Ulster Folklore Part 3

[20] "Uganda Protectorate," vol. ii., pp. 516, 517.

[21] "Land of the Pygmies," pp. 173, 174.

[22] "Uganda Protectorate," vol. ii. See pp. 527, 530; also coloured frontispiece.

[23] "Uganda Protectorate," vol. ii., p. 532.

[24] _Ibid._, p. 532.

[25] _Ibid._, p. 513.

[26] "The Religion of the Semites," p. 115.

[27] _Ibid._, pp. 122, 123.

[28] _Ibid._, p. 123.

[29] _Ibid._, note _b_, p. 424.

[30] _Ibid._, p. 425.

Folklore connected with Ulster Raths and Souterrains[31]

As the t.i.tle of this paper I have given "Folklore connected with Ulster Raths and Souterrains," but if I used the language of the country-people I should speak, not of raths and souterrains, but of forths and coves. In these coves it is believed the fairies dwell, and here they keep as prisoners women, children, even men. These subterranean dwellings may not be known to mortals. I heard of a lad being kept for several days in the fort of the s.h.i.+mna, near Newcastle, Co. Down, and I was told that the great rath at Downpatrick had been a very gentle place, meaning one inhabited by fairies. In neither of these forts is there, as far as is known, a souterrain, nor is there one in the old fort at Antrim, a typical rath. In many cases we do find the entrance to a souterrain is in a fort. I may mention Ballymagreehan Fort, the stone fort near Altnadua Lough in Co. Down, and Crocknabroom, near Ballycastle. Although not in Ulster, I may also refer to a fine example of a rath with a souterrain in it, the Mote of Greenmount, described by the Rev. J. B. Leslie in his "History of Kilsaran, Co.

Louth."[32]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VIII. [_R. Welch, Photo._ THE OLD FORT, ANTRIM.]

Many souterrains have no fort above them. Take, for example, the one near Scollogstown, Co. Down, with its numerous bridges, which it would be decidedly unpleasant to face if little men were behind them shooting arrows. Also Cloughnabrick Cave, near Ballycastle, which is not built with stones, but hollowed out of the basaltic rock.

Fairies are not the only race connected with raths and souterrains. We have two others, Danes and Pechts. It is generally believed that the Danes built the forts; hence we find many of them called "Danes' forts."

I will describe one named from the townland in which it is situated, Ballycairn Fort. It stands on a high bank overlooking the Bann, about a mile north of Coleraine. The entire height is about twenty-six feet; at perhaps twelve feet from the ground a flat platform is reached, and at one end of this the upper part of the fort rises in a circular form for about fourteen or fifteen feet. I was told the Danes who built it were short, stout people, and as they had no wheelbarrows they carried the earth in their leathern ap.r.o.ns. Here we seem to come in contact with a very primitive people, probably wearing the skins of wild animals, and who are said, like the fairies, to have sandy or red hair.

As far as is known no souterrain exists in Ballycairn Fort, although I was shown a stone at the side which my guide said might be the entrance to a "cove"; it appeared to me to be simply a piece of rock appearing above the sod, or possibly a boulder. There is a tradition of fairies living in this fort, as it is said that in "long ago" times the farmers used to threaten their boys if they were not doing right, that the fairies would come out of the fort and carry them away.

Many of the souterrains in this part of the world are now blocked up, and of some the entrance is no longer known, although they have been explored within living memory; others have been destroyed. There was a souterrain a short distance from Ballycairn fort in a field opposite to Cranogh National School. The master of this school told me that fifteen or sixteen years ago these underground buildings existed, but now they have been all quarried away. He also mentioned a tradition that there was a subterranean pa.s.sage under the Bann.

On the opposite bank of the river, near Portstewart, I heard of several of these underground dwellings.

One was on the land of an old farmer eighty-four years of age. He told me he had been in this cave, but no one could get in now. It had been hollowed out by man, but the walls were not built of stones. There were several rooms; you dropped from one to another through a narrow hole.

The rooms were large, but low in the roof; in one of them a quant.i.ty of limpet-sh.e.l.ls were found. He added that some said that the Danes had built these caves, others that the clans made them as places of refuge.

He added that the Danes of those days had sandy hair and were short people; not like the st.u.r.dy Danes of the present day. These are well known to the seafaring population of Ulster, and we sometimes find the old Danes spoken of as a tall, fair race; probably this is a true description of the medieval sea-rovers. The short Danes I should be inclined to identify with the Tuatha de Danann, and I believe that, notwithstanding the magical portents which abound in the tales that have come down to us, we have here a very early people who had made some progress in the arts.

