I met a young man in the Burren Hills who knew an old poet. The poet used to write his poems in Irish and had met someone named Maive when he was young. She said she was a queen “among them” and asked the poet if he wanted money or pleasure. He chose pleasure, and she loved him for a while before leaving him. From then on, he was always very sad. The young man had heard the poet sing a poem many times, but he could only remember that it was “very sad” and that the poet called Maive the “most beautiful of all beauties.”
ENCHANTED WOODS
Last summer, after I finished my work for the day, I would often go for walks in some woods. There, I would frequently meet an old man from the countryside and talk to him about his work and the woods. Sometimes, a friend would go with me, and the old man would share his thoughts more openly with them than with me. He had spent his whole life cutting down trees from the paths. He had also thought a lot about the natural and supernatural creatures in the woods. He said he heard the hedgehog grunting like a man. He strongly believed that the hedgehog steals apples by rolling around under an apple tree until apples stick to its quills[142]. He was also convinced that the cats in the woods have their own language. He said, “Cats were once serpents, and they were turned into cats during a big change in the world. That’s why they are difficult to kill and why it’s dangerous to mess with them. If you bother a cat, it might scratch or bite you in a way that would put poison into you, just like a serpent.” He spoke with great interest about all the wild creatures in the woods.
At least once, he has seen a strange sight in the woods. He said, “One time, when I was cutting timber over in Inchy, around eight o’clock in the morning, I saw a girl picking nuts. Her brown hair hung down over her shoulders, and she had a fresh and pleasant face. She was tall and didn’t wear anything on her head, and her dress was simple. When she sensed my presence, she quickly was gone. I followed her and searched for her, but I never saw her again from that day to this, never again.”
Others too have seen spirits in the Enchanted Woods. A worker told us about what his friend saw in a part of the woods called Shanwalla. He said, “One evening, I said goodbye to Lawrence Mangan in the yard, and he went through the path in Shanwalla. Two hours later, he was back in the yard and asked me to light a candle in the stable. He told me that when he entered Shanwalla, a little creature about as tall as his knee but with a head as big as a man’s body appeared and guided him off the path and around. Finally, it led him to the lime-kiln[143], and then it disappeared.”
A woman told me about something she and others saw in the river. She said, “I came over the stile[144] from the chapel, and others were with me. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind[145] came, and two trees bent and broke, falling into the river. Those who were with me saw many figures, but I only saw one sitting by the bank where the trees fell. The figure was dressed in dark clothes, and it had no head.”
A man told me that when he was a boy, he and another boy went to catch a horse in a field. This field is located near the lake, just a little away from the woods. He said to his companion, “I bet a button that if I throw a pebble at that bush, it will stay on it.” He meant that the bush was so dense[146] that the pebble wouldn’t be able to go through it. So, he picked up a pebble, and as soon as it hit the bush, the most beautiful music came out from it. They ran away, and when they had gone about two hundred yards, they looked back and saw a woman dressed in white walking in circles around the bush. “First, it appeared as a woman, and then as a man, and it kept going around the bush.”
MIRACULOUS CREATURES
In the Enchanted Woods, there are small animals like martens, badgers, and foxes. But there are also bigger and stronger creatures that can’t be caught with traps[147]. They are magical creatures that bring both hope and fear. Some can fly, while others move through the thickets[148] near the Gates of Death. Someone I know says that his father was once in the woods of Inchy, where the children from Gort[149] used to steal fishing rods[150]. He was sitting by a wall with his dog when he heard something running from Owbawn Weir. He couldn’t see anything, but the sound of its feet on the ground was like the sound of the feet of a deer. The dog got scared and scratched at the wall, but the man could only hear the sound of hooves. Another time, the man’s father told him that he was in a boat on the lake with a few men from Gort. One of them had a spear[151] for catching eels, and when he put it into the water, it hit something. The man fainted, and they had to carry him out of the boat to land. When he woke up, he said that what he struck was definitely not a fish! A friend of mine thought that these scary creatures, which are often found in lakes, were placed there long ago by clever enchanters[152] to guard the gates of wisdom. He believes that if we sent our spirits into the water, we would become one with the strange and powerful energies, and maybe even conquer[153] the world.
ARISTOTLE OF THE BOOKS
The friend who can make the wood-cutter talk more easily than anyone else recently visited his old wife. She lives in a cottage near the edge of the woods and loves to share old stories, just like her husband. This time, she started talking about Goban and his wisdom. But then she said, “Aristotle of the Books was also very wise and had a lot of experience, but didn’t the bees outsmart him in the end? He wanted to know how they packed the honeycomb[154], so he spent almost two weeks watching them, but he couldn’t see how they did it. Then he made a hive[155] with a glass cover and placed it over the bees. But when he went to look through the glass, the bees had covered it with wax, making it as black as a pot, and he was as blind as before. He said he had never been so fooled before. They had him that time surely!”
THE SWINE OF THE GODS
A few years ago, my friend told me about something that happened to him when he was a young man and was training with some rebels from Connaught. There were only a few of them, and they drove up a hill until they reached a quiet spot. They left the car and went further up the hill with their rifles, where they practiced for a while. As they were coming back, they noticed a very thin pig with long legs following them. Someone jokingly said it was a fairies pig, and they all began to run as part of the joke. Surprisingly, the pig started running too, and somehow, this playful chase turned into real fear. When they got to the car, they made the horse gallop as fast as possible, but the pig continued to follow them. At one point, one of them raised his rifle to shoot at the pig, but when he looked through the barrel, he couldn’t see anything. Eventually, they turned a corner and arrived at a village. They told the villagers what had happened, and the villagers grabbed pitchforks[156], spades, and other tools to drive the pig away. However, when they reached the corner, they couldn’t find anything.
KIDNAPPERS
Near the town of Sligo, on the southern side of Ben Bulben, there is a small white square on the limestone. No one has ever touched it. It is the entrance to the land of fairies. During the middle of the night, the magical beings come from the door and walk on the land, invisible to all except for a few fairies-doctors who may look out from their homes to see what the fairies are up to. If there is a newborn baby or a