Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

which Daly's daughter laboured. I saw her several times, and remember clearly that her pale face, dark eye, and very intellectual forehead, gave indications of such a temperament as under her circumstances would be apt to receive strong and fearful impressions from images calculated to excite terror, especially of the supernatural. It only now remains for me to mention the simple method of her cure, which was effected without either priest or doctor. It depended upon a word or two of advice given to her father by a very sensible man, who was in the habit of thinking on these matters somewhat above the superstitious absurdities of the people.

"If you wish your daughter to be cured," said he to her father, "leave the house you are now living in. Take her to some part of the country where she can have companions of her own class and state of life to mingle with; bring her away from the place altogether; for you may rest assured that so long as there are objects before her eyes to remind her of what happened, she will not mend on your hands."

The father, although he sat rent free, took this excellent advice, even at a sacrifice of some comfort: for nothing short of the temptation of easy circumstances could have induced any man to reside in so wild and remote a solitude. In the course of a few days he removed from it with his family, and came to reside amidst the cheerful aspect and enlivening intercourse of human life. The consequences were precisely as the man had told him. In the course of a few weeks the little girl began to find that the visits of the spectre were like those of angels, few and far between. She was sent to school, and what with the confidence derived from human society, and the substitution of new objects and images, she soon perfectly recovered, and ere long was thoroughly set free from the fearful creation of her own brain.

Now, there is scarcely one of the people in my native parish who does not believe that the spirit of this man came back to

the world, and actually appeared to this little girl. The time, however, is fast coming when these empty bugbears will altogether disappear, and we shall entertain more reverend and becoming notions of God, than to suppose such senseless pranks could be played by the soul of a departed being under his permission. We might as well assert that the imaginary beings which surround the couch of the madman or hypochondriac have a real existence, as those that are conjured up by terror, weak nerves, or impure blood.

The spot where the body of M'Kenna was found is now marked by a little heap of stones, which has been collected since the melancholy event of his death. Every person who passes it throws a stone upon the heap; but why this old custom is practised, or what it means, I do not know, unless it be simply to mark the spot as a visible means of preserving the memory of the occurrence.

Daly's house, the scene of the supposed apparition, is now a shapeless ruin, which could scarcely be seen were it not for the green spot that was once a garden, and which now shines at a distance like an emerald, but with no agreeable or pleasing associations. It is a spot which no solitary school-boy will ever visit, nor indeed would the unflinching believer in the popular nonsense of ghosts wish to pass it without a companion. It is under any circumstances a gloomy and barren place, but when looked upon in connexion with what we have just recited, it is lonely, desolate, and awful.

THE RIVAL KEMPERS.

In the preceding paper we have given an authentic account of what the country folks, and we ourselves at the time, looked upon as a genuine instance of apparition. It appeared to the

simple-minded to be a clear and distinct case, exhibiting all those minute and subordinate details which, by an arrangement naturally happy, and without concert, go to the formation of truth. There was, however, but one drawback in the matter, and that was the ludicrous and inadequate nature of the moral motive; for what unsteady and derogatory notions of Providence must we not entertain when we see the order and purpose of his divine will so completely degraded and travestied, by the fact of a human soul returning to this earth again, for the ridiculous object of settling the claim to a pair of breeches ?

When we see the succession to crowns and kingdoms, and the inheritance to large territorial property and great personal rank, all left so completely undecided that ruin and desolation have come upon nations and families in attempting their adjustment, and when we see a laughable dispute about a pair of breeches settled by a personal revelation from another life, we cannot help asking why the supernatural intimation was permitted in the one case, and not in the other, especially when their relative importance differed so essentially? To follow up this question, however, by insisting upon a principle so absurd, would place Providence in a position so perfectly unreasonable and capricious, that we do not wish to press the inference so far as admission of divine interference in such a manner would justify us in doing.

Having detailed the case of Daly's daughter, however, we take our leave of the girl and the ghost, and turn now to another case, which came under our own observation, in connexion with a man named Frank Martin and the fairies. Before commencing, however, we shall, by way of introduction, endeavour to give our readers a few short particulars as to fairies, their origin, character, and conduct. And as we happen to be on this subject, we cannot avoid regretting that we have not by us copies of two most valuable works upon it,

from the pen of our learned and admirable countryman, Thomas Keightly. We allude to his Fairy Mythology and his History of the Transmission of Popular Fictions; two works which cannot be perused without delight at the happy manner in which so much learning and amusement, so much solid information, and all that is agreeable in extensive research, are inimitably combined.

With the etymology of the word Fairy we do not intend in a sketch like this to puzzle our readers. It is with the tradition connected with the thing we have to do, and not with a variety of learned speculations, which appear, after all, to be yet unsettled. The general opinion, at least in Ireland, is, that during the war of Lucifer in heaven, the angels were divided into three classes. The first class consisted of those faithful spirits who at once, and without hesitation, adhered to the standard of the Omnipotent; the next consisted of those who openly rebelled, and followed the great apostate, sharing eternal perdition along with him; the third and last consisted of those who, during the mighty clash and uproar of the contending hosts, stood timidly aloof, and refused to join either power. These, says the tradition, were hurled out of heaven, some upon earth, and some into the waters of the earth, where they are to remain, ignorant of their fate, until the day of judgment. They know their own power, however, and it is said that nothing but their hopes of salvation prevent them from at once annihilating the whole human race. Such is the broad basis of the general superstition; but our traditional history and conception of the popular fairy falls far short of the historical dignity associated with its origin. The fairy of the people is a diminutive creature, generally dressed in green, irritable, capricious, and quite unsteady in all its principles and dealings with mankind. Sometimes it exhibits singular proofs of ingenuity, but, on the contrary, is frequently over-reached by mere mortal capacity. It is impossible to say, in dealing

with it, whether its conduct will be found benevolent or otherwise, for it often has happened that its threats of injury have ended in kindness, and its promises of protection terminated in malice and treachery. What is very remarkable, too, is, that it by no means appears to be a mere spirit, but a being with passions, appetites, and other natural wants like ourselves. Indeed, the society or community of fairies appears to be less self-dependent than ours, inasmuch as there are several offices among them which they not only cannot perform, but which render it necessary that we should be stolen and domiciled with them, for the express purpose of performing for them. Like us they are married and given in marriage, and rear families; but whether their offspring are subject to death, is a matter not exactly the clearest. Some traditions affirm that they are, and others that they are as immortal as the angels, although possessing material bodies analogous to our own. The fairy, in fact, is supposed to be a singular mixture of good and evil, not very moral in its actions or objects, often very thievish, and sometimes benevolent, when kindness is least expected from it. It is generally supposed by the people that this singular class of fictitious creatures enjoy, as a kind of right, the richest and best of all the fruits of the earth, and that the top grain of wheat, oats, &c., and the ripest apple, pear, &c., all belong to them, and are taken as their own exclusive property.

They have also other acknowledged rights which they never suffer to be violated with impunity. For instance, wherever a meal is eaten upon the grass in the open field, and the crumbs are not shaken down upon the spot for their use, there they are sure to leave one of their curses, called the fair gurtha, or the hungry-grass; for whoever passes over that particular spot for ever afterwards is liable to be struck down with weakness and hunger; and unless he can taste a morsel of bread he neither will nor can recover. The weakness in this instance,

« ForrigeFortsett »