This double use of the name Dane seems at times to have perplexed the older writers. The Rev. William Hamilton, in his "Letters on the North-East Coast of Antrim," published towards the end of the eighteenth century, gives a description of the coal-mines of Ballycastle[33] and of the very ancient galleries, with the pillars, left by the prehistoric miners, supporting the roof, which had been discovered some twelve years before he wrote. He tells us that the people of the place ascribed them to the Danes, but argues that these were never peaceable possessors of Ireland, and that it is not "to the tumultuary and barbarous armies of the ninth and tenth centuries ... we are to attribute the slow and toilsome operations of peace." He mentions how the stalact.i.te pillars found in these galleries marked their antiquity, and ascribes them to some period prior to the eighth century, "when Ireland enjoyed a considerable share of civilization."

In the same way John Windele, writing in the _Ulster Journal of Archaeology_ for 1862, speaks of the mines in Waterford having been worked by the ancient inhabitants, and adds: "One almost insulated promontory is perforated like a rabbit-burrow, and is known as the 'Danes' Island,' the peasantry attributing these ancient mines, like all other relics of remote civilisation, to the Danes."[34]

From my own experience I can corroborate this statement. An artificial island in Lough Sessiagh, in Co. Donegal, was shown to me as the work of the Danes. The forts on Horn Head and at Glenties are also ascribed to them.

The use of the souterrains was not confined to prehistoric times. The one at Greenmount appears to have been inhabited by the medieval Danes, as a Runic inscription, engraved on a plate of bronze, has been discovered in it, the only one as yet found in Ireland. In 1317 every man dwelling in an ooan, or caher's souterrain, was summoned to join the army of Domched O'Brian.[35] The French traveller, Jorevin de Rocheford, speaks of subterranean vaults where the peasants a.s.sembled to hear Ma.s.s,[36] and in still more recent times the smuggler and the distiller of illicit whisky found them convenient places of concealment.

In a former paper I referred to the lost secret of the heather beer, and the tragic ending of the last of the Danes.[37] As the story was told me near Ballycairn Fort, the father said: "Give my son the first lilt of the rope, and I will reveal our secret"; but when the son was dead the father cried: "Slay me also, for none shall ever know how the heather beer was brewed!"

In a paper read to this club Mr. McKean[38] mentioned that this story had been told to him in Kerry, where I, too, heard it. It appears to be almost universal in Ulster. When visiting Navan Fort, the ancient Emania, near Armagh, I was told that on this fort the Danes made heather beer. I asked if any heather grew in the neighbourhood, but the answer was, not now. There are variants of the tale. In some parts of Donegal it is wine, not beer, that the Danes are said to have made. As a rule the slaughter is taken for granted, and very little said about it; but a farmer in Co. Antrim gave me a full account of the ma.s.sacre, how at a great feast a Roman Catholic sat beside each Dane, and at a given signal plunged his dirk into his neighbour's side, until only one man and his son remained alive; then followed the usual sequel.

These short Danes are said to have had large feet, and one man described their arms as so long that they could pick anything off the ground without stooping. Long arms are also a characteristic of the traditional dwarf of j.a.pan, probably an ancestor of the Aino.[39] As I mentioned in a previous paper,[40] large feet are also a traditional characteristic of the Pechts, who are generally said to have been clad in skins or in grey clothes. They have occasionally superhuman attributes ascribed to them. The same man who spoke of the long arms of the Danes said the Pechts could creep through keyholes--they were like "speerits"--and he evidently regarded both them and the fairies as evil spirits. At the same time he said they would thresh corn or work for a man, but if they were given food, they would be offended, and go away.

I think the close connection between Danes, Pechts, and fairies will be apparent to all, although the fairy has more supernatural characteristics, and in the banshee a.s.sumes a very weird form. Lady Fanshawe has described the apparition she saw when staying, in 1649, with the Lady Honora O'Brien, as a woman in white, with red hair and ghastly complexion, who thrice cried "Ahone!" and vanished with a sigh more like wind than breath. This was apparently the ghost of a murdered woman, who was said to appear when any of the family died, and that night a cousin of their hostess had pa.s.sed away.[41] Similar stories, as we all know, exist at the present day.

