Wexford Folk Tales E-Book

Brendan Nolan

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 263

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Wexford has a rich heritage of myths and legends which is uniquely captured in this collection of traditional tales from across the county. Discover the remarkable story of the 140-year-old-man who died a premature death, the arrival of the antichrists (six of them) in Wexford and the dangers of love potions, together with tales of lurechan mischief, mermaids, grave robbing and buried treasure. Their origins are lost in the mists of time, but these stories, illustrated with twenty line drawings, bring to life Wexford's dramatic landscape and are sure to appeal to both locals and tourists alike.

Leseprobe

For Nana, who lived her own story

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

1 Three Geese

2 The Strangeness of Tea

3 Cat Killer

4 A Soft Step

5 Marriage of a Man and a Woman

6 Widow Woman

7 140-Year-Old Man

8 Peggy Edwards’ Rats

9 Four Wise Brothers

10 Half-Wits and Other Fools

11 Dizzy Woman

12 The Woman Who Swore

13 Money for Nothing

14 Treasures of Wexford

15 Grave Happenings

16 The Hell of Drink

17 Seeing the Dead

18 Finding People in a Field

19 Tramping to a Wake

20 Hallowe’en Trickery

21 Dancing in Darkness

22 Faust at the Forge

23 Hurling Days at Lough Cullen

24 Arrival of the Antichrist

25 Crossing the Water

26 Flying into a Hedge

27 Tomfarney Land Attack

28 Tragedy at Sea on St Martin’s Eve

29 Sea Stories

30 Sea People

31 Going Away

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

Folklore is not history. It is history of a sort, but it is more the history of how people saw matters as it suited them at any time. Historians must be accurate in their records, that is important, but the folklorist gathers stories that in the telling show as much about the teller as they do the story told. People’s perspectives change in the telling of a story. The further away from danger we travel the braver we become in the telling. The smallest achievement becomes a heroic deed. The omission fades in the telling until it was never there at all. The timid become tigers with the safety of time. The silly antagonist becomes sillier as fear of retribution and rebuke fade away.

It has often been observed that historians spend a great deal of their time contradicting one another and it is little wonder that they do so, for if you put two people on a stand to tell what they witnessed you will get three versions of the story: one from each and a third version that both agree is incorrect. This from people who were for the most part not there when the incident they are arguing about took place in the first place; but who are happy to argue about it as if they own what happened themselves as part of their personal treasure.

Storytellers just get on with the telling of the true story no matter the shade of circumstance. If someone in a story is terrified it matters not to them what day of the calendar it might be in a more leisurely circumstance.

There is a story told of a Wexford man who owned a bicycle, a black Raleigh Rudge with a Brooks saddle, as many people do and did, for getting to and from the nearest town. He loved his bike and declared he would use his present machine for as long as it would last, and that would be that.

The tyres wore out over the bumpy miles and he replaced them; the spokes bent and the wheels became bockety in potholes and he replaced the wheels, or had them repaired well enough for his purpose, which was the same thing. People noted all this and wondered at the life that was in that bike and its owner. When the chain grew so old and rusted that it parted from itself one time too many and even a new split-link would not remedy the situation, they were sure he would have to admit defeat and buy a new bicycle.

However, the solution was a simple one, as it is in most stories. The man lived at the foot of the hill into town, as his people had lived for centuries before him. And over time his body had grown slower and older so that by this stage he was no longer able to pedal the bike up the hill anyway; so he took to walking himself and his bike up the hill to conduct his business in the town. Once there, he took to throwing the bike in a ditch while he was away. It was an easy matter for him to retrieve the chainless bike on the way back, for nobody would steal a bike they could not pedal. Transport retrieved once more, the aged cyclist threw his good leg over the bike, pushed off with his spare foot and freewheeled down the hill, with his messages hanging from the handlebar – having no need whatsoever for a chain or pedals to get him there safely and in due course.

This collection of stories is like that man, if it resembles anything. The stories are here to enjoy but a printed story is no more than a butterfly caught in time. They must be released in the telling. Many of the stories in this book owe their origin to stories held in the Irish Folklore Commission Collection. Many were collected by schoolchildren in 1930s Ireland in a scheme devised by the Honorary Director of the Irish Folklore Commission, James Hamilton DeLargy.

