Irish Folk Tales (54 page)

So they took a notion that they’d watch the fields at
night
for to see was there anyone coming milking the cows because it was a thing was often
done: people that’d have no milk of their own, they used to go out and milk
neighbors’
cows.

But this night anyway there was a couple of men watching

   and one of them had a gun anyway

   and there come something in the shape of a
hare
along

   and she started sucking a cow.

So of course, he wouldn’t fire at her when she was in that vicinity because he could shoot the cow, you see.

But anyway, when she moved away, or when the cow moved away from her, he fired, and he
struck
her.

And she made off anyway.

But in the next day or so, there was some lady going about with a gunshot wound in the locality.

That
was told anyway. But I wouldn’t credit it.

M
AGICAL THEFT

Well, these women were just ordinary country women like you still see around except that they were able to work this magic, whatever way they did it. If you had cows, they could take the “profit” of them from you. The milk you got from the cows would be useless, insipid and lifeless, and they would have the butter for themselves.

There was a man living near here one time and he had eight cows. Day in day out, he used to see this hare running about, in and out among the cows in his fields. He didn’t know what the hare was doing there, but he did notice that he was making nothing from the milk his cows were giving—it was just like water.

He had a dog, a pure black hound, and they say that a hound without a speck of white in it that has a rod of the rowan tree tied around its neck is the only animal that can catch a hare like that. So one day when he saw the hare among the cows, he loosed the hound after her. Hound and hare coursed the fields back and forward and finally the hare made to jump over a high stone wall and the hound caught her by the leg and broke it. The man knew that the hound had caught the hare, and when he came up to where they were what did he find there only an old hag who lived in the locality sitting by the wall with the blood pouring out of her.

The hag was brought home and some time after that she died and the man went to the wake. They were going round with the whiskey at the hag’s wake and he was offered a glass too. “Here, drink a glass for the old woman,” they said.

“Indeed, I won’t,” said he, “for I got my fill of her.”

May morning was a terrible time for working charms of all kinds but especially for stealing the “profit” of your milk.

One May morning this man was coming up through Altnapaste and he saw this hag, back and forward through a field, pulling an iron chain after her and this is what she was saying: “Come all to me, come all to me.” The man was riding on horseback on the road and watching all this and he shouts: “The half of it for me.”

That was all there was to that but when he got home he noticed that his cows had an awful lot of milk. All the vessels he had about the house were filled to overflowing with milk. He told the priest about it and eventually things were put right again. He had got half of what the old hag had been asking for herself.

P
AUDYEEN O’KELLY AND THE WEASEL

A long time ago there was once a man of the name of Paudyeen O’Kelly, living near Tuam, in the County Galway. He rose up one morning early, and he did not know what time of day it was, for there was fine light coming from the moon. He wanted to go to the fair of Cauher-na-mart to sell a sturk of an ass that he had.

He had not gone more than three miles of the road when a great darkness came on, and a shower began falling. He saw a large house among trees about five hundred yards in from the road, and he said to himself that he would go to that house till the shower would be over. When he got to the house he found the door open before him, and in with him. He saw a large room to his left, and a fine fire in the grate. He sat down on a stool that was beside the wall, and began falling asleep, when he saw a big weasel coming to the fire with something yellow in its mouth, which it dropped on the hearthstone, and then it went away. She soon came back again with the same thing in her mouth, and he saw that it was a guinea she had. She
dropped it on the hearthstone, and went away again. She was coming and going, until there was a great heap of guineas on the hearth. But at last, when he got her gone, Paudyeen rose up, thrust all the gold she had gathered into his pockets, and out with him.

He was not gone far till he heard the weasel coming after him, and she screeching as loud as bagpipes. She went before Paudyeen and got on the road, and she was twisting herself back and forwards, and trying to get a hold of his throat. Paudyeen had a good oak stick, and he kept her from him, until two men came up who were going to the same fair, and one of them had a good dog, and it routed the weasel into a hole in the wall.

