{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37187/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37187","id":"gutenberg_37187","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37187","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Fairies -- Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland)","Folklore -- Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland)","Hamilton, William, 1755-1797","Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- Social life and customs"],"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Charlene Taylor, Linda Hamilton, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nULSTER FOLKLORE\n\n\n\n\n [Illustration: PLATE I. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n HARVEST KNOT.]\n\n\n\n\n ULSTER FOLKLORE\n\n BY\n ELIZABETH ANDREWS, F.R.A.I.\n\n WITH FOURTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK\n 7, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.\n 1913\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nIn 1894 I was at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, and\nhad the good fortune to hear Professor Julius Kollmann give his paper on\n\"Pygmies in Europe,\" in which he described the skeletons which had then\nrecently been discovered near Schaffhausen. As I listened to his account\nof these small people, whose average height was about four and a half\nfeet, I recalled the description of Irish fairies given to me by an old\nwoman from Galway, and it appeared to me that our traditional \"wee-folk\"\nwere about the size of these Swiss dwarfs. I determined to collect what\ninformation I could, and the result is given in the following pages. I\nfound that the fairies are, indeed, regarded as small; but their height\nmay be that of a well-grown boy or girl, or they may not be larger than\na child beginning to walk. I once asked a woman if they were as small as\ncocks and hens, but she laughed at the suggestion.\n\nI had collected a number of stories, and had become convinced that in\nthese tales we had a reminiscence of a dwarf race, when I read some of\nMr. David MacRitchie's works, and was gratified to find that the\ntraditions I had gathered were in accordance with the conclusions he had\ndrawn from his investigations in Scotland. A little later I made his\nacquaintance, and owe him many thanks for his great kindness and the\nencouragement he has given me in my work.\n\nAs will be seen in the following pages, tradition records several small\nraces in Ulster: the Grogachs, who are closely allied to the fairies,\nand also to the Scotch and English Brownies; the short Danes, whom I am\ninclined to identify with the Tuatha de Danann; the Pechts, or Picts;\nand also the small Finns. My belief is that all these, including the\nfairies, represent primitive races of mankind, and that in the stories\nof women, children, and men being carried off by the fairies, we have a\nrecord of warfare, when stealthy raids were made and captives brought to\nthe dark souterrain. These souterrains, or, as the country people call\nthem, \"coves,\" are very numerous. They are underground structures, built\nof rough stones without mortar, and roofed with large flat slabs. Plate\nII. shows a fine one at Ardtole, near Ardglass, Co. Down. The total\nlength of this souterrain is about one hundred and eight feet, its width\nthree feet, and its height five feet three inches.[1] The entrance to\nanother souterrain is shown in the Sweathouse at Maghera[2] (Plate\nIII.).\n\nAs a rule, although the fairies are regarded as \"fallen angels,\" they\nare said to be kind to the poor, and to possess many good qualities. \"It\nwas better for the land before they went away\" is an expression I have\nheard more than once. The belief in the fairy changeling has, however,\nled to many acts of cruelty. We know of the terrible cases which\noccurred in the South of Ireland some years ago, and I met with the same\nsuperstition in the North. I was told a man believed his sick wife was\nnot herself, but a fairy who had been substituted for her. Fortunately\nthe poor woman was in hospital, so no harm could come to her.\n\nMuch of primitive belief has gathered round the fairy--we have the fairy\nwell and the fairy thorn. It is said that fairies can make themselves so\nsmall that they can creep through keyholes, and they are generally\ninvisible to ordinary mortals. They can shoot their arrows at cattle and\nhuman beings, and by their magic powers bring disease on both. They\nseldom, however, partake of the nature of ghosts, and I do not think\nbelief in fairies is connected with ancestral worship.\n\nSometimes I have been asked if the people did not invent these stories\nto please me. The best answer to this question is to be found in the\ndiverse localities from which the same tale comes. I have heard of the\nmaking of heather ale by the Danes, and the tragic fate of the father\nand son, the last of this race, in Down, Antrim, Londonderry, and Kerry.\nThe same story is told in many parts of Scotland, although there it is\nthe Picts who make the heather ale. I have been told of the woman\nattending the fairy-man's wife, acquiring the power of seeing the\nfairies, and subsequently having her eye put out, in Donegal and Derry,\nand variants of the story come to us from Wales and the Holy Land.\n\nI am aware that I labour under a disadvantage in not being an Irish\nscholar, but most of those in Down, Antrim, and Derry from whom I heard\nthe tales spoke only English, and in Donegal the peasants who related\nthe stories knew both languages well, and I believe gave me a faithful\nversion of their Irish tales.\n\nSome of these essays appeared in the _Antiquary_, others were read to\nthe Arch\u00e6ological Section of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, but\nare now published for the first time _in extenso_. All have been\nrevised, and additional notes introduced. To these chapters on folklore\nI have added an article on the Rev. William Hamilton, who, in his\n\"Letters on the North-East Coast of Antrim,\" written towards the close\nof the eighteenth century, gives an account of the geology, antiquities,\nand customs of the country.\n\nThe plan of the souterrain at Ballymagreehan Fort, Co. Down, was kindly\ndrawn for me by Mr. Arthur Birch. I am much indebted to the Council of\nthe Royal Anthropological Institute for their kindness in allowing me to\nreproduce the plan of the souterrain at Knockdhu from Mrs. Hobson's\npaper, \"Some Ulster Souterrains,\" published in the _Journal_ of the\nInstitute, vol. xxxix., January to June, 1909. My best thanks are also\ndue to Mrs. Hobson for allowing me to make use of her photograph of the\nentrance to this souterrain. The other illustrations are from\nphotographs by Mr. Robert Welch, M.R.I.A., who has done so much to make\nthe scenery, geology, and antiquities of the North of Ireland better\nknown to the English public.\n\n BELFAST,\n _August, 1913_.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See \"Ardtole Souterrain, Co. Down,\" by F. J. Bigger and W.\nJ. Fennell in _Ulster Journal of Arch\u00e6ology_, 1898-99, pp. 146, 147.\n\n[2] I am much indebted to Mr. S. D. Lytle of that town for\nkind permission to reproduce this view.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n PAGE\n\n INTRODUCTION V\n\n FAIRIES AND THEIR DWELLING-PLACES 1\n\n A DAY AT MAGHERA, CO. LONDONDERRY 14\n\n ULSTER FAIRIES, DANES, AND PECHTS 24\n\n FOLKLORE CONNECTED WITH ULSTER RATHS AND SOUTERRAINS 36\n\n TRADITIONS OF DWARF RACES IN IRELAND AND IN\n SWITZERLAND 47\n\n FOLKLORE FROM DONEGAL 64\n\n GIANTS AND DWARFS 84\n\n THE REV. WILLIAM HAMILTON, D.D. 105\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n PLATES\n\n I. HARVEST KNOT _Frontispiece_\n\n FACING PAGE\n\n II. SOUTERRAIN AT ARDTOLE, ARDGLASS, CO. DOWN 1\n\n III. ENTRANCE TO SWEATHOUSE, MAGHERA 14\n\n IV. RUSH AND STRAW CROSSES 17\n\n V. HARVEST KNOTS 19\n\n VI. \"CHURN\" 20\n\n VII. ENTRANCE TO SOUTERRAIN AT KNOCKDHU 30\n\n VIII. THE OLD FORT, ANTRIM 36\n\n IX. GREY MAN'S PATH, FAIR HEAD 49\n\n X. TORMORE, TORY ISLAND 73\n\n XI. VALLEY NEAR ARMOY, WHENCE, ACCORDING TO\n LEGEND, EARTH WAS TAKEN TO FORM RATHLIN 90\n\n XII. FLINT SPEARHEAD AND BASALT AXES FOUND UNDER\n FORT IN LENAGH TOWNLAND 97\n\n\n PLANS\n\n SOUTERRAIN AT BALLYMAGREEHAN 6\n\n SOUTERRAIN AT KNOCKDHU 30\n\n\n\n\n [Illustration: PLATE II. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n SOUTERRAIN AT ARDTOLE, ARDGLASS CO. DOWN.]\n\n\n\n\nFairies and their Dwelling-places[3]\n\n\nIn the following notes I have recorded a few traditions gathered from\nthe peasantry in Co. Down and other parts of Ireland regarding the\nfairies. The belief is general that these little people were at one time\nvery numerous throughout the country, but have now disappeared from many\nof their former haunts. At Ballynahinch I was told they had been blown\naway fifty years ago by a great storm, and the caretaker of the old\nchurch and graveyard of Killevy said they had gone to Scotland. They\nare, however, supposed still to inhabit the more remote parts of the\ncountry, and the old people have many stories of fairy visitors, and of\nwhat happened in their own youth and in the time of their fathers and\ngrandfathers.\n\nWe must not, however, think of Irish fairies as tiny creatures who\ncould hide under a mushroom or dance on a blade of grass. I remember\nwell how strongly an old woman from Galway repudiated such an idea. The\nfairies, according to her, were indeed small people, but no mushroom\ncould give them shelter. She described them as about the size of\nchildren, and as far as I can ascertain from inquiries made in many\nparts of Ulster and Munster, this is the almost universal belief among\nthe peasantry. Sometimes I was told the fairies were as large as a\nwell-grown boy or girl, sometimes that they were as small as children\nbeginning to walk; the height of a chair or a table was often used as a\ncomparison, and on one occasion an old woman spoke of them as being\nabout the size of monkeys.\n\nThe colour red appears to be closely associated with these little\npeople. In Co. Waterford, if a child has a red handkerchief on its head,\nit is said to be wearing a fairy cap. I have frequently been told of the\nsmall men in red jackets running about the forts; the fairy women\nsometimes appear in red cloaks; and I have heard more than once that\nfairies have red hair.\n\nA farmer living in one of the valleys of the Mourne Mountains said he\nhad seen one stormy night little creatures with red hair, about the size\nof children. I asked him if they might not have been really children\nfrom some of the cottages, but his reply was that no child could have\nbeen out in such weather.\n\nAn old woman living near Tullamore Park, Co. Down, described vividly\nhow, going out to look after her goat and its young kid, she had heard\nloud screams and seen wild-looking figures with scanty clothing whose\nhair stood up like the mane of a horse. She spoke with much respect of\nthe fairies as the gentry, said they formerly inhabited hills in\nTullamore Park, and that care was taken not to destroy their\nthorn-bushes. She related the following story: As a friend of hers was\nsitting alone one night, a small old woman, dressed in a white cap and\napron, came in and borrowed a bowl of meal. The debt was repaid, and the\nmeal brought by the fairy put in the barrel. The woman kept the matter\nsecret, and was surprised to find her barrel did not need replenishing.\nAt last her husband asked if her store of meal was not coming to an end;\nshe replied that she would show him she had sufficient, and lifted the\ncover of the barrel. To her astonishment it was almost empty; no doubt,\nhad she kept her secret, she would have had an unlimited supply of meal.\n\nI have heard several similar stories, and have not found that any evil\nconsequences were supposed to follow from partaking of food brought by\nthe fairies. Men have been carried off by them, have heard their\nbeautiful music, seen them dancing, or witnessed a fairy battle without\nbringing any misfortune on themselves. On the other hand, according to a\nstory I heard at Buncrana, Co. Donegal, a little herd-boy paid dearly\nfor having entered one of their dwellings. As he was climbing among the\nrocks, he saw a cleft, and creeping through it came to where a fairy\nwoman was spinning with her \"weans,\" or children, around her. His sister\nmissed him, and after searching for a time, she too, came to the cleft,\nand looking down saw her brother, and called to him to come out. He\ncame, but was never able to speak again.\n\nIn another case deafness followed intercourse with the fairies. An\nelderly man at Maghera, Co. Down, told me that his brother when four or\nfive years old went out with his father. The child lay down on the\ngrass. After a while the father heard a great noise, and looking up saw\nlittle men about two feet in height dancing round his son. He called to\nthem to be gone, and they ran towards a fort and disappeared. The child\nbecame deaf, and did not recover his hearing for ten years. He died at\nthe age of seventeen.\n\nTo cut down a fairy thorn or to injure the house of a fairy is regarded\nas certain to bring misfortune. An old woman also living at Maghera,\nrelated how her great-grandmother had received a visit from a small old\nwoman, who forbade the building of a certain turf-stack, saying that\nevil would befall anyone who injured the chimneys of her house. The\nwarning was disregarded, the turf-stack built, and before long four cows\ndied.\n\nI was told that when a certain fort in Co. Fermanagh was levelled to\nthe ground misfortune overtook the men who did the work, although,\napparently, they were only labourers, many of them dying suddenly. It\nwas also said that where this fort had stood there were caves or hollows\nin the ground into which the oxen would fall when ploughing. An attempt\nto bring a fort near Newcastle under cultivation is believed to have\ncaused the sudden death of the owner.\n\nThe fairies are celebrated as fine musicians; they ride on small horses;\nthe women grind meal, and the sound of their spinning is often heard at\nnight in the peasants' cottages. The following story is related as\nhaving occurred at Camlough, near Newry.\n\nA woman was spinning one evening when three fairies came into the house,\neach bringing a spinning-wheel. They said they would help her with her\nwork, and one of them asked for a drink of water. The woman went to the\nwell to fetch it. When there she was warned, apparently by a friendly\nfairy, that the others had come only to mock and harm her. Acting on the\nadvice of this friend, the woman, as soon as she had given water to the\nthree, turned again to the open door, and stood looking intently towards\na fort. They asked what she was gazing at, and the reply was: \"At the\nblaze on the fort.\" No sooner had she uttered these words than the three\nfairies rushed out with such haste that one of them left her\nspinning-wheel behind, which, according to the story, is now to be seen\nin Dublin Castle. The woman then shut her door, and put a pin in the\nkeyhole, thus effectually preventing the return of her visitors.\n\nIn this story we have probably an allusion to the signal fires which\nare believed by the peasantry to have been lit on the forts in time of\ndanger, one fort being always within view of another. These forts, or\nraths, appear to have been the favourite abode of the fairies. To use\nthe language of the peasantry, these little people live in the \"coves of\nthe forths,\" an expression which puzzled me until I found that coves, or\ncaves, meant underground passages--in other words, souterrains.\n\nThere are a number of these souterrains in the neighbourhood of\nCastlewellan, and with a young friend, who helped me to take a few rough\nmeasurements, I explored several.\n\n[Illustration: PLAN OF BALLYMAGREEHAN SOUTERRAIN.]\n\nBallymagreehan Fort is a short distance from Castlewellan, near the\nNewry Road. It is a small fort, and on the top we saw the narrow\nentrance to the souterrain. Passing down through this, we found\nourselves in a short passage, or chamber, which led us to another\npassage at right angles to the first. It is about forty feet in length\nand three feet in width; the height varies from four to five feet. The\nroof is formed of flat slabs, and the walls are carefully built of round\nstones, but without mortar. At one end this passage appeared to\nterminate in a wall, but at the other it was only choked with fallen\nstones and d\u00e9bris, and I should think had formerly extended farther.\n\nHerman's Fort is another small fort on the opposite side of\nCastlewellan, in the townland of Clarkill. Climbing to the top of it, we\ncame to an enclosure where several thorn-bushes were growing. The farmer\nwho kindly acted as our guide showed us two openings. One of these led\nto a narrow chamber fully six feet high, the other to a passage more\nthan thirty feet in length and about three feet wide, while the height\nvaried from three and a half feet in one part to more than five feet in\nanother. I was told that water is always to be found near these forts,\nand was shown a well which had existed from time immemorial; the sides\nwere built of round stones without mortar, in the same way as the walls\nof the passage.\n\nWe heard here of another souterrain about a mile distant, called\nBackaderry Cove. It is on the side of a hill close to the road leading\nfrom Castlewellan to Dromara. A number of thorn-bushes grow near the\nplace, but there is no mound, either natural or artificial. Creeping\nthrough the opening, we found ourselves in a passage about forty feet in\nlength; a chamber opens off it nine feet in length, and between five and\nsix feet in height, while the height of the passage varies from four and\na half to five and a half feet. There is a tradition that this passage\nformerly connected Backaderry with Herman's Fort.\n\nBallyginney Fort is near Maghera. I only saw the entrance to the\nsouterrain, but from what I heard I believe that here also there is a\nchamber opening off the passage. The farmer on whose land the fort is\nsituated told me that one dry summer he had planted flax in the field\nadjoining the fort. The small depth of soil above the flat slabs\naffected the crop, so that by the difference in the flax it was easy to\ntrace where the passage ran below the field.\n\nWe have seen that the fairies are believed to inhabit the souterrains;\nthey are also said to live inside certain hills, and in forts where, so\nfar as is known, no underground structure exists. I may mention as an\nexample the large fort on the Shimna River, near Newcastle, where I was\ntold their music was often to be heard. There may be many souterrains\nwhose entrance has been choked up, and of which no record has been\npreserved. Mr. Bigger gave last session an interesting account of one\ndiscovered at Stranocum; another was accidentally found last September\nin a field about three miles from Newry. Mr. Mann Harbison, who visited\nthe souterrain, writes to me that the excavation has been made in a\ncircular portion which is six feet wide and five feet high. A gallery\nopens out of this chamber, and is in some places not more than three\nfeet six inches high.\n\nThe building of the forts and souterrains is ascribed by the country\npeople to the Danes, a race of whom various traditions exist. They are\nsaid to have had red hair; sometimes they are spoken of as large men,\nsometimes as short men. One old woman, who had little belief in fairies,\ntold me that in the old troubled times in Ireland people lived inside\nthe forts; these people were the Danes, and they used to light fires on\nthe top as a signal from one fort to another. I heard from an elderly\nman of Danes having encamped on his grandmother's farm. Smoke was seen\nrising from an unfrequented spot, and when an uncle went to investigate\nthe matter he found small huts with no doors, only a bundle of sticks\nlaid across the entrance. In one of the huts he saw a pot boiling on the\nfire, and going forward he began to stir the contents. Immediately a\nred-haired man and woman rushed in; they appeared angry at the\nintrusion, and when he went out threw a plate after him.\n\nThe traditions in regard both to Danes and fairies are very similar in\ndifferent parts of Ireland. In Co. Cavan the country people spoke of the\nbeautiful music of the fairies, and told me of their living in a fort\nnear Lough Oughter. One woman said they were sometimes called Ganelochs,\nand were about the size of children, and an old man described them as\nlittle people about one or two feet high, riding on small horses.\n\nIn Co. Waterford I was told that the fairies were not ghosts: they lived\nin the air. One man might see them while they would be invisible to\nothers.\n\nIn an interesting lecture on the \"Customs and Superstitions of the\nSouthern Irish,\" the Rev. J. B. Leslie, who has kindly allowed me to\nquote from his manuscript, describes the fairies as \"a species of beings\nneither men nor angels nor ghosts.... They are connected in the popular\nimagination with the Danish forts which are common in the country. In\nthese they seem to have their abode underground. At night they hold here\nhigh revels--in grand banqueting-halls--and in these revels there must\nalways, I believe, be a living human being. The fairies are often called\nthe 'good people'; some think they are 'fallen angels.' They are usually\nthought of as harmless creatures, unless, of course, they are interfered\nwith, when the power they wield is very great. They are very fond of\ngames; some testify that they have seen them play football, others\nhurley, while playing at marbles is a special pastime, and I have even\nheard of persons who have discovered 'fairy marbles' near or in these\nforts. No one will interfere with the forts; they fear the power and\nanger of the fairies.\"\n\nWhile the fairies are generally associated with the forts, I heard both\nin Co. Down and Co. Kerry of their living in caves in the mountains, and\na lad whom I met near the Gap of Dunloe described them as having cloven\nfeet and black hair.\n\nA boatman at Killarney spoke of the Leprechauns as little men about\nthree feet in height, wearing red caps. He thought the fairies might be\ntaller, and spoke of their living in the forts. He said these forts had\nbeen built by the Danes, who must have been small men, when they made\nthe passages so low. We thus see that fairies and Danes are both\nassociated with these ancient structures. Although the Irish peasant\nspeaks of these Danes having been conquered by Brian Boru, the structure\nand position of the raths and souterrains point to their having been the\nwork of one of the earlier Irish races rather than of the medieval\nNorsemen. Their name appears to identify them with the Tuatha de Danann\nwhose necromantic power is celebrated in Irish tales, and of whom,\naccording to O'Curry, one class of fairies are the representatives. I\nknow that some high authorities regard the Tuatha de Danann and the\nfairies as alike mythological beings. The latter are certainly in\npopular legend endowed with superhuman attributes; they can transport\npeople long distances, creep through keyholes, and the fairy changeling,\nwhen placed on the fire, can escape up the chimney and grin at his\ntormentors. If we ask the country people who are the fairies, the reply\nis frequently, \"Fallen angels.