Except in the case of the banshee, fairies rarely partake of the nature of ghosts, and I should note that in her description of the apparition Lady Fanshawe does not use the word "banshee." In many respects the fairies are akin to mortals--there are fairy men, fairy women, and fairy children. Fairies often live under bushes, and I was told in Co. Armagh that it would be a very serious matter to cut down a "lone" thorn-bush; those growing in rows were evidently less sacred. Did the thorn-bush hide the entrance to the subterranean dwelling?

The fairies are quick to revenge an injury or an encroachment on their territory. A fire which occurred at Dunree on Lough Sw.i.l.l.y was attributed to the fairies, who were supposed to be angry because the military had carried the works of their modern fort too near the fairy rock. In some places the raths have been cultivated, but, as a rule, this is looked upon as very unlucky, and sure to bring dire misfortune on the man who attempts it. On the other hand, there appears to be no objection to growing crops on the top of a souterrain. Many are, it is true, afraid to enter these dark abodes, and others consider it unwise to carry anything out of them. I have never heard them spoken of as tombs, and the fairies are regarded, not as ghosts, but as fallen angels, to whom no Church holds out a hope of salvation. Only in one instance did a woman tell me that as fairies were good to the poor, she thought there would be hope for them hereafter. The Irish fairy remains a pagan; the ancient well of pre-Christian days may be consecrated to the Christian saint, and patterns held beside it, but no pious pilgrim prays on the rath or below the fairy rock.

We may now ask ourselves the meaning of these legends. The rath and souterrain are undoubtedly the work of primitive man, yet here we have the Sidh, inhabited by the fairy and the Tuatha de Danann. In the "Colloquy of the Ancients"[42] we are told it was out of a Sidh, Finn's chief musician, the dwarf Cnu deiriol came, and from another Sidh came Blathnait, whom the small man espoused. It was fairy music which Cnu taught to the musicians of the Fianna. It was out of a Sidh in the south that Cas corach, son of the Olave of the Tuatha de Danann, came to the King of Ulidia.[43]

In Derrick's "Image of Ireland," written in 1578, and published in 1581, the Olympian G.o.ds call upon certain little mountain G.o.ds, whom I should be inclined to identify with the fairies, to come to their aid:

"Let therefore little Mountain G.o.ds A troupe (as thei maie spare) Of breechlesse men at all a.s.saies, Both leauvie and prepare With mantelles down unto the shoe To lappe them in by night; With speares and swordes and little dartes To s.h.i.+eld them from despight."[44]

May I, in conclusion, express my belief that in the traditions of fairies, Danes, and Pechts the memory is preserved of an early race or races of short stature, but of considerable strength, who built underground dwellings, and had some skill in music and in other arts?

They appear to have been spread over a great part of Europe. It is possible that, as larger races advanced, these small people were driven southwards to the mountains of Switzerland, westward towards the Atlantic, and northward to Lapland, where their descendants may still be found. No doubt there is a large supernatural element, especially in the stories of the fairies; but the same may be said of the tales of witches in the seventeenth century. The witch was undoubtedly human, yet she was believed, and sometimes believed herself, to possess superhuman powers, and to be in communication with unearthly beings. We must also remember the widespread belief in local spirits or G.o.ds, and a taller race of invaders might well fear the magic of an earlier people long settled in the country, even if the latter were inferior in bodily and mental characteristics.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Read before the Archaeological Section of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, February 12, 1908.

[32] Pp. 12-20. Several sections of this rath are given; also a view showing Greenmount in 1748, and a plan of the same date--both from Wright's "Louthiana," published in that year.

[33] Part I., Letter IV., Edition 1822.

[34] _Ulster Journal of Archaeology_, 1861-62, p. 212.

[35] See "Prehistoric Stone Forts of Northern Clare," by Thomas J. Westropp, M.A., M.R.I.A. (_Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland_, vol. vi., fifth series, 1896).

[36] See "Ill.u.s.trations of Irish History," by C. Litton Falkiner, p. 416. He considers it probable that Jorevin de Rochefort was Albert Jouvin de Rochefort, Tresorier de France.

[37] See Ulster Fairies, Danes and Pechts, p. 28.

[38] See Annual Report of Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, 1907-08, "A Holiday Trip to West Kerry," p. 73.

[39] See Mr. David MacRitchie's "Northern Trolls," read at the Folklore Congress, Chicago, 1893, p. 12.

[40] See Ulster Fairies, Danes and Pechts, p. 27.