop, for if Kate’s father agreed to let her marry him he was going to bring her back to the cottage the day after to have a look at her future home. In the morning he took every bowl, cup and plate from the dresser and painted the wood a lovely bright blue. He rummaged in the big cedar chest at the back of the room, where he knew his mother had stored her linens, and there he found the nicest curtains and tablecloth.

By the time he had finished he was ready to go to Kate’s house, and he set off with the bag of gold in his pocket. The old man refused him entry and Hugh went to the wall outside the cottage door and spread the gold coins along it. With three steps that were almost jumps Mr Logan was at the wall, fingering the gold.

‘I won’t ask where you got it young man, but,’ and at this point he slapped Hugh on the back, ‘you can marry my daughter when the house is fixed up and the farm running well.’

Hugh blinked, ‘that’s too long a time.’ He reached out and took Kate’s hand. Her father stared greedily at the gold and thought.

‘I’ll tell you what, young fellow, I can have your farm fixed up in no time because I have strong workers. I can start you off with a herd too but I’d need to hold onto this gold for safekeeping. Would you trust your future father-in-law to do that, hmm?’

Hugh was so overjoyed that he and Kate could marry soon that he agreed, and true to his word her father did everything he said, although between you and me, he didn’t have to spend but a fraction of the money. Every time Hugh enquired, Mr Logan had another wee job to do with the money, and the wedding was a grand excuse. When the couple married, the people came from miles around to celebrate the union, because country folk love nothing better than a wedding to get them all together. And what a wedding that was, with not a penny spared. If they wondered about the transformation in the farm they didn’t pass any comments.

When the jollification was over the young couple snuggled down in their own bed, but before there was any funny business, a strange sound came to the window. It chilled the heart of the young man, for he knew that it was the accursed Leannan Sidhe.

‘What’s that, Hughie, darlin’?’

‘It’s only the wind, my love,’ he said and he lulled her to sleep with his kisses. The same thing happened many times after, but always Hugh gave the excuse that his house was higher up the mountain than her father’s and the wind was only to be expected.

All went well until Kate received word that her father was ill.

‘Of course you’ll have to go down to see him, and if you need me I’ll come.’

‘Who’d look after the farm, Hugh, if you go? Don’t worry.’

He brought her to her father’s and was relieved that he wasn’t too sick.

‘I’ll be home by next week,’ she promised him as she kissed him goodbye, and on his lonely walk home he began to hear the rustle of the wind, and it grew louder and louder and then he felt the grasping fingers of the fairy woman pulling at him and trying to carry him away, but he kept his eyes downturned, as always, and after a long time she left him with a fearful loud moaning of wind.

That night, although Hugh was exhausted by the tussle and pulling of the Leannan Sidhe, he took a long time to fall into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning restlessly in bed. The rattling of the wind on the window disturbed him, and still half-asleep he went to check that it was closed. When he opened the curtain without thinking there she was, staring at him with eyes as dark as the bog pools and her long hair glistening like the setting sun, and he was enthralled. With no more than a whisper he followed her to the Other World.

What seemed to him to be a day later, but was actually seven years to the day, a strange thing happened in the sky. He watched the light gradually fade and a dark circle crept across the sun. When the earth became as dark as night he turned away with a strange sense of foreboding and stumbled. His hand touched a cold object, and when he raised it, he saw that it was a horseshoe. Now we know that iron or salt keep the fairy bewitchments away, and it was a strange stroke of fate that his hand fell on a horseshoe. When the sun’s light returned he was still grasping the horseshoe, and he was standing at the hollow of the hill near his house.

He walked down to the farm, wanting to get it ready for Kate coming home. Little did he know that he had links in the Other World for he had no recollection of what had happened to him. Sure, isn’t that the way it is with the fairies, their time is not the same as ours.

When he reached his house everything looked different. He peered in the window and there was his wife Kate, putting a scone on the griddle. When she moved back he saw a man sitting on Hugh’s own chair, rocking a cradle by his side, and in it was a baby. Hugh pushed on the door and knocked and pushed again but it wouldn’t budge an inch to his pushes. When his wife finally opened it he could only stare at her, so beautiful was she that he wanted to pull her into his arms and never let her go.

‘What do you want, old man?’ she asked. He opened his eyes wide in shock.

‘Kate, don’t you know me? I’m your husband, come back.’