\" According to an old woman in Donegal,\nthese angels fell, some on the sea, some on the earth, while some\nremained in the air; the fairies were those who fell on the earth.\n\nThese \"fallen angels\" may be the representatives of the spirits whom the\npagan Irish worshipped and strove to propitiate, and some of the tales\nrelating to the fairies may have their origin in the mythology of a\nprimitive people. But the raths and souterrains are certainly the work\nof human hands, and I would suggest that in the legends connected with\nthem we have a reminiscence of a dwarf race who rode on ponies, were\ngood musicians, could spin and weave, and grind corn. The traditions\nwould point to their being red-haired.\n\nMr. Mann Harbison has kindly written to me on this subject, and\nexpresses his belief that the souterrains \"were constructed by a\ndiminutive race, probably allied to the modern Lapps, who seem to be the\nsurvivors of a widely distributed race.\" In another letter he says: \"The\nuniversal idea of fairies is very suggestive. The tall Celts, when they\narrived, saw the small people disappear in a mysterious way, and,\nwithout stopping to investigate, imagined they had become invisible. If\nthey had had the courage or the patience to investigate, they would have\nfound that they had passed into their souterrain.\"\n\nIn his work \"Fians, Fairies, and Picts,\" Mr. David MacRitchie argues\nthat these three names belong to similar if not identical dwarf races in\nScotland. The Tuatha de Danann he also regards as of the same race as\nthe fairies, or, to give them their Irish name, the Fir Sidhe, the men\nof the green mounds.\n\nThe remains of the ancient cave-dwellers point to a primitive race of\nsmall size inhabiting Europe. Dr. Munro, in his work \"Prehistoric\nProblems,\" refers to the skeletons discovered at Spy in Belgium by MM.\nLohest and De Pudzt. He describes them as examples of a very early and\nlow type of the human race, and states that Professor Fraipont, who\nexamined them anatomically, \"came to the conclusion that the Spy men\nbelonged to a race relatively of small stature, analogous to the modern\nLaplanders, having voluminous heads, massive bodies, short arms, and\nbent legs. They led a sedentary life, frequented caves, manufactured\nflint implements after the type known as Moust\u00e9rien, and were\ncontemporary with the Mammoth.\"[4]\n\nLet us compare this description with that in the ballad of \"The Wee, Wee\nMan\":[5]\n\n \"His legs were scarce a shathmont's[6] length,\n And thick and thimber was his thigh;\n Between his brows there was a span,\n And between his shoulders there was three.\"\n\nI do not, however, mean to suggest that the builders of the raths and\nsouterrains were contemporary with the men of Spy, but rather that a\nsmall race of primitive men may have existed until a comparatively late\nperiod in this country. Leading a desultory warfare with their\nneighbours, they would carry off women and children, and injure the\ncattle with their stone weapons. We should note that in the traditions\nof the peasantry, and also in the old ballads, those who have been\ncarried off by the fairies can frequently be released from captivity,\nand they return, not as ghosts, but as living men or women. May we not\nsee in these legends traces of a struggle between a primitive race,\nwhose gods may have been, like themselves, of diminutive stature, and\ntheir more civilized neighbours, who accepted the teaching of the early\nChristian missionaries?\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] Communicated to Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, January\n18, 1898.\n\n[4] P. 141.\n\n[5] \"Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs,\" published anonymously,\nbut known to have been collected by David Herd (vol. i., p. 95, ed.\n1776).\n\n[6] The fist closed with thumb extended, and may be considered\na measure of about six inches.\n\n\n\n\nA Day at Maghera, Co. Londonderry[7]\n\n\nOne fine morning last August I found myself in the quaint old town of\nMaghera. My first visit was to the post-office, where I bought some\npicture-cards, and inquired my way to Killelagh Church, the Cromlech,\nand the Sweat-house, as it is called, where formerly people indulged in\na vapour-bath to cure rheumatism and other complaints. I was told to\nfollow the main street. This I did, and when I came to the outskirts of\nthe town I tried to get a guide, and spoke to a boy at one of the\ncottages. He, however, knew very little, but fortunately saw an elderly\nman coming down the road, who consented to show me the way, and proved\nan excellent guide. His name is Daniel McKenna, a coach-builder by\ntrade. His father, who was teacher in Maghera National School for\nthirty-five years, knew Irish well, and I understand gave Dr. Joyce\ninformation in regard to some of the place-names in Co. Derry. Taking a\nroad which led in a north-westerly direction, we came to the Cromlech,\nand a few yards farther on saw the old Church of Killelagh.\n\n[Illustration: PLATE III. ENTRANCE TO SWEATHOUSE, MAGHERA.]\n\nMy guide pointed out that the doorstep was much worn, doubtless by the\nfeet of those who during many centuries had passed over it; he showed\nme, too, the strong walls, and said the mortar had been cemented with\nthe blood of bullocks. This probably recalls an ancient custom, when an\nanimal--in still earlier times it might be a human being[8]--was slain\nto propitiate or drive away the evil spirits and secure the stability of\nthe building. A similar tradition exists in regard to Roughan Castle,\nthe stronghold of Phelim O'Neill, in Co. Tyrone.\n\nLeaving Killelagh Church, we continued our walk, and I asked my guide\nabout the customs and traditions of the country. He told me that on\nHallow Eve Night salt is put on the heads of children to protect them\nfrom the fairies. These fairies, or wee folk, are about three feet in\nheight, some not so tall; they are of different races or tribes, and\nhave pitched battles at the Pecht's graveyard. This is a place covered\nwith rough mounds and very rough stones, and is looked on as a great\nplayground of the fairies; people passing through it are often led\nastray by them. The Pechts, or Picts, were described to me as having\nlong black hair, which grew in tufts; they were small people, about four\nfeet six inches in height, thick set, nearly as broad as they were long,\nstrong in arms and shoulders, and with very large feet. When a shower of\nrain came on, they would stand on their heads and shelter themselves\nunder their feet. Some years ago I was told a similar story in Co.\nAntrim of the Pechts lying down and using their feet as umbrellas.[9]\n\nI regretted we had not time to visit a large fort we passed on the way\nto Ballyknock Farmhouse. Here we left the road, and, passing through\nsome fields, came to the old Sweat-house. As you will see from the\nphotograph kindly given to me by Mr. Lytle of Maghera, the entrance is\non the side of a bank. It is a much more primitive structure than those\nat the Struel Wells, near Downpatrick. No mortar has been used in its\nconstruction, and I should say it is an old souterrain, or part of a\nsouterrain. The following are rough measurements:\n\n Height of entrance 2 feet.\n Width of entrance 15 inches.\n Height of interior 5 feet 5 inches.\n Width of interior 3 feet.\n Length of interior 9 feet.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE IV. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n RUSH AND STRAW CROSSES.]\n\nThis building, as already mentioned, was used by those suffering from\nrheumatism, and near the entrance is a well in which the patients bathed\nto complete the cure.\n\nWhile we were resting I asked about rush crosses, which are put up in\nmany cottages at Maghera, and, gathering some rushes, Daniel McKenna\nshowed me how they were made. He told me that on St. Bridget's Eve,\nJanuary 31, children are sent out to pull rushes, which must not be cut\nwith a knife. When these rushes are brought in, the family gather round\nthe fire and make the crosses, which are sprinkled with holy water. The\nwife or eldest daughter prepares tea and pancakes, and the plate of\npancakes is laid on the top of the rush cross. Prayers are said, and the\nfamily partake of St. Bridget's supper. The crosses are hung up over\ndoors and beds to bring good luck. In former times sowans or flummery\nwas eaten instead of pancakes. I have heard of similar customs in other\nplaces. At Tobermore those who bring in the rushes ask at the door, \"May\nSt. Bridget come in?\" \"Yes, she may,\" is the answer. The rushes are put\non a rail under the table while the family partake of tea. Afterwards\nthe crosses are made, and, as at Maghera, hung up over doors and\nbeds.[10]\n\nThis custom probably comes to us from pre-Christian times. The cross in\nits varied forms is a very ancient symbol, sometimes representing the\nsun, sometimes the four winds of heaven. Schlieman discovered it on the\npottery of the Troad; it is found in Egypt, India, China, and Japan, and\namong the people of the Bronze Period it appears frequently on pottery,\njewellery, and coins.\n\nNow, St. Bridget had a pagan predecessor, Brigit, a poetess of the\nTuatha de Danann, and whom we may perhaps regard as a female Apollo.\nCormac, in his \"Glossary,\" tells us she was a daughter of the Dagda and\na goddess whom all poets adored, and whose two sisters were Brigit the\nphysician and Brigit the smith. Probably the three sisters represent the\nsame divine or semi-divine person whom we may identify with the British\ngoddess Brigantia and the Gaulish Brigindo.\n\nMay we not see, then, in these rush crosses a very ancient symbol, used\nin pagan times, and which was probably consecrated by early Christian\nmissionaries, and given a new significance?\n\n [Illustration: PLATE V. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n HARVEST KNOTS.]\n\nThe harvest knots or bows are connected with another old custom which\nwas, until recently, observed at Maghera. When the harvest was gathered\nin, the last handful of oats, the corn of this country, was left\nstanding. It was plaited in three parts and tied at the top, and was\ncalled by the Irish name \"luchter.\" The reapers stood at some distance,\nand threw their sickles at the luchter, and the man who cut it was\nexempt from paying his share of the feast. Daniel McKenna told me he had\nseen some fine sickles broken in trying to hit the luchter. It was\nafterwards carried home; the young girls plaited harvest knots and put\nthem in their hair, while the lads wore them in their caps and\nbuttonholes. A dance followed the feast. The knots, with the ears of\ncorn attached, are, I am told, the true old Irish type, while it is\nthought that the smaller ones were made after a pattern brought from\nEngland by the harvest reapers on their return home. I heard of the same\ncustom at Portstewart and also in the Valley of the Roe, where the last\nsheaf of oats was called the \"hare,\" and the throwing of the sickles was\ntermed the \"churn.\" In some places the last sheaf itself was called the\n\"churn,\" but by whatever name it was known the man who hit it was\nregarded as the victor, and was given the best seat at the feast, or a\nreward of some kind. An old woman above ninety years of age repeated to\nme a song about the churn, or kirn, and she and many others remember\nwell the custom and the feast which followed, when both whisky and tea\nwere served.\n\nIn some districts the last sheaf is termed the \"Cailleagh,\"[11] or old\nwife.\n\nA similar custom in Devonshire has been described by Mr. Pearse Chope\nin the _London Devonian Year Book_ for 1910, p. 127. Here corn is wheat,\nand a sheaf of the finest ears, termed the \"neck,\" is carried by one of\nthe men to an elevated spot; the reapers form themselves into a ring,\nand each man holding his hook above his head, they all join in \"the\nweird cry, 'A neck! a neck! a neck! We ha' un! we ha' un! we ha' un!'\nThis is repeated several times, with the occasional variation: 'A neck!\na neck! a neck! God sa' un! God sa' un! God sa' un!' After this ceremony\nthe man with the neck has to run to the kitchen, and get it there dry,\nwhile the maids wait with buckets and pitchers of water to 'souse' him\nand the neck.\" Mr. Chope adds that in most cases the neck is more or\nless in the form of a woman, and undoubtedly represented the spirit of\nthe harvest, and that \"the main idea of the ceremony seems to have been\nthat in cutting the corn the spirit was gradually driven into the last\nhandful.... As it was needful to cut the corn and bury the seed, so it\nwas necessary to kill the corn spirit in order that it might rise again\nin fresh youth and vigour in the coming crop.\"[12]\n\nI think we may safely assume that the Irish churn had a similar origin,\nand that in throwing the sickles the aim of the ancient reapers was to\nkill the spirit of the corn.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE VI. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n \"CHURN\"]\n\nWe have seen that in the North of Ireland the last sheaf is\nfrequently termed the \"hare,\" and in many other countries the corn\nspirit takes the form of an animal. In his recent volumes of the _Golden\nBough_, entitled \"Spirits of the Corn and the Wild,\" Dr. Frazer mentions\nmany animals, such as the wolf, goat, fox, dog, bull, cow, horse, hare,\nwhich represent the corn spirit lurking in the last patch of standing\ncorn. He tells us that \"at harvest a number of wild animals, such as\nhares, rabbits, and partridges, are commonly driven by the progress of\nthe reaping into the last patch of standing corn, and make their escape\nfrom it as it is being cut down.... Now, primitive man, to whom magical\nchanges of shape seem perfectly credible, finds it most natural that the\nspirit of the corn, driven from his home in the ripe grain, should make\nhis escape in the form of the animal, which is seen to rush out of the\nlast patch of corn as it falls under the scythe of the reaper.\"[13]\n\nTo return to Maghera. The morning passed swiftly as I listened to my\nguide's description of these old customs, and it was after two o'clock\nwhen I said good-bye to him at his cottage, and found myself again in\nthe main street of Maghera. I now wished to visit the Fort of Dunglady,\nand after a refreshing cup of tea, engaged a car. The driver knew the\ncountry well, and, going uphill and downhill, we passed through the\nvillage of Culnady, and were soon close to this fine fort. A few\nminutes' walk, and I stood on the outer rampart, and gazed across the\ninner circles at the cattle grazing on the central enclosure.\n\nThis fort was visited in 1902 by the Royal Society of Antiquaries of\nIreland, when a very interesting paper, written by Miss Jane Clark of\nKilrea, was read. She mentions that Dr. O'Donovan considered this fort\none of the most interesting he had met with; not so magnificent as the\nDun of Keltar at Downpatrick, but much better fortified, and states that\na map of the time of Charles I. represents Dunglady Fort as a prominent\nobject, and shows three houses built upon it, one of considerable size.\nQuoting from an unpublished letter of Mr. J. Stokes, she refers to the\ntriple rampart, which makes the diameter of the whole to be three\nhundred and thirty feet. There was formerly a draw well in the middle of\nthe fort, and at one time it was used as a burial-ground by members of\nthe Society of Friends. Miss Clark also referred to a smaller fort at\nCulnady, which had been demolished. The two mounds in the centre of this\nrath had been formed of earth on a stone foundation.\n\nA rapid drive brought me back to Maghera in time for a short visit to\nthe ruins of the Church of St. Lurach, popularly known in the district\nas St. Lowry. There is a curious sculpture of the Crucifixion over the\nwest doorway, which is shown in the sketch of this doorway by Petrie in\nLord Dunraven's \"Notes on Irish Architecture.\"[14]\n\nI must now conclude this account of my visit to Maghera, but may I\nmention that farther north there are other interesting antiquities? The\nlarge cromlech, called the Broadstone, is some miles from Kilrea. There\nare several forts in the neighbourhood of that town, which draws its\nsupply of water from a fairy well.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] Read before the Arch\u00e6ological Section of the Belfast\nNaturalists' Field Club, January 15, 1913.\n\n[8] In \"My Schools and Schoolmasters\" (chap. x., pp. 222-223,\ned. 1854), Hugh Miller describes the goblin who haunted Craig House,\nnear Cromarty Firth, as a \"grey-headed, grey-bearded, little old man,\"\nand the apparition was thus explained by a herdboy: \"_Oh! they're\nsaying_ it's the spirit of the man that was killed on the\nfoundation-stone just after it was laid, and then built intil the wa' by\nthe masons, that he might keep the castle by coming back again; and\n_they're saying_ that a' the verra auld houses in the kintra had\nmurderit men builded intil them in that way, and that they have a' o'\nthem this bogle.\"\n\nIn \"The Study of Man,\" Professor Haddon gives a number of allusions to\nthe human sacrifice in the building of bridges (pp. 347-356).\n\n[9] See p. 27.\n\n[10] In Plate IV. the larger cross is of rushes, the smaller\none is made of straw.\n\n[11] Mr. McKean kindly informs me that he has found this name\nor its modification \"Collya\" in Counties Armagh, Monaghan, and Tyrone;\nalso near Cushendall, Co. Antrim, where the ceremony is called \"cutting\nthe Cailleagh.\" He was told this Cailleagh was an old witch, and by\n\"killing\" her and taking her into the house you got good luck. At\nBallyatoge, at the back of Cat Carn Hill, near Belfast, in the descent\nto Crumlin, the custom is called \"cutting the Granny.\" At Ballycastle,\nCo. Antrim, the plait or braid is called the \"car-line.\"\n\n[12] Dr. Frazer also describes this Devonshire custom (see\n_Golden Bough_, \"Spirits of the Corn and the Wild,\" vol. i., pp.\n264-267).\n\n[13] \"Spirits of the Corn and the Wild,\" vol. i., pp. 304,\n305.\n\n[14] Vol. i., p. 115.\n\n\n\n\nUlster Fairies, Danes and Pechts[15]\n\n\nThe fairy lore of Ulster is doubtless dying out, but much may yet be\nlearned about the \"gentle\" folk, and as we listen to the stories told by\nthe peasantry, we may well ask ourselves what is the meaning of these\nold legends.\n\nFairies are regarded on the whole as a kindly race of beings, although\nif offended they will work dire vengeance. They have no connection with\nchurchyards, and are quite distinct from ghosts. One old woman, who had\nmuch to say about fairies, when asked about ghosts, replied rather\nscornfully, that she did not believe in them. The fairies are supposed\nto be small--\"wee folk\"--but we must not think of them as tiny creatures\nwho could hide in a foxglove. To use a North of Ireland phrase, they are\nthe size of a \"lump of a boy or girl!\" and have been often mistaken for\nordinary men or women, until their sudden disappearance marked them as\nunearthly.\n\nA farmer in Co. Antrim told me that once when a man was taking stones\nfrom a cave in a fort, an old man came and asked him would it not be\nbetter to get his stones elsewhere than from those ancient buildings.\nThe other, however, continued his work; but when the stranger suddenly\ndisappeared, he became convinced that his questioner was no ordinary\nmortal. In after-life he often said sadly: \"He was a poor man, and would\nalways remain a poor man, because he had taken stones from that cave.\"\nThe cave was no doubt a souterrain.\n\nAn elderly woman in Co. Antrim told me that when a child she one evening\nsaw \"a little old woman with a green cloak coming over the burn.\" She\nhelped her to cross, and afterwards took her to the cottage, where her\nmother received the stranger kindly, told her she was sorry she could\nnot give her a bed in the house, but that she might sleep in one of the\nouthouses. The children made Grannie as comfortable as they could, and\nin the morning went out early to see how she was. They found her up and\nready to leave. The child who had first met her said she would again\nhelp her across the burn--\"But wait,\" she added, \"until I get my\nbonnet.\" She ran into the house, but before she came out the old woman\nhad disappeared.\n\nWhen the mother heard of this she said: \"God bless you, child! Don't\nmind Grannie; she is very well able to take care of herself.\" And so it\nwas believed that Grannie was a fairy.\n\nI have also heard of a little old man in a three-cornered hat, at first\nmistaken for a neighbour, but whose sudden disappearance proved him to\nbe a fairy.\n\nIn the time of the press-gang a crowd was seen approaching some\ncottages. Great alarm ensued, and the young men fled; but it was soon\ndiscovered that these people did not come from a man-of-war--they were\nfairies.\n\nA terrible story, showing how the fairies can punish their captives, was\ntold me by an old woman at Armoy, in Co. Antrim, who vouched for it as\nbeing \"candid truth.\" A man's wife was carried away by the fairies; he\nmarried again, but one night his first wife met him, told him where she\nwas, and besought him to release her, saying that if he would do so she\nwould leave that part of the country and not trouble him any more. She\nbegged him, however, not to make the attempt unless he were confident he\ncould carry it out, as if he failed she would die a terrible death. He\npromised to save her, and she told him to watch at midnight, when she\nwould be riding past the house with the fairies; she would put her hand\nin at the window, and he must grasp it and hold tight. He did as she\nbade him, and although the fairies pulled hard, he had nearly saved her,\nwhen his second wife saw what was going on, and tore his hand away. The\npoor woman was dragged off, and across the fields he heard her piercing\ncries, and saw next morning the drops of blood where the fairies had\nmurdered her.\n\nAnother woman was more fortunate; she was carried off by the fairies at\nCushendall, but was able to inform her friends when she and the fairies\nwould be going on a journey, and she told them that if they stroked her\nwith the branch of a rowan-tree she would be free. They did as she\ndesired. She returned to them, apparently having suffered no injury, and\nin the course of time she married.\n\nThis story was told me by a man ninety years of age, living in\nGlenshesk, in the north of Co. Antrim. He spoke of the fairies as being\nabout two feet in height, said they were dressed in green, and had been\nseen in daylight making hats of rushes. In Donegal I was also told that\nthe fairies wore high peaked hats made of plaited rushes; but there, as\nin most parts of Ulster, and indeed of Ireland, the fairies are said to\nwear red, not green. In Antrim the fairies, like their Scotch kinsfolk,\ndress in green, but even there are often said to have red or sandy hair.\n\nThe Pechts are spoken of as low, stout people, who built some of the\n\"coves\" in the forts. An old man, living in the townland of Drumcrow,\nCo. Antrim, showed me the entrance to one of these artificial caves, and\ngave me a vivid description of its builders. \"The Pechts,\" he said,\n\"were low-set, heavy-made people, broad in the feet--so broad,\" he\nadded, with an expressive gesture, \"that in rain they could lie down and\nshelter themselves under their feet.