Ulster Folklore Part 7

Giants and Dwarfs[83]

The population of Ulster is derived from many sources, and in its folklore we shall find traces of various tribes and people. I shall begin with a tale which may have been brought by English settlers.

In "Folklore as an Historical Science" Sir G. Laurence Gomme has given several variants of the story of the Pedlar of Swaffham and London Bridge. Most of these come from England, Scotland, and Wales, but among them there are also a Breton and a Norse version. I have found a local variant in Donegal. An elderly woman told me that at Kinnagoe a "toon"

or small hamlet about three miles from Buncrana, there lived a man whose name, she believed, was Doherty. He dreamt one night that on London Bridge he should hear of a treasure. He set out at once for London, and when he came there walked up and down the bridge until he was wearied.

At last a man accosted him and asked him why he loitered there. In reply, Doherty told his dream, upon which the other said: "Ah, man! Do you believe in drames? Why, I dreamt the other night that at a place called Kinnagoe a pot of gold is buried. Would I go to look for it? I might loss my time if I paid attention to drames." "That's true,"

answered Doherty, who now hurried home, found the pot of gold, bought houses and land, and became a wealthy man.

Whether this story embodies an earlier Irish legend I do not know, but I should say that the mention of London Bridge points to its having been brought over by English settlers. Sir G. L. Gomme tells us that "the earliest version of this legend is quoted from the ma.n.u.scripts of Sir Roger Twysden, who obtained it from Sir William Dugdale, of Blyth Hall, in Warwicks.h.i.+re, in a letter dated January 29, 1652-53. Sir William says of it that 'it was the tradition of the inhabitants, as it was told me there.'"

May not some of the planters brought over by the Irish Society have carried this legend from their English home, giving it in the name Kinnagoe a local habitation?

Most of our folklore comes, however, from a very early period. Our Irish fairy, although regarded as a fallen angel, is not the medieval elf, who could sip honey from a flower, but a small old man or woman with magical powers, swift to revenge an injury, but often a kindly neighbour. No story is told more frequently than that of the old fairy woman who borrows a "noggin" of meal, repays it honestly, and rewards the peasant woman by saying that her kist will never be empty, generally adding the condition as long as the secret is kept. The woman usually observes the condition until her husband becomes too inquisitive. When she reveals the secret the kist is empty.

Another widespread tale is that of the fairy woman who comes to the peasant's cottage, sometimes to beg that water may not be thrown out at the door, as it comes down her chimney and puts out the fire; sometimes to ask, for a similar reason, that the "byre," or cowhouse, may be removed to another site. In some tales it is a fairy man who makes the request. If it is refused, punishment follows in sickness among the cattle; if complied with, the cows flourish and give an extra supply of milk. In one instance the "wee folk" provided money to pay a mason to build the new cowhouse. We may smile, and ask how the position of the cowhouse could affect the homes of the fairies; but if these small people lived in the souterrains, as tradition alleges, we may even at the present day find these artificial caves under inhabited houses. At a large farmhouse on the border of Counties Antrim and Londonderry I was told one ran under the kitchen. At another farm near Castlerock, Co.

Londonderry, the owner opened a trapdoor in his yard, and allowed me to look down into a souterrain. At Finvoy, Co. Antrim, I was shown one of these caves over which a cottage formerly stood. A souterrain also runs under the Glebe House at Donaghmore, Co. Down. The following extract is from a work[84] in preparation, by the Rev. Dr. Cowan, Rector of the parish, who, in describing this souterrain, writes: "The lintel to the main entrance is the large stone which forms the base of the old Celtic cross, which stands a few yards south of the church. Underneath the cross is the central chamber, which is sixty-two feet long, three feet wide and upwards of four feet high, with branches in the form of transepts about thirty feet in length. From these, again, several sections extend ... one due north terminating at the Glebe House (a distance of two hundred yards) underneath the study, where, according to tradition, some rich old vicar in past times fas.h.i.+oned the extreme end into the dimensions of a wine-cellar."

According to another tradition--an older one, no doubt--this chamber under the study was the dressing-room of the small Danes, who after their toilet proceeded through the underground pa.s.sages to church. They had to pa.s.s through many little doors, down stairs, through parlours, until they came to the great chamber under the cross where the minister held forth. I shall not attempt to guess to what old faith this minister or priest belonged, or what were the rites he celebrated; but the stairs probably represent the descent from one chamber to another, and the little doors the bridges found in some souterrains, and, I believe, at Donaghmore, where one stone juts out from the floor, and a little farther on another comes down from the roof, leaving only a narrow pa.s.sage, so that one must creep over and under these bridges to get to the end of the cave.