‘Away with you, old man. You’re not my husband. He was the most handsome man in these parts. Look at you, you wizened, filthy man! Away with you!’

She moved to shut the door on him and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror opposite. She was indeed right. The face that looked back at him was old and wrinkled with a grey tangled beard that hung to his waist.

But worst of all, behind him shimmered the image of the Leannan Sidhe, as beautiful as before. Her eyes beguiled him again and she pulled him away and that was the last that was seen of the two of them forever.

And Kate had had to stand the brunt of her father’s anger when he opened the bag of gold and found only the withered leaves of the buttercups in place of the gold that was left. He maintained that Hugh had stolen it back and had run off, for Kate’s father was not a man who believed in the fairies.

Shiela Quigley was one of the great storytellers of Ireland and this is a version of one of her stories.

BROGEY MCDAID AND THE WEE FOLK

Now, you might have heard the likes of this story before but I’m sure there have been some changes in the telling because my great-aunt told me that it was the honest truth. All I can do is pass on what my great-grandfather said when he told it to my great-aunt. Since neither is around to dispute it, I’ll relate what I remember, for I was just about twelve years of age when I first heard it and reality and fantasy sometimes merge.

Ah, these forty long years I have travelled

All by the contents of me pack.

Me hammers, me awls and me pincers

I carry them all on me back.

(From ‘The Cobbler’)

There was a journeyman shoemaker who travelled around the country making shoes, and it was a bitterly cold day just before Christmas 1830 when Paddy Joe McDaid, nicknamed ‘Brogey’, (after the Irish word for ‘shoe’, ‘brogue’) arrived in a wee place a few miles outside of Derry. Journeymen of all kinds relied on the people to give them lodgings. Sure, it was the tradition in the country areas never to refuse a bed to anyone.

This man knocked on the door of a nice wee cottage and when Maggie McLaughlin opened the door it’s no word of a lie that his heart leapt and it was nearly like a blow to his chest, for she was the loveliest girl he had ever laid eyes upon.

‘Come in out of the cold,’ said she. ‘’Tis a bitter day.’

He needed no second bidding, and didn’t she offer him a place beside the hearth in front of a big turf fire with a sup o’ tea and a lump of soda scone in his hand.

‘Take off your boots, if ye have a mind to,’ said she, ‘for it’s wet through they must be with all that tramping the byways.’

When Matt, her father, came in from the barn, Brogey and Maggie were getting on like candle wax and a wick and Matt was right glad to see the smile on his daughter’s face, for she was getting on for thirty and no man on the horizon. He nodded to himself too, since Maggie had never invited a man to shed his shoes before. It was for that reason that he gave Brogey a mighty shake of the hand and chatted with him while Maggie put out the supper.

Now, Brogey was an honest man and he saw that the soles were hanging off Matt’s boots, so he offered to fix them for him by way of thanking Maggie. For poor folk didn’t have the money to spend on boots, and half the childer in the country were running around in their bare feet anyway.

It must have been love that made Brogey settle down, for he never moved on, and wasn’t he right glad during the hard winter that his time tramping as a journeyman shoemaker was over. He and Maggie made plans to tie the knot as soon as Lent was over. And what a wedding it was! Matt sent out word to the whole townland and not a one refused except the ‘oul skinflint of a cobbler from over the hill. Sure, they weren’t a bit surprised, for the man must have heard about Brogey’s great skills, and he was afeard he might set up and do him out of the little bit of business that there was.

Matt moved to the lower room and Maggie and her man had the upper room in the house to themselves. The two men worked together companionably and fixed up a place in a wee room attached to the house for Brogey to start a shoemaker’s shop.

‘Maybe you could even make saddles, bridles and the like for you’re a talented man with the leather,’ said Maggie’s father, ‘and sure, if the trappings for the horse fail we’re a bit stuck to have them fixed, for that cobbler doesn’t know one end of a horse from the other.’

Mind you, that cobbler made some sort of shape at mending the boots for the local farmers, but he wasn’t good enough for the gentry who went to Derry or Coleraine for their footwear.

Now, Brogey took great pride in his work, but it’s hard for a man to start up and attract customers at the beginning. Soon though his expertise was broadcast around the countryside. ‘Sure, he can make a pair of boots from scratch as well as fix up your auld ones!’ was the news. No matter what kind of shoe or boot a man, woman or child wanted, Brogey could make it. The local women were delighted, because on the ceilidhe nights it was the custom to dress up, and a nice pair of shoes added class to the outfit. The men began to notice that the soles of their boots lasted longer too because he used only the best of leather. After a while, some of the gentry came to have their shoes and boots made too.