\" He spoke of them as clad in skins,\nwhile an old woman at Armoy said they were dressed in grey. I have\nseldom heard of the Pechts beyond the confines of Antrim, although an\nold man in Donegal spoke of them as short people with large, unwieldy\nfeet.\n\nThe traditions regarding the Danes vary; sometimes they are spoken of as\na tall race, sometimes as a short race. There is little doubt that the\ntall race were the medieval Danes, while in the short men we have\nprobably a reminiscence of an earlier race.\n\nA widespread belief exists throughout Ireland that the Danes made\nheather beer, and that the secret perished with them. According to an\nold woman at the foot of the Mourne Mountains, the Danes had the land in\nold times, but at last they were conquered, and there remained alive\nonly a father and son. When pressed to disclose how the heather beer was\nmade, the father said: \"Kill my son, and I will tell you our secret\";\nbut when the son was slain, he cried: \"Kill me also, but our secret you\nshall never know!\" I have the authority of Mr. MacRitchie for stating\nthat a similar story is known in Scotland from the Shetlands to the Mull\nof Galloway, but there it is told of the Picts.\n\nWe all remember Louis Stevenson's ballad of heather ale--how the son was\ncast into the sea:\n\n \"And there on the cliff stood the father,\n Last of the dwarfish men.\n\n \"True was the word I told you:\n Only my son I feared;\n For I doubt the sapling courage\n That goes without the beard.\n But now in vain is the torture,\n Fire shall never avail;\n Here dies in my bosom\n The secret of heather ale.\"\n\nThe secret appears, however, to have been preserved for many centuries.\nAfter visiting Islay in 1772, the Welsh traveller and naturalist,\nPennant, states that \"Ale is frequently made in this island from the\ntops of heath, mixing two-thirds of that plant with one of malt.\"[16]\n\nProbably these islanders were descendants of the Picts or Pechts.\n\nI do not know if there is any record of the making of heather beer in\nIreland in later times, but I heard the story of the lost secret in\nDown, in Kerry, in Donegal, in Antrim, and everywhere the father and the\nson were the last of the Danes. Does not this point to the Irish Danes\nbeing a kindred race to the Picts? If we may be allowed to hold that the\nTuatha de Danann are not altogether mythical, I should be inclined to\nbelieve that they are the short Danes of the Irish peasantry, who built\nthe forts and souterrains. I visited some Danes' graves near\nBallygilbert, in Co. Antrim; it appeared to me that there were\nindications of a stone circle, the principal tomb was in the centre, the\nwalls built without mortar, and I was told that formerly it had been\nroofed in with a flat stone. Various ridges were pointed out to me as\nmarking the small fields of these early people. I was also shown their\nhouses, built, like the graves, without mortar. Within living memory\nthese old structures were much more perfect than at present, many of\nthem having the characteristic flat slab as a roof; but fences were\nneeded, and the Danes' houses offered a convenient and tempting supply\nof stones. In the same neighbourhood I was shown a building of\nuncemented stone with flat slabs for the roof, and was told it had been\nbuilt by the fairies.\n\n [Illustration: _SOUTERRAIN of KNOCKDHU Co. Antrim\n PLAN\n Drawn by Florence Hobson from the measurements made by M Hobson_]\n\nIn the same district I visited a fine souterrain at the foot of\nKnockdhu, which was afterwards fully explored and measured by Mrs.\nHobson. She describes it as \"a souterrain containing six chambers, with\na length of eighty-seven feet exclusive of a flooded chamber.\"[17] Mrs.\nHobson photographed the entrance to this souterrain, which is reproduced\nin Plate VII.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE VII.\n ENTRANCE TO SOUTERRAIN AT KNOCKDHU.]\n\nFrom the foregoing traditions it will be seen that Pechts, Danes, and\nfairies are all associated with the remains of primitive man. I may add\nthat the small pipes sometimes turned up by the plough are called in\ndifferent localities Danes', Pechts', or fairies' pipes.\n\nThe peasantry regard the Pechts and the Danes as thoroughly human; with\nthe fairies it is otherwise. They are unearthly beings, fallen angels\nwith supernatural powers; but, while quick to revenge an injury or a\nslight, on the whole friendly to mankind. \"It was better for the country\nbefore they went away,\" was the remark made to me by an old woman from\nGarvagh, Co. Derry, and I have heard the same sentiment expressed by\nothers. They are always spoken of with much respect, and are often\ncalled the \"gentry\" or the \"gentle folk.\"\n\nWe hear of fairy men, fairy women, and fairy children. They may\nintermarry with mortals, and an old woman told me she had seen a fairy's\nfuneral. Now, do these stories give us only a materialistic view of the\nspirit world held by early man, or can we also trace in them a\nreminiscence of a pre-Celtic race of small stature? The respect paid to\nthe fairy thorn is no doubt a survival of tree-worship, and in the\nbanshee we have a weird being who has little in common with mortal\nwoman. On the other hand, the fairies are more often connected with the\nartificial Forts and souterrains than with natural hills and caves.\nThese forts and souterrains, as we have seen, are also the habitations\nof Danes and Pechts. They are sacred spots--to injure them is to court\nmisfortune; but I have not heard them spoken of as sepulchres.\n\nI have already mentioned that I have rarely, if ever, found among the\npeasantry any tradition of fairies a few inches in height. In one of the\ntales in \"Silva Gadelica\" (xiv.) we read, however, of the lupracan being\nso small that the close-cropped grass of the green reached to the thigh\nof their poet, and the prize feat of their great champion was the hewing\ndown of a thistle at a single stroke. Such a race could not have built\nthe souterrains, and probably owe their origin to the imagination of the\nmedieval story-teller. The lupracan were not, however, always of such\ndiminutive size. In a note to this story Mr. Standish H. O'Grady quotes\nan old Irish manuscript[18] in which a distinctly human origin is\nascribed to these luchorpan or wee-bodies. \"Ham, therefore, was the\nfirst that was cursed after the Deluge, and from him sprang the\nwee-bodies (pygmies), fomores, 'goatheads' (satyrs), and every other\ndeformed shape that human beings wear.\" The old writer goes on to tell\nus that this was the origin of these monstrosities, \"which are not, as\nthe Gael relate, of Cain's seed, for of his seed nothing survived the\nFlood.\"[19]\n\nIt is true that in this passage the lupracan or wee-bodies are\nassociated with goatheads; but whether these are purely fabulous beings,\nor point to an early race whose features were supposed to resemble those\nof goats, or who perhaps stood in totem relationship to goats, it would\nbe difficult to say. What we have here are two medieval traditions, the\none stating that the pygmies are descendants of Cain, the other classing\nthem among the descendants of Ham. Does the latter contain a germ of\ntruth, and is it possible that at one time a people resembling the\npygmies of Central Africa inhabited these islands?\n\nThose who have visited the African dwarfs in their own haunts have been\nstruck by the resemblance between their habits and those ascribed to the\nnorthern fairies, elves, and trolls.\n\nSir Harry Johnston states that anyone who has seen much of the merry,\nimpish ways of the Central African pygmies \"cannot but be struck by\ntheir singular resemblance in character to the elves and gnomes and\nsprites of our nursery stories.\" He warns us, however, against reckless\ntheorizing, and says: \"It may be too much to assume that the negro\nspecies ever inhabited Europe,\" but adds that undoubtedly to his\nthinking \"most fairy myths arose from the contemplation of the\nmysterious habits of dwarf troglodyte races lingering on still in the\ncrannies, caverns, forests, and mountains of Europe after the invasion\nof neolithic man.\"[20] Captain Burroughs refers to the stories of these\nmannikins to be found in all countries, and adds that \"it was of the\nhighest interest to find some of them in their primitive and aboriginal\nstate.\"[21] He speaks of the red and black Akka, and Sir Harry Johnston\nalso describes the two types of pygmy, one being of a reddish-yellow\ncolour, the other as black as the ordinary negro. In the yellow-skinned\ntype there is a tendency on the part of the head hair to be reddish,\nmore especially over the frontal part of the head. The hair is never\nabsolutely black--it varies in colour between greyish-greenish-brown,\nand reddish.[22] We have seen how Irish fairies and Danes have red hair,\nbut I should infer of a brighter hue than these African dwarfs. The\naverage height of the pygmy man is four feet nine inches, of the pygmy\nwoman four feet six inches,[23] and although we cannot measure fairies,\nI think the Ulster expression, \"a lump of a boy or girl,\" would\ncorrespond with this height. I do not know the size of the fairy's foot,\nbut, as we have seen, both Danes and Pechts have large feet, and so has\nthe African pygmy.[24] One of the great marks of the fairies is their\nvanishing and leaving no trace behind, and Sir Harry Johnston speaks of\nthe baboon-like adroitness of the African dwarfs in making themselves\ninvisible in squatting immobility.[25]\n\nDr. Robertson Smith has shown that \"primitive man has to contend not\nonly with material difficulties, but with the superstitious terror of\nthe unknown, paralyzing his energies and forbidding him freely to put\nforth his strength to subdue nature to his use.\"[26] In speaking of the\nArabian \"jinn,\" he states \"that even in modern accounts _jinn_ and\nvarious kinds of animals are closely associated, while in the older\nlegends they are practically identified,\"[27] and he adds that the\nstories point distinctly \"to haunted spots being the places where evil\nbeasts walk by night.\"[28] He also shows that totems or friendly\ndemoniac beings rapidly develop into gods when men rise above pure\nsavagery,[29] and he cites the ancestral god of Baalbek, who was\nworshipped under the form of a lion.[30]\n\nIf we see, then, that early man, terrified by the wild beasts, whether\nlions or reptiles, ascribed to them superhuman powers, may not a similar\nmode of thought have caused one race to invest with supernatural\nattributes another race, strangers to them, and possibly of inferior\nmental development? The big negro is often afraid to withhold his banana\nfrom the pygmy, and the dwarfish Lapps and Finns have long been regarded\nas powerful sorcerers by their more civilized neighbours. In like manner\nthe little woman, inhabiting her underground dwelling at the foot of the\nsacred thorn-bush, might well be looked upon as an uncanny being, and in\nafter-ages popular imagination might transform her into the weird\nbanshee, the woman of the fairy mound, whose wailing cry betokens death\nand disaster.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[15] Reprinted from the _Antiquary_, August, 1906.\n\n[16] \"Voyage to the Hebrides in 1772,\" p. 229. For a full\ndiscussion of the subject, see Mr. MacRitchie's \"Memories of the Picts,\"\nin the _Scottish Antiquary_ for 1900.\n\n[17] See \"Some Ulster Souterrains,\" _Journal of the Royal\nAnthropological Institute_, vol. xxxix., January-June, 1909. The plan\nwas drawn by Miss Florence Hobson from the measurements made by Mrs.\nHobson.\n\n[18] Rawl., 486, f.49, 2.\n\n[19] \"Silva Gadelica\" (translation and notes), pp. 563, 564.\n\n[20] \"Uganda Protectorate,\" vol. ii., pp. 516, 517.\n\n[21] \"Land of the Pygmies,\" pp. 173, 174.\n\n[22] \"Uganda Protectorate,\" vol. ii. See pp. 527, 530; also\ncoloured frontispiece.\n\n[23] \"Uganda Protectorate,\" vol. ii., p. 532.\n\n[24] _Ibid._, p. 532.\n\n[25] _Ibid._, p. 513.\n\n[26] \"The Religion of the Semites,\" p. 115.\n\n[27] _Ibid._, pp. 122, 123.\n\n[28] _Ibid._, p. 123.\n\n[29] _Ibid._, note _b_, p. 424.\n\n[30] _Ibid._, p. 425.\n\n\n\n\nFolklore connected with Ulster Raths and Souterrains[31]\n\n\nAs the title of this paper I have given \"Folklore connected with\nUlster Raths and Souterrains,\" but if I used the language of the\ncountry-people I should speak, not of raths and souterrains, but of\nforths and coves. In these coves it is believed the fairies dwell, and\nhere they keep as prisoners women, children, even men. These\nsubterranean dwellings may not be known to mortals. I heard of a lad\nbeing kept for several days in the fort of the Shimna, near Newcastle,\nCo. Down, and I was told that the great rath at Downpatrick had been a\nvery gentle place, meaning one inhabited by fairies. In neither of these\nforts is there, as far as is known, a souterrain, nor is there one in\nthe old fort at Antrim, a typical rath. In many cases we do find the\nentrance to a souterrain is in a fort. I may mention Ballymagreehan\nFort, the stone fort near Altnadua Lough in Co. Down, and Crocknabroom,\nnear Ballycastle. Although not in Ulster, I may also refer to a fine\nexample of a rath with a souterrain in it, the Mote of Greenmount,\ndescribed by the Rev. J. B. Leslie in his \"History of Kilsaran, Co.\nLouth.\"[32]\n\n [Illustration: PLATE VIII. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n THE OLD FORT, ANTRIM.]\n\nMany souterrains have no fort above them. Take, for example, the one\nnear Scollogstown, Co. Down, with its numerous bridges, which it would\nbe decidedly unpleasant to face if little men were behind them shooting\narrows. Also Cloughnabrick Cave, near Ballycastle, which is not built\nwith stones, but hollowed out of the basaltic rock.\n\nFairies are not the only race connected with raths and souterrains. We\nhave two others, Danes and Pechts. It is generally believed that the\nDanes built the forts; hence we find many of them called \"Danes' forts.\"\nI will describe one named from the townland in which it is situated,\nBallycairn Fort. It stands on a high bank overlooking the Bann, about a\nmile north of Coleraine. The entire height is about twenty-six feet; at\nperhaps twelve feet from the ground a flat platform is reached, and at\none end of this the upper part of the fort rises in a circular form for\nabout fourteen or fifteen feet. I was told the Danes who built it were\nshort, stout people, and as they had no wheelbarrows they carried the\nearth in their leathern aprons. Here we seem to come in contact with a\nvery primitive people, probably wearing the skins of wild animals, and\nwho are said, like the fairies, to have sandy or red hair.\n\nAs far as is known no souterrain exists in Ballycairn Fort, although I\nwas shown a stone at the side which my guide said might be the entrance\nto a \"cove\"; it appeared to me to be simply a piece of rock appearing\nabove the sod, or possibly a boulder. There is a tradition of fairies\nliving in this fort, as it is said that in \"long ago\" times the farmers\nused to threaten their boys if they were not doing right, that the\nfairies would come out of the fort and carry them away.\n\nMany of the souterrains in this part of the world are now blocked up,\nand of some the entrance is no longer known, although they have been\nexplored within living memory; others have been destroyed. There was a\nsouterrain a short distance from Ballycairn fort in a field opposite to\nCranogh National School. The master of this school told me that fifteen\nor sixteen years ago these underground buildings existed, but now they\nhave been all quarried away. He also mentioned a tradition that there\nwas a subterranean passage under the Bann.\n\nOn the opposite bank of the river, near Portstewart, I heard of several\nof these underground dwellings.\n\nOne was on the land of an old farmer eighty-four years of age. He told\nme he had been in this cave, but no one could get in now. It had been\nhollowed out by man, but the walls were not built of stones. There were\nseveral rooms; you dropped from one to another through a narrow hole.\nThe rooms were large, but low in the roof; in one of them a quantity of\nlimpet-shells were found. He added that some said that the Danes had\nbuilt these caves, others that the clans made them as places of refuge.\nHe added that the Danes of those days had sandy hair and were short\npeople; not like the sturdy Danes of the present day. These are well\nknown to the seafaring population of Ulster, and we sometimes find the\nold Danes spoken of as a tall, fair race; probably this is a true\ndescription of the medieval sea-rovers. The short Danes I should be\ninclined to identify with the Tuatha de Danann, and I believe that,\nnotwithstanding the magical portents which abound in the tales that have\ncome down to us, we have here a very early people who had made some\nprogress in the arts.\n\nThis double use of the name Dane seems at times to have perplexed the\nolder writers. The Rev. William Hamilton, in his \"Letters on the\nNorth-East Coast of Antrim,\" published towards the end of the eighteenth\ncentury, gives a description of the coal-mines of Ballycastle[33] and of\nthe very ancient galleries, with the pillars, left by the prehistoric\nminers, supporting the roof, which had been discovered some twelve years\nbefore he wrote. He tells us that the people of the place ascribed them\nto the Danes, but argues that these were never peaceable possessors of\nIreland, and that it is not \"to the tumultuary and barbarous armies of\nthe ninth and tenth centuries ... we are to attribute the slow and\ntoilsome operations of peace.\" He mentions how the stalactite pillars\nfound in these galleries marked their antiquity, and ascribes them to\nsome period prior to the eighth century, \"when Ireland enjoyed a\nconsiderable share of civilization.\"\n\nIn the same way John Windele, writing in the _Ulster Journal of\nArch\u00e6ology_ for 1862, speaks of the mines in Waterford having been\nworked by the ancient inhabitants, and adds: \"One almost insulated\npromontory is perforated like a rabbit-burrow, and is known as the\n'Danes' Island,' the peasantry attributing these ancient mines, like all\nother relics of remote civilisation, to the Danes.\"[34]\n\nFrom my own experience I can corroborate this statement. An artificial\nisland in Lough Sessiagh, in Co. Donegal, was shown to me as the work of\nthe Danes. The forts on Horn Head and at Glenties are also ascribed to\nthem.\n\nThe use of the souterrains was not confined to prehistoric times. The\none at Greenmount appears to have been inhabited by the medieval Danes,\nas a Runic inscription, engraved on a plate of bronze, has been\ndiscovered in it, the only one as yet found in Ireland. In 1317 every\nman dwelling in an ooan, or caher's souterrain, was summoned to join the\narmy of Domched O'Brian.[35] The French traveller, Jorevin de Rocheford,\nspeaks of subterranean vaults where the peasants assembled to hear\nMass,[36] and in still more recent times the smuggler and the distiller\nof illicit whisky found them convenient places of concealment.\n\nIn a former paper I referred to the lost secret of the heather beer, and\nthe tragic ending of the last of the Danes.[37] As the story was told me\nnear Ballycairn Fort, the father said: \"Give my son the first lilt of\nthe rope, and I will reveal our secret\"; but when the son was dead the\nfather cried: \"Slay me also, for none shall ever know how the heather\nbeer was brewed!\"\n\nIn a paper read to this club Mr. McKean[38] mentioned that this story\nhad been told to him in Kerry, where I, too, heard it. It appears to be\nalmost universal in Ulster. When visiting Navan Fort, the ancient\nEmania, near Armagh, I was told that on this fort the Danes made heather\nbeer. I asked if any heather grew in the neighbourhood, but the answer\nwas, not now. There are variants of the tale. In some parts of Donegal\nit is wine, not beer, that the Danes are said to have made. As a rule\nthe slaughter is taken for granted, and very little said about it; but a\nfarmer in Co. Antrim gave me a full account of the massacre, how at a\ngreat feast a Roman Catholic sat beside each Dane, and at a given signal\nplunged his dirk into his neighbour's side, until only one man and his\nson remained alive; then followed the usual sequel.\n\nThese short Danes are said to have had large feet, and one man described\ntheir arms as so long that they could pick anything off the ground\nwithout stooping. Long arms are also a characteristic of the traditional\ndwarf of Japan, probably an ancestor of the Aino.[39] As I mentioned in\na previous paper,[40] large feet are also a traditional characteristic\nof the Pechts, who are generally said to have been clad in skins or in\ngrey clothes. They have occasionally superhuman attributes ascribed to\nthem. The same man who spoke of the long arms of the Danes said the\nPechts could creep through keyholes--they were like \"speerits\"--and he\nevidently regarded both them and the fairies as evil spirits. At the\nsame time he said they would thresh corn or work for a man, but if they\nwere given food, they would be offended, and go away.\n\nI think the close connection between Danes, Pechts, and fairies will be\napparent to all, although the fairy has more supernatural\ncharacteristics, and in the banshee assumes a very weird form. Lady\nFanshawe has described the apparition she saw when staying, in 1649,\nwith the Lady Honora O'Brien, as a woman in white, with red hair and\nghastly complexion, who thrice cried \"Ahone!\" and vanished with a sigh\nmore like wind than breath. This was apparently the ghost of a murdered\nwoman, who was said to appear when any of the family died, and that\nnight a cousin of their hostess had passed away.[41] Similar stories, as\nwe all know, exist at the present day.\n\nExcept in the case of the banshee, fairies rarely partake of the nature\nof ghosts, and I should note that in her description of the apparition\nLady Fanshawe does not use the word \"banshee.\" In many respects the\nfairies are akin to mortals--there are fairy men, fairy women, and fairy\nchildren. Fairies often live under bushes, and I was told in Co. Armagh\nthat it would be a very serious matter to cut down a \"lone\" thorn-bush;\nthose growing in rows were evidently less sacred. Did the thorn-bush\nhide the entrance to the subterranean dwelling?\n\nThe fairies are quick to revenge an injury or an encroachment on their\nterritory. A fire which occurred at Dunree on Lough Swilly was\nattributed to the fairies, who were supposed to be angry because the\nmilitary had carried the works of their modern fort too near the fairy\nrock. In some places the raths have been cultivated, but, as a rule,\nthis is looked upon as very unlucky, and sure to bring dire misfortune\non the man who attempts it. On the other hand, there appears to be no\nobjection to growing crops on the top of a souterrain. Many are, it is\ntrue, afraid to enter these dark abodes, and others consider it unwise\nto carry anything out of them. I have never heard them spoken of as\ntombs, and the fairies are regarded, not as ghosts, but as fallen\nangels, to whom no Church holds out a hope of salvation. Only in one\ninstance did a woman tell me that as fairies were good to the poor, she\nthought there would be hope for them hereafter. The Irish fairy remains\na pagan; the ancient well of pre-Christian days may be consecrated to\nthe Christian saint, and patterns held beside it, but no pious pilgrim\nprays on the rath or below the fairy rock.