The Danes are regarded by the country people as distinctly human, and yet there is much in them that reminds us of the fairies; indeed, I was told by two old men--one in Co. Antrim, and the other in Co. Derry--that they and the wee-folk are much the same. In a former paper[85] I referred to the difference in dress ascribed to the fairies in various parts of the country. I am inclined to believe that this indicates a variety of tribes among the aboriginal inhabitants. In the fairies who dress in green may we not have a tradition of people who stained themselves with woad or some other plant? These fairies are chiefly heard of in North-East Antrim. In some parts of that county they are said to wear tartan, but in other parts of Ulster the fairies are usually, although not universally, described as dressing in red. Do these represent a people who dyed themselves with red ochre, or who simply went naked? In Tory Island I was told the fairies dressed in black; and Keating informs us that the Fomorians, who had their headquarters at Toirinis, or Tory Island, were "sea-rovers of the race of Cam, who fared from Africa."[86]

Stories of the fairies or wee-folk are to be found everywhere in Ulster, and the Danes are also universally known; but one hears of the Pechts, chiefly in the north-east of Antrim, where the Grogach is also known. The following story was told to me in Glenariff, Co. Antrim:

A Grogach herded the cattle of a farmer, and drove them home in the evening. He was about the size of a child, and was naked. A fire was left burning at night so that he might warm himself, and after a time the daughter of the house made him a s.h.i.+rt. When the Grogach saw this he thought it was a "billet" for him to go, and, crying bitterly, he took his departure, and left the s.h.i.+rt behind him. As I pointed out on a former occasion,[87] in many respects the Grogach resembles the Swiss dwarf. The likeness to the Brownie is also very marked. At Ballycastle I was told the Grogach was a hairy man about four feet in height, who could bear heat or cold without clothing.

Patrick Kennedy has described a Gruagach as a giant, and states that the word "Gruagach" has for root _gruach_--"hair," giants and magicians being "furnished with a large provision of that appendage."[88] This Gruagach was closely related to the fairies, and, indeed, we shall find later in a Donegal story a giant ogress spoken of as a fairy woman. In Scotland, as well as in the South of Ireland, the name is Gruagach, but in Antrim I heard it p.r.o.nounced "Grogach." I was also told near Cushendall that the Danes were hairy people.

One does not hear so much about giants in Antrim as in Donegal, but in Glenariff I was told of four, one of whom lifted a rock at Ballycastle and threw it across the sea to Rathlin--a distance of five or six miles.

Great as this feat was, a still greater was reported to me near Armoy,[89] where I was shown a valley, and was told the earth had been scooped out and thrown into the sea, where it formed the Island of Rathlin.

The grave of the giant Gig-na-Gog is to be seen some miles from Portrush on the road to Beardiville.[90] I could not, however, hear anything of Gig-na-Gog, except that he was a giant.

In the stories of giants we no doubt often have traditions of a tall race, who are sometimes represented as of inferior mental capacity. At other times we appear to be listening to an early interpretation of the works of Nature. The Donegal peasant at the present day believes that the perched block on the side of the hill has been thrown by the arm of a giant. In the compact columns of the Giant's Causeway and of Fingal's Cave at Staffa primitive man saw a work of great skill and ingenuity, which he attributed to a giant artificer; and Finn McCoul is credited with having made a stupendous mole, uniting Scotland and Ireland. This Finn McCoul has many aspects. He does not show to much advantage in the following legend, which I heard on the banks of Lough Salt in Donegal: Finn was a giant but there was a bigger giant named Goll, who came to fight Finn, and Finn was afraid. His wife bade him creep into the cradle, and she would give an answer to Goll. When the latter appeared, he asked where was Finn. The wife replied he was out, and she was alone with the baby in the cradle. Goll looked at the child, and thought, if that is the size of Finn's infant, what must Finn himself be? and without more ado he turned and took his departure.[91] This Finn had an eye at the back of his head, and was so tall his feet came out at the door of his house. We are not told, however, what was the size of the house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XI. [_R. Welch, Photo._ VALLEY NEAR ARMOY, WHENCE, ACCORDING TO LEGEND, EARTH WAS TAKEN TO FORM RATHLIN.]