The stories as collected and archived are necessarily brief, and are here extended using the skill of the present storyteller to fit the space allocated in this volume. Where a story from that collection is used, acknowledgement is made of the fine collectors and recorders. Some, unsurprisingly, seem to be tall enough tales told by a grandparent’s generation to young eager ears, others are chilling and are as accurate, it seems, as if the older person was seeing it all happening before them, once more.

Where a number of stories were on the same subject and the integrity of the telling lent itself to some assistance, several stories are told together in the shape of a frame story on the subject, which is a technical matter or a trick of the storyteller’s art, if you like. If it has been done properly a happy reader should see the whole as story woven from many threads.

Lots of the stories come from other sources and are included here for their integrity and fun at the foibles of man and his circumstance.

There are as many stories in this collection as there are days in the longest of months. They are here for you when you are in need of a story to laugh at, think on or disbelieve. Pick a story for yourself at random, sit up on your bike and freewheel all the way to the end of the book.

Safe travelling and mind the dark bend at the foot of the hill where the woman in the flowing dress and the cloak await you, for she too has a story to tell, if you dare listen.

Brendan Nolan, 2013

www.irishfolktales.com

One

THREE GEESE

Wexford folklorist Patrick Kennedy told the following tale of wandering geese and a wife who was nearly buried alive:

A tailor and his wife lived alone in a small cottage. They had no children but had lived a quiet and contented life for many years – until one day they had a difference of opinion over the number of geese marauding around their small garden.

The wife declared that there were at least a hundred geese trampling down their crop of oats and demanded that her lazy husband do something about it. He husband, who was busily pursuing his tailoring trade, pointed out (not altogether unreasonably) his good wife had less to do than he; but, rather than engage in an argument he knew he could not win, he rose with a sigh and headed out to deal with the reported invasion.

He stepped into the bright sunlight and was brought up short – all he could see was a pair of geese. One, two. This he reported to his wife (though perhaps he would have been better off not saying anything). Challenged, his wife amended her hand to fifty geese; but the tailor said he wished he was as sure of receiving 50 guineas as he was sure there were only two geese in it. She then declared that there were forty geese there, destroying the oats, as sure as there was one.

Giving up the argument on whether there was two, forty, fifty or a hundred, the tailor drove away the geese and went back to his tailoring, thinking all was well. But, when dinner came, after his wife had tumbled out the potatoes for him, placed a noggin of milk and a plate of butter before him, she went and sat in the corner by herself. With a dramatic gesture, she threw her apron over her head and began sobbing loudly.

The surprised tailor implored her to come over and take her dinner. But she was adamant there had been at least a score of geese in the garden when he had insisted there were only two, and that she would not sup with him until he owned to the truth. He stubbornly maintained that he owned to the truth, that there were two geese there and that was that.

The die was cast and the wife, instead of taking to the bed, made a shake-down for herself to lie on and would not gratify the tailor by sleeping in their high-standing bed beside him.

If the tailor thought a night’s sleep would change her demeanour, he was mistaken. The following morning she would not rise, even after he had spoken kindly to her and brought some breakfast to where she lay. Instead, she asked him to go for her mother and relations; she wanted to take leave of them before she died. There was no use her living any more, not now all the love was gone from her marriage.

The tailor asked what he had done to bring their lives to this pass. His wife replied that he insisted there were only two geese in the garden when at the very least there could not be less than a dozen. She demanded he acknowledge the truth and not to be an obstinate pig of a man, and to let them be peaceful again.

Instead of giving her any answer, the tailor walked over to her mother’s house, and brought her back, with two or three of her family, to take up the struggle on his behalf. But whatever way words were exchanged, she near enough persuaded them that her husband was to blame.

The tailor was called and was addressed by his declining wife before the assembled mediators. She said that if he didn’t intend to send her to her grave, he should speak the truth and agree that there were three geese there; though she persisted in her assertion that there were six, at the very least, present. The annoyed tailor refused to yield – there were but two. At that, his wife told them all to go home, and on the way bid Tommy Mulligan prepare her coffin. He was to bring it to the house at sundown.

It’s not everyday that someone orders their own coffin to be brought to their wake; but thinking that doing so might give her a fright, her kinspeople went to Tommy Mulligan and brought back a coffin he had readymade for someone else that was not quite dead yet. It was so new there were fresh shavings in the bottom of the box. Once it was in the house, the tailor took a wood auger to it and drilled some air holes in the coffin lid, just in case.

