Serious Landslip Near Killarney. A house and its occupants swept away.
A Killarney Correspondent telegraphed last night: - "An extraordinary and disastrous landslip occurred, early this morning, near Rathmore, about ten miles from Killarney, and it was, unfortunately, attended by a serious loss of life. An enormous bog was, so to speak, let loose, and moved a considerable distance, sweeping everything before it in its irresistable course. A great tract of country has been devastated, and the destructive course of the moving mass can be distinctly traced for miles. The travelling bog in its widest part is nearly a mile across, and everything which stood in its way appears to have been utterly destroyed. A house on Lord Kenmare's estate, known as Quarry Lodge, and occupied by one of his land stewards, named Donnelly, which lay right in the track of the bog, was completely demolished and swallowed up, not a trace now remaining of the building and outhouses and contents, save a few household articles. Donnelly, his wife, and seven children, together with a number of pigs and cattle, have all disappeared, and their bodies, it is thought, will never be recovered from the bog. There was a very heavy rainfall in the district last night, and this, it is believed, precipitated the catastrophe, which, it is thought, occurred between one and four o'clock this morning. This time, however, is merely conjectural, for, so far as can be ascertained from inquiry in the district, the moving bog made no noise, and the victims could have had no warning of the terrible fate in store for them."
Beginning of an article in the London Evening Standard, 29th December 1896.
The Wailings of the Banshee.
A remarkable story has gained currency in the Killarney district. It is stated that about a week before Christmas extraordinary noises were heard in the valley at night, which the people describe as resembling what is traditionally supposed to be the wailings of the banshee. These noises - a long-drawn uncanny sound with cries resembling the Irish keen - are said to have been heard by several persons residing in the valley. Large numbers of the people explained the nature of the cries to the priests, who succeeded in calming their fears.
So widespread were the feelings which these sounds occasioned that numbers of old people sent for the clergy to visit them in their houses. The priests were busy for some days ministering religious consolation to the people and reassuring them. The noises undoubtedly were there, for numbers of the people heard the cries during the night, and in one instance they reached official ears also. The fact that these banshee-like cries, causing apprehension of some disaster among the people, should be so quickly followed by the great calamity that has befallen the district is regarded (the London Daily News says) by those who attach credence to the story as very singular.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 1st January 1897.
Belief in the Banshee.
A respected and entirely serious Irish correspondent of the Daily News believes in the banshee story. He writes:- The statement made with absolute sincerity that the wailings of the banshee were heard a week before Christmas in the valley of the moving bog in East Kerry by large numbers of people must not be set down to a freak of the Celtic imagination. These cries, which are believed to presage death, reached at least in one instance official ears on the eve of this terrible disaster.
I have myself heard the late Archdeacon Whately, who was an Englishman educated in England, the only son of the celebrated Archbishop of Dublin, say that in an Irish country parish he heard distinctly, when administering the Holy Communion to a dying person, the wail known as the cry of the banshee.
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 9th January 1897.
Showing posts with label Kerry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kerry. Show all posts
Monday, 1 May 2017
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.
[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.
Monday, 13 March 2017
Kilmurry, County Kerry
Bean Sidhe is supposed to announce the death of a member of an old Irish family. when an O Connor, an O Brien, an O Rourke, a McCarthy, or a Murphy, or a member of several other families dies in Kerry, people are on the alert for the Bean Sidhe. She usually comes not more than a week before the death. She may be heard ag caoineadh round the house, or in the neighbourhood of the sick person.
About 45 years ago a man was already dead, and was being waked in his own house. Not later than 10 o'clock, a summer's night, all the people at the wake heard the lonely wail about a half a mile away. It was evidently on the bohereen and coming towards the house.
Some of the younger members of the family said it was surely a certain brother in law, coming to the wake already drunk. They set out in the direction of the wail to thrash him, but it suddenly stopped, and there was nobody to be seen on the bohereen; nor in the adjacent fields.
An old woman, her son, and the man who told the story, were sitting around fire chatting quietly one cold winter's day. It was not more than four o'clock in the evening when a loud wailing in the distance caught their attention. They dropped the conversation and listened. In a few minutes the old woman said "There is someone of the O-- dead, naming a family who lived a field away. The son abused her for being so silly.
A half an hour afterwards they were again startled by the galloping of a horse past the yard. He came to announce the death of one of the O-- who lived 5 or 6 miles away from his father's home.
