Tales from Irish folklore: People 'carried' by fairies in the Irish countryside
Eva Osborne
The Irish are a superstitious people, and Irish folklore is full of unspoken rules and precautions to keep humans safe from the Otherworld.
If you or your family are from rural Ireland, you're likely to have heard a tale or two about fairies, also known as 'The Good People', 'The Wee Folk', or 'The Other Crowd'.
Even the banshee (bean sí) is considered to be a type of fairy, with her name roughly translating to 'woman of the fairy mound' or 'fairy woman'.
There are many stories passed down of people, usually women and children, being taken, or 'carried', by fairies.
In Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland, Eddie Lenihan speaks to those who have been tasked with keeping these tales alive, and some even claim to have met or encountered fairies themselves.
He said: "Most Irish people have some instinctive belief in the world of the fairies, even if sometimes it has to be excavated carefully from under a veneer of busy modernity."
In one such tale, Eddie hears from someone who was told a story by a man in Lissane, Co Clare, about one of his own family a few generations prior.
There was a young girl who died and, 12 months after her passing, her brother started to dream of her.
He had a recurring dream that she would be passing through their yard on a horse in the middle of a crowd of horsemen.
The dream changed one night, and she spoke to her brother. She told him that she would be coming through the yard on a certain night and if he was there, if he pulled her off of the horse, when her feet touched the ground she would be able to come back.
The brother was worried about the whole situation, and so decided to consult a priest ahead of the fixed night that his sister had told him about.
The priest said: "Look, it can happen all right. But for everyone's good, it can't be allowed to happen. How can you bring back a person that's dead 12 months? Wouldn't it frighten the life out of the people in the parish?
"Look, I'll do something. I'll say a few prayers, and I'll guarantee you, she's better off where she is."
So, the brother left it at that, and he never had that dream again.
Eddie comments that the place where the girl is suppodesly "better off" is never made clear.
"We are never told where that place is, whether heaven, Tír na nÓg, or somewhere else. Perhaps, ultimately, it matters not at all," he said.
Carried for a fairy hurling match
In another tale, Eddie hears a story about a man called McMahon from Doon, Co Limerick.
McMahon was a herdsman and, at that time, when sheep were lambing, the herdsman would often have to stay up all night watching them to keep foxes away from them.
The storyteller tells Eddie that there was a big level field out in front of McMahon's house and, on one particular night, he was sitting down and watching his sheep.
Late into the night, McMahon spotted two teams coming out onto the field with hurleys.
He was watching them as they lined up when the captain of one of the teams came over to him and explained that his team was short one player.
He said to McMahon: "Will you stand in? We're short a player. And you're a good hurler."
"I will. But I have no hurley," McMahon replied.
"That's no problem. I'll get you a hurley," the captain said.
He handed McMahon a hurley and the ball was thrown in. The man McMahon was marking was tough, and they were testing eachother's strength with shoves and tustles.
McMahon was knocked over by his marker twice, and he knocked his marker over twice back.
Then, the captain came over to McMahon when a bit of a lull came in the game, and told him not to let his marker knock him down for a third time.
If he knocks you a third time, you're finished. Don't let him knock you for a third time.
McMahon was prepared then, and knocked his marker down a third time, not allowing for himself to be hit.
He then got the ball, and went down the field and scored a goal.
The minute the goal was scored, the match ended, and his team gathered around him and he was chaired off the field.
The captain came over and congratulated him, saying: "We're meeting here for 300 years and you're the first man that scored a goal.
"We needn't come here now, anymore. The match is decided. As a reward, I'll give you that hurley.
"And no matter where you go or what you do, if you have that hurley with you, no harm will befall you."
McMahon enjoyed the fortune and protection the hurley brought him in the years and decades that followed.