Meanwhile, the gathered women ordered the men out so they could wash the ‘corpse’, as was traditional. The tailor’s wife waited until the men were gone before she gave tongue to the women – how dare they think she wanted or needed washing? If she chose to die, she said, it was no concern of theirs; if anyone attempted to lay a drop of water on her, she would lay the marks of ten nails on their face.

Just the same, washed or unwashed, she was persuaded to get into the coffin, as a corpse might do. A clean cap and frill was put around her face and her skin was attended to with sprinkled flour to give it a deathly pallor.

But while she was alive and not yet dead, the tailor’s wife would have the last word on her appearance and when she saw her face in the mirror she took a towel and scrubbed the flour from it, restoring her rosy cheeks. She bid her husband be called in, and gave her sister and mother a charge, in his hearing, to be kind to the poor man after she was gone. However, she once again turned to the subject of the three geese and, without a word, the tailor put on his hat and walked out.

That was that. Evening came, and candles were lit, tobacco and pipes were laid out for mourners, and the night-long conversations commenced. They followed the usual themes and the poor undead woman had to listen to a good deal of conversation not to her liking. They discussed the cause of her death and the evidence that could be seen of it on her blotched skin (even though the corpse looked very well). They discussed her auld bitter tongue and the opinion was expressed that the tailor would bear her loss with patience. That he was a young man for his years – he didn’t look forty – and he could have his pick of the village women. They tried to recall who it was that the tailor used to walk out with on an odd Sunday evening, before his marriage, and if that friendship could be resurrected within a few weeks of the funeral?

All this time the tailor’s wife’s blood was rushing around her veins like a herring caught in a net; but she was determined to die, out of spite, and she neither opened her eyes nor her mouth.

A broken-hearted tailor, in his misery, came up after some time and, leaning over her, whispered to be done with the foolery. If she would but say the word he, as her husband, would send all the people away about their business. But until he would admit that there were more geese in the garden than he claimed, his wife would not move and, giving up, the tailor went and sat in a dark corner of the room until dawn broke.

He made another offer next morning, just as the lid was being put on the coffin and the men were about to hoist it on their shoulders; but not a foot she would move unless he would give in to the three geese, which he would not.

They came to the churchyard, and the coffin was let down into the prepared grave. The tailor slid down to the coffin on his backside and, stooping to speak through the auger holes in the lid, he begged her, even after the holy show she had made of herself and himself, to give up the point and come home. All he got from her was the same question.

Every man has his breaking point and the tailor seemed to have reached his. He clambered up out of the grave, and began to shovel soil like mad down onto the coffin that he had lately stood upon.

The first loud rattle that the soil made on the bare lid nearly frightened the life out of the not dead woman. She shouted out to let her up, let her up, that she was not dead at all. She would even agree to there being only two geese if they would just let her up.

But the enraged tailor said it was too late; people had come from far and near to the funeral and they shouldn’t be losing their day for nothing. So, for the credit of the family, he told his wife not to stir, and down went the soil in showers, for the tailor had lost his senses and who could blame him?

The bystanders, tiring of the sport, would not let the poor woman be buried against her will; so they seized the tailor and his shovel and restrained him. When his madness was checked, and he looked around at the concerned faces of the assembled crowd, he gave a low moan and collapsed on the ground in a dead faint.

When his wife stepped from the coffin, the first sight she saw was the tailor lying there, without a stir in him. A mischievous neighbour proposed to her that she should let the tailor be put down in her place, and not give so many people a disappointment after coming so far to witness a burial. But the dead woman, now full of love for her marriage and understanding husband, was having none of it. She roared and bawled for the poor tailor to come to life, promising that if he did she’d never say a contrary word to him again while she lived. The tailor was brought around; but it took a good while for him to come around to looking his wife in the face after that.

Ever after, whenever a sharp answer came to tongue, the memory of rattling clods on a coffin and of the three geese that were only two after all came to mind, and her words were checked.

For such is the way that a tailor minds his own oats.

Two

THE STRANGENESSOF TEA

It is hard to think of a storytelling session that does not include the imbibing of tea, for it is never far from the lips of listeners and storytellers. It was not always so, for tea was a rarity in the Ireland of long ago. It was first consumed as a luxury item on special occasions, such as religious festivals, wakes, and family celebrations.

Folklorist Patrick Kennedy tells the tale of a Wexford farmer, ‘Jemmy’, who called at his landlord’s house one day on business. He had drunk more than one jug o’ punch in his time, but had not known the taste of tea between his teeth. He was kindly enough received by one of the young ladies of the house, who thought she could not offer him a more acceptable treat than a cup of tea.