In this tale Finn shows little courage, but as a rule he is represented as a noted hero. I was told a long story at Glenties in Donegal of the three sons Finn had by the Queen of Italy. He had seen her bathing in Ireland, and he stole her clothes, so she had to stay until she could get them back. After a time she found them, and returned to her own country, where she gave birth to three sons--Dubh, Kian, and Glasmait.

When they were fourteen years of age the King of Italy sent them away that they might go to their father Finn.

They arrived in Ireland, and when Finn saw them he said: "If those three be the sons of a King, they will come straight on; if not, they will ask their way." The lads came straight on, knelt before Finn, and claimed him as their father. He asked them who was their mother, and when they said the Queen of Italy, Finn remembered the stolen clothes, and received them as his sons.

One day the followers of Finn could not find his dividing knife, and Dubh determined to go in search of it. He put a stick in the fire, and said he would be back before the third of it was burnt out. He followed tracks, and came to a house where there was a great feast. He sat down among the men, and saw they were cutting with Finn's knife. It was pa.s.sed from one to another until it came to Dubh, who, holding it in his hand, sprang up and carried it off.

When Dubh got home he wakened Kian and said: "My third of the stick is burnt, and now do you see what you can do." Kian followed the tracks, and got to the same place. He found the men drinking out of a horn. One called for whisky, another for wine, and whatever was asked, the horn gave. Kian heard them say it was Finn's horn, and that his knife had been carried off the previous night. Kian waited, and when the horn came he grasped it tightly and ran off home, where he found his third of the stick was burnt. He waked Glasmait, and told him two-thirds of the night had pa.s.sed, and it was now his turn to go out. Glasmait followed the same tracks, but when he came to the house blood was flowing from the door, and, looking in, he saw the place full of corpses. One man only remained alive. He told Glasmait how they had all been drinking when someone ran off with Finn McCoul's horn. "One man blamed another," he said; "they quarrelled and fought until everyone was killed except myself. Now I beseech you throw the ditch[92] upon me and bury me. I do not wish to be devoured by the fairy woman, who will soon be here. She is an awful size, and upon her back is bound Finn McCoul's sword of light,[93] which gives to its possessor the strength of a hundred men."

The man gave Glasmait some hints to aid him in the coming fight, and added: "Now I have told you all, bury me quick."

Glasmait threw the ditch upon him, and hid himself in a corner. The Banmore, or large woman, now came in, and began her horrible repast. She chose the fat men; three times she lifted Glasmait, but rejected him as too young and lean. At last she lay down to sleep. Glasmait followed the advice he had received. He touched her foot, but jumped aside to avoid the kick. He touched her hand, but jumped aside to avoid her slap. When she was again asleep, he drew his sword and cut the cords which bound the sword of light to her back, and seized upon it. She roused herself, and for two hours they fought, until in the end Glasmait ripped open her body, when, behold, three red-haired boys sprang out and attacked him.

He slew two of them, but the third escaped. Glasmait returned home with the sword of light, and found his third of the stick burnt.

The three sons now presented their father with the dividing knife, the drinking horn, and the sword of light, and there was great rejoicing that these had been recovered.

Some time after this a red-haired boy appeared, and begged to be taken into Finn's service for a twelvemonth, saying he could kill birds and do any kind of work. When asked what wages he looked for, he replied that he hoped when he died, Finn and his men would put his body in a cart, which would come for it, and bury him where the cart stopped.

The red-haired boy worked well, but at the end of the year he suddenly died. A cart drawn by a horse appeared, and Finn and his men tried to place the body in it; but it could not be moved until the horse wheeled round and did the work itself, starting immediately afterwards with its load. Finn and his men followed, but a great mist came on, so that they could not see clearly. At last they arrived at an old, black castle standing in a glen. Here they found the table laid, and sat down to eat, but before long the red-haired boy appeared alive, and cried vengeance upon Finn and his sons. The men tried to draw their swords, but found them fastened to the ground, and the red-haired boy cut off fifty heads.

Now, however, the great Manannan appeared. He bade the red-haired boy drop his sword, or he would give him a slap that would turn his face to the back of his head. He also bade him replace the heads on the fifty men. The red-haired boy had to submit, and after that he troubled Finn no more. Manannan dispelled the mist, and brought Finn and his men back to their own home, where they feasted for three days and three nights.

This somewhat gruesome story contains several points of interest. The stealing of the clothes is an incident which occurs with slight variations in many folk-tales. In "The Stolen Veil"[94] Musaus tells us how the damsel of fairy lineage was detained when her veil was carried off, and it was only after she had recovered it that she was able, in the guise of a swan, to return to her home.