\n\nWe may now ask ourselves the meaning of these legends. The rath and\nsouterrain are undoubtedly the work of primitive man, yet here we have\nthe Sidh, inhabited by the fairy and the Tuatha de Danann. In the\n\"Colloquy of the Ancients\"[42] we are told it was out of a Sidh, Finn's\nchief musician, the dwarf Cnu deiriol came, and from another Sidh came\nBlathnait, whom the small man espoused. It was fairy music which Cnu\ntaught to the musicians of the Fianna. It was out of a Sidh in the south\nthat Cas corach, son of the Olave of the Tuatha de Danann, came to the\nKing of Ulidia.[43]\n\nIn Derrick's \"Image of Ireland,\" written in 1578, and published in\n1581, the Olympian gods call upon certain little mountain gods, whom I\nshould be inclined to identify with the fairies, to come to their aid:\n\n \"Let therefore little Mountain Gods\n A troupe (as thei maie spare)\n Of breechlesse men at all assaies,\n Both leauvie and prepare\n With mantelles down unto the shoe\n To lappe them in by night;\n With speares and swordes and little dartes\n To shield them from despight.\"[44]\n\nMay I, in conclusion, express my belief that in the traditions of\nfairies, Danes, and Pechts the memory is preserved of an early race or\nraces of short stature, but of considerable strength, who built\nunderground dwellings, and had some skill in music and in other arts?\nThey appear to have been spread over a great part of Europe. It is\npossible that, as larger races advanced, these small people were driven\nsouthwards to the mountains of Switzerland, westward towards the\nAtlantic, and northward to Lapland, where their descendants may still be\nfound. No doubt there is a large supernatural element, especially in the\nstories of the fairies; but the same may be said of the tales of witches\nin the seventeenth century. The witch was undoubtedly human, yet she was\nbelieved, and sometimes believed herself, to possess superhuman powers,\nand to be in communication with unearthly beings. We must also remember\nthe widespread belief in local spirits or gods, and a taller race of\ninvaders might well fear the magic of an earlier people long settled in\nthe country, even if the latter were inferior in bodily and mental\ncharacteristics.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[31] Read before the Arch\u00e6ological Section of the Belfast\nNaturalists' Field Club, February 12, 1908.\n\n[32] Pp. 12-20. Several sections of this rath are given; also a\nview showing Greenmount in 1748, and a plan of the same date--both from\nWright's \"Louthiana,\" published in that year.\n\n[33] Part I., Letter IV., Edition 1822.\n\n[34] _Ulster Journal of Arch\u00e6ology_, 1861-62, p. 212.\n\n[35] See \"Prehistoric Stone Forts of Northern Clare,\" by Thomas\nJ. Westropp, M.A., M.R.I.A. (_Journal of the Royal Society of\nAntiquaries of Ireland_, vol. vi., fifth series, 1896).\n\n[36] See \"Illustrations of Irish History,\" by C. Litton\nFalkiner, p. 416. He considers it probable that Jorevin de Rochefort was\nAlbert Jouvin de Rochefort, Tr\u00e9sorier de France.\n\n[37] See Ulster Fairies, Danes and Pechts, p. 28.\n\n[38] See Annual Report of Belfast Naturalists' Field Club,\n1907-08, \"A Holiday Trip to West Kerry,\" p. 73.\n\n[39] See Mr. David MacRitchie's \"Northern Trolls,\" read at the\nFolklore Congress, Chicago, 1893, p. 12.\n\n[40] See Ulster Fairies, Danes and Pechts, p. 27.\n\n[41] See \"Memoirs of Anne, Lady Fanshawe,\" edited by Herbert C.\nFanshawe, pp. 57-59.\n\n[42] Translated by Mr. S. H. O'Grady in \"Silva Gadelica,\"\nvolume with translation and notes. (For Cnu and Blathnait, see pp.\n115-117.)\n\n[43] _Ibid._, pp. 187, 188.\n\n[44] P. 38, Edinburgh, 1883; edited by John Small, M.A.,\nF.S.A.Scot.\n\n\n\n\nTraditions of Dwarf Races in Ireland and in Switzerland[45]\n\n\nIn the traditions alike of Switzerland and of Ireland we hear of a\ndwarfish people, dwellers in mountain caves or in artificial\nsouterrains, who are gifted with magical powers. The quaint figure of\nthe Swiss dwarf with his peaked cap has been made familiar to us by the\ncarvings of the peasantry, and in Antrim and Donegal the Irish fairy is\nsaid to wear a peaked cap of plaited rushes. With rushes he also makes a\ncovering for his feet.[46]\n\nClosely allied to the fairy is the Grogach, with his large head and\nsoft body, who appears to have no bones as he comes tumbling down the\nhills. These Grogachs I heard of in North-East Antrim, and in them, as\nin the fairies, the supernatural characteristics preponderate. I was\ntold that both were full of magic, and had come from Egypt.\n\nWe have, however, two other small races who are usually regarded by the\npeasantry as strictly human, the Pechts and the Danes.[47] Two\ntraditions regarding Danes exist: sometimes we hear of tall Danes,\ndoubtless the medieval sea-rovers; sometimes of small Danes, the\nbuilders of many of the raths and souterrains.\n\nWhile the Danes are the great builders throughout Ireland, some of\nthe raths and souterrains, especially those in North-East Antrim, are\nsaid to have been made by the Pechts. Last summer I visited one of\nthese, the cave of Finn McCoul. It is a souterrain situated in\nGlenshesk, about three miles from Ballycastle. The ground above it is\nperfectly flat, no fort or any inequality to mark the spot; indeed, the\nfarmer who kindly opened it for me had at first a difficulty in knowing\nin what part of the field to dig, as the entrance had been covered. On\nmy second visit, however, I found he had discovered the spot. Entering a\nnarrow passage, I crept through an opening from one and a half to two\nfeet high, and found myself in a narrow chamber eight or nine feet long\nand little over four feet in height. The roof was formed of large flat\nslabs, which I was told were whinstone (basalt). At the opposite end of\nthis chamber there was another narrow opening, leading, I presume, to a\npassage. I did not, however, venture farther; but I understand this\nartificial cave extends for about twenty perches underground, and has\nseveral chambers.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE IX. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n GREY MAN'S PATH, FAIR HEAD.]\n\nI was told that this cave was the hiding-place of Finn McCoul. His\ngarden was pointed out to me on rising ground at some little distance,\nand I was also informed that about fifty years ago his castle stood on\nthe hill; but nothing now remains of it, the stones having been used\nwhen roads were made.\n\nThe following story was related to me on the spot: A Scotch giant came\nover to fight Finn McCoul, but was conquered and slain. To celebrate\nthis victory Finn invited the Grey Man of the Path to a feast; but as\nhares and rabbits would have been too small to furnish a repast for this\ngiant, Finn took his dog and went out to hunt red deer. They were\nunsuccessful, and in anger he slew his dog Brown,[48] which afterwards\ncaused him much sorrow.\n\nIn the Grey Man of the Path we have, doubtless, a purely mythical\ncharacter, an impersonation of the mists which gather round Benmore,[49]\nwhile Finn McCoul, or MacCumaill, is one of Ireland's greatest\ntraditional heroes. According to a well-known legend, he was a giant,\nand united Scotland and Ireland by a stupendous mole, of which the cave\nat Staffa and the Giant's Causeway are the two remaining fragments. In\nGlenshesk he is only a tall man, between seven and eight feet in height.\nSometimes he is said to have been chief of the Pechts; sometimes he is\nspoken of as their master, and it is said they worked as slaves to him\nand the Fians.\n\nAccording to tradition, the Pechts were very numerous, and must have\ncarried the heavy slabs for the roof of Finn McCoul's cave a distance of\nseveral miles. Although usually looked on as strictly human,\nsupernatural characteristics are sometimes attributed to them. Like the\nSwiss \"Servan,\" both they and the Grogachs have been known to thresh\ncorn or do other work for the farmers.\n\nI was told at Ballycastle of one man who always laid out at night the\nbundles of corn he expected the Grogach to thresh, and each morning the\nappointed task was accomplished. One night he forgot to lay the corn on\nthe floor of the barn, and threw his flail on the top of the stack. The\npoor Grogach imagined that he was to thresh the whole, and set to work\nmanfully; but the task was beyond his strength, and in the morning he\nwas found dead. The farmer and his wife buried him, and mourned deeply\nthe loss of their small friend.\n\nClough-na-murry Fort is said to be a \"gentle\"[50] place, yet an old man\nliving near it told me he did not believe in the Grogachs; he thought it\nwas the Danes who had worked for the farmers. He said these Danes were a\npersevering people, and that when they were in distress they would\nthresh corn for the farmers, if food were left out for them. Others say\nthat the Danes were too proud to work.\n\nOne does not hear much of Brownies in Ulster; but I have been told they\nwere hairy people who did not require clothes, but would thresh or cut\ndown a field of corn for a farmer. On one occasion, out of gratitude for\nthe work done, some porridge was left for them on plates round the fire.\nThey ate it, but went away crying sadly:\n\n \"I got my mate an' my wages,\n An' they want nae mair o' me.\"\n\nAlthough, according to some, the Grogachs gladly accept food, others say\nthat they and the Pechts are offended if it is offered to them, and\nleave to return no more.\n\nI have not often heard of clothes being offered to the Pechts or\nGrogachs, but the Rev. John G. Campbell relates a story of a Brownie in\nShetland who ground grain in a hand-quern at night. He was rewarded for\nhis labours by a cloak and hood left for him at the mill. These\ndisappeared in the morning, and with them the Brownie, who never came\nback.[51]\n\nA similar tale is told of a Swiss dwarf. At Ems, in Canton Valais, a\nmiller engaged the services of a \"Gottwerg,\" and the little man worked\nearly and late, sometimes rising in the night to see that all was in\norder. The mill produced twice as much as formerly, and at the end of\nthe year the dwarf was rewarded by a garment made of the best wool. He\nput it on, jumped for joy, and crying out, \"Now I am a handsome man, I\nhave no more need to grind rye,\" he disappeared, and was not seen\nagain.[52]\n\nIn these tales from Ireland, Scotland, and Switzerland, may there not be\na reminiscence of a conquered race of small stature, but considerable\nstrength, who worked either as slaves or for some small gift? No doubt\nthey were badly fed, and their clothing would be of the scantiest.\n\nLike the Danes and the Pechts, the fairies live underground. There is a\nwidespread story of a fairy woman who begs a cottager not to throw water\nout at the doorstep, as it falls down her chimney. The request is\ninvariably granted.\n\nSome of these \"wee folk\" dwell in palaces under the sea. I heard a\nstory at Ballyliffan, in Co. Donegal, of men being out in a boat which\nwas nearly capsized by a heavy sea raised by a fairy. At last one sailor\ncried out to throw a nail against the advancing wave; this was done, and\nthe nail hit the fairy. That night a woman, skilled in healing, received\na message calling upon her to go to the courts below the sea. She\nconsented, extracted the nail, and cured the fairy woman, but was\ncareful not to eat any food offered to her. This fairy is said to have\npromised a man a pot of gold if he would marry her, but he refused.\n\nAn old man at Culdaff told me another tale of the sea. A fishing-boat\nwas nearly overwhelmed, when a fairy-boat was seen riding on the top of\na great wave, and a voice from it cried: \"Do not harm that boat; an old\nfriend of mine is in it.\" The voice belonged to a man who was supposed\nto be dead; but he had been carried off by the fairies, and would not\nallow them to injure his old friend.\n\nIf the Irish fairy has power over the waves, the Swiss dwarf can divert\nthe course of the devastating landslip. I was told by an elderly man in\nthe Bernese Oberland of the destruction of Burglauenen, a village near\nGrindelwald. All the cottages were overwhelmed by a landslip except one\npoor hut, which had given shelter to a dwarf, who was seen, seated on a\nstone, directing the moving mass away from the abode of his friends. A\nsimilar story is told of the destruction of Niederdorf, in the\nSimmenthal.[53] One Sunday evening a feeble little man clad in rags came\nto the village; he knocked at several houses, praying the inmates to\ngive him, for the love of God, a night's shelter. Everywhere he was\nrefused--one hard-hearted woman telling him to go and break\nstones--until he came to a poor basket-maker and his wife, who gave him\nthe best they had, and when he left he promised that God would reward\nthem. A week later the village was destroyed by a terrible landslip, but\nhere also the dwarf saved the dwelling of those who had befriended him.\n\nIn this story and in many others the Swiss dwarf appears as a good\nChristian, but sometimes a rude and terrible form of paganism is\nattributed to him. In the tale of the \"Gotwergini im L\u00f6tschental\"[54]\nthese dwarfs are accused of devouring children, and are said to have\nburied an old woman alive. She was apparently one of themselves. When\nthey were laying her in the pit she wept bitterly, and begged that she\nmight go free, saying she could still cook. But the dwarfs showed no\npity: placing some bread and wine beside her, they covered in the grave.\nIs this an instance of the primitive barbarism of killing those no\nlonger able to work, which is said still to exist among the Todas of\nIndia, and of which traces have been found in the customs of Scandinavia\nand other countries?[55]\n\nThe Irish fairy never appears as a Christian.[56] He is regarded by the\npeasant as a fallen angel, and no Church holds out to him the hope of\nsalvation. I was told in Inishowen that a priest walking between\nClonmany and Ballyliffan was surrounded by the \"wee folk,\" who asked\nanxiously if they could be saved. He threw his book towards them, bade\nthem catch it, and he would give them an answer; but at the sight of the\nbreviary they scattered and fled.[57]\n\nThe Protestant Bible and hymn-book are equally dreaded by them, and are\nused as a spell against their influence. I was told in the North of\nAntrim of a woman who was nearly carried off by the fairies because her\nfriends had omitted to leave these books beside her. Luckily her\nhusband, who was sleeping by the fire, awoke in time to save her. A pair\nof scissors, a darning-needle, or any piece of iron, would have been\nefficacious as a charm, so would the husband's trousers, if thrown\nacross the bed.\n\nWhile, as we have seen, the fairies are endowed with many supernatural\nqualities, they have much in common with ordinary mortals; there are\nfairy men, fairy women, and fairy children. I have more than once heard\nof a fairy's funeral; they intermarry with mortals, and I have been told\nthat those who bear the name of Ferris are descended from fairies. I\npresume Ferris is a corruption of Fir Sidhe. Fairies are never\nassociated with churchyards, nor are they usually looked on as the\nspirits of the departed. The banshee may, indeed, partake to some extent\nof a ghostly character. Lady Wilde speaks of her as the \"spirit of\ndeath--the most weird and awful of all the fairy powers,\" and adds, \"but\nonly certain families of historic lineage or persons gifted with music\nand song are attended by this spirit.\"[58]\n\nIt has often been stated that the banshee is an appanage of the great,\nbut this is not the belief of the peasantry of Ulster: many families in\nhumble life have a banshee attached to them. When in a curragh on Lough\nSessiagh, in Co. Donegal, the neighbouring hill of Ben Olla was pointed\nout to me, and I was also shown a small cottage in which a girl named\nOlla had lived. She was carried off by the fairies, and her wailing was\nheard before the death of her mother, and again before the death of\nseveral members of her family. A farmer, or even a labourer, may have a\nbanshee attached to his family--a little white creature was the\ndescription given to me by a woman who said she had seen one; others say\nthat banshees are like birds.\n\nTo leave these weird apparitions, it will be seen that the ordinary\nfairy, the Grogach, the Pecht, and the Dane, all inhabit underground\ndwellings, although the fairy and Grogach are regarded more in the light\nof supernatural beings. To cut down a fairy or a \"Skiough\" bush is to\ncourt misfortune, sometimes to attempt an impossible task. In Glenshesk\nsome men tried to cut down a Skiough bush, but the hatchet broke; after\nseveral failures they gave up, and the bush still flourishes. Another\nbush was transplanted, but returned during the night.\n\nTo the Danes and Pechts the building of all the raths and souterrains\nis ascribed, and in North-East Antrim the Pechts are said to have been\nso numerous that, when making a fort, they could stand in a long line,\nand hand the earth from one to another, no one moving a step. A\nsimilar story is told of the Scotch Pechts by the Rev. Andrew Small\nin his \"Antiquities of Fife\" (1823).[59] Speaking of the Round Tower\nof Abernethy, \"The story goes,\" he says, \"that it was built by the\nPechts ... and that while the work was going on they stood in a row\nall the way from the Lomond Hill to the building, handing the stones\nfrom one to another.... That it has been built of freestone from the\nLomond Hill is clear to a demonstration, as the grist or nature of\nthe stone points out the very spot where it has been taken from--namely,\na little west, and up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile\nstraight south from Meralsford.\" According to popular tradition in\nScotland, these Pechts or Picts were great builders, and many of the\nedifices ascribed to them belong to a comparatively late period. Mr.\nMacRitchie suggests that in the erection of some of these the Picts\nmay have been employed as serfs or slaves.[60] He believes the Pechts\nto be the Picts of history. Mr. W. C. Mackenzie, on the other hand,\nhas suggested that they are an earlier dwarf race, the Pets or Peti,\nwho have been confused by the peasantry with the Picts.[61] This is\na matter I must leave to others to decide; but I may remark in passing\nthat in an ancient poem on the Cruithnians, preserved in the book of\nLecan, we have a suggestion that these Cruithnians or Picts were a\nsmaller race than their enemies, the Tuath Fidga. We are told how\n\n \"God vouchsafed unto them, in munificence,\n For their faithfulness--for their reward--\n To protect them from the poisoned arms\n Of the repulsive horrid giants.\"[62]\n\nThen follows an account of the cure discovered by the Cruithnian\nDruid--how he milked thrice fifty cows into one pit, and bathing in this\npit appears to have healed the warriors and preserved them from harm.\n\nIn an article on \"The Fairy Mythology of Europe in its Relation to Early\nHistory,\"[63] Mr. A. S. Herbert identifies the early dwarf race with\nPal\u00e6olithic man, and states that from such skeletons as have been\nunearthed \"it is believed that they were a people of Mongolian or\nTuranian origin, short, squat, yellow-skinned, and swarthy.\"\n\nProfessor J. Kollmann, of Basle, speaking of dwarf races, describes \"the\nflat, broad face, with a flat, broad, low nose and large nose\nroots.\"[64]\n\nCompare these statements with the description given by Harris in the\neighteenth century of the native inhabitants of the northern and eastern\ncoasts of Ireland. \"They are,\" he says, \"of a squat sett Stature, have\nshort, broad Faces, thick Lips, hollow Eyes, and Noses cocked up, and\nseem to be a distinct people from the Western Irish, by whom they are\ncalled Clan-galls--_i.e._, the offspring of the Galls. The curious may\ncarry these observations further. Doubtless a long intercourse and\nvarious mixtures of the natives have much worn out these distinctions,\nof which I think there are yet visible remains.\"[65]\n\nWe have, indeed, had in Ireland from very early times a mingling of\nvarious races, but in the North we are in the home of the Irish Picts or\nCruithnians, and possibly this description of Harris may indicate that\nsome of the inhabitants in his day bore marks of a dwarfish ancestry. I\nhave already drawn attention to a statement in an old Irish\nmanuscript[66] that the Luchorpan or wee-bodies, the Fomores and others,\nwere of the race of Ham. Keating also speaks of the Fomorians being\nsea-rovers of the race of Cam (Ham), who fared from Africa,[67] and\nstates that among the articles of tribute exacted by them from the race\nof Neimhidh were two-thirds of the children. Unless these were all\nslaughtered, we have here an intermingling of races, and in the same way\nit would be quite possible that Finn McCoul might be a tall man, and yet\nthe leader of the small Pechts. The capture of women and children has\nbeen a common practice among savage races, and this I believe to be the\norigin of many fairy-tales, rather than any reference to the abode of\nthe dead. Throughout the \"Colloquy of the Ancients,\" Finn and the Fianna\nfrequently enter the green sidh--the mound where the Tuatha de Danann\ndwell, and from which the fairies derive their name \"fir-sidh.\"\nSometimes they fight as allies of the inmates; frequently they\nintermarry with them.[68] Throughout this colloquy the dwellers in the\nsidh possess many magical powers, but they hardly appear as gods of the\nancient Irish, and the verse in Fiacc's hymn referring to the worship of\nthe Sidis is not among the stanzas regarded as genuine by Professor\nBury.[69]\n\nWe see that both in Ireland and Switzerland there are many legends of\ndwarf races who inhabit underground dwellings. In Switzerland their\nskeletons have been found. Those discovered by Dr. Nuesch at\nSchweizersbild, near Schaffhausen, have been minutely described by Dr.\nJ. Kollmann, Professor of Anatomy at Basle.[70] This burial-place dates\nfrom the early Neolithic period; in it are found skeletons belonging to\nmen of ordinary height, and in close proximity the graves of dwarfs.\n\nThe neighbourhood of Schaffhausen appears to be rich in the remains of\nearly man; several skeletons have been found in the cave of Dachsenb\u00fcel,\ntwo of them of small men, \"such as in Africa would be accounted\npygmies.\"[71] Professor Kollmann mentions several other places in\nSwitzerland where skeletons of dwarfs have been found, as also in the\nGrotte des Enfants on the Bay of Genoa. He also speaks of dwarf races\nexisting at the present day in Sicily, Sardinia, Sumatra, the Philippine\nIslands, besides the well-known Veddas of Ceylon, the Andaman Islanders,\nand the African pygmies. He believes that these small people represent\nthe oldest form of human beings, and that from them the taller races\nhave been evolved.