Celtic Lore & Legend (21 page)

The following weird tale I received from the Rev. Philip Edwards. I may state that I have heard variants of the story from other sources.

“While the Manchester and Milford Railway was in course of construction there was a large influx of navvies into Wales and many a frugal farmer added to his incomings by lodging and boarding workmen engaged on the line. Several of the men were lodged at a farm called Penderlwyngoch occupied by a man called Hughes.

One evening when the men were seated round the fire, which burned brightly, they heard the farm dogs bark as they always did at the approach of strangers. By and by they heard the tamp of feet mingled with the howling of the frightened dogs, and then the dogs ceased barking, just as if they had slunk away in terror. Before many minutes had elapsed, the inmates heard the back door opened, and a number of people entered the house, carrying a heavy load resembling a dead man, which they deposited in the parlour, and all at once the noise ceased. The men in great dread struck a light and proceeded to the parlour to ascertain what had taken place. But they could discover nothing there, neither were there any marks
of feet in the room, nor could they find any footprints outside the house, but they saw the cowering dogs in the yard looking the picture of fright. After this fruitless investigation of the cause of this dread sound, the Welsh people present only too well knew the cause of this visit. On the very next day one of the men who sat by the fire was killed, and his body was carried by his fellow-workmen to the farm house, in fact everything occurred as rehearsed the previous night. Most of the people who witnessed the vision are, my informant says, still alive.”

Throughout the Celtic world, the imminence of the fairy realm was very keenly felt. It lay, said conventional wisdom, all around, just beyond the sight of ordinary mortals. The ancient fairy people came and went everywhere unseen by those living beside them. Occasionally, however, they would allow favored mortals fleeting glimpses through the veil that lay between the worlds and might even allow them to cross from one realm into another.

What sort of place was the realm of the Sidhe? How was it organized? How did its inhabitants live, and, more importantly, what did they look like? These questions and others could only be answered by someone who had seen into the Otherworld.

The Reverend Robert Kirk (c. 1630–1692), Scottish minister of Balquhidder in Callandar (the burial place of the famous Scottish figure, Rob Roy) and later of Aberfoyle in the Trossachs, was one of those who stole a glimpse into that other realm and who was able to write about what he saw
and learned. Kirk, the seventh son of a seventh son, was believed to have the “gift” of seeing the world of the ancient Sidhe and had the knowledge and skills to record what he knew. His book,
The Secret Commonwealth,
is considered to be one of the most detailed studies of the fairy world. His account lay in manuscript form until around 1815; certainly no prior edition of it has ever been traced.

Little is known about Kirk himself except that he was married twice and that he completed a translation of part of the Bible (the Book of Psalms) into Gaelic before he died. Given his almost-mystical pedigree, he was also considered as something of an expert in the supernatural. He was said to frequently go to meet and converse with the fairy kind on Doon Hill (a dun-shi, or fairy hill) near his manse, which was said to be a gateway into the Otherworld. With their blessing, it would seem, he wrote a highly absorbing account of the unseen world that, although it may have simply started out as personal notes or a memoir, gradually metamorphosized into
The Secret Commonwealth
.

Kirk died on May 14, 1692, while out on a regular walk to Doon Hill. His body was found by the side of the road and carried back to the manse. Legend states that, after the funeral, Kirk appeared to one of his cousins to announce that he was not dead at all but was, in fact, living in the fairy realm.

Robert Kirk, of course, reflected the beliefs and perspectives of his own community. As R.E. Cunningham-Graham remarked: “No doubt the congregation that the ingenuous minister served were most of them, devout believers in fairy lore…for they sucked it with their mother’s milk and held it, not by conviction for they never had reasoned on it, but quite naturally, as part and parcel of themselves; and in such surroundings it was not strange that the writer of the book also believed in them”.
The Secret Commonwealth
therefore represents a core of popular Scottish lore, which had, in Kirk’s time, been passed down across the centuries more or less intact. This brief excerpt is taken from the original work, written around 1691. There has been some Anglicisation of the Scots dialect that Kirk used, in order to give a better understanding of the discourse.

