Irish Bog Folklore, Kerry

Irish Bogs and Banshees
 [From the "Globe."]

Until quite recently, Giraldus Cambrensis (date about 1200) had apparently said the last word upon the phenomena of Irish bogs. Now, Kenmare is full of scientists finding explanations which no Kerry man will accept. The ancient map-makers, in similar cases of difficulty, had a formula. "Here are Hobgoblins," they wrote, and so passed on to places about which there could be no disputing. Geology takes no account of Hobgoblins, and - as regards Bogs - has found no formula to take their place. Hence the Encyclopaedia Britannica has nothing to say thereon, nor can the British Museum offer any firm ground to the explorer. As for Giraldus, he was frankly on the side of the Hobgoblins.

These bogs, he said, were the abode of evil spirits, who were believed to move them at their will and pleasure. And in this view he is supported by a great number of the present inhabitants of Kerry, who maintain that to shift a bog is just the dirty trick "thim wans" would play. For this reason, Kerry men are slow to take work upon a soft bog, fearing to draw down the vengeance of "thim wans" by interference with their concerns.

[...] In justice to Ireland, it should be said, however, that very little of her bog-land is of this "soft" kind. The "carpet of death" is by no means common. There are about three million acres of bog-land in the country. The greater part of this is a perfectly reliable neighbour, not given to moving, and by no means dangerous to cross. [...] But let a cutting be abandoned for a month or twoand the moss and the bracken will spread over and cover it - the heather comes, and the white flower of the bog-cotton - and the scar is healed. The writer  passed six years of childhood within a mile of "bog-land" such as this. A keeper had his house upon the borders, and always gave it as his firm belief that the bog was "fairy ha'nted."

"Amn't I annoyed wid them?" he would say, if asked for proof. Moreover, did not his setter go out one night over the bog, and return cross-eyed next morning through meeting a fairy? Could he prove it? Of course he could. He could show you the dog. Dogs were never cross-eyed unless a witch had over-looked them. It was only after dark that these things affected McKeown. During the day he wandered forth over the bog without a qualm. But when dusk fell on the hill he would stand at his door and point out half-a-dozen spots buoyed in his chart as haunts of the Hobgoblin. His home lay almost in the centre of a magic circle, and to reach it after sundown by any other path than the road, without running plump into some mysterious rite or other, was a thing needing some skill.

To a small boy, therefore, this bog-land was enchanted ground. Fairies hid in its clumps of wild campanula. Elfin ringers made mad music of its "witch-bells" and "fairy-flute." Across the peat-streams, running through the moss, the small good people and "thim wans" waged an internecine war. This little river, which never ceased, night and morning, calling him to play, bore in the day-time speckled trout. But he never knew the evening when it might not bring a princess in a golden boat from those mysterious sources far beyond the hills.

Only once, according to McKeown, has his bog-land shifted "in a thousand years." The story of its moving involves the fate of a Danish host, overwhelmed and buried underneath. It is curious how the visits of the "sea-wolves" live in the talk of the country-side - fact and fiction inextricably confused. There is no doubt, for instance, that McKeown believed that when fig-leaves went out of fashion trowsers were worn. He clothed Berserkers in breeches, and had a vision of a regiment of pipe-clayed Vikings sacking the Bank of Kenmare. Still, he managed to be convincing, and there is alittle doubt that, somewhere in Kerry, a Danish force lies buried fathoms deep in the hill. The supposed place of their entombment is a pass between the upland bog - McKeown's - and a patch of soft bog - a quicksand of slime. The marauders are said to have been returning from a raid inland when - on entering the pass - they saw the whole surface of the upper hill tumbling towards them like a sea. Fleeing before it, they were caught in the lower bog, which held them upstanding to be drowned ina vast cataract of moving earth. This is McKeown's story, and he always adds that upon stormy nights the Danes can still be heard clattering through the pass, and shouting their terror as the bog rolls down.

There is no doubt in the mind of McKeown that these portents have always been the work of the Hobgoblins. His name for the latter, "thim wans" or "the little gentry," testifies his faith in their power to work him harm. Really, he has no great belief in their gentility. There is that little matter of the dog, for instance. But while he thinks what he pleases, he is wise enough to call his neighbours no harsh names. It is an old habit. The ancient Greek called his unseen guests "Eumenides" (the benevolent), meaning something very different, and raised his altar of fruit and corn in the susptected grove. "Good manners are no burthen," says McKeown, and spills his pewter ever so little on the ground before drinking.

Often he does a day's work upon the bog-land without seeing a soul. For him, on days like these, there is "something quare" about - "A wreath of the mist - a bubble of the stream." A half-heard noise behind him in the heather as he leans upon his spade - an outline half-discerned through the plantation "in the darkness of the night" - has each its possible meaning. He raises no altar; but he keeps a watch upon his tongue. He saw "somethin' quare."

One other sound besides the shouting on the bog, McKeown has heard - the wail of the Banshee. He, and all Kerry with him, asserts that the cry forebodes death or other evil following close behind. It is common talk about Killarney that "She Ferogh" appeared before the late disaster, singing through the valley in the path of the bog. Some claim even to have seen her - an aged woman whose long white hair fell over her thin shoulders. It is hard to treat the Banshee with disrespect, even now. There is scarcely a peasant family in Kerry which does not confidently expect her coming when "one of the old race" dies. Even the historian "hedges" when he writes of the Banshee. His text expresses a confident disbelief: his notes are full of true stories of her appearance to people whose word is above reproach. In this way the casual reader has both views presented. Meanwhile, for serious inquirers, there is always Mrs Hall, who has set the Banshee's wail to music, in two keys.

Inverness Courier, 19th January 1897.