Paudyeen went to the fair, and instead of coming home with the money he got for his old ass, as he thought would be the way with him in the morning, he went and bought a horse with some of the money he took from the weasel, and he came home and he riding. When he came to the place where the dog had routed the weasel into the hole in the wall, she came out before him, gave a leap up, and caught the horse by the throat. The horse made off, and Paudyeen could not stop him, till at last he gave a leap into a big drain that was full up of water and black mud, and he was drowning and choking as fast as he could, until men who were coming from Galway came up and banished the weasel.

Paudyeen brought the horse home with him, and put him into the cows’ byre and fell asleep.

Next morning, the day on the morrow, Paudyeen rose up early and went out to give his horse hay and oats. When he got to the door he saw the weasel coming out of the byre and she covered with blood. “My seven thousand curses on you,” said Paudyeen, “but I’m afraid you’ve harm done.” He went in and found the horse, a pair of milch cows, and two calves dead. He came out and set a dog he had after the weasel. The dog got a hold of her, and she got a hold of the dog. The dog was a good one, but he was forced to loose his hold of her before Paudyeen could come up. He kept his eye on her, however, all through, until he saw her creeping into a little hovel that was on the brink of a lake. Paudyeen came running, and when he got to the little hut he gave the dog a shake to rouse him up and put anger on him, and then he sent him in before himself. When the dog went in he began barking. Paudyeen went in after him, and saw an old hag in the corner. He asked her if she saw a weasel coming in there.

“I did not,” said she. “I’m all destroyed with a plague of sickness, and if you don’t go out quick you’ll catch it from me.”

While Paudyeen and the hag were talking, the dog kept moving in all the time, till at last he gave a leap up and caught the hag by the throat. She screeched, and said: “Paddy Kelly, take off your dog, and I’ll make you a rich man.”

Paudyeen made the dog loose his hold, and said: “Tell me who are you, or why did you kill my horse and my cows?”

“And why did you bring away my gold that I was for five hundred years gathering throughout the hills and hollows of the world?”

“I thought you were a weasel,” said Paudyeen, “or I wouldn’t touch your gold; and another thing,” says he, “if you’re for five hundred years in this world, it’s time for you to go to rest now.”

“I committed a great crime in my youth,” said the hag, “and now I am to be released from my sufferings if you can pay twenty pounds for a hundred and three-score Masses for me.”

“Where’s the money?” says Paudyeen.

“Go and dig under a bush that’s over a little well in the corner of that field there without, and you’ll get a pot filled with gold. Pay the twenty pounds for the Masses, and yourself shall have the rest. When you’ll lift the flag off the pot, you’ll see a big black dog coming out; but don’t be afraid before him; he is a son of mine. When you get the gold, buy the house in which you saw me at first. You’ll get it cheap, for it has the name of there being a ghost in it. My son will be down in the cellar. He’ll do you no harm, but he’ll be a good friend to you. I shall be dead a month from this day, and when you get me dead put a coal under this little hut and burn it. Don’t tell a living soul anything about me—and the luck will be on you.”

“What is your name?” said Paudyeen.

“Maurya Ni Keerwaun,” said the hag.

Paudyeen went home, and when the darkness of the night came on he took with him a loy, and went to the bush that was in the corner of the field, and began digging. It was not long till he found the pot, and when he took the flag off it a big black dog leaped out, and off and away with him, and Paudyeen’s dog after him.

Paudyeen brought home the gold, and hid it in the cowhouse. About a month after that he went to the fair of Galway, and bought a pair of cows, a horse, and a dozen sheep. The neighbors did not know where he was getting all the money; they said that he had a share with the Good People.

One day Paudyeen dressed himself and went to the gentleman who owned the large house where he first saw the weasel and asked to buy the house of him, and the land that was round about.

“You can have the house without paying any rent at all; but there is a ghost in it, and I wouldn’t like you to go to live in it without my telling you, but I couldn’t part with the land without getting a hundred pounds more than you have to offer me.”

“Perhaps I have as much as you have yourself,” said Paudyeen. “I’ll be here tomorrow with the money, if you’re ready to give me possession.”

“I’ll be ready,” said the gentleman.

Paudyeen went home and told his wife that he had bought a large house and a holding of land.

“Where did you get the money?” says the wife.

“Isn’t it all one to you where I got it?” says Paudyeen.