She filled a large china cup, laid the sugar bowl beside it, and said, ‘There, Jemmy, sweeten it to your liking,’ as if he was well used to such things; he was not and he misunderstood her kind suggestion, and so left the sugar bowl untouched. The lady was called out of the room and the farmer, left alone, tentatively brought the cup of unsweetened tea to his lips and took a sip. This was his first taste of tea – and it was not to his liking. Horrible contortions passed over the man’s features at the bitterness of the brew, but, out of politeness, he forced himself to empty the cup.

At home that evening he told his family and friends what had befallen him in the big house. All wondered how the upper classes could come to relish such disagreeable stuff.

Calling to the house again half a year later, he met a similar reception from the same young lady who once more thought he might like some tea. His hostess stayed in the room this time, so throwing the contents behind the fire or out of the window was not an option. Jemmy fearfully eyed the cup and when it was filled put the vessel to his mouth as a child would a cup of medicine; but this time the young lady, identified only as Miss C., had added the sugar herself and stirred it for him with a delicate hand.

Like a great many before him and since, Jemmy was agreeably surprised by the pleasant taste of the beverage. After draining every drop with the highest relish, he laid the cup down, and addressed his kind host. ‘Many thanks, Ma’am, for that nice drink. What do you call it?’

‘That is green tea, Jemmy.’

‘Ah then, Ma’am, the love of my heart was the green tay, but to Halifax with that stuff that you sweeten to your liking.’

At least Jemmy was lucky enough to drink tea from a person who knew how to make it. When tea first came to Wexford and the rest of the country many people did not know what to do with it. Some used to put the tealeaves into the teapot, poured boiling water over them, left them to brew and then, throwing out the water, tried to eat the leaves with sugar sprinkled over them. On the Blasket Islands off Kerry the first shipwrecked tea to wash ashore was used to die homemade clothes.

On another occasion, a country clergyman hired a new housekeeper and handed her a paper of tea the first evening of her service, with directions to prepare it as soon as was convenient. She was rather long about the business, but at last made her appearance with two plates, one bearing a darkish mass of damp leaves, the other a pat of butter.

‘Musha, your reverence, but this new kind of cabbage is mighty hard to boil tender. Put butter to your own taste in it; I didn’t know how you’d like it.’ To the reader of this story this might seem to be a fair compromise. But the clergyman saw it otherwise.

‘Well, indeed, I am afraid I won’t like it with or without butter,’ he said. ‘But if you relish it yourself, you’re welcome to it.’ For the clergyman loved his tea in the usual way, boiled in a pot and served in a cup. No doubt he took a hand in his cook’s culinary education in the days that followed.

Tea was to feature in another story of a woman who set her cap at someone who was somewhat above her own station in life.

Nora was a healthy, bouncing, young country maiden, but was in no way gifted with outstanding beauty. One day she vowed that she would be the wife of young Mr Bligh, a ‘half sir’ (whatever that was) who lived nearby. The young man always spoke civilly and good-naturedly to her, but after a year or two’s application to her task Nora saw no immediate sign of holding to her.

So she held consultations with those who were expert in enchantment lore and was interested to discover that the liver of a thoroughly black cat was sovereign in the process of procuring a return of love. It was not something that would have occurred naturally to her, or to few others for that matter.

Aided by her sister and by another woman, a suitable, if unwilling, cat was slain with the prescribed accompaniments. The liver was carefully taken out, broiled, and reduced to an impalpable powder, according to Patrick Kennedy who had made a study of the story, if not the cat itself. In a day or two the brave half sir was passing by Nora’s cottage and, seeing her at the gate, he stopped to chat with her.

Delighted with this turn of events, Nora kept up the conversation and, after some further talk, asked might she take the liberty of requesting him to come in and take a cup of tea? He did not want to do so, for he had some indication by now that Nora was more enamoured of him than he of her. But he felt he could not refuse the invitation without incivility, so he allowed himself to be seated comfortably at the table, making as much small talk as he thought appropriate. Nora soon filled his cup from a blackened teapot, which, in addition to some indifferent tea, contained a pinch of the philtre all three women had made up from the cat’s innards.

The guest sat down with notions not very complimentary to his entertainer; but when he took up his hat to walk home, he was lost in love. Moreover, he was determined on setting her up as the mistress of his heart and house, such was the potency of the drink he had imbibed. Powerful stuff indeed.