The Bean Sidhe was heard in Curranes a few years ago before the death - and an accidental death too - of a certain man. A light was seen in space near the same spot. Light in space is supposed to be a premonition of deaths.
Nevertheless "In coming from the wake stories" it more often appears.
Two men and a "young girl" were coming from the wake of a member of a certain O-- family one night. They saw the ball of light rolling along the side of the mountain. After some time it disappeared from their view.
Many people would not go by road (walking or on a bicycle) to Dingle late at night, because of the ghost stories that are told in connection with Conor Hills.
Before the death of one of the Daly family the caoineadh was heard about 200 yards from the house.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
Many many years ago a mermaid was seen once a year, sitting on a rock combing her hair on the brink of one of the Killarney lakes. Others say that the lake near which she appeared is in [??] near [?] mountain.
The story of her beauty was widespread. Her hair which was like burnished gold reached below her waist. Her eyes were of the deepest blue, and her complexion was a soft delicate pink.
People knew when to expect her visit and they came from different parts of the County to see her.
On one occasion Mr Walsh, Coom, Cordal, made it his business to go to see her. His love for her was on first sight, yet deep and sincere. He sprang towards her and lifted her in his arms to take her home. She responded somewhat, yet she gave him this word of warning, "Think well before you take me, or you may be sorry." His only response was a blank refusal to go home without her. She agreed to come with him on one condition, only that he would not take her outside the door of his own house for a year and a day. This he readily promised to fulfil and thus he brought her to Coom. She brought with her her wand which she hid in a loft beside the fire.
After some time she gave birth to a baby daughter, for whom the father provided a nurse, for he had noticed the mother getting somewhat restless, and he was willing to do anything to please her.
One day while he was out, she came down out of her room laughing, she snatched her wand, went off, and was never seen nor heard of afterwards.
Her child grew stronger and more beautiful daily. Some few years after the mother's disappearance however, the sounds of music, song and revelry were heard in her room.
The nurse went to the room door, and peeped at the keyhole to see what was going on. The child followed her and did likewise. No sooner did the child put her eye to the keyhole than something was thrown at her which blinded her.
After some time the child died, and she is supposed to be the Bean Sidhe which follows the Walsh family.
The same music which the child and the nurse heard is sometimes heard, round and beside the death-bed of a dying member of the Walsh family.
From the National Folklore Collection
About 45 years ago a man was already dead, and was being waked in his own house. Not later than 10 o'clock, a summer's night, all the people at the wake heard the lonely wail about a half a mile away. It was evidently on the bohereen and coming towards the house.
Some of the younger members of the family said it was surely a certain brother in law, coming to the wake already drunk. They set out in the direction of the wail to thrash him, but it suddenly stopped, and there was nobody to be seen on the bohereen; nor in the adjacent fields.
An old woman, her son, and the man who told the story, were sitting around fire chatting quietly one cold winter's day. It was not more than four o'clock in the evening when a loud wailing in the distance caught their attention. They dropped the conversation and listened. In a few minutes the old woman said "There is someone of the O-- dead, naming a family who lived a field away. The son abused her for being so silly.
A half an hour afterwards they were again startled by the galloping of a horse past the yard. He came to announce the death of one of the O-- who lived 5 or 6 miles away from his father's home.
The Bean Sidhe was heard in Curranes a few years ago before the death - and an accidental death too - of a certain man. A light was seen in space near the same spot. Light in space is supposed to be a premonition of deaths.
Nevertheless "In coming from the wake stories" it more often appears.
Two men and a "young girl" were coming from the wake of a member of a certain O-- family one night. They saw the ball of light rolling along the side of the mountain. After some time it disappeared from their view.
Many people would not go by road (walking or on a bicycle) to Dingle late at night, because of the ghost stories that are told in connection with Conor Hills.
Before the death of one of the Daly family the caoineadh was heard about 200 yards from the house.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
Many many years ago a mermaid was seen once a year, sitting on a rock combing her hair on the brink of one of the Killarney lakes. Others say that the lake near which she appeared is in [??] near [?] mountain.
The story of her beauty was widespread. Her hair which was like burnished gold reached below her waist. Her eyes were of the deepest blue, and her complexion was a soft delicate pink.
People knew when to expect her visit and they came from different parts of the County to see her.