\n\nHow long did these primitive people continue to exist in Ireland and\nin Switzerland? It would be difficult to say. Tradition ascribes to them\na strong physique, but even if they could hold their own with the taller\nraces in the Neolithic period, it must have been hard for them to\ncontend with those who used weapons of bronze or iron, and, as we have\nseen, iron is specially obnoxious to the fairies. The people, however,\nwho built the large number of souterrains dotted over Antrim and Down\ncould not be easily exterminated. Many of them may have been enslaved or\ngradually absorbed in the rest of the population; others would take\nrefuge in retired spots, such as are still spoken of as \"gentle\" or\nhaunted by fairies. If I might hazard a conjecture, I should say that\nboth in Ireland and in Switzerland dwarf races had survived far into\nChristian times, perhaps to a comparatively recent period. The Irish\nfairy may possibly represent those who refused to accept the teaching of\nSt. Patrick and St. Columbkill, while St. Gall and other Irish monks may\nhave numbered Swiss dwarfs among their converts. Be this as it may, we\nhave certainly in Ulster the tradition of two dwarf races, the small\nDanes and the Pechts, who are undoubtedly human. We are shown their\nhandiwork, and, primitive as are their underground dwellings, the\nbuilders of the souterrains had advanced far beyond the stage when man\ncould only find shelter in the caves provided for him by Nature. How\nmany centuries did he take to learn the lesson? It is a far-reaching\nquestion, but here fairy-tales and popular legends are silent. They keep\nno count of time, although they may bring to us whispers from long-past\nages.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[45] Reprinted from the _Antiquary_, October, 1909.\n\n[46] May it not be that Cinderella's glass shoe was really\ngreen and derived its name from the Irish word _glas_, denoting that\ncolour, which is familiar to us in place-names? I make this conjecture\nwith diffidence. I know the usual explanation is that the shoe was made\nof a kind of fur called in Old French vair, and that a transcriber\nchanged this word into _verre_. Miss Cox, in her \"Cinderella,\" mentions\nthat she had only found six instances of a glass shoe. As Littr\u00e9 says in\nthe article on _vair_ in his Dictionary, a _soulier de verre_ is absurd.\nA fur slipper, however, does not appear very suitable for a ball.\n\n[47] See Ulster Fairies, Danes and Pechts, p. 27 _et seq._\n\n[48] This is, no doubt, a corruption of Bran.\n\n[49] The Grey Man's Path is a fissure on the face of Benmore or\nFair Head, by which a good climber can ascend the cliff. It has been\nsuggested that this Grey Man is one of the old gods, possibly Manannan,\nthe Irish sea-god. In the _Ulster Journal of Arch\u00e6ology_ for 1858, vol.\nvi., p. 358, there is an account given of the Grey Man appearing near\nthe mouth of the Bush River to two youths, who believed they would have\nseen his cloven foot had he not been standing in the water. They had at\nfirst mistaken the apparition for an ordinary man.\n\n[50] A place inhabited by fairies, or \"gentlefolk.\"\n\n[51] \"Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland,\"\np. 188.\n\n[52] Dr. J. Jegerlehner, \"Was die Sennen erz\u00e4hlen, M\u00e4rchen und\nSagen aus dem Wallis,\" pp. 102, 103.\n\n[53] See \"Der Untergang des Niederdorfs\" in \"Sagen und\nSagengeschichten aus dem Simmenthal,\" vol. ii., pp. 29-44, by D.\nGempeler.\n\n[54] See \"Am Herdfeuer der Sennen, Neue M\u00e4rchen und Sagen aus\ndem Wallis,\" pp. 26-31, by Dr. J. Jegerlehner.\n\n[55] See \"Folklore as an Historical Science,\" by Sir G.\nLaurence Gomme, pp. 67-78.\n\n[56] I have heard of only one exception.\n\n[57] Patrick Kennedy, in \"A Belated Priest,\" tells how the\n\"good people\" surrounded a priest on a dark night, and asked him to\ndeclare that at the Last Day their lot would not be with Satan. He\nreplied by the question, \"Do you adore and love the Son of God?\" There\ncame no answer but weak and shrill cries, and with a rushing of wings\nthe fairies disappeared (see \"Fictions of the Irish Celts,\" p. 89).\n\nIn \"The Priest's Supper,\" the good people are anxious to know if their\nsouls will be saved at the Last Day, but when an interview with a priest\nis suggested to them they fly away (see \"Fairy Legends and Traditions of\nthe South of Ireland,\" by T. Crofton Croker, pp. 36-42).\n\n[58] \"Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of\nIreland,\" vol. i., p. 250.\n\n[59] It is quoted by Mr. David MacRitchie in \"Testimony of\nTradition,\" p. 67.\n\n[60] \"Testimony of Tradition,\" p. 68.\n\n[61] See \"The Picts and Pets\" in the _Antiquary_ for May, 1906,\np. 172.\n\n[62] \"The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius,\"\nedited, with a translation and notes, by James H. Todd, D.D., F.T.C.\n(Dublin, 1848). The verse quoted is given at p. lxix, additional notes.\n\n[63] See the _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1908.\n\n[64] See \"Ein dolichokephaler Sch\u00e4del aus dem Dachsenb\u00fcel und\ndie Bedeutung der kleinen Menschenrassen f\u00fcr das Abstammungsproblem der\nGrossen.\" His words are: \"In dem platten, breiten Gesicht sitzt dann\neine platte, breite, niedrige Nase, mit breiter Nasenw\u00fcrzel.\" He is\nspeaking of the characteristics of the present dwarf races found\nthroughout the world, and quotes the authority of Hagen.\n\n[65] Sir James Ware's \"Antiquities of Ireland,\" translated,\nrevised, and improved, with many material additions, by Walter Harris,\nEsq., vol. ii., chap. ii., p. 17 (Dublin, 1764). The above is taken from\none of the additional notes by Harris.\n\n[66] Quoted by Mr. Standish H. O'Grady in \"Silva Gadelica\"\n(translation and notes), pp. 563, 564. See Ante p. 32.\n\n[67] Keating's \"History of Ireland,\" book i., chap. viii.\nTranslation by P. W. Joyce, LL.D., M.R.I.A.\n\n[68] See Cael's \"Wooing of Credhe\" in \"The Colloquy of the\nAncients\"; \"Silva Gadelica,\" by Standish H. O'Grady, volume with\ntranslation and notes, pp. 119-122.\n\n[69] See \"Life of St. Patrick,\" p. 264.\n\n[70] See Der Mensch, \"Separat-Abzug aus den Denkschriften der\nSchweiz Naturforschenden Gesellschaft,\" Band xxxv, 1896.\n\n[71] See the paper already referred to, \"Ein dolichokephaler\nSch\u00e4del,\" etc. Professor J. Kollmann's words are: \"Die man in Africa\nwohl zu den Pygm\u00e4en z\u00e4hlen wurde.\"\n\n\n\n\nFolklore from Donegal[72]\n\n\nThe stories current among the peasantry are varied, especially in\nDonegal, where we hear of giants and fairies, of small and tall Finns,\nof short, stout Firbolgs or Firwolgs, of Danes who made heather ale, and\nsometimes of Pechts with their large feet.\n\nAccording to one legend, the fairies were angels who had remained\nneutral during the great war in heaven. They are sometimes represented\nas kindly, but often as mischievous. Near Dungiven, in Co. Derry, I was\ntold of a friendly fairy who, dressed as an old woman, came one evening\nto a cottage where a poor man and his wife lived. She said to the wife\nthat if the stone at the foot of the table were lifted she would find\nsomething that would last her all her days. As soon as the visitor was\ngone, the wife called to her husband to bring a crowbar; they raised the\nstone, and under it was a crock of gold.\n\nThe old man who related this story to me had himself found in a bog a\ncrock covered with a slate. He hoped it might be full of gold, but it\nonly contained bog butter, which he used for greasing cart-wheels.\n\nA carman at Rosapenna told me how the fairies would lead people astray,\ncarrying one man off to Scotland. A girl had her face twisted through\ntheir influence, and had to go to the priest to be cured. \"He was,\" the\nman added, \"one of the old sort, who could work miracles, of whom there\nare not many nowadays.\" Near Finntown a girl had offended the fairies by\nwashing clothes in a \"gentle\" burn, or stream haunted by the little\npeople. Her eyes were turned to the back of her head. She, too, invoked\nthe aid of a priest, and his blessing restored them to their proper\nplace.\n\nDonegal fairies appear able to adapt themselves to modern conditions. I\nwas told at Finntown they did not interfere with the railway, as they\nsometimes enjoyed a ride on the top of the train. Although usually only\nseen in secluded spots, they occasionally visit a fair or market, but\nare much annoyed if recognized.\n\nIn the following story we have an illustration of intercourse between\nfairies and human beings: An old woman at Glenties was called upon by a\nstrange man to give her aid at the birth of a child. At first she\nrefused, but he urged her, saying it was not far, and in the end she\nconsented. When he brought her to his dwelling she saw a daughter whom\nshe had supposed to be dead, but who was now the wife of the fairy man.\nThe daughter begged her not to let it be known she was her mother, and,\ngiving her a ring, bade her look on it at times and she would know when\nthey could meet. She also added that her husband would certainly offer a\nreward, but she implored her mother not to accept it, but to ask that\nthe red-haired boy might be given to her. \"He will not be willing to\npart from him,\" the daughter added; \"but if you beg earnestly, he will\ngive him to you in the end.\" The mother attended her daughter, and when\nhis child was born the fairy man offered her a rich reward, but she\nrefused, praying only that the red-haired boy might be given to her. At\nfirst the father refused, but when she pleaded her loneliness, he\ngranted her request. The daughter was well pleased, told her mother they\nmight meet at the fair on the hill behind Glenties, but warned her that\neven if she saw the fairy man she must never speak to him. The old woman\nreturned to her home, taking her grandson, the red-haired boy, with her.\nShe kept the ring carefully, and it gave her warning when she would meet\nher daughter on the hill at Glenties. These interviews were for a long\ntime a great comfort to mother and daughter, but one day, in the joy of\nher heart, the mother shook hands with and spoke to the fairy man. He\nturned to her angrily asking how she could see him, and with that he\nblew upon her eyes, so that she could no longer discern fairies. The\nprecious ring also disappeared, and she never again saw her daughter.\n\nVariants of this story were told to me by an old woman at\nPortstewart, and by a man whom I met near Lough Salt during the\nRosapenna Conference of Field Clubs. In these versions there is no\nmention of the red-haired boy, nor of the old woman being the mother of\nthe fairy man's wife; she is simply called in to attend to her. When\nrubbing ointment on the infant, she accidentally draws her hand across\none of her eyes and acquires the power of seeing the fairies. Shortly\nafterwards she meets the fairy man at a market or fair, and inquires for\nhis wife. He is annoyed at being recognized, asks with which eye she\nsees him, blows upon it, and puts it out.[73]\n\nIn another Donegal legend the fairies gain possession of a bride, and\nwould have kept her in captivity had not their plans been frustrated by\na mortal. This is the story as told to me near Gweedore, and also at\nKincasslagh, a small seaport in the Rosses. Owen Boyle lived with his\nmother near Kincasslagh, and worked as a carpenter. One Hallow Eve, on\nhis return home, he found a calf was missing, and went out to look for\nit. He was told it was behind a stone near the spink or rock of\nDunathaid, and when he got there he saw the calf, but it ran away and\ndisappeared through an opening in the rock. Owen was at first afraid to\nfollow, but suddenly he was pushed in, and the door closed behind him.\nHe found himself in a company of fairies, and heard them saying: \"This\nis good whisky from O'Donnel's still. He buried a nine-gallon keg in the\nbog; it burst, the hoops came off, and the whisky has come to us.\" One\nof the fairies gave Owen a glass, saying he might be useful to them that\nnight. They asked if he would be willing to go with them, and, being\nanxious to get out of the cave, he at once consented. They all mounted\non horses, and away they went through Dungloe, across the hills to\nDochary, then to Glenties, and through Mount Charles to Ballyshannon,\nand thence to Connaught. They came to a house where great preparations\nwere being made for a wedding. The fairies told Owen to go in and dance\nwith any girl who asked him. He was much pleased to see that he was now\nwearing a good suit of clothes, and gladly joined in the dance. After a\ntime there was a cry that the bride would choose a partner, and the\npartner she chose was Owen Boyle. They danced until the bride fell down\nin a faint, and the fairies, who had crept in unseen, bore her away.\nThey mounted their horses and took the bride with them, sometimes one\ncarrying her and sometimes another. They had ridden thus for a time when\none of the fairies said to Owen: \"You have done well for us to-night.\"\n\"And little I have got for it,\" was the reply; \"not even a turn of\ncarrying the bride.\" \"That you ought to have,\" said the fairy, and\ncalled out to give the bride to Owen. Owen took her, and, urging his\nhorse, outstripped the fairies. They pursued him, but at Bal Cruit\nStrand he drew with a black knife a circle round himself and the bride,\nwhich the fairies could not cross. One of them, however, stretched out a\nlong arm and struck the bride on the face, so that she became deaf and\ndumb. When the fairies left him, Owen brought the girl to his mother,\nand in reply to her questions, said he had brought home one to whom all\nkindness should be shown. They gave her the best seat by the fire; she\nhelped in the housework, but remained speechless.\n\nA year passed, and on Hallow Eve Owen went again to Dunathaid. The door\nof the cave was open. He entered boldly, and found the fairies enjoying\nthemselves as before. One of them recognized him, and said: \"Owen Boyle,\nyou played us a bad trick when you carried off that woman.\" \"And a\npretty woman you left with me! She can neither hear nor speak!\" \"Oh!\"\nsaid another, \"if she had a taste of this bottle, she could do both!\"\nWhen Owen heard these words he seized the bottle, ran home with it, and,\npouring a little into a glass, gave it to the poor girl to drink.\nHearing and speech were at once restored. Owen returned the bottle to\nthe fairies, and, before long, he set out for Connaught, taking the girl\nwith him to restore her to her parents. When he arrived, he asked for a\nnight's lodging for himself and his companion. The mother, although she\nsaid she had little room, admitted them, and soon Owen saw her looking\nat the girl. \"Why are you gazing at my companion?\" he asked. \"She is so\nlike a daughter of mine who died a twelvemonth ago.\" \"No,\" replied Owen;\n\"she did not die; she was carried off by the fairies, and here she is.\"\nThere was great rejoicing, and before long Owen was married to the girl,\nthe former bridegroom having gone away. He brought her home to\nKincasslagh, and not a mile from the village, close to Bal Cruit Strand,\nmay be seen the ring which defended her and Owen from the fairies. It is\na very large fairy ring, but why the grass should grow luxuriantly on it\ntradition does not say.\n\nDuring the Field Club Conference at Rosapenna a variant of this story\nwas told me by a lad on the heights above Gortnalughoge Bay. Here the\nman who rode with the fairies was John Friel, from Fanad. They went to\nDublin and brought away a young girl from her bed, leaving something\nbehind, which the parents believed to be their dead daughter. Meanwhile\nthe young girl was taken northwards by the fairies. As they drew near to\nFanad, John Friel begged to be allowed to carry her, and quickly taking\nher to his own cottage, kept her there with his mother. The girl was\ndeaf and dumb, but there was no mention of the magic circle or of the\nblow from the fairy's hand. At the end of the year John Friel, like Owen\nBoyle, pays another visit to the fairies, overhears their conversation,\nsnatches the bottle, and a few drops from it restore speech and hearing\nto the girl. He takes her to Dublin. Her parents cannot at first believe\nthat she is truly their daughter, but the mother recognizes her by a\nmark on the shoulder, and the tale ends with great rejoicing.[74]\n\nIn these stories we see the relations between fairies and mortals. The\nfairy man marries a human wife; he appears solicitous for her health,\nand is willing to pay a high reward to the nurse, but the caution his\nwife gives to her mother shows her fear of him, and when the latter\nforgets this warning and speaks to the husband, he effectively stops all\nintercourse between her and her daughter.\n\nIn another story we see that it was the living girl who was carried off,\nand only a false image left to deceive her parents.[75] It is true that,\nthrough the magic of the fairies, she becomes deaf and dumb, but when\nthis is overcome, she returns home safe and sound. The black knife used\nby Owen Boyle was doubtless an iron knife, that metal being always\nobnoxious to the fairies.\n\nStories of children being carried off by fairies are numerous. There was\na man lived near Croghan Fort, not far from Lifford, who was short, and\nhad a cataract--or, as the country-people call it, a pearl--on his eye.\nHe was returning home after the birth of his child, when he met the\nfairies carrying off the infant. They were about to change a benwood\ninto the likeness of a child, saying:\n\n \"Make it wee, make it short;\n Make it like its ain folk;\n Put a pearl in its eye;\n Make it like its Dadie.\"\n\nHere the man interrupted them, throwing up sand, and exclaiming: \"In\nthe name of God, this to youse and mine to me!\" They flung his own child\nat him, but it broke its hinch, or thigh, and was a cripple all its\ndays.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE X. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n TORMORE, TORY ISLAND.]\n\nIt is not often that fairies are associated with the spirits of the\ndeparted, but in Tory Island and in some other parts of Donegal it is\nbelieved that those who are drowned become fairies. In Tory Island I\nalso heard that those who exceeded in whisky met the same fate.\n\nAccording to the inhabitants of this island, fairies can make themselves\nlarge or small; their hair may be red, white, or black; but they dress\nin black--a very unusual colour for fairies to appear in. It may perhaps\nbe explained by remembering that Tory Island, or Toirinis, was a\nstronghold of the Fomorians, whom Keating describes as \"sea rovers of\nthe race of Cam, who fared from Africa.\"[76] I need hardly add that\n\"Cam\" is an old name for \"Ham.\" I should infer that the fairies of Tory\nIsland represent a dark race.\n\nKing Balor, it is true, is not of diminutive stature. I heard much of\nthis chieftain with the eye at the back of his head, which, if\nuncovered, would kill anyone exposed to its gaze. He knew it had been\nsaid in old times that he should die by the hand of his daughter's son,\nand he determined his daughter should remain childless. He shut her up\nin Tormore, with twelve ladies to wait on her. Balor had no smith on the\nisland, but at Cloghanealy, on the mainland, there lived a smith who had\nthe finest cow in the world, named Glasgavlen. He kept a boy to watch\nit, but, notwithstanding this precaution, two of Balor's servants\ncarried off the cow. When the herd-boy saw it was gone, he wept\nbitterly, for the smith had told him his head would be taken off if he\ndid not bring her back. Suddenly a fairy, Geea Dubh, came out of the\nrock, and told the boy the cow was in Tory, and if he followed her\nadvice he would get it back. She made a curragh for him, and he crossed\nover to Tory, but he did not get the cow. The tale now becomes confused.\nWe hear of twelve children, and how Balor ordered them all to be\ndrowned, but his daughter's son was saved. The fairy told the herd-boy\nthat, if the child were taken care of, it would grow up like a crop\nwhich, when put into the earth one day, sprouts up the next.\n\nThe boy took service under Balor, and the child was sent to the ladies,\nwho brought him up for three years. At the end of that time the herd boy\ntook him to the mainland, where he grew up a strong youth, and worked\nfor the smith. On one occasion Balor sent messengers across to the\nmainland, but the lad attacked them and cut out their tongues. The\nmaimed messengers returned to Tory, and when Balor saw them he knew that\nhe who had done this deed was the dreaded grandson. He set out to kill\nhim; but when the youth saw Balor approaching the forge, he drew the\npoker from the fire and thrust it into the eye at the back of the King's\nhead.\n\nThe wounded Balor called to his grandson to come to him, and he would\nleave him everything. The youth was wise; he did not go too near Balor,\nbut followed him from Falcarragh to Gweedore. \"Are you near me?\" was the\nquestion put by the King as he walked along, water streaming from his\nwounded eye; and this water formed the biggest lough in the world, three\ntimes as deep as Lough Foyle.\n\nI have given this story as it was told to me by an elderly man in a\ncottage on Tory Island.\n\nA version of it is related by the late Most Rev. Dr. MacDevitt in the\n\"Donegal Highlands.\" It is referred to by Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in\n\"Highways and Byways in Donegal and Antrim,\" and a very full narrative\nis given by Dr. O'Donovan in a note in his edition of the \"Annals of the\nFour Masters.\"[77] Dr. O'Donovan states that he had the story from Shane\nO'Dugan, whose ancestor is said to have been living in Tory in the time\nof St. Columbkille. Here we read of the stratagem by which Balor,\nassuming the shape of a red-haired little boy, carried off the famous\ncow Glasgavlen from the chieftain MacKineely, and it is not the herdboy,\nbut the chieftain himself, who is wafted across to Tory Island and\nintroduced to Balor's daughter. Three sons are born; Balor orders them\nall to be drowned, but the eldest is saved by the friendly banshee and\ntaken to his father, who places him in fosterage under his brother, the\ngreat smith Gavida. After a time MacKineely falls a victim to the\nvengeance of Balor, and is beheaded on the stone Clough-an-neely, where\nthe marks of his blood may still be seen.\n\nBalor now deems himself secure. He often visits the forge of Gavida, and\none day, when there, boasts of his conquest of MacKineely. No sooner has\nhe uttered the proud words than the young smith seizes a glowing rod\nfrom the furnace and thrusts it through Balor's basilisk eye so far that\nit comes out at the other side of his head.\n\nIt will be noted that in this version Balor's death is instantaneous;\nnothing is said about the deep lough formed by the water from his eye.\n\nAccording to O'Flaherty's \"Ogygia,\" Balor was killed at the second\nbattle of Moyture \"by a stone thrown at him by his grandson by his\ndaughter from a machine called Tabhall (which some assert to be a\nsling).\"[78]\n\nIf Balor is the grim hero of Tory Island, on the mainland we hear much\nof Finn McCoul. I was informed that he had an eye at the back of his\nhead, and was so tall his feet came out at the door of his house. How\nlarge the house was, tradition does not say. The island of Carrickfinn\nopposite to Bunbeg is said to have been a favourite hunting-ground of\nFinn McCoul. When crossing over to this island, I was told by the\nboatman that the Danes were stout, small, and red-haired, and that they\nlived in the caves. The Finns, he said, were even smaller, dark yellow\npeople.