However, nothing lasts forever and it is in the nature of this magic potion that if the dose is not repeated at intervals the effect becomes weaker and, at length, will cease altogether. Nora, aware of this, renewed the administration at every visit until his infatuation became such that he announced to his family and relations his immediate intention to marry the cottage girl.

This was a surprise to many. Fruitless were the coaxings, threats and reasonings that were put to him, until at last the eve of the wedding day arrived. Paying a visit to his soon-to-be wife on that happy evening, they soon fell to talking and laughing like lovers did, oblivious to what was about to happen. They were enjoying the most interesting and delightful conversation that was ever exchanged between a man and a woman when the latch was raised on the door of the cottage, and a party of seven or eight young men armed with good strong hazel rods entered and began to lay blows on the back and shoulders of the groom-to-be.

Nora flung herself between the attackers and her nearly-husband, and received a few slight blows in passing for her earnestness. Before they ceased beating the amorous youth, every bone in his body was sore. He was unable to use either his arms or his legs and they carried him away from the cottage of enchanted love. They bundled him into a car and took him home, where he was tended and watched over for a full month of the calendar. Nora and her cat’s tea were kept away from him and she was denied access to the love of her life.

As time passed the effect of the drug began to wear off, so much so that when the young man was at last able to quit his bed he was amazed that he should ever have been guilty of such an absurdity as to consider marrying a woman over a cup of tea.

As for Nora, we don’t know what happened to her when the story ended but it is unlikely that, once she had mastered the preparation of cat’s tea, she would have wasted it on anything but a fine catch for herself.

It might be as well if you are out walking and are offered a cup of tea by a woman named Nora in Wexford that you might first enquire, for your own sake, if she keeps cats.

Three

CAT KILLER

The following tale was gathered from Mrs Furlong of Wexford in 1938 by William Saddler, a pupil at Wexford Christian Brothers’ School, whose memory of the original story is stored in the Irish Folklore Commission Collection.

A man by the name of Sir Walter Whitty was to be married to one Lady Devereux of Ballymaghery. It seems that neither was a person of great means, for the bride thought it would be a fine idea for her groom to go and kill a few rabbits for the wedding feast.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to pay a local man to catch a few rabbits; many parts of Wexford were well-populated with rabbits and they were easily got. Rabbit meat was a commodity that could be traded for other goods and rabbit skins fetched good prices in their own right. Trapping was best done at night, when rabbits were unsuspecting of approaching death. A noose was made out of strong, slim wire and was attached to a wooden peg driven into the ground. This was placed across a rabbit run so when an unsuspecting rabbit next made its way along the track its head would slip inside the noose, which would tighten on its neck. In the very early morning, trappers could often be seen coming into town with their prizes from the night before hanging from poles carried on their shoulders.

Catching rabbits was a skill passed down in communities and through families in the Wexford countryside, but it was not a personal skill possessed by Sir Walter. Nonetheless, he did his best to meet the wishes of his bride-to-be, for he would not let anyone except himself hunt rabbits for his marriage feast. Sir Walter took himself off to the burrows to see how he might get on. He hunted all day, but never a rabbit could he catch for he had neglected to bring any snares with him. His plan was to stun any rabbit he saw with a well-flung stone from his strong right hand.

Whether his plan would have worked in practise was never put for the test, for although he waited all day he never saw a rabbit to take aim at. Several times he was about to strike when he realised the four-legged animal slinking through the grass was not a rabbit but one of the many cats that were to be found in the area. Several paused and watched the man before them, as quietly and intently as they might watch a mouse who had no means of escape from a waiting feline.

Sir Walter stayed there for hours and exchanged greetings as nonchalantly as he could with any passers-by, a few of whom stopped to wish him well on the morrow on the occasion of his marriage to Lady Devereux. Any of the men would have been happy to advise him on rabbit catching, for a sir would be a useful person to have indebted to you. Most of the men could do anything, from poaching a salmon to thatching a roof to catching rabbits to sell or eat, so they would have made ready instructors. But pride comes before a fall and a proud man can starve to death in the midst of plenty when he will not ask for assistance from another human being.

Finally, as night fell, Sir Walter admitted defeat and set off on his journey home empty handed. After a while on the road, he left people and houses behind him. It became so quiet as he walked that there was hardly a noise to be heard, only the sound of his own heart beating and his breath rising and falling, and by now it was nearly pitch dark. Cresting the top of a hill near his home, a sudden shiver ran through his body, as if a pickpocket had taken all belonging to him in one go.