On one occasion Mr Walsh, Coom, Cordal, made it his business to go to see her. His love for her was on first sight, yet deep and sincere. He sprang towards her and lifted her in his arms to take her home. She responded somewhat, yet she gave him this word of warning, "Think well before you take me, or you may be sorry." His only response was a blank refusal to go home without her. She agreed to come with him on one condition, only that he would not take her outside the door of his own house for a year and a day. This he readily promised to fulfil and thus he brought her to Coom. She brought with her her wand which she hid in a loft beside the fire.
After some time she gave birth to a baby daughter, for whom the father provided a nurse, for he had noticed the mother getting somewhat restless, and he was willing to do anything to please her.
One day while he was out, she came down out of her room laughing, she snatched her wand, went off, and was never seen nor heard of afterwards.
Her child grew stronger and more beautiful daily. Some few years after the mother's disappearance however, the sounds of music, song and revelry were heard in her room.
The nurse went to the room door, and peeped at the keyhole to see what was going on. The child followed her and did likewise. No sooner did the child put her eye to the keyhole than something was thrown at her which blinded her.
After some time the child died, and she is supposed to be the Bean Sidhe which follows the Walsh family.
The same music which the child and the nurse heard is sometimes heard, round and beside the death-bed of a dying member of the Walsh family.
From the National Folklore Collection
Kilflyn, County Kerry
My grand-father was a hard working industrious thrifty and tasty farmer.
I often heard my father say that the beautiful whitethorn hedges that separate our fields were planted by my grand-father when my father was a little boy. Grand father planted these hedges from haws. He put the haws into a long soft hay sugan and planted a few inches deep in a row. At both ends of each hedge he planted a white thorn quick about two feet high. These quicks being established grew quickly. Grand-father was very attentive to them. In his walks in the evening he pulled the grass round them and when any of the fields were being tilled he threw a couple of forks of manure round these quicks.
Time rolled by. All the hedges grew but each whitethorn quick at the end made great growth. They grew practically to be trees rather than bushes.
The time came for the hedges to be cut, branched and thickened. Grand-father alone did so carefully. But he never touched with saw nor axe the valued white thorn tree at each end.
To him these individual white-thorn trees were sacred. He said they were shelters for the bean sidhe.
Years rolled by again. Grand-father got old and retired from work. In fact he lived to the age of eighty-nine hale and harty and died without sickness. Always a spiritual life seemed to guide him, and he certainly had unshaken belief in the bean sidhe and the fairies.
The time came for the hedges to be cut again. This, father and a workman did, and did it in modern style. They spared nothing. They had no beliefs in bean sidhe and fairies and they slashed and cut the large white thorn trees at the end as they cut the others. During the following nights was heard by grand-father and even by others the sad wail and cry of the bean sidhe after the shelter which had been cut away.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
I often heard my father say that the beautiful whitethorn hedges that separate our fields were planted by my grand-father when my father was a little boy. Grand father planted these hedges from haws. He put the haws into a long soft hay sugan and planted a few inches deep in a row. At both ends of each hedge he planted a white thorn quick about two feet high. These quicks being established grew quickly. Grand-father was very attentive to them. In his walks in the evening he pulled the grass round them and when any of the fields were being tilled he threw a couple of forks of manure round these quicks.
Time rolled by. All the hedges grew but each whitethorn quick at the end made great growth. They grew practically to be trees rather than bushes.
The time came for the hedges to be cut, branched and thickened. Grand-father alone did so carefully. But he never touched with saw nor axe the valued white thorn tree at each end.
To him these individual white-thorn trees were sacred. He said they were shelters for the bean sidhe.
Years rolled by again. Grand-father got old and retired from work. In fact he lived to the age of eighty-nine hale and harty and died without sickness. Always a spiritual life seemed to guide him, and he certainly had unshaken belief in the bean sidhe and the fairies.
The time came for the hedges to be cut again. This, father and a workman did, and did it in modern style. They spared nothing. They had no beliefs in bean sidhe and fairies and they slashed and cut the large white thorn trees at the end as they cut the others. During the following nights was heard by grand-father and even by others the sad wail and cry of the bean sidhe after the shelter which had been cut away.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
Rea, County Kerry
The beansídhe is know to be a fairy woman and she lives in glens and valleys and lonely places and she is after certain people very much.