The cobbler began to lose business, for not only was he not good at his trade but he was an auld crabbit man who was often the worse for wear through his drinking of the porter, and would as soon eat the nose off anyone who complained as look at them.

Everything was going grand for the young couple until one night Brogey’s workshop went on fire and he and his wife Maggie were lucky that it didn’t spread to the house. The locals gathered around and formed a bucket chain, and soon the fire was put out but the shoemaker’s room was burnt out and the leather unusable. Only the iron lasts on which he fashioned the shoes and nailed them together were saved. Maggie was distraught, for wasn’t she expecting their first baby? I have to say that there were rumours flying around about the cause of the fire, but as Brogey said, ‘What’s done is done and nothing will change it.’

‘Sometimes’, my grandfather said, ‘an ill-wind blows something good, for didn’t the people around set to and built a place onto the house for Brogey to carry on his business? And it was much better than the wee room he had before, for hadn’t it a grand big window facing the road so people could see the lovely work he did. There was only one thing wrong, they didn’t have the money to buy the quality of leather that he wanted, and the cobbler wasn’t about to let him have any of his.’

Brogey went to bed that night, keeping his worries to himself, but he couldn’t sleep. He got up and made his way into the workroom and looked around. All he could find were some small pieces of leather in a bag, and to pass the time he made up a wee pair of shoes. Sure, doing a good job, even if it’s on tiny shoes that would fit no one, gave him some satisfaction, so he set to and made another pair. Both pairs were too small for even the tiniest feet, but he was satisfied that he had little shoes to put on display to show off his skill. He put them neatly together and admired his own work, knowing that the shoes had been fashioned without the use of even one nail. For some strange reason his worries had gone and he was ready to do whatever it took to earn a living for Maggie, himself and the baby. He went back to bed and slept like a man with no concerns.

It seemed as if he’d only been asleep for moments when he was shook awake, ‘Brogey, Brogey, wake up. Come and see what’s in your room.’

He dragged himself out of bed and followed his wife out to the workroom. When she opened the door he couldn’t believe his eyes. There, sitting on the table was one of the nicest hides of Moroccan goat leather that he had ever seen. He touched it, felt it and even smelled it and he knew that he had never seen the quality of it before.

‘Maggie,’ he said, his voice almost breaking with emotion, ‘we have the best neighbours that God could give a man. Now we’ll go and thank them, for this is the best day of our lives.’

They went to the first neighbour, but he didn’t know what they were talking about.

‘Sure I didn’t do that, Brogey. I would have if I’d had the money but I didn’t. Maybe it was Barney,’ he said.

The couple went to Barney, but he knew nothing either and sent them on to another, but no one seemed to know anything about it. Puzzled, they walked back to the house and when Brogey went into the room again he noticed the two pairs of tiny shoes were gone.

‘Maggie,’ he called, ‘did you move two wee pairs of shoes I made?’

‘Indeed I didn’t. Sure, I don’t interfere with your work, Brogey,’ she answered, and went on making the breakfast.

It wasn’t long before people started to come into the shop to ask Brogey about the leather. Soon a bit of a crowd gathered, and the talk went round and round, but it was only when he mentioned about the wee shoes that they looked at one another.

‘Sure, if it wasn’t one of us it must have been the fairies,’ Matt said, and that was the general consensus. ‘Imagine fairies coming to help out,’ they were saying with excited, babbling voices.

‘What you need to do,’ said Barney, rubbing his chin and stretching his neck, ‘is make another wee pair or two to thank them and leave them here on the table, and if it was them then they’ll be back.’

With that they all left and Maggie looked at her husband. ‘D’you believe all that nonsense?’ she said.

‘Well now, Maggie, maybe it’s not nonsense but if it is all I’m out is a few wee bits of leather.’

Maggie tut-tutted and left him to work. All day he cut and sewed and never put an iron nail near the tiny shoes, for fairies don’t like iron at all, and he did the finest job he’d ever done in his life. He examined them and couldn’t find a flaw anywhere.