We have read, too, of how the Shetlander captured the sealskin of the Finn woman, without which she could not return as a seal to her husband.[95] It should also be noted that the fairy ogress is a large woman, apparently a giantess, while her three sons have the red hair so often a.s.sociated with the fairies. At the end of the tale Finn and his men are saved by Manannan, the Celtic G.o.d of the sea, who has given his name to the Isle of Man. In Balor of Tory Island the great Fomorian chief, we have another giant, with an eye at the back of his head, which dealt destruction to all who encountered its gaze. I was told in Tory Island that when Balor was mortally wounded water fell so copiously from his eye that it formed the biggest lough in the world, deeper even than Lough Foyle.[96]

These giants belonged to an olden time and a very primitive race. They have pa.s.sed away, and are no longer like the fairies--objects of fear or awe.

The fairies, being believed to be fallen angels, are especially dreaded on Hallow Eve night. In some places oatmeal and salt are put on the heads of the children to protect them from harm. I first heard of this custom in the valley of the Roe, where there are a large number of forts said to be inhabited by the fairies. The neighbourhood of Dungiven on that river is rich in antiquities. I was told there was a souterrain under the Cashel or "White Fort," said to have been built by the Danes.

There is another under Carnanban Fort, and not far from this there are the stone circles at Aghlish. An old woman of ninety-six showed them to me, and said it was a very gentle[97] place, and it would not be safe to take away one of the stones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XII. [_R. Welch, Photo._ FLINT SPEARHEAD AND BASALT AXES FOUND UNDER FORT IN LENAGH TOWNLAND.]

Here we have an instance of the strong belief that to interfere in any way with stone, tree, or fort, belonging to the fairies is certain to bring disaster. About sixty-five years ago, when the railway was being made between Belfast and Ballymena, an old fort with fairy bushes in the townland of Lenagh stood on the intended track, and had to be removed.

The men working on the line were most unwilling to meddle with either fort or bushes. One, however, braver than the rest began to cut down a thorn, when he met with an accident which strengthened the others in their refusal. In the end the fort had to be blown up, I believe by the officials of the railway, and underneath it a very fine spearhead and other implements were found.[98]

A fort near Glasdrumman, Co. Down, was demolished by the owner, but the country-people noted that the man who struck the first blow was injured and died soon afterwards, while the owner himself became a permanent invalid. A woman living near this fort related that in the evening after the work was begun she heard an awful screech from the fort; presumably the fairies were leaving their home.

A curious story was told me by an old woman in the Cottage Hospital at Cushendall. A man at Glenravel named M'Combridge went out one evening to look for his heifer, but could not find it. He saw a great house in one of his fields, where no house had been before, and, wondering much at this, he went in. An old woman sat by the fire, and soon two men came in leading the heifer. They killed it with a blow on the head and put it into a pot. M'Combridge was too much afraid to make any objection; he rose, however, to leave the house, but the old woman said: "Wait; you must have some of the broth of your own heifer." Three times she made him partake of the broth, and he was then unable to leave the house. She put him to bed, and the man gave birth to a son. He fell asleep, but was wakened by something touching his ear, and found himself on the gra.s.s near his home, and the heifer close to his ear.

This fantastic story no doubt represents a dream, but does it contain a reminiscence of the couvade, where, after the birth of the child, the father goes to bed? Sir E. B. Tylor, in the "Early History of Mankind,"

has shown how widespread this custom was both in the Old and the New World.

In these stories, drawn from various parts of Ulster, we seem to hear echoes of a very distant past. The giants often appear as savages of low intelligence. In the fairies, I think, we may plainly see a tradition of a dwarf race, although it is true that the country-people do not regard them as human beings; indeed, I was told in Co. Tyrone that when the fairies were annoying a man he threw his handkerchief at them, and asked if among them all they could show one drop of blood. This, being spirits, they could not do. In the Grogach the human element is more p.r.o.nounced, and both Danes and Pechts are usually regarded as men and women like ourselves, although of smaller stature. It will thus be seen that in Ulster we have traditions of giants, fairies, Grogachs, Danes, and Pechts; and in Donegal I was also told of a small race of yellow Finns. Can we identify any of these with the prehistoric races of the British Isles and of Europe?