One night this man was walking in a very lonely glen and he was not there long when he saw a fine pipe of tobacco lost so he sat down on a clump of soft green grass and took out his box of matches and reddened the pipe. He was smoking and smoking at his ease when the beansídhe gave a great roar, inside in a clump of briars, that lifted him off the ground and he soon saw this tall black woman between two drains, she was very mournful looking and she was the very same as any woman but she had no legs. So the man continued his journey. He was walking through this green field when his pipe got a crack of a fist and the pipe fell down and he picked it up and put it in his mouth and no sooner had he it in his mouth when it got a crack and fell again and in the finish he had to put it in his pocked. So when he was near a gate he heard the beansidhe again but he did not see her at all this time.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The beansidhe is supposed to be a woman dressed in white and it is thought that she follows certain families such as the Mac' and the O'. But the truth is that she follows every family only that she is not heard, because the crying that is heard is the spirit of the person that is going to die. I often heard funny tales about the beanside. On one occasion a man came out of a house at four o'clock in the morning and he had to go through a path in a field on his journey; he hadn't gone far when he met a woman dressed in white and she was crying. He thought to continue on but he couldn't pass her out so he had to turn back and go into the house until she had crossed and a few days after a man in the house died.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
On another occasion a man was going on a journey very early in the morning and he heard very lonesome crying so he went in the direction of it and he met a woman and a baby in her arms and she crying. He spoke to her but she never answered him so when he arrived home that evening his wife and her young baby were dead.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The beansidhe or bean caoin is a fairy woman which foretells death, and the origin of her is handed down to us from generation to generation.
The old system they had long ago was to cry in the funeral from the house to the Churchyard and there were certain women appointed for this who had good voices.
It is thought that it is their spirit that comes back still when anyone of their family name is dying or dead.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The beansidhe follows certain families, the Keanes, the Meades, the Dillons and the Sheehrys. Before any of these people die she is heard crying outside the windows. Some people who saw her said that she is a very tall woman dressed in black and has a very lonesome cry.
The time that great [-] was in France she followed families who were wounded and dead and she was heard to cry there.
She always keeps to the glens and lonely places. It is said that one time she had a quarrel with another woman over flan and the other woman cursed her.
Ever afterwards, she is going round the place crying.
There was a certain man sick and the beansidhe was crying outside the window and even people saw her. The man however got better.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
One night this man was walking in a very lonely glen and he was not there long when he saw a fine pipe of tobacco lost so he sat down on a clump of soft green grass and took out his box of matches and reddened the pipe. He was smoking and smoking at his ease when the beansídhe gave a great roar, inside in a clump of briars, that lifted him off the ground and he soon saw this tall black woman between two drains, she was very mournful looking and she was the very same as any woman but she had no legs. So the man continued his journey. He was walking through this green field when his pipe got a crack of a fist and the pipe fell down and he picked it up and put it in his mouth and no sooner had he it in his mouth when it got a crack and fell again and in the finish he had to put it in his pocked. So when he was near a gate he heard the beansidhe again but he did not see her at all this time.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The beansidhe is supposed to be a woman dressed in white and it is thought that she follows certain families such as the Mac' and the O'. But the truth is that she follows every family only that she is not heard, because the crying that is heard is the spirit of the person that is going to die. I often heard funny tales about the beanside. On one occasion a man came out of a house at four o'clock in the morning and he had to go through a path in a field on his journey; he hadn't gone far when he met a woman dressed in white and she was crying. He thought to continue on but he couldn't pass her out so he had to turn back and go into the house until she had crossed and a few days after a man in the house died.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
On another occasion a man was going on a journey very early in the morning and he heard very lonesome crying so he went in the direction of it and he met a woman and a baby in her arms and she crying. He spoke to her but she never answered him so when he arrived home that evening his wife and her young baby were dead.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The beansidhe or bean caoin is a fairy woman which foretells death, and the origin of her is handed down to us from generation to generation.
The old system they had long ago was to cry in the funeral from the house to the Churchyard and there were certain women appointed for this who had good voices.
It is thought that it is their spirit that comes back still when anyone of their family name is dying or dead.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
The beansidhe follows certain families, the Keanes, the Meades, the Dillons and the Sheehrys. Before any of these people die she is heard crying outside the windows. Some people who saw her said that she is a very tall woman dressed in black and has a very lonesome cry.
The time that great [-] was in France she followed families who were wounded and dead and she was heard to cry there.
She always keeps to the glens and lonely places. It is said that one time she had a quarrel with another woman over flan and the other woman cursed her.
Ever afterwards, she is going round the place crying.
There was a certain man sick and the beansidhe was crying outside the window and even people saw her. The man however got better.
From the National Folklore Collection, UCD.
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