‘Ah,’ he thought, ‘I could do the same work on other shoes if I had enough leather and I’d be the happiest man in the world.’ Before the words were fully out of his mouth he had the strongest desire to cut out the makings of a shoe from the new goatskin. He smoothed it out on the table, felt it for thicker parts that needed skiving but he had no need to spend time on that, for it was the smoothest leather he’d ever felt. By the time Maggie called him in for his dinner he had the first lady’s shoe made and oh boyo, it was grand! Right after his meal he went back to the workroom, and by the time he’d finished it was nearly midnight but on his window shelf he placed the most beautiful pair of moss green leather shoes ever seen in the country, if he wasn’t mistaken.

That night he slept like a baby with a full stomach, and in the morning he couldn’t wait to see if the wee shoes were gone. He rushed into the workroom and on the bench was another beautiful skin of leather in a rich dark brown. He searched around the bench but the little shoes were gone.

‘So it was the fairies! I knew it!’ He held the leather to his nose to inhale its rich smell, and there underneath, on the table, was a tiny bell. When he lifted it, it rang with a sweet, tiny tinkle and begod when he looked up a lady had just entered the shop.

‘I couldn’t help but see those beautiful shoes in your window. May I try them on please?’

He turned his back while the lady slipped off her boot and tried on the first shoe, for a man doesn’t look at a lady’s ankle. ‘Oh, the other one please, this fits like a glove!’ A few moments later, when he turned around, she was walking the length of the shop with the moss-green shoes on her tiny feet.

‘Oh, sir, these are exquisite. I must have them. I must! I simply must!’

Sure the bell tinkled again and another lady came in. Her face fell in disappointment when she saw the shoes on the first lady’s feet.

‘Oh, I so wanted those lovely shoes. I’ll pay you more. How much are they?’

Before he could answer, the first lady said, ‘Ten guineas, sir and they’re mine.’

‘I’ll give you fifteen!’

‘Twenty!’

‘Twenty-five!’ The bargaining went on and he stood there with his mouth agape.

At fifty guineas he held up his hand. ‘Ladies, I will make another pair, slightly different of course, so you will both be satisfied.’ He pondered about accepting the price but Maggie, on hearing the commotion had come up behind him.

‘Fifty guineas it is,’ she said and accepted the gold coins.

When they left he turned to his wife. ‘That’s a desperate high amount to pay for a pair of shoes,’ he protested.

‘Sure they can well afford it and don’t forget that all our neighbours gave from their substance when they helped us, because none of them have much in their pockets. So we can share our good fortune, for without them and your good work we wouldn’t have any.’

The pattern continued and ladies came and went, each buying shoes and passing on praise by word of mouth. The men followed the example and it seemed that every gentleman in the county was wearing high boots, made of the finest pigskin or goatskin. When a baby boy was born to Maggie, Brogey thanked God, for life couldn’t be any better. But he began to have niggles of conscience about so much good fortune coming their way and not spreading it around as much as they should. Brogey, being an honest man, sat talking to Maggie one night after the baby went to sleep. He broached a subject that was giving him the tingles of guilt.

‘Maggie, my love,’ he started, ‘I’ve had all this good fortune and I was passing by wee Jack’s cobbler shop and it looked awful run down. You know I never meant to put him out of business, but that’s the way it looked. I’m of a mind, and I hope you’ll agree with me, that maybe I should go to him and offer him a goodly amount of money to let me buy over the business.’

Maggie looked up from her knitting but didn’t say anything for a moment. She looked a bit anxious. ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I think you are a good man and I’m a lucky woman. We’ve more than enough to do what’s right. So go tomorrow and do what you’ve said. Now come on to bed.’

That night about midnight, he made his way to the workroom and what did he see but one of the wee folk sitting on his table trying on the tiny shoes that he made every day. He wasn’t a bit shy and he sat down at his workbench and watched him without saying a word.

‘You’ll be thinking that it’s time our swapping came to an end, aren’t you?’ said the wee man, stroking his beard and looking at him with sparkling eyes.

‘Aye, along those lines, I was,’ Brogey answered.

‘Well, sir, let me put it like this. You’ve shoed every man, woman and child in this fairy kingdom, and right glad we are for you’re the only man who made us shoes without nails. For you know that the iron isn’t a good omen for us and that’s a fact. We’ll go now, but we’ll make you a promise afore that. If you ever need help for yourself, your family or your neighbours, just leave your window ajar and we’ll come. And if we need more shoes we’ll let you know too.’

Brogey nodded. ‘I don’t know how to thank you. You’ve made us all very, very happy and we’ll not forget it.’