\n\nNear Loughros Bay I saw the Cashel na Fian, but whether it was built by\ntall or small Finns I do not know. Part of the wall was standing, built\nin the usual fashion with stones without mortar.\n\nThis cashel was on a height, and near it I was shown some old fields,\nthe ridges farther apart than those of the present day, and I was told\nthey might be the fields of those who built the cashel, or perhaps of\nthe Firbolgs. The old man who acted as my guide softened the _b_ in the\nIrish manner, and spoke of those people as the Firwolgs; he said they\nwere short and stout, and cultivated the lands near the sea.\n\nTo the Danes are ascribed the kitchen-middens on Rosguill, and the lad\nI met above Gortnalughoge Bay, told me they lived and had their houses\non the water, I should infer after the fashion of the lake-dwellers. He\ncould not tell me the height of these Danes, but those who built the\nforts and cashels have often been described to me as short and\nred-haired. As I have stated on former occasions, I should be inclined\nto identify these short Danes with the Tuatha de Danann. I visited one\nof their cashels above Dungiven, under which there is a souterrain, and\nI also went to one on a hill above Downey's pier at Rosapenna. I believe\nit is the Downey's Fort marked on the Ordnance Survey map. It appeared\nto be regarded as an uncanny spot; treasure is said to be hidden under\nit, and I had a difficulty in getting anyone to take me to it. A little\ngirl, however, acted as guide, and a young farmer, who had at first\nrefused, joined me on the top. I took some very rough measurements of\nthis cashel. From the outer circumference it was about 60 by 60 feet;\nthe walls had fallen inwards, so it was impossible to say how thick they\nhad been originally, but the space free from stones in the centre\nmeasured about 25 by 25 feet.\n\nThe young farmer told me of some rocks at a place he called Dooey, on\nwhich crosses were inscribed. I believe that near Mevagh, in addition to\nthe spiral markings, which were visited by many members of the\nConference, there is another rock on which crosses are also inscribed.\n\nFirbolgs, Danes, Finns, and Pechts, of whom I have spoken on former\noccasions, are all strictly human; and if the fairy has been more\nspiritualized, I think, in many of the traditions, we may see how\nclosely he is allied to ancient and modern pygmies.\n\nFairies intermarry freely with the human race; they are not exempt from\ndeath, and sometimes come to a violent end. At Kincasslagh a graphic\nstory was told me by an old woman of how two banshees attacked a man\nwhen he was crossing the \"banks\" at Mullaghderg. His faithful dog had\nbeen chained at home, but, knowing the danger, escaped, saved his\nmaster, and killed one of the banshees. Her body was found next morning\nin the sand: she had wonderful eyes, small legs, and very large feet. I\nmay mention that large feet are characteristic of the Pechts.\n\nIt is true that those who are drowned may become fairies, but if a\nfisherman be missing, who shall say whether he lies at the bottom of the\nocean or has been carried captive to a lonely cave. In later times, when\nthe fairies were associated with fallen angels, one who had not received\nthe last rites of the Church might naturally be supposed to become a\nfairy.\n\nIn the tales of the giants we are brought face to face with beings of\ngreat strength, but in a low stage of civilization. Balor, we have seen,\nhad no smith on Tory Island, and in a story of the fight between the\ngiant Fargowan and a wild boar, his sister Finglas goes to his\nassistance with her apron filled with stones. Misled by the echo, she\njumps backwards and forwards across Lough Finn until at last her long\nhair becomes entangled and she is drowned. It is believed that her\ncoffin was found when the railway was being made; the boards were 14\nfeet long. Sometimes the works of Nature are ascribed to the giants; we\nhave all heard of Finn McCoul as the artificer of the Giant's Causeway,\nand near Glenties I was shown perched blocks, which had been thrown by\nthe giants. On the other hand, these giants, with all their magic, are\noften very human; perhaps we are listening to the tales of a small race,\nwho exaggerated the feats of their large but savage neighbours. Writing\nin 1860, J. F. Campbell, in his introduction to the \"Tales of the West\nHighlands,\" says: \"Probably, as it seems to me, giants are simply the\nnearest savage race at war with the race who tell the tales. If they\nperformed impossible feats of strength, they did no more than Rob Roy,\nwhose putting-stone is now shown to Saxon tourists ... in the shape of a\nboulder of many tons.\"[79] Turning to fairies, the same writer says: \"I\nbelieve there was once a small race of people in these islands, who are\nremembered as fairies.... They are always represented as living in green\nmounds. They pop up their heads when disturbed by people treading on\ntheir houses. They steal children. They seem to live on familiar terms\nwith the people about them when they treat them well, to punish them\nwhen they ill-treat them.... There are such people now. A Lapp is such a\nman; he is a little flesh-eating mortal, having control over the beasts,\nand living in a green mound, when he is not living in a tent or sleeping\nout of doors, wrapped in his deerskin shirt.\"[80]\n\nSince these words were written, our knowledge of dwarf races has been\ngreatly increased; their skeletons have been found in Switzerland and\nother parts of Europe. We are all familiar with the pygmies of Central\nAfrica, and the members of this Club will remember the interesting\nphotographs of them shown by Sir Harry Johnston. Besides the Andamnan\nIslanders, we have dwarf races in various parts of Asia, and doubtless\nwe have all read with interest the account of the New Guinea dwarfs,\nsent by the members of the British Expedition, who are investigating\nthat Island under many difficulties.\n\nDr. Eric Marshall describes these pygmies as \"averaging four feet six\ninches to four feet eight inches in height, wild, shy, treacherous\nlittle devils; these little men wander over the heavy jungle-clad hills,\nsubsisting on roots and jungle produce, hunting the wallaby, pig, and\ncassowary, and fishing in the mountain torrents.... The only metal tool\nthey possessed was a small, wedge-shaped piece of iron, one inch by two\ninches, inserted into a wooden handle, and answering the purpose of an\naxe, and with this the whole twenty-acre clearing had been made. None\nbut those who have worked and toiled in this dense jungle can really\nappreciate the perseverance and patience necessary to accomplish this,\nfor many of the trees are from twelve to fifteen feet in\ncircumference.\"[81]\n\nThroughout Donegal we find many traces of the primitive belief that men\nor women can change themselves into animals. At Rosapenna I was told of\na hare standing on its hind-legs like an old woman and sucking a cow,\nthe inference being plainly that the witch had transformed herself into\na hare. I heard similar stories at Glenties. Here I was told of a man\nwho killed a young seal, but was startled when the mother, weeping,\ncried out in Irish: \"My child, my child!\" Never again did he kill a\nseal.\n\nA story illustrating the same belief is told by John Sweeney, an\ninspector of National Schools, who wrote about forty years ago a series\nof letters describing Donegal and its inhabitants.[82] In his account of\nArranmore he says: \"Until lately the islanders could not be induced to\nattack a seal, they being strongly under the impression that these\nanimals were human beings metamorphosed by the power of their own\nwitchcraft. In confirmation of this notion, they used to repeat the\nstory of one Rodgers of their island, who, being alone in his skiff\nfishing, was overtaken by a storm, and driven on the shore of the Scotch\nHighlands. Having landed, he approached a house which was close to the\nbeach, and on entering it was accosted by name. Expressing his surprise\nat finding himself known in a strange country, and by one whom he had\nnever seen, the old man who addressed him bared his head, and, pointing\nto a scar on his skull, reminded Rodgers of an encounter he had with a\nseal in one of the caves of Arranmore. 'I was,' he said, 'that seal, and\nthis is the mark of the wound you inflicted on me. I do not blame you,\nhowever, for you were not aware of what you were doing.'\"\n\nI fear I have lingered too long over these old-world stories. To me\nthey point to a far-distant past, when Ulster was covered with forests,\nin which the red deer and perhaps the Irish elk roamed, and inhabited by\nrude tribes, some of them of dwarfish stature, others tall; but these\ngiants were apparently even less civilized than their smaller\nneighbours. Wars were frequent; the giant could hurl the unwieldy mass\nof stone, and the dwarfish man could send his arrow tipped with flint.\nEven more common was the stealthy raid, when women and children were\ncarried off to the gloomy souterrain. How long did these rude tribes\nsurvive? It would be difficult to say; possibly until after the days of\nSt. Patrick and St. Columkill.\n\nI will not, however, indulge in a fancy sketch. The pressing need is not\nto interpret but to collect these old tales. The antiquary of the\nfuture, with fuller knowledge at his command, may be better able to\ndecipher them; but if they are allowed to perish, one link with the past\nwill be irretrievably lost.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[72] Read before the Arch\u00e6ological Section of the Belfast\nNaturalists' Field Club, February 8, 1911.\n\n[73] In \"Celtic Folklore,\" vol. i., p. 210 _et seq._, Sir John\nRhys relates a similar story. Here the woman is brought to a place which\nappears to her to be the finest she has ever seen. When the child is\nborn the father gives her ointment to anoint its eyes, but entreats her\nnot to touch her own with it. Inadvertently she rubs her finger across\nher eye, and now she sees that the wife is her former maidservant\nEilian, and that she lies on a bundle of rushes and withered leaves in a\ncave. Not long afterwards the woman sees the husband in the market at\nCarnarvon, and asks for Eilian. He is angry, and, inquiring with which\neye she sees him, puts it out with a bulrush.\n\nFrom Palestine we have another variant of this story. The Rev. J. E.\nHanauer, in \"Folklore of the Holy Land,\" pp. 210 _et seq._, tells of a\nwoman at El Welejeh who had spoken unkindly to a frog. The next night,\non waking, she found herself in a cave surrounded by strange,\nangry-looking people; one of these \"J\u00e2n\" reproached her bitterly, saying\nthat the frog was his wife, and threatening her with dire consequences\nunless a son were born. She assisted at the birth of the child, who was\nfortunately a boy, and was given a _mukhaleh_ or _kohl_ vessel, and was\nbidden to rub some of this _kohl_ on the infant's eyes. When she had\ndone this, she rubbed some on one of her own eyes, but before she had\ntime to put any on the other the vessel was angrily taken from her. She\nwas rewarded with onion-leaves, which in the morning turned to gold.\nSome time afterwards this woman was shopping at El Kuds, when she saw\nthe Jennizeh pilfering from shop to shop. She spoke to her and kissed\nthe baby, but the other answered fiercely, and, poking her finger into\nthe woman's eye, put it out.\n\n[74] In \"Guleesh na Guss Dhu,\" Dr. Douglas Hyde gives us a\nsimilar tale from Co. Mayo. See \"Beside the Fire,\" pp. 104-128.\n\n[75] In \"Folk Tales from Breffny,\" by B. Hunt, there is a story\n(pp. 99-103), \"The Cutting of the Tree,\" which tells of how the fairies,\nwhen baffled in their endeavour to carry off the mistress of the house,\nleft in the kitchen a wooden image \"cut into the living likeness of the\nwoman of the house.\"\n\n[76] See _ante_, p. 60.\n\n[77] Pp. 18-21.\n\n[78] \"Ogygia,\" part iii., chap. xii.\n\n[79] Pp. xcix, c.\n\n[80] Pp. c, ci.\n\n[81] See _Morning Post_, December 28, 1910. In his work,\n\"Pygmies and Papuans,\" which gives the results of this expedition, Mr.\nA. F. R. Wollaston also describes these pygmies (see especially pp.\n159-161).\n\n[82] I was shown a MS. copy of some of these letters by a\nrelative of the writer at Burtonport. I believe they were written for a\nnewspaper, and were afterwards republished in \"The Derry People,\" under\nthe title \"The Rosses Thirty Years Ago.\" They contain much interesting\ninformation in regard to the traditions current among the peasantry.\n\n\n\n\nGiants and Dwarfs[83]\n\n\nThe population of Ulster is derived from many sources, and in its\nfolklore we shall find traces of various tribes and people. I shall\nbegin with a tale which may have been brought by English settlers.\n\nIn \"Folklore as an Historical Science\" Sir G. Laurence Gomme has given\nseveral variants of the story of the Pedlar of Swaffham and London\nBridge. Most of these come from England, Scotland, and Wales, but among\nthem there are also a Breton and a Norse version. I have found a local\nvariant in Donegal. An elderly woman told me that at Kinnagoe a \"toon\"\nor small hamlet about three miles from Buncrana, there lived a man whose\nname, she believed, was Doherty. He dreamt one night that on London\nBridge he should hear of a treasure. He set out at once for London, and\nwhen he came there walked up and down the bridge until he was wearied.\nAt last a man accosted him and asked him why he loitered there. In\nreply, Doherty told his dream, upon which the other said: \"Ah, man! Do\nyou believe in drames? Why, I dreamt the other night that at a place\ncalled Kinnagoe a pot of gold is buried. Would I go to look for it? I\nmight loss my time if I paid attention to drames.\" \"That's true,\"\nanswered Doherty, who now hurried home, found the pot of gold, bought\nhouses and land, and became a wealthy man.\n\nWhether this story embodies an earlier Irish legend I do not know, but I\nshould say that the mention of London Bridge points to its having been\nbrought over by English settlers. Sir G. L. Gomme tells us that \"the\nearliest version of this legend is quoted from the manuscripts of Sir\nRoger Twysden, who obtained it from Sir William Dugdale, of Blyth Hall,\nin Warwickshire, in a letter dated January 29, 1652-53. Sir William says\nof it that 'it was the tradition of the inhabitants, as it was told me\nthere.'\"\n\nMay not some of the planters brought over by the Irish Society have\ncarried this legend from their English home, giving it in the name\nKinnagoe a local habitation?\n\nMost of our folklore comes, however, from a very early period. Our\nIrish fairy, although regarded as a fallen angel, is not the medieval\nelf, who could sip honey from a flower, but a small old man or woman\nwith magical powers, swift to revenge an injury, but often a kindly\nneighbour. No story is told more frequently than that of the old fairy\nwoman who borrows a \"noggin\" of meal, repays it honestly, and rewards\nthe peasant woman by saying that her kist will never be empty, generally\nadding the condition as long as the secret is kept. The woman usually\nobserves the condition until her husband becomes too inquisitive. When\nshe reveals the secret the kist is empty.\n\nAnother widespread tale is that of the fairy woman who comes to the\npeasant's cottage, sometimes to beg that water may not be thrown out at\nthe door, as it comes down her chimney and puts out the fire; sometimes\nto ask, for a similar reason, that the \"byre,\" or cowhouse, may be\nremoved to another site. In some tales it is a fairy man who makes the\nrequest. If it is refused, punishment follows in sickness among the\ncattle; if complied with, the cows flourish and give an extra supply of\nmilk. In one instance the \"wee folk\" provided money to pay a mason to\nbuild the new cowhouse. We may smile, and ask how the position of the\ncowhouse could affect the homes of the fairies; but if these small\npeople lived in the souterrains, as tradition alleges, we may even at\nthe present day find these artificial caves under inhabited houses. At a\nlarge farmhouse on the border of Counties Antrim and Londonderry I was\ntold one ran under the kitchen. At another farm near Castlerock, Co.\nLondonderry, the owner opened a trapdoor in his yard, and allowed me to\nlook down into a souterrain. At Finvoy, Co. Antrim, I was shown one of\nthese caves over which a cottage formerly stood. A souterrain also runs\nunder the Glebe House at Donaghmore, Co. Down. The following extract is\nfrom a work[84] in preparation, by the Rev. Dr. Cowan, Rector of the\nparish, who, in describing this souterrain, writes: \"The lintel to the\nmain entrance is the large stone which forms the base of the old Celtic\ncross, which stands a few yards south of the church. Underneath the\ncross is the central chamber, which is sixty-two feet long, three feet\nwide and upwards of four feet high, with branches in the form of\ntransepts about thirty feet in length. From these, again, several\nsections extend ... one due north terminating at the Glebe House (a\ndistance of two hundred yards) underneath the study, where, according to\ntradition, some rich old vicar in past times fashioned the extreme end\ninto the dimensions of a wine-cellar.\"\n\nAccording to another tradition--an older one, no doubt--this chamber\nunder the study was the dressing-room of the small Danes, who after\ntheir toilet proceeded through the underground passages to church. They\nhad to pass through many little doors, down stairs, through parlours,\nuntil they came to the great chamber under the cross where the minister\nheld forth. I shall not attempt to guess to what old faith this minister\nor priest belonged, or what were the rites he celebrated; but the stairs\nprobably represent the descent from one chamber to another, and the\nlittle doors the bridges found in some souterrains, and, I believe, at\nDonaghmore, where one stone juts out from the floor, and a little\nfarther on another comes down from the roof, leaving only a narrow\npassage, so that one must creep over and under these bridges to get to\nthe end of the cave.\n\nThe Danes are regarded by the country people as distinctly human, and\nyet there is much in them that reminds us of the fairies; indeed, I was\ntold by two old men--one in Co. Antrim, and the other in Co. Derry--that\nthey and the wee-folk are much the same. In a former paper[85] I\nreferred to the difference in dress ascribed to the fairies in various\nparts of the country. I am inclined to believe that this indicates a\nvariety of tribes among the aboriginal inhabitants. In the fairies who\ndress in green may we not have a tradition of people who stained\nthemselves with woad or some other plant? These fairies are chiefly\nheard of in North-East Antrim. In some parts of that county they are\nsaid to wear tartan, but in other parts of Ulster the fairies are\nusually, although not universally, described as dressing in red. Do\nthese represent a people who dyed themselves with red ochre, or who\nsimply went naked? In Tory Island I was told the fairies dressed in\nblack; and Keating informs us that the Fomorians, who had their\nheadquarters at Toirinis, or Tory Island, were \"sea-rovers of the race\nof Cam, who fared from Africa.\"[86]\n\nStories of the fairies or wee-folk are to be found everywhere in\nUlster, and the Danes are also universally known; but one hears of the\nPechts, chiefly in the north-east of Antrim, where the Grogach is also\nknown. The following story was told to me in Glenariff, Co. Antrim:\n\nA Grogach herded the cattle of a farmer, and drove them home in the\nevening. He was about the size of a child, and was naked. A fire was\nleft burning at night so that he might warm himself, and after a time\nthe daughter of the house made him a shirt. When the Grogach saw this he\nthought it was a \"billet\" for him to go, and, crying bitterly, he took\nhis departure, and left the shirt behind him. As I pointed out on a\nformer occasion,[87] in many respects the Grogach resembles the Swiss\ndwarf. The likeness to the Brownie is also very marked. At Ballycastle I\nwas told the Grogach was a hairy man about four feet in height, who\ncould bear heat or cold without clothing.\n\nPatrick Kennedy has described a Gruagach as a giant, and states that the\nword \"Gruagach\" has for root _gruach_--\"hair,\" giants and magicians\nbeing \"furnished with a large provision of that appendage.\"[88] This\nGruagach was closely related to the fairies, and, indeed, we shall find\nlater in a Donegal story a giant ogress spoken of as a fairy woman. In\nScotland, as well as in the South of Ireland, the name is Gruagach, but\nin Antrim I heard it pronounced \"Grogach.\" I was also told near\nCushendall that the Danes were hairy people.\n\nOne does not hear so much about giants in Antrim as in Donegal, but in\nGlenariff I was told of four, one of whom lifted a rock at Ballycastle\nand threw it across the sea to Rathlin--a distance of five or six miles.\nGreat as this feat was, a still greater was reported to me near\nArmoy,[89] where I was shown a valley, and was told the earth had been\nscooped out and thrown into the sea, where it formed the Island of\nRathlin.\n\nThe grave of the giant Gig-na-Gog is to be seen some miles from Portrush\non the road to Beardiville.[90] I could not, however, hear anything of\nGig-na-Gog, except that he was a giant.\n\nIn the stories of giants we no doubt often have traditions of a tall\nrace, who are sometimes represented as of inferior mental capacity. At\nother times we appear to be listening to an early interpretation of the\nworks of Nature. The Donegal peasant at the present day believes that\nthe perched block on the side of the hill has been thrown by the arm of\na giant. In the compact columns of the Giant's Causeway and of Fingal's\nCave at Staffa primitive man saw a work of great skill and ingenuity,\nwhich he attributed to a giant artificer; and Finn McCoul is credited\nwith having made a stupendous mole, uniting Scotland and Ireland. This\nFinn McCoul has many aspects. He does not show to much advantage in the\nfollowing legend, which I heard on the banks of Lough Salt in Donegal:\nFinn was a giant but there was a bigger giant named Goll, who came to\nfight Finn, and Finn was afraid. His wife bade him creep into the\ncradle, and she would give an answer to Goll. When the latter appeared,\nhe asked where was Finn. The wife replied he was out, and she was alone\nwith the baby in the cradle. Goll looked at the child, and thought, if\nthat is the size of Finn's infant, what must Finn himself be? and\nwithout more ado he turned and took his departure.[91] This Finn had an\neye at the back of his head, and was so tall his feet came out at the\ndoor of his house. We are not told, however, what was the size of the\nhouse.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE XI. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n VALLEY NEAR ARMOY, WHENCE, ACCORDING TO LEGEND, EARTH WAS TAKEN TO FORM\n RATHLIN.]\n\nIn this tale Finn shows little courage, but as a rule he is represented\nas a noted hero. I was told a long story at Glenties in Donegal of the\nthree sons Finn had by the Queen of Italy. He had seen her bathing in\nIreland, and he stole her clothes, so she had to stay until she could\nget them back. After a time she found them, and returned to her own\ncountry, where she gave birth to three sons--Dubh, Kian, and Glasmait.