It has been held by many that the relics of Palaeolithic man do not occur in Ireland, but the Rev. Frederick Smith has found his implements, some of them glaciated, at Killiney[99]; and Mr. Lewis Abbott, who has made the implements of early man a special study, believes that Palaeolithic man lived and worked in Ireland. In a letter to me he states that this opinion is based on material in his possession. "I have," he writes, "the Irish collection of my old friend, the late Professor Rupert Jones; in this there are many immensely metamorphosed, deeply iron-stained (and the iron, again, in turn further altered), implements of Palaeolithic types.... They are usually very l.u.s.trous or highly 'patinated,' as it is called." In his recent paper, "On the Cla.s.sification of the British Stone Age Industries,"[100] in describing the club studs, Mr. Abbott writes: "I have found very fine examples in the Cromer Forest bed, and under and in various glacial deposits in England and Ireland." How long Palaeolithic man survived in Ireland it would be difficult to say, but in such characters as the fairy ogress we are brought face to face with a very low form of savagery. It will be noted that her sons are red-haired. Now, I have often found red hair ascribed to fairies and Danes, but not to Pechts. This persistent tradition has led me to ask whether red was the colour of the hair in some early races of mankind. The following pa.s.sage in Dr. Beddoe's Huxley Lecture[101] favours an affirmative answer: "There are, of course, facts, or reported facts, which would lead one to suspect that red was the original hair colour of man in Europe--at least, when living in primitive or natural conditions with much exposure, and that the development of brown pigment came later, with subjection to heat and malaria, and other influences connected with what we call 'civilisation.'"

We have seen that the implements of early man are found in spots sacred to the fairies. The Rev. Gath Whitley considers the Piskey dwarfs the earliest Neolithic inhabitants of Cornwall, and describes them as a small race who hunted the elk and the deer, and perhaps, like the Bushmen, danced and sang to the light of the moon.[102] Our traditional Irish fairies bear a strong resemblance to these Piskey dwarfs of Cornwall, and also to the Welsh fairies of whom Sir John Rhys writes that when fairyland is cleared of its glamour there seems to be disclosed "a swarthy population of short, stumpy men, occupying the most inaccessible districts of our country.... They probably fished and hunted and kept domestic animals, including, perhaps, the pig, but they depended largely on what they could steal at night or in misty weather.

Their thieving, however, was not resented, as their visits were believed to bring luck and prosperity."[103] This description might apply to our Ulster fairies, who in many of the stories appear as a very primitive people. In some of the tales, however, the fairies are represented in a higher state of civilisation. They can spin and weave; they inhabit underground but well-built houses, and in the Irish records they are closely a.s.sociated with the Tuatha de Danann.

I believe these Tuatha de Danann are the small Danes, who, according to tradition, built the raths and souterrains. The late Mr. John Gray[104]

would ascribe a Mongoloid origin to them. In a letter written to me shortly before his death he stated his belief that the Danes and Pechts "were of the same race, and were identical with a short, round-headed race which migrated into the British Isles about 2,000 B.C. at the beginning of the Bronze Age.... The stature of these primitive Danes and Pechts was five feet three inches, and they must have looked very small men to the later Teutonic invaders of an average stature of five feet eight and a half inches."

In his papers, "Who built the British Stone Circles?"[105] and "The Origin of the Devonian Race,"[106] Mr. Gray has fully described this round-headed race, who buried in short cists, and whom he believes to have been a colony from Asia Minor of Akkadians, Sumerians, or Hitt.i.tes, who migrated to England by sea in order to work the Cornish tin-mines and the Welsh copper-mines.

For a fuller exposition of these views I must refer the reader to Mr.

Gray's very interesting articles.

In regard to the Tuatha de Danann, according to Keating,[107] they came from Greece by way of Scandinavia. This might lead us to infer a northern origin, or, at least, that they had taken a different route from those who came by the Mediterranean to the West of Europe. They appear to have known the use of metals and to have ploughed the land.

Dr. O'Donovan, in writing of these Tuatha de Danann, says: "From the many monuments ascribed to this colony by tradition and in ancient Irish historical tales, it is quite evident that they were a real people, and from their having been considered G.o.ds and magicians by the Gaedhil or Scoti who subdued them, it may be inferred that they were skilled in arts which the latter did not understand." Referring to the colloquy between St. Patrick and Caoilte MacRonain, Dr. O'Donovan says that it appears from this ancient Irish text that "there were very many places in Ireland where the Tuatha de Dananns were then supposed to live as sprites or fairies." He adds: "The inference naturally to be drawn from these stories is that the Tuatha de Dananns lingered in the country for many centuries after their subjugation by the Gaedhil, and that they lived in retired situations, which induced others to regard them as magicians."[108]