‘What goes around comes around,’ said the wee man, ‘Ah, would you look at that?’ He pointed to the wall and Brogey looked up and saw nothing. When he lowered his eyes again the fairy was gone, and on the bench was a pile of beautiful leather skins of all colours, enough to last him for his time.

Now, you’ll be wondering if he ever saw the fairy again, and sure he did. He needed their help again after the night of the Big Wind on 6 January 1839 but that’s another story for another time.

And that’s the story as my great-aunt told it to me and just as I told it to my children. Sure, how are they to know about the wee folk if we don’t tell them?

ANTRIM

BILLY TEARE & KATHLEEN O’SULLIVAN

MARTHA CLARK AND JOHNNY BRADY

No one remembers when ‘once’ was, or precisely what time it was upon, but that is when this all started, one person telling the next person, telling the next and so on, year in, year out, and that is enough to let you know that what happened was a brave time ago – upon someone’s time.

There was a neat wee woman called Martha Clark and she lived in a neat wee porter lodge at the foot of the Lady Hill, which belonged to a big estate, Redhall. You will maybe know that that’s down near Ballycarry.

Martha was not married. She was a shepherdess and she owned a few sheep – twenty in all – and she used to keep the sheep penned out the back of the porter lodge. Now, the thing about Martha was, she was a wee bit deaf.

One morning when she got up and looked out of her window, she saw that every one of the sheep was gone. There was not a sheep to be seen. When she went out, she discovered that the gate had broken, so all the sheep had got out that way. Now, she had a good idea where they had gone to, so she set off, along the Magheramourne road, until she came to the Burnside Loaning. She went along the loaning, passed the oul’ wa’s, and she saw a man ploughing a field. This man’s name was Johnny Brady.

It so happened that Johnny was a wee bit deaf too. It was never known how Martha lost her hearing, but the way Johnny lost his hearing was legendary. It seems at one time he had been one of the best poachers about Ballycarry. He used to do most of his poaching around the lands belonging to Redhall. Redhall was owned at that time by a man called Pottir and he did not like poachers one bit.

Pottir had lookouts and gamekeepers keeping an eye out for poor Johnny day and night, and every time they caught him, they’d take his weapon and rounds and his catch, and they would send him on his way, with a boot up the backside for good luck. It got that bad that Johnny could not afford to buy cartridges, so he started to make his own. In fact, he more or less built his own shotgun too, and it was said that because his gun was crudely made and in those days there was no ear protection, this is what had made him go a bit deaf.

A poacher’s day starts early, but Pottir himself would never be up out of his bed until about nine or ten, so he did not often see Johnny. When he did, he did not recognise him, as Johnny would disguise himself as one of the gamekeepers. Johnny took great delight in having sport at the landowner’s expense. One morning, he saw Pottir coming towards him. So he broke his gun and hid it down the back of his trousers.

Johnny cupped his ear and Pottir bellowed, ‘Well, my man, what are you doing up at this time of the morning?’

Johnny said to Pottir, ‘Indeed sir, I was going to ask you the same.’

Pottir answered, ‘If it’s any of your business, I am out to get an appetite for my breakfast.’

Johnny said, ‘Indeed sir, I’m out to get a breakfast for me appetite.’ And he sauntered off to do just that, with a smile on his face.

Another morning, a game warden caught Johnny red-handed, poaching trout by the Burnside Burn. He had two trout in a pail. But, he told the warden that the fish were his own pets and he was just letting them have a swim.

‘Nonsense!’ shouted the game warden.

‘It’s true,’ said Johnny. ‘Surely it’s not against the law for me to let my pets swim here, is it? You see, I put them in for a swim and when I whistle they come back to me.’

‘I’ve got to see this,’ said the game warden.

So Johnny tossed both trout into the river.

‘Okay, now let’s hear you whistle for your trout to come back to you.’

‘Trout?’ said Johnny, once he’d got rid of the evidence. ‘What trout?’ And he took off like a hare, leaving the game warden on his knees, staring into the river.

Johnny had great craic at the expense of the keepers of the game. One morning, when he had bagged himself a brace of pheasant (that’s two), he ran straight into a warden. The warden asked, ‘You, my man, have you got pheasant in that bag?’

‘I have,’ says Johnny, ‘and if you can tell me how many I have, I’ll let you have them both.’