\nWhen they were fourteen years of age the King of Italy sent them away\nthat they might go to their father Finn.\n\nThey arrived in Ireland, and when Finn saw them he said: \"If those three\nbe the sons of a King, they will come straight on; if not, they will ask\ntheir way.\" The lads came straight on, knelt before Finn, and claimed\nhim as their father. He asked them who was their mother, and when they\nsaid the Queen of Italy, Finn remembered the stolen clothes, and\nreceived them as his sons.\n\nOne day the followers of Finn could not find his dividing knife, and\nDubh determined to go in search of it. He put a stick in the fire, and\nsaid he would be back before the third of it was burnt out. He followed\ntracks, and came to a house where there was a great feast. He sat down\namong the men, and saw they were cutting with Finn's knife. It was\npassed from one to another until it came to Dubh, who, holding it in his\nhand, sprang up and carried it off.\n\nWhen Dubh got home he wakened Kian and said: \"My third of the stick is\nburnt, and now do you see what you can do.\" Kian followed the tracks,\nand got to the same place. He found the men drinking out of a horn. One\ncalled for whisky, another for wine, and whatever was asked, the horn\ngave. Kian heard them say it was Finn's horn, and that his knife had\nbeen carried off the previous night. Kian waited, and when the horn came\nhe grasped it tightly and ran off home, where he found his third of the\nstick was burnt. He waked Glasmait, and told him two-thirds of the night\nhad passed, and it was now his turn to go out. Glasmait followed the\nsame tracks, but when he came to the house blood was flowing from the\ndoor, and, looking in, he saw the place full of corpses. One man only\nremained alive. He told Glasmait how they had all been drinking when\nsomeone ran off with Finn McCoul's horn. \"One man blamed another,\" he\nsaid; \"they quarrelled and fought until everyone was killed except\nmyself. Now I beseech you throw the ditch[92] upon me and bury me. I do\nnot wish to be devoured by the fairy woman, who will soon be here. She\nis an awful size, and upon her back is bound Finn McCoul's sword of\nlight,[93] which gives to its possessor the strength of a hundred men.\"\nThe man gave Glasmait some hints to aid him in the coming fight, and\nadded: \"Now I have told you all, bury me quick.\"\n\nGlasmait threw the ditch upon him, and hid himself in a corner. The\nBanmore, or large woman, now came in, and began her horrible repast. She\nchose the fat men; three times she lifted Glasmait, but rejected him as\ntoo young and lean. At last she lay down to sleep. Glasmait followed the\nadvice he had received. He touched her foot, but jumped aside to avoid\nthe kick. He touched her hand, but jumped aside to avoid her slap. When\nshe was again asleep, he drew his sword and cut the cords which bound\nthe sword of light to her back, and seized upon it. She roused herself,\nand for two hours they fought, until in the end Glasmait ripped open her\nbody, when, behold, three red-haired boys sprang out and attacked him.\nHe slew two of them, but the third escaped. Glasmait returned home with\nthe sword of light, and found his third of the stick burnt.\n\nThe three sons now presented their father with the dividing knife, the\ndrinking horn, and the sword of light, and there was great rejoicing\nthat these had been recovered.\n\nSome time after this a red-haired boy appeared, and begged to be taken\ninto Finn's service for a twelvemonth, saying he could kill birds and do\nany kind of work. When asked what wages he looked for, he replied that\nhe hoped when he died, Finn and his men would put his body in a cart,\nwhich would come for it, and bury him where the cart stopped.\n\nThe red-haired boy worked well, but at the end of the year he suddenly\ndied. A cart drawn by a horse appeared, and Finn and his men tried to\nplace the body in it; but it could not be moved until the horse wheeled\nround and did the work itself, starting immediately afterwards with its\nload. Finn and his men followed, but a great mist came on, so that they\ncould not see clearly. At last they arrived at an old, black castle\nstanding in a glen. Here they found the table laid, and sat down to eat,\nbut before long the red-haired boy appeared alive, and cried vengeance\nupon Finn and his sons. The men tried to draw their swords, but found\nthem fastened to the ground, and the red-haired boy cut off fifty heads.\n\nNow, however, the great Manannan appeared. He bade the red-haired boy\ndrop his sword, or he would give him a slap that would turn his face to\nthe back of his head. He also bade him replace the heads on the fifty\nmen. The red-haired boy had to submit, and after that he troubled Finn\nno more. Manannan dispelled the mist, and brought Finn and his men back\nto their own home, where they feasted for three days and three nights.\n\nThis somewhat gruesome story contains several points of interest. The\nstealing of the clothes is an incident which occurs with slight\nvariations in many folk-tales. In \"The Stolen Veil\"[94] Mus\u00e4us tells us\nhow the damsel of fairy lineage was detained when her veil was carried\noff, and it was only after she had recovered it that she was able, in\nthe guise of a swan, to return to her home.\n\nWe have read, too, of how the Shetlander captured the sealskin of the\nFinn woman, without which she could not return as a seal to her\nhusband.[95] It should also be noted that the fairy ogress is a large\nwoman, apparently a giantess, while her three sons have the red hair so\noften associated with the fairies. At the end of the tale Finn and his\nmen are saved by Manannan, the Celtic god of the sea, who has given his\nname to the Isle of Man. In Balor of Tory Island the great Fomorian\nchief, we have another giant, with an eye at the back of his head, which\ndealt destruction to all who encountered its gaze. I was told in Tory\nIsland that when Balor was mortally wounded water fell so copiously from\nhis eye that it formed the biggest lough in the world, deeper even than\nLough Foyle.[96]\n\nThese giants belonged to an olden time and a very primitive race. They\nhave passed away, and are no longer like the fairies--objects of fear or\nawe.\n\nThe fairies, being believed to be fallen angels, are especially\ndreaded on Hallow Eve night. In some places oatmeal and salt are put on\nthe heads of the children to protect them from harm. I first heard of\nthis custom in the valley of the Roe, where there are a large number of\nforts said to be inhabited by the fairies. The neighbourhood of Dungiven\non that river is rich in antiquities. I was told there was a souterrain\nunder the Cashel or \"White Fort,\" said to have been built by the Danes.\nThere is another under Carnanban Fort, and not far from this there are\nthe stone circles at Aghlish. An old woman of ninety-six showed them to\nme, and said it was a very gentle[97] place, and it would not be safe to\ntake away one of the stones.\n\n [Illustration: PLATE XII. [_R. Welch, Photo._\n FLINT SPEARHEAD AND BASALT AXES FOUND UNDER FORT IN LENAGH TOWNLAND.]\n\nHere we have an instance of the strong belief that to interfere in any\nway with stone, tree, or fort, belonging to the fairies is certain to\nbring disaster. About sixty-five years ago, when the railway was being\nmade between Belfast and Ballymena, an old fort with fairy bushes in the\ntownland of Lenagh stood on the intended track, and had to be removed.\nThe men working on the line were most unwilling to meddle with either\nfort or bushes. One, however, braver than the rest began to cut down a\nthorn, when he met with an accident which strengthened the others in\ntheir refusal. In the end the fort had to be blown up, I believe by the\nofficials of the railway, and underneath it a very fine spearhead and\nother implements were found.[98]\n\nA fort near Glasdrumman, Co. Down, was demolished by the owner, but the\ncountry-people noted that the man who struck the first blow was injured\nand died soon afterwards, while the owner himself became a permanent\ninvalid. A woman living near this fort related that in the evening after\nthe work was begun she heard an awful screech from the fort; presumably\nthe fairies were leaving their home.\n\nA curious story was told me by an old woman in the Cottage Hospital at\nCushendall. A man at Glenravel named M'Combridge went out one evening to\nlook for his heifer, but could not find it. He saw a great house in one\nof his fields, where no house had been before, and, wondering much at\nthis, he went in. An old woman sat by the fire, and soon two men came in\nleading the heifer. They killed it with a blow on the head and put it\ninto a pot. M'Combridge was too much afraid to make any objection; he\nrose, however, to leave the house, but the old woman said: \"Wait; you\nmust have some of the broth of your own heifer.\" Three times she made\nhim partake of the broth, and he was then unable to leave the house. She\nput him to bed, and the man gave birth to a son. He fell asleep, but was\nwakened by something touching his ear, and found himself on the grass\nnear his home, and the heifer close to his ear.\n\nThis fantastic story no doubt represents a dream, but does it contain a\nreminiscence of the couvade, where, after the birth of the child, the\nfather goes to bed? Sir E. B. Tylor, in the \"Early History of Mankind,\"\nhas shown how widespread this custom was both in the Old and the New\nWorld.\n\nIn these stories, drawn from various parts of Ulster, we seem to hear\nechoes of a very distant past. The giants often appear as savages of low\nintelligence. In the fairies, I think, we may plainly see a tradition of\na dwarf race, although it is true that the country-people do not regard\nthem as human beings; indeed, I was told in Co. Tyrone that when the\nfairies were annoying a man he threw his handkerchief at them, and asked\nif among them all they could show one drop of blood. This, being\nspirits, they could not do. In the Grogach the human element is more\npronounced, and both Danes and Pechts are usually regarded as men and\nwomen like ourselves, although of smaller stature. It will thus be seen\nthat in Ulster we have traditions of giants, fairies, Grogachs, Danes,\nand Pechts; and in Donegal I was also told of a small race of yellow\nFinns. Can we identify any of these with the prehistoric races of the\nBritish Isles and of Europe?\n\nIt has been held by many that the relics of Pal\u00e6olithic man do not\noccur in Ireland, but the Rev. Frederick Smith has found his implements,\nsome of them glaciated, at Killiney[99]; and Mr. Lewis Abbott, who has\nmade the implements of early man a special study, believes that\nPal\u00e6olithic man lived and worked in Ireland. In a letter to me he states\nthat this opinion is based on material in his possession. \"I have,\" he\nwrites, \"the Irish collection of my old friend, the late Professor\nRupert Jones; in this there are many immensely metamorphosed, deeply\niron-stained (and the iron, again, in turn further altered), implements\nof Pal\u00e6olithic types.... They are usually very lustrous or highly\n'patinated,' as it is called.\" In his recent paper, \"On the\nClassification of the British Stone Age Industries,\"[100] in describing\nthe club studs, Mr. Abbott writes: \"I have found very fine examples in\nthe Cromer Forest bed, and under and in various glacial deposits in\nEngland and Ireland.\" How long Pal\u00e6olithic man survived in Ireland it\nwould be difficult to say, but in such characters as the fairy ogress we\nare brought face to face with a very low form of savagery. It will be\nnoted that her sons are red-haired. Now, I have often found red hair\nascribed to fairies and Danes, but not to Pechts. This persistent\ntradition has led me to ask whether red was the colour of the hair in\nsome early races of mankind. The following passage in Dr. Beddoe's\nHuxley Lecture[101] favours an affirmative answer: \"There are, of\ncourse, facts, or reported facts, which would lead one to suspect that\nred was the original hair colour of man in Europe--at least, when living\nin primitive or natural conditions with much exposure, and that the\ndevelopment of brown pigment came later, with subjection to heat and\nmalaria, and other influences connected with what we call\n'civilisation.'\"\n\nWe have seen that the implements of early man are found in spots sacred\nto the fairies. The Rev. Gath Whitley considers the Piskey dwarfs the\nearliest Neolithic inhabitants of Cornwall, and describes them as a\nsmall race who hunted the elk and the deer, and perhaps, like the\nBushmen, danced and sang to the light of the moon.[102] Our traditional\nIrish fairies bear a strong resemblance to these Piskey dwarfs of\nCornwall, and also to the Welsh fairies of whom Sir John Rhys writes\nthat when fairyland is cleared of its glamour there seems to be\ndisclosed \"a swarthy population of short, stumpy men, occupying the most\ninaccessible districts of our country.... They probably fished and\nhunted and kept domestic animals, including, perhaps, the pig, but they\ndepended largely on what they could steal at night or in misty weather.\nTheir thieving, however, was not resented, as their visits were believed\nto bring luck and prosperity.\"[103] This description might apply to our\nUlster fairies, who in many of the stories appear as a very primitive\npeople. In some of the tales, however, the fairies are represented in a\nhigher state of civilisation. They can spin and weave; they inhabit\nunderground but well-built houses, and in the Irish records they are\nclosely associated with the Tuatha de Danann.\n\nI believe these Tuatha de Danann are the small Danes, who, according to\ntradition, built the raths and souterrains. The late Mr. John Gray[104]\nwould ascribe a Mongoloid origin to them. In a letter written to me\nshortly before his death he stated his belief that the Danes and Pechts\n\"were of the same race, and were identical with a short, round-headed\nrace which migrated into the British Isles about 2,000 B.C. at the\nbeginning of the Bronze Age.... The stature of these primitive Danes and\nPechts was five feet three inches, and they must have looked very small\nmen to the later Teutonic invaders of an average stature of five feet\neight and a half inches.\"\n\nIn his papers, \"Who built the British Stone Circles?\"[105] and \"The\nOrigin of the Devonian Race,\"[106] Mr. Gray has fully described this\nround-headed race, who buried in short cists, and whom he believes to\nhave been a colony from Asia Minor of Akkadians, Sumerians, or Hittites,\nwho migrated to England by sea in order to work the Cornish tin-mines\nand the Welsh copper-mines.\n\nFor a fuller exposition of these views I must refer the reader to Mr.\nGray's very interesting articles.\n\nIn regard to the Tuatha de Danann, according to Keating,[107] they came\nfrom Greece by way of Scandinavia. This might lead us to infer a\nnorthern origin, or, at least, that they had taken a different route\nfrom those who came by the Mediterranean to the West of Europe. They\nappear to have known the use of metals and to have ploughed the land.\n\nDr. O'Donovan, in writing of these Tuatha de Danann, says: \"From the\nmany monuments ascribed to this colony by tradition and in ancient Irish\nhistorical tales, it is quite evident that they were a real people, and\nfrom their having been considered gods and magicians by the Gaedhil or\nScoti who subdued them, it may be inferred that they were skilled in\narts which the latter did not understand.\" Referring to the colloquy\nbetween St. Patrick and Caoilte MacRonain, Dr. O'Donovan says that it\nappears from this ancient Irish text that \"there were very many places\nin Ireland where the Tuatha de Dananns were then supposed to live as\nsprites or fairies.\" He adds: \"The inference naturally to be drawn from\nthese stories is that the Tuatha de Dananns lingered in the country for\nmany centuries after their subjugation by the Gaedhil, and that they\nlived in retired situations, which induced others to regard them as\nmagicians.\"[108]\n\nWhat is here averred of the Tuatha de Danann may be true of other\nprimitive races who may have survived long in Ireland. It is difficult\nto exterminate a people, and they could not be driven farther west.\n\nIt appears to me that in the traditions of the Ulster peasantry we see\nindications of a tall, savage people, and of various races of small men.\nSome were in all probability veritable dwarfs, like those whose\nskeletons have been found in Switzerland, near Schaffhausen. Others may\nhave been of the stature of the round-headed race described by Mr. John\nGray, but in tradition they all--fairy, Grogach, Pecht, and Dane--appear\nas little people. In these tales we have not a clear outline--the\npicture is often blurred--but as we see the red-haired Danes carrying\nearth in their aprons to build the forts, the Pechts handing from one to\nanother the large slabs to roof the souterrains, and the Grogachs\nherding cattle, we catch glimpses of the life of those who in long past\nages inhabited Ireland.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[83] Reprinted from the _Antiquary_, August, 1913.\n\n[84] \"An Ancient Irish Parish, Past and Present.\"\n\n[85] See Ulster Fairies, Danes, and Pechts, p. 27.\n\n[86] Keating, \"History of Ireland,\" book i., chap. viii.\n(translation by P. W. Joyce, LL.D., M.R.I.A.). See _ante_, p. 60.\n\n[87] See Traditions of Dwarf Races in Ireland and in\nSwitzerland, pp. 50-52.\n\n[88] \"Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts,\" second edition,\np. 123 note.\n\n[89] A village about six miles from Ballycastle, where there is\na round tower.\n\n[90] It is referred to in the \"Guide to Belfast and the\nAdjacent Counties,\" by the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, 1874, pp.\n205, 206; also by Borlase in \"Dolmens of Ireland,\" vol. i., p. 371.\n\n[91] A similar tale, but with more details, is related of Finn\nby William Carleton. It was first published in Chambers' _Edinburgh\nJournal_ in January, 1841, with the title, \"A Legend of Knockmary,\" and\nwas reprinted in Carleton's collected works under the title \"A Legend of\nKnockmany.\" It is given by Mr. W. B. Yeates in his \"Irish Fairy and Folk\nTales.\" In Carleton's tale Finn's opponent is not Goll, but Cuchullin.\nIn the notes first published in Chambers' _Journal_ reference is,\nhowever, made to Scotch legends about Finn McCoul and Gaul, the son of\nMorni, whom I take to be the same as Goll. A version of the story is\nalso given by Patrick Kennedy in \"Legendary Fictions of the Irish\nCelts,\" under the title \"Fann MacCuil and the Scotch Giant,\" pp.\n179-181. This Scotch giant is named Far Rua, and the fort to which he\njourneys is in the bog of Allen.\n\n[92] In Ireland \"ditch\" is used for an earth fence.\n\n[93] Claive Solus was the name given to it by the old woman,\nwho narrated the story, and she translated it \"sword of light.\"\n\n[94] See J. K. A. Mus\u00e4us, \"Volksm\u00e4hrchen der Deutschen,\" edited\nby J. L. Klee (Leipzig, 1842); \"Der geraubte Schleier,\" pp. 371-429.\n\n[95] See \"The Testimony of Tradition\" (London, 1890, pp. 1-25),\nby Mr. David MacRitchie, F.S.A.Scot.; also by the same author, \"The\nAberdeen Kayak and its Congeners.\" Proceedings of the Society of\nAntiquaries of Scotland, vol. xlvi. (1911-12), pp. 213-241. Mr.\nMacRitchie believes that the magic sealskin was a Kayak.\n\n[96] See p. 75.\n\n[97] Fairy-haunted.\n\n[98] This spearhead is in the possession of Mr. Robert Bell, a\nmember of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, from whom I heard this\nnarrative.\n\n[99] \"The Stone Age in North Britain and Ireland,\" by the Rev.\nFrederick Smith, Appendix, p. 396.\n\n[100] See _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_,\nvol. xli., 1911, p. 462.\n\n[101] \"Colour and Race,\" delivered before the Anthropological\nInstitute of Great Britain and Ireland, October 31, 1905.\n\n[102] \"Footprints of Vanished Races in Cornwall,\" by the Rev.\nD. Gath Whitley, published in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of\nCornwall_, 1903, vol. xv., part ii., p. 283.\n\n[103] \"Celtic Folklore,\" vol. ii., chap. xii., pp. 668, 669.\n\n[104] Treasurer to the Anthropological Institute.\n\n[105] Read before Section H of the British Association at the\nDublin Meeting, September, 1908, published in _Nature_, December 24,\n1908, pp. 236-238.\n\n[106] Published in _London Devonian Year-Book_, 1910.\n\n[107] \"History of Ireland,\" book i., chap. x.\n\n[108] See \"Annals of the Four Masters,\" vol. i., note at p.\n24.\n\n\n\n\nThe Rev. William Hamilton, D.D.[109]\n\nAN EARLY EXPONENT OF THE VOLCANIC ORIGIN OF THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY\n\n\n \"Here, hapless Hamilton, lamented name!\n To fire volcanic traced the curious frame,\n And, as his soul, by sportive fancy's aid,\n Up to the fount of time's long current strayed,\n Far round these rocks he saw fierce craters boil,\n And torrent lavas flood the riven soil:\n Saw vanquished Ocean from his bounds retire,\n And hailed the wonders of creative Fire.\"\n\n DRUMMOND.\n\nThese lines are taken from a poem, \"The Giant's Causeway,\" written in\n1811, when the nature of the basaltic rocks was regarded as doubtful,\nand many held that their origin was to be traced to the action of water\nrather than fire. Hamilton is rightly brought forward as a champion of\nthe volcanic theory. In his \"Letters concerning the Northern Coast of\nAntrim,\" published towards the close of the eighteenth century, he\nadduces strong reasons to show that the Giant's Causeway is no isolated\nfreak of Nature, but part of a vast lava field which covered Antrim and\nextended far beyond the Scottish islands. Nor does he confine his\nattention to geology, but fulfils the promise on the title page, giving\nan account of the antiquities, manners, and customs of the country. To\nthose who care to read of this part of the world before the days of\nrailroads and electric tramways, when Portrush was a small fishing\nvillage, and the lough which divides Antrim from Down bore the name of\nthe ancient city of Carrickfergus, this old volume will possess many\nattractions. Three copies lie before me; two belong to editions\npublished in the author's lifetime; the third was printed in Belfast in\n1822, and contains a short memoir and a portrait of Dr. Hamilton. The\nlatter is taken from one of those black silhouettes by which, before the\nart of photography was known, our grandfathers strove to preserve an\nimage of those they loved. In this imperfect likeness we can see below\nthe wig a massive forehead, and features which betoken no small\ndetermination of character. We can well believe that we are gazing on\nthe face of a scholar, a man of science, a divine, of one who believed\nthat death, even in the tragic form in which it came to him, was but the\nlaying aside of a perishable machine, the casting away of an instrument\nno longer able to perform its functions.