Too silly to heed the broad hint, and after much brow furrowing, the warden guessed, ‘Three?’

‘No, just the one,’ said Johnny, and continued on his way.

It was later, on that very same morning, that Martha Clark saw Johnny ploughing and asked, ‘Johnny, have you seen my sheep?’

Johnny did not catch what she had said. He thought she was asking him what he was doing, so he just pointed at the furrow the plough was making. Martha looked at where Johnny was pointing and assumed he was telling her where her sheep had gone. So she said, ‘Thanks very much Johnny.’ And she climbed over the fence, set off up the field and over a wee hill into a small valley … and there were all her sheep. Martha counted them: two, four, six, eight … the whole lot, all twenty of them, were there, but one wee lamb had a broken leg.

She said, ‘Oh, you poor wee cratur you.’ She gathered the lamb in her arms, cradled it, and carried it back down the field. Of course, all the sheep knew her well and followed after her. So when they got back down to where Johnny was standing, Martha was thinking to herself, ‘it was awful kind of Johnny to tell me where me sheep went, so I think I’ll give him this wee lamb as a present. It’s got a broken leg, but he could fix it up with a splint.’

She said, ‘Johnny, I’m going to give you this wee lamb as a gift.’

Of course, Johnny did not hear what she had said. All he saw was, there stood Martha, with a lamb cradled in her arms, and the lamb had a broken leg. He thought that she was accusing him of breaking the lamb’s leg.

Johnny said, ‘That’s absolutely nothing to do with me. I never broke that lamb’s leg. Go on, take it away out of here.’

Martha could see Johnny was not best pleased, but because she did not hear what he said, she thought he was cross and saying that he did not want the lamb, but he wanted one of the bigger sheep. She said, ‘Indeed you are not having one of the bigger sheep; you’ll take this wee lamb, or nothing at all.’

Johnny insisted, ‘I had nothing to do with breaking that lamb’s leg, you can clear off. Take it away out of here.’

And they started to bicker, neither hearing what the other was saying. A whole row started, and the noise of the two of them shouting and bellowing at each other eventually attracted the neighbours, who came out and gathered around to see what was going on.

It wasn’t long before the local peeler came up from Whitehead on his pushbike. When he heard the row, he got off his bike. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked, making his way through the crowd to where Johnny and Martha stood yelling and gurning and ranting at each other. ‘Look,’ the policeman said, ‘if you don’t stop this rowing right away, I’ll take the both of you into custody and you’ll be up before the judge in the morning and you’ll be done for breach of the peace.’

But of course Johnny and Martha never heard a thing he said, and carried on exchanging insults. So he arrested the pair of them and took them both down to the police station in Larne. Martha carried her wee lamb with her.

The next morning, they were up before the judge. At that time, it was a judge called Jackson. He was known to the criminal fraternity of Larne as Santa Claus Jackson, because he was full of good will and always saw the best in people. But, in the strangest turn of fate, Judge Jackson, the wise, learned, always lenient man, was also just a wee bit deaf. Not only a wee bit deaf, but a bit short-sighted as well. It did not matter what was presented in court, he just judged the case on the facts, as he thought best.

This morning, Judge Jackson had Johnny and Martha, with the lamb cradled in her arms, standing before him. Each of them was explaining to him their side of events. He did not hear a word of it. What he saw in front of him was a man and a woman, and the woman was holding, in her arms, what looked to him like a baby. He got it into his head that this must be a couple looking for a divorce. Eventually he said, ‘Tell me this, how many years have you been married?’

Martha did not hear what he’d said properly and just caught the words ‘how many’. She thought the judge was asking how many sheep she owned and answered, ‘Twenty your honour.’

‘You mean to tell me,’ said Jackson, ‘you’ve been married twenty years and now you have this beautiful little child, and you are up before me looking for a divorce? Go home the two of you and live together in peace and harmony.’ With that he got up and left the court, leaving Johnny and Martha without a clue what was going on.

Martha asked the policeman, ‘What was it he said?’

The policeman shouted into her ear, ‘He says you’ve to go home and live together in peace and harmony.’

Martha said, ‘But we’re not married.’

The policeman yelled again, ‘Well you’d best go and do something about that.’

And that’s how Martha Clark and Johnny Brady came to be married. And do you know they lived for many a happy year, according to Judge Jackson’s ruling, in peace and harmony. The reason being, they never heard a word the other said.

MONTERLONEY: A RURAL REMINISCENCE

The savage loves his native shore,

Though rude the soil, and chill the air;

Then well may Erin’s sons adore

Their isle which nature formed so fair.

James Orr (1770-1816)

It would be hard to find a warmer welcome on a cold day than at Aunt Lily’s hearth, Monterloney, a good place to hear and share some of the stories, family history and folklore of this beautiful place.

The farmstead at Monterloney, on the Magheramourne road, County Antrim, home to the Humes, can be found on maps from 1832. They were farming people, with the daily preoccupations of harvest and survival that went with the lifestyle.

A very simple record of community events has been preserved through the poetry of Billy’s granda’, William Hume: the characters, the new houses being built in the area, the deaths of neighbours, and the emigration of members of the community to Australia and Canada.

A song he wrote on the importance and purity of the local waterways brought William Hume special notoriety. He was a farmer, and although maybe not as famous as the foremost Ballycarry weaver poet James Orr (who is known as the Bard of Ballycarry; his work is said to be comparable with Robert Burns), William was known as a folk poet, writer, singer of songs, fiddler and local entertainer on the concert scene in the 1930s and ’40s. The song he wrote was ‘The Mutton Burn Stream’. An edited version was recorded by an international performer, Richard Hayward in 1978 and it even featured in a film called The Luck of the Irish.

The Muttonburn Stream

I remember my young days

For younger I’ve been.

I remember my young days by the Muttonburn stream.

It’s not marked on the World’s map,

Nowhere to be seen,

That wee river in Ulster, the Muttonburn stream.

And it flows under bridges, takes many’s the turn,

Sure it turns round the mill wheel

That grinds the folks’ corn.

Then it wimples through meadows,

And it keeps the land clean.

Belfast lough it soon reaches, the Muttonburn stream.

Oh the ladies from ’Carry,

I oft times have seen,

Taking down their fine washing

To the Muttonburn stream,

No powder or soap used,

A wee dunt makes them clean,

It has great cleansing powers, the Muttonburn stream.

And the ducks like to swim in it,

From morning till ’ene

Sure they dirty the water,

But they gets themselves clean.

I have seen them a’diving

Till their tails were scarce seen,

Waddling down at the bottom, of the Muttonburn stream.

And it cures all diseases,

Though chronic they’ve been.

It will cure you of fatness,

It will cure you of lean,

Oh it acts on the liver,

The heart, lungs and spleen,

It has great curative powers, the Muttonburn stream.

Oh the secret it’s out now, a long secret it’s been,

How the jaundice was cured by

The folks round the stream,

They boiled up the water,

Put in essence bog bean,

All gives way to the power, of the Muttonburn stream.

Oh I used to go a partying, at night when no seen.

For they aye gye guid parties,

That lives round the stream.

Coming home in the morn time,

Feeling oh so serene,

Sure I slipped and I fell in, the Muttonburn stream.

William James Hume

When the song was recorded, because slight adjustments were made, some discrepancy arose about authorship. However, about a mile away was a lady called Susan Hay, a neighbour and friend of the Humes. She was a ‘go to’ character for local lore and history, and is on an old BBC recording, speaking about hearing William sing his composition when she was young. Susan was in no doubt that the words were his. She is supported in this by extensive family and academic research.

The plain verses, composed by farmworkers like Willie Hume, or weavers and craftsmen, tell of everyday folk. A fiddle was to appear on the Aldfreck Banner to denote William Hume’s musical talents. The banners were used at the annual Broadisland Gathering.

Billy’s maternal uncle, Tommy, was Granda’ Willie’s son. For the first few weeks of his summer holidays, Billy made his way from home, along the lane and through Redhall Estate, to see Uncle Tommy on his farm, on the highest point of the townland of Aldfreck. It was roughly a one-and-a-half-mile walk. Named Monterloney, the farm was known amongst the family as The Homeplace, in reference to where Billy’s mother and siblings were born and brought up. It had no electricity. They used candles, oil and Tilley lamps and had outside ‘facilities’. They had no television either, just battery radio.

Monterloney was a magical place for a boy, with its amazing views over Larne and Belfast Loughs, Islandmagee, beyond to Scrabo Tower in the County Down, Galloway, the Solway hills, the Mourne Mountains and, if the light was right, away off to the Isle of Man.