\n\nWilliam Hamilton was born in December, 1757, in Londonderry, where the\nfamily had resided for nearly a century, his grandfather having been one\nof the defenders of the city during the famous siege. Little is known of\nhis boyhood. Before he was fifteen he entered the University of Dublin,\nand after a distinguished career obtained a fellowship in 1779. It was\nwhile continuing his theological and literary studies that his attention\nwas drawn to the new sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. We can\nimagine the ardent student attracting around him a band of kindred\nspirits, who, meeting on one evening of the week under the name of\nPal\u00e6osophers, studied the Bible and ancient writings bearing on its\ninterpretation, and the next, calling themselves Neosophers, discussed\nthe phenomena of Nature, and the discoveries of Cavendish, or the views\nof Buffon and Descartes. Nor did his marriage in 1780 to Sarah Walker\ninterrupt these pursuits.\n\nHamilton was one of the founders of the Royal Irish Academy, and\ndedicated his \"Letters concerning the Coast of Antrim\" to the Earl of\nCharlemont, the first president of that body. The book opens with an\naccount of his visit to the Island of Raghery or Rathlin, where he was\ncharmed with the primitive manners of the people and the friendly\nrelations existing between them and their landlord. He examined the\nwhite cliffs, the dark basaltic columns, and the ruins of the old\ncastle, where Robert Bruce is said to have made a gallant defence\nagainst his enemies. Here he found cinders embedded in the mortar,\nshowing that the lime used in building the walls had been burnt with\ncoal. This is adduced as a proof that the coal-beds near Fair Head had\nbeen known at an early period, possibly at a time anterior to the Danish\nincursions of the ninth and tenth centuries--a view confirmed by the\ndiscovery of an ancient gallery extending many hundred yards\nunderground, and in which the remains of the tools and baskets of the\nprehistoric miners were found.\n\nIn a later letter a history is given of the Giant's Causeway, and of the\nvarious opinions which have been held regarding its origin. Beginning\nwith the old tradition[110] that the stones had been cut and placed in\nposition by the giant, Fin McCool or Fingal, when constructing a mighty\nmole to unite Ireland to Scotland, Hamilton alludes to the crude notions\nexhibited in some papers published in the early Transactions of the\nRoyal Society. He criticizes severely \"A True Prospect of the Giant's\nCauseway,\" printed in 1696 for the Dublin Society, showing how the\nimagination of the artist had planted luxuriant forest-trees on the wild\nbay of Port Noffer, and transformed basaltic rocks into comfortable\ndwelling-houses. The two beautiful paintings made by Mrs. Susanna Drury\nin 1740 are referred to in very different language, and anyone who has\nseen engravings of these will endorse his opinion, and feel that this\nlady has depicted, with almost photographic accuracy, the Causeway and\nthe successive galleries of basaltic columns, which lend a weird and\npeculiar grandeur to the headlands of Bengore.\n\nA large portion of Hamilton's work is occupied with a minute\ninvestigation of these headlands, and of the lofty promontory of Fair\nHead. A description is given of the jointed columns of the Causeway,\nwhose surface presents a regular and compact pavement of polygon stones;\nwe are told that this basaltic rock contains metallic iron, and that he\nhas himself observed how, in the semicircular Bay of Bengore, the\ncompass deviates greatly from its meridian, and each pillar or fragment\nof a pillar acts as a natural magnet. He also points out that columnar\nrocks are found in many parts of Antrim, and traces the basaltic plateau\nfrom the shores of Lough Foyle to the valley of the Lagan; nay more, he\nbids us extend our gaze, and remember \"that whatever be the reasonings\nthat fairly apply to the formation of the basaltes in our island, the\nsame must be extended with little interruption over the mainland and\nwestern isles of Scotland, even to the frozen island of Iceland, where\nbasaltic pillars are to be found in abundance, and where the flames of\nHecla still continue to blaze.\"[111]\n\nHamilton argues, in opposition to the views of many of his\ncontemporaries, that the vicinity of the Giant's Causeway to the sea has\nnothing whatever to do with the peculiar structure of its jointed\ncolumns, which he ascribes to their having been formed by the\ncrystallization of a molten mass. The following are his words:\n\n\"Since, therefore, the basaltes and its attendant fossils[112] bear\nstrong marks of the effects of fire, it does not seem unlikely that its\npillars may have been formed by a process, exactly analogous to what is\ncommonly denominated crystallization by fusion.... For though during the\nmoments of an eruption nothing but a wasteful scene of tumult and\ndisorder be presented to our view, yet, when the fury of those flames\nand vapours, which have been struggling for a passage, has abated,\neverything then returns to its original state of rest; and those various\nmelted substances, which, but just before, were in the wildest state of\nchaos, will now subside and cool with a degree of regularity utterly\nunattainable in our laboratories.\"[113]\n\nIt is true that modern geologists would not apply the term\n\"crystallization\" to the process by which the basaltic columns have been\nformed, but all would agree that they have assumed their peculiar shape\nduring the slow cooling of the molten lava of which they consist; thus\nProfessor James Thomson[114] states that the division into prisms has\narisen \"by splitting, through shrinkage, of a very homogeneous mass in\ncooling.\"\n\nIt would be tedious to repeat the reasoning by which Hamilton, following\nin the steps of the French geologists, Desmarest and Faujas de St. Fond,\nestablishes the volcanic origin of the basalt. It is true, he assumes\nthe position of an impartial narrator, and brings forward at\nconsiderable length the objections which had been urged against this\ntheory, but only to show that each one of them admits of a full and\ncomplete answer. Thus he states that the absence of volcanic cones does\nnot embarrass the advocates of the system: \"According to them, the\nbasaltes has been formed under the earth itself and within the bowels of\nthose very mountains where it could never have been exposed to view\nuntil, by length of time or some violent shock of nature, the incumbent\nmass must have undergone a very considerable alteration, such as should\ngo near to destroy every exterior volcanic feature. In support of this,\nit may be observed that the promontories of Antrim do yet bear very\nevident marks of some violent convulsion, which has left them standing\nin their present abrupt situation, and that the Island of Raghery and\nsome of the western isles of Scotland do really appear like the\nsurviving fragments of a country, great part of which might have been\nburied in the ocean.\"[115]\n\nWe thus see that Hamilton clearly perceived that great changes,\nsufficient to sweep away lofty mountains, had taken place since those\nold lava streams had flowed over the land. It is true that science has\nadvanced since his day with gigantic strides. Some things which he\nregarded as doubtful have become certain, and others which he regarded\nas certain have become doubtful, yet I trust that the preceding extracts\nwill show that his account of the basaltic rocks of Antrim may still be\nread with interest and profit.\n\nAs an antiquarian, Hamilton touches on the evidences of early culture in\nIreland. He mentions the large number of exquisitely wrought gold\nornaments found in the bogs, and translates for us a poem of St.\nDonatus, which, although doubtless a fancy sketch, shows the reputation\nenjoyed by the island in the ninth century.\n\n \"Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame\n By nature bless'd, and Scotia is her name,\n An island rich--exhaustless is her store\n Of veiny silver and of golden ore;\n Her fruitful soil for ever teems with wealth,\n With gems her waters, and her air with health.\n Her verdant fields with milk and honey flow,\n Her woolly fleeces vie with virgin snow;\n Her waving furrows float with bearded corn,\n And arms and arts her envy'd sons adorn.\n No savage bear with lawless fury roves,\n No rav'ning lion thro' her sacred groves;\n No poison there infects, no scaly snake\n Creeps through the grass, nor frog annoys the lake.\n An island worthy of its pious race,\n In war triumphant, and unmatch'd in peace.\"[116]\n\nIn referring to the doctrines and practices of the ancient Irish\nChurch, Hamilton enters on the field of controversy. It shows how widely\nhis book was known when we find the _Giornale Ecclesiastico_ of Rome\ntaking exception to some of his views. This criticism led to the\ninsertion in the second edition of the work, of a letter[117] dealing\nmore fully with ecclesiastical matters. The reasoning, even when\nsupported by the high authority of Archbishop Ussher, may possibly fail\nto convince us of the identity of the Church of St. Patrick and St.\nColumba with the Church of the Reformation; but we shall find abundant\nproof of the vigour and independence which characterized not only the\nearly monks, but the Irish schoolmen of the Middle Ages.\n\nBefore this letter was published, Hamilton had accepted the living of\nClondevaddock in Donegal, and had taken up his abode amid the wild but\nbeautiful scenery surrounding Mulroy Bay. Here he expected to spend a\ntranquil life, watching over the education of his large family, and\ncombining with his clerical duties the pursuit of science and\nliterature. In a favourable situation for observing variations of\ntemperature and the action of rain, wind, and tide, he pursued the\ninvestigation of a subject which had already engaged his attention\nbefore leaving Dublin. In a memoir[118] published after his death he\nsuggests that the cutting down of the forests may have affected a\nsensible change in the climate of Ireland, and gives several instances\nof the encroachment of the sea sand on fertile and inhabited land.\nPerhaps the most striking is that of the town of Bannow in Wexford. It\nwas a flourishing borough in the early part of the seventeenth century,\nwhile in his day the site was marked only by a few ruins, appearing\nabove heaps of barren sand, and where at the time of an election a\nfallen chimney was used as the council table of that ancient and loyal\ncorporation.\n\nWhen we read the closing pages of this paper it is difficult to believe\nthat troubled times were so near at hand; and even when he wrote his\n\"Letters on the French Revolution,\" Hamilton could not have foreseen\nthat he was soon to fall before the same spirit of wild vengeance, which\nclaimed so many noble victims on the banks of the Seine and the Loire.\n\nHe acted as magistrate as well as clergyman, and during nearly seven\nyears he was treated with respect and confidence by the people among\nwhom he lived. No doubt the majority of them did not regard him as their\npastor, but they appreciated his efforts for their temporal welfare; we\nare told that the country was advancing in industry and prosperity, and\nremained tranquil when other parts of Ulster were greatly disturbed. At\nlast, however, the revolutionary wave reached this remote district, and\na trivial incident inflamed the minds of the inhabitants against Dr.\nHamilton.\n\nOn Christmas night, 1796, while the memorable storm which in the south\ndrove the French fleet from Bantry Bay was at its height, a brig, laden\nwith wine from Oporto, was shipwrecked on the coast of Fanet, not far\nfrom Dr. Hamilton's dwelling. In those days the peasantry regarded\nwhatever was brought to them by the sea as lawful booty, and were little\ndisposed to brook the interference of magistrate or clergyman. We are\ntold \"that Dr. Hamilton's active exertions on this melancholy occasion\ngave rise to feelings of animosity on the part of some of his\nparishioners.\" This animosity was fomented by popular agitators. A\nstormy period ensued. One evening a band of insurgents surrounded the\nparsonage demanding the release of some prisoners, and for more than\ntwenty-four hours the house was closely besieged. Two of the servants\nmade their way with difficulty to the beach, hoping to escape by sea and\nbring succour from Derry, but they found holes had been bored in the\nboats, which rendered them unserviceable. Dr. Hamilton acted with much\ncourage and coolness. He refused to accede to the demands of his\nassailants, saying he was not to be intimidated by men acting in open\nviolation of the laws; at the same time, by repressing the ardour of the\nguard of soldiers, he showed his anxiety to prevent bloodshed. In\ncompany with a naval officer, he undertook the perilous task of passing\nin disguise through the rebel cordon, and returned with a body of\nmilitia. On seeing this reinforcement, the peasantry lost courage, and,\nthrowing away their arms, dispersed quickly to their homes, so that the\nvictory was achieved without loss of life.\n\nThe country now became apparently more tranquil, and in early spring Dr.\nHamilton paid a visit to the Bishop of the diocese at Raphoe. He was\nreturning to his parish, when the roughness of the weather delayed his\ncrossing Lough Swilly, and he turned aside to see a brother clergyman\nnear Fahan. He was easily prevailed upon to pass the night in the\nhospitable rectory of Sharon, and no doubt the visit of an old college\nfriend was hailed with delight by the crippled Dr. Waller, whose\ninfirmities obliged him to lead a secluded life. Probably the\nconversation turned on the state of the country; Dr. Waller, his wife,\nand her niece would inquire about the perils from which their guest had\nrecently escaped. Perhaps they would congratulate themselves on the\nsecurity of their neighbourhood compared with the wilder parts of\nDonegal. Suddenly the tramp of a band of men was heard. It is said that\nDr. Hamilton's quick ear first caught the sound, and knew it to be his\ndeath-knell; but he was not the only victim--his hostess fell before\nhim. Let us hear the story of that terrible tragedy as it was reported\nto the Irish House of Commons. Speaking on March 6, 1797, four days\nafter the event, Dr. Brown said:\n\n\"As that gentleman (Dr. Hamilton) was sitting with the family in Mr.\nWaller's house, several shots were fired in upon them, the house was\nbroken open, and Mrs. Waller, in endeavouring to protect her helpless\nhusband by covering him with her body, was murdered. Mr. Hamilton, from\nthe natural love of life, had taken refuge in the lower apartments.\nThence they forced him, and as he endeavoured to hold the door they held\nfire under his hand until they made him quit his hold. They then dragged\nhim a few yards from the house, and murdered him in the most inhuman and\nbarbarous manner.\"[119]\n\nFrom a letter written by Dr. Hall to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (March,\n1797), we learn that the assassins retired unmolested and undiscovered.\nNor were any of them ever brought to justice, although popular\ntradition, among both Catholics and Protestants, says that misfortune\ndogged their footsteps, and each one of them came to an untimely end.\nDr. Hamilton's body remained exposed during the night, and was only\nremoved the following morning, when it was taken to Londonderry and\ninterred in the Cathedral graveyard. Here his name is recorded on the\nfamily tombstone; and in 1890 his descendants erected a tablet to his\nmemory in the chancel of the Cathedral.\n\nHamilton obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1794, and shortly\nbefore his death he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Royal\nSociety of Edinburgh. We have seen how he was cut off in the full vigour\nof mind and body--his last memoir unprinted--and surely we may echo the\nlament of his contemporaries, and feel that he was one who had conferred\nhonour on his native land. Yet, while they mourned his loss as a public\ncalamity, his friends would recall his words, and remember that to him\ndeath was but the entrance to a new life--the casting away of a covering\nwhich formed no part of his true self.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[109] Reprinted from the _Sun_, May, 1891.\n\n[110] See Letter I., part ii., edition 1822.\n\n[111] Letter VI., part ii., pp. 183, 184. Compare with this\npassage the following enunciation of the results of modern geological\ninvestigation. \"A marked feature of this period in Europe was the\nabundance and activity of its volcanoes.... From the south of Antrim,\nthrough the west coast of Scotland, the Far\u00f6e Islands and Iceland, even\nfar into Arctic Greenland, a vast series of fissure eruptions poured\nforth successive floods of basalt, fragments of which now form the\nextensive volcanic plateaux of these regions.\" (Sir A. Geikie,\n\"Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad,\" pp. 347, 348).\n\n[112] Hamilton uses this word in its old meaning of rock or\nstone. He expressly states that basalt does not contain the slightest\ntrace of animal or vegetable remains.\n\n[113] Letter VII., part ii., pp. 187, 188, 189.\n\n[114] See \"Collected Papers,\" p. 430, edited by Sir Joseph\nLarmor, Sec. R.S., M.P., and James Thomson, M.A.\n\n[115] Letter VII., part ii., p. 194.\n\n[116] Letter IV., part i., p. 52.\n\n[117] Letter V, part i.\n\n[118] See Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. vi., p.\n27.\n\n[119] See report in the _Belfast Newsletter_, March 6-10,\n1797.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n Abbott, W. J. Lewis, F.G.S., 99, 100\n\n Abernethy Round Tower, 57\n\n Aino, 42\n\n Antrim, old fort at, 36\n\n Ardtole souterrain, vi\n\n Armoy, 26, 90\n\n Arranmore, 82\n\n\n Backaderry souterrain, 7\n\n Ballycairn Fort, 37, 38, 41\n\n Ballycastle, 39, 50, 89\n\n Ballyginney Fort and Souterrain, 7, 8\n\n Ballyliffan, 52, 55\n\n Ballymagreehan Fort and Souterrain, 6\n\n Balor, 73-76, 79\n\n Banshee, 31, 35, 42, 43, 56, 78\n\n Beddoe, Dr., 100, 101\n\n Bell, Robert, 97\n\n Boyle, Owen, saves bride from fairies, 68-71\n\n Bridget, Eve of St., 17, 18\n\n Brownie, 51, 89\n\n Burglauenen, destruction of, 53\n\n Bury, Professor, 61\n\n\n Cailleagh, 19\n\n Campbell, J. F., 79, 80\n\n Castlewellan, 6, 7\n\n Chope, R. Pearse, B.A., 19, 20\n\n \"Churn,\" 19, 20\n\n Cinderella, 47\n\n Clark, Miss Jane, 22\n\n Coal-mines, ancient, near Ballycastle, 39, 107-8\n\n Columbkill, St., 63, 83\n\n Cowan, Rev. Dr., 86, 87\n\n Cruithnians, 58\n\n Culdaff, 53\n\n Culnady, 21, 22\n\n Cushendall, 89, 98\n\n\n Danes, 8-11, 28-31, 34, 37-42, 45, 51, 57, 77, 78, 88, 89, 102, 104\n\n Derrick's Image of Ireland, 44, 45\n\n Donaghmore, Co. Down, souterrain at, 86, 87\n\n Donatus, St., poem describing Scotia or Ireland, 112\n\n Downpatrick, rath at, 22, 36\n\n Drumcrow, 27\n\n Drury, Mrs. Susanna, 108\n\n Dunglady Fort, 21, 22\n\n Dunloe, Gap of, 10\n\n\n Emania, 41\n\n\n Fair Head, 49, 107, 108\n\n Fairies, capture of women and children by, 26, 69-73\n compared with African pygmies, 33, 34\n dress of, 27, 88\n a dwarf race, 13, 45, 104\n dwelling under sea, 52, 53\n inhabit forts and souterrains, 8, 31, 36, 86\n intermarriage with the human race, 65 _et seq._\n vanish, 25, 34\n\n Fanshawe, Lady, 42, 43\n\n Fargowan, 79\n\n Fiacc's hymn, 61\n\n Finglas, 79\n\n Finn McCoul, 48-50, 76, 79, 90-95, 108\n\n Finn, Lough, 79\n\n Finns, 64, 78\n\n Finntown, 65\n\n Finvoy, 86\n\n Frazer, J. G., D.C.L., 20, 21\n\n Friel, John, saves young girl from the fairies, 71\n\n\n Gempeler, D., 53\n\n Giants, 79, 89, 90, 96, 99\n\n Giant's Causeway, 50, 90, 105, 108-111\n\n Glasdrumman Fort, 97, 98\n\n Glenties, 65, 66, 79\n\n Goll, 91\n\n Gomme, Sir G. L., 54, 84, 85\n\n Gottwerg and Gottwergini, 52, 54\n\n Gray, John, B.Sc., 102, 104\n\n Greenmount, Mote at, 36, 37, 40\n\n Grey Man of the Path, 49\n\n Grogach, 47, 50, 51, 57, 89, 99, 104\n\n Gweedore, 68, 75\n\n\n Ham, 32, 60, 73\n\n Hamilton, Rev. W., D.D., F.T.C.D., 39, 105-118\n\n Hanauer, Rev. J. E., 67\n\n Harbison, Mann, 8, 11, 12\n\n Harris, 59, 60\n\n Harvest knots, 18, 19\n\n Heather ale, 28, 29, 41\n\n Herd (David), 13\n\n Herman's Fort and Souterrain, 6, 7\n\n Hobson, Mrs., viii, 30\n\n Hunt, B., 72\n\n Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 71\n\n\n Infant carried off by fairies, but saved by father, 72, 73\n\n\n Jegerlehner, Dr. J., 52, 54\n\n Johnston, Sir Harry, 33, 34, 80\n\n\n Keating, 60, 88, 103\n\n Killelagh Church, 14, 15\n\n Kilrea, 23\n\n Kincasslagh, 68, 70, 78\n\n Knockdhu, souterrain at, 30\n\n Kollmann, Professor Julius, v, 59, 61, 62\n\n\n Lenagh Townland, fort blown up, 97\n\n Leprechaun, Lupracan, Luchorpan, 10, 32\n\n Leslie, Rev. J. B., 9, 37\n\n London Bridge legend, 84, 85\n\n Luchter, 18\n\n Lurach, St., church of, 22\n\n Lytle, S. D., vi, 16\n\n\n Maghera, Co. Down, 4, 7\n\n Maghera, Co. Londonderry, 14-23\n\n Manannan, 49, 95, 96\n\n McKean, E. J., B.A., 19, 41\n\n McKenna, Daniel, 14, 17, 18\n\n MacKenzie, W. C., F.S.A.Scot., 58\n\n MacRitchie, David, F.S.A.Scot., v, 12, 28, 29, 42, 57, 58, 96\n\n Marshall, Dr. Eric, 81\n\n Mortar, cemented with the blood of bullocks, 15\n\n Mourne Mountains, 2, 28\n\n Munro, Dr., 12\n\n\n Neosophers, 107\n\n New Guinea, pygmies in, 80, 81\n\n Niederdorf, destruction of, 53, 54\n\n Nuesch, Dr., 61\n\n\n O'Donovan, Dr., 22, 75, 76, 103\n\n O'Grady, Standish H., 32, 44, 61\n\n O'Neill, Phelim, castle of, 15\n\n Oughter, Lough, 9\n\n\n Pal\u00e6olithic man, 59, 99, 100\n\n Pal\u00e6osophers, 107\n\n Patrick, St., 61, 63, 83\n\n Pechts, 15, 16, 27, 31, 50, 57, 78, 99, 102, 104\n\n Pennant, 29\n\n Piskey Dwarfs of Cornwall, 101\n\n Portstewart, 19, 38, 67\n\n\n Rathlin Island, 90, 107\n\n Red hair ascribed to fairies and Danes, 2, 9, 34, 37, 100\n possibly the original hair colour in Europe, 100\n\n Rhys, Sir John, 67, 101\n\n Rochefort, Jorevin de, 40, 41\n\n Roe, Valley of the, 19, 96, 97\n\n Rosapenna, 65, 67, 71\n\n Roughan Castle, 15\n\n Rowan tree, 27\n\n Rush crosses, 17, 18\n\n\n Schaffhausen, skeletons of dwarfs discovered near, v, 61, 62, 104\n\n Seals, belief that human beings could change into, 81, 82\n\n Sealskin of Finn woman, 96\n\n Sea sand, encroachment on land, 114\n\n Smith, Dr. Robertson, 34, 35\n\n Smith, Rev. Frederick, 99\n\n Sidh, 44, 61\n\n Sidis, 61\n\n Silva Gadelica, 32, 44, 61\n\n Souterrains, 6-8, 16, 30, 31, 36-41, 86, 87\n\n Spy, men of, 12, 13\n\n Staffa, 50\n\n Stone circles at Aghlish, 97\n\n Stranocum, souterrain at, 8\n\n Sweeney, John, 82\n\n Sword of light, 93, 94\n\n\n Thomson, Professor James, 110\n\n Tobermore, 17\n\n Todas, 54\n\n Tormore, 73\n\n Tory Island, 73-76, 88, 96\n\n Tuatha de Danann, 11, 12, 18, 29, 77, 102, 103\n\n Tullamore Park, 2, 3\n\n\n Wee, wee man, 13\n\n Whitley, Rev. Gath, 101\n\n Windele, John, 40\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\nELLIOT STOCK, 7, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note\n\n\nIllustrations have been moved near the relevant section of the text.\n\nInconsistencies have been retained in spelling, hyphenation and grammar,\nexcept where indicated in the list below:\n\n - \"FAIRHEAD\" changed to \"FAIR HEAD\" on Page xiii\n - Period added after \"inches\" on Page 16\n - Bracket added after \"1854\" in Footnote 8\n - Period changed to comma after \"304\" in Footnote 13\n - Comma changed to period after \"1906\" in Footnote 15\n - Quote added before \"furnished\" on Page 89\n - Period added after \"669\" in Footnote 103\n - Period and quote added after \"regions\" in Footnote 111\n - Period removed after \"104\" in Page 119\n - Period added after \"B\" on Page 120\n - \"Niederdorff\" changed to \"Niederdorf\" on Page 120\n\n\n\n\n\n
","title":"Ulster Folklore","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":32561}