Uncle Tommy (Thomas Hanna Craig Hume), being the eldest Hume male, was left the farm when Willie died in 1948. Tommy farmed it all his life after the death of his father. Even as a small boy, Billy could see his uncle’s contentment in doing so. Tommy had a Zen quality. Very calm always. He used to make the boy feel important and useful during his holidays.

Billy worked with him, getting the grass cut and turned, even when the little lad knew he was more of a hindrance at times. Tommy would sit his nephew on the mudguard of his Ferguson TE20 tractor when he was driving around the open fields. Billy could steer it that way and Tommy would sit back, smiling, seemingly idle, with his arms folded.

Then there was the old reaper with cast-iron wheels. Instead of horses, Tommy used the tractor to tow it around.

There were so many corncrake in the field that Billy had to run ahead of the reaper, shooing them away. It was dangerous. Not many young lads today would do it, what with health and safety regulations. The birds could fly, but ran and ran, unwilling to leave their nests or their young.

By the time he was ten or eleven, Billy worked on the hay, bundling it in ricks, to put on a thing called a slipe. After that, they started baling. The bales reminded young Billy of giant Weetabix. Nearby, farmers cut the silage. In those days, molasses or treacle was added, and the heavy, sweet scent drifted. Billy liked it; others found it sickly. Silage now is gathered by machines and sealed to stop it rotting.

Tommy’s big old rough-haired terrier was called Teddy, or Ted. To make his wee nephew laugh, his uncle would ask, ‘Well Ted, what would you like for your tea, loaf or soda?’ The dog’s woof sounded as if Ted was asking for loaf.

Excitement came one day in the shape of a bicycle. Billy’s cousin Isabel had a bike she had outgrown and Tommy fixed it up for Billy. It was the first bike he had ever owned and Tommy showed him how to ride it in the lane. Uncle Tommy looked ancient to the lad, with only a few teeth left in his long thin face. Billy never imagined him doing anything as youthful as riding a bicycle, but he would never, ever forget his training.

Duffy’s Circus sometimes came to Whitehead, but, after seeing Tommy riding a bike, Billy knew there was not a trick cyclist in it that would have outclassed his uncle. He sailed in circles with one foot on the saddle and the other leg stretched out behind, leaning over to steer it. Then he seated himself and turned around to pedal himself backwards, sitting on the handlebars. Then he stood astride the front wheel. Billy was amazed. Tommy must have learned this in his youth and it never left him.

Another thing Tommy could do was barrel walk, and he taught Billy to roll a barrel along, walking on the top of it. The boy was so delighted when he mastered it. There was a wee girl he wanted to impress and he took the barrel over to the front of her house and away he went, up and down. But it was a big old metal oil drum, so it made a terrible noise thundering along, and the next thing her mother was out, shouting, ‘William, go home!’

He didn’t let it deter him. He went another day, with what he hoped would be a more musical offering, and went up and down serenading outside her house, with Brahms’ Lullaby on recorder. Again, her mother was out, shouting, ‘William, go home!’

Living on the farm with Tommy was Oul’ Aunt Maggie. In 1926, Willie Hume’s wife, Agnes Craig of Ballyboley (Tommy’s mum/Billy’s grandma), died giving birth to her seventh child. Maggie Smyth, Agnes’ half-sister, a spinster woman, stepped in to help on the farm and ‘care’ for Willie and his offspring. There is a notion that she did this with some resentment, perhaps blaming Willie for the death of her sister. It seems she never finished chastising him, and occasionally tore up his writing and poetry. Billy was wary of her, as ‘a bit of a tartar’, and he and Tommy sometimes hid, to avoid the inevitable scolding.

There were breaches in the storm clouds that made up Aunt Maggie’s mood. She would give Billy small bits of change, for sweets, when he went with Tommy for errands in one of the old cars.

Aunt Maggie also displayed a softer side in caring for the youngest child whom her sister had left behind, Hubert. It appeared to some that the tenderness she felt for the boy fulfilled a need in her. He had a deformity of the spine, weak chest and was often poorly. Some observed that Hubert may have been a little more robust but for her overprotection of him. He remained her ‘baby’ into his adulthood. This being the case, young Billy never knew if his Uncle Hubert actually had special needs. He remembers playing endless games of draughts with him. Hubert could also do intricately carved fretwork.

As Hubert got older, he spent winters in hospital, in what were known as the ‘extra wards’. These were like old army Nissen huts, where he received care and Maggie got respite. He died in his forties.