by Reverend Robert Kirk

The Siths, or Fairies, they call
Sleagh Maith
(or Good people, it would seem to prevent the dint of their ill attempts) are said to be of a middle nature betwixt man and angel, as were demons thought to be of old, of intelligent studious spirits and light, changeable bodies (like those called astral), somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud and best seen in twilight. These bodies be so pliable through the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure. Some have bodies or vehicles so spongeous, thin and pure that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquors, that pierce like pure air and oil; others feed more gross on the abundance or substance of corn and liquors, or corn itself that grows on the surface of the earth, which these fairies steal away, partly invisible and partly preying on the grain as do crows or mice; wherefore in this same age they are sometimes heard to break bread, strike hammers and to do such like services within the little hillocks they most do haunt; some whereof of old before the Gospel dispelled Paganism, and in some barbarous places as yet, enter houses after all are at rest, and set the kitchen in order, cleaning all vessels. Such dregs (spirits, supernatural beings) go under the name of Brownies. We have plenty, they have scarcity at their homes and, on the contrary (for they are not empowered
to catch as much prey everywhere as they please), their robberies, notwithstanding, oft-times occasion great ricks (stacks) of corn not to bleed so well (as they call it) or prove so copious by very far as was expected by their owner.

Their bodies of congealed air are sometime carried aloft, other whiles grovel in different shapes, and enter into any cranny or cleft of the earth where air enters, to their ordinary dwellings; the earth being full of dark cavities and cells, and there being no place, no creature, but is supposed to have other animals (greater or lesser) living in or upon it as inhabitants; and no such thing as a pure wilderness in the whole universe.

We then (the more terrestrial kind have now so numerously planted all countries) do labour for that abstruse people as well as for ourselves. Albeit when several countries are inhabited by us, these had their easy tillage above ground as we do now. The print of those furrows do yet remain to be seen on the shoulders of very high hills, which was done when the campaign ground was wood and forest.

They remove to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the year, so traversing till doomsday, being impotent of staying in one place, and finding some ease by journeying and changing habitations. Their chameleon-like bodies swim in the air near the earth with bag and baggage; and at such revolution of time, seers or men of the second sight, (females being seldom so qualified) have very terrifying encounters with them, even on highways; who awfully shun to travel abroad at these four seasons of the year, and therefore have made it a custom to this day among the Scottish-Irish to keep church duly every first Sunday of the quarter to seun or hallow themselves, their corn and cattle, from the shots and stealth of these wandering tribes; and many of these superstitious people will not be seen in church again until the next quarter begins, as if no duty were to be learnt or done by
them; but all the use of worship and sermons were to save them from the arrows that fly in the dark.

They are distributed in tribes and orders and have children, nurses, marriages, deaths and burials in appearance, even as we (unless they do so for a mock-show, or to prognosticate some such things among us).

They are clearly seen by these men of the second sight to eat at funerals and banquets. Hence many of the Scottish-Irish will not taste meat at these meetings, lest they have communion with, or be poisoned by, them. So are they seen to carry the bier or coffin, with the corpse among the middle-earth men to the grave? Some men of that exalted sight (whether by art or nature) have told me they have seen theses meetings as a double man, or the shape of a man in two places, that is a super-terranean and subterranean inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all points, when he, notwithstanding could easily distinguish one from another by some secret tokens and operations, and go and speak to the man, his neighbour and familiar, passing by the apparition or resemblance of him. They avouch that every element and different state of being has animals resembling those of another element; as there are fishes sometimes at sea, resembling monks of late order in all their hoods and dresses; so as the Roman invention of good and bad demons and guardian angels particularly assigned [
Editor’s Note
: Kirk is here referring to the Roman Catholic Church, which was, in this time, considered to be highly superstitious and gullible.] is called by them an ignorant mistake, sprung only from this original. They call this reflex man, a co-walker, every way like the man, as a twin brother and companion, haunting him as his shadow, as is oft seen and known among men (resembling the original), both before and after the original is dead; and was often seen of old to enter a house by which the people knew that the person of that likeness was to visit them within a few days. This copy,
echo, or living picture, goes at last to his won herd. It accompanied that person so long and frequently for ends best known to itself, whether to guard him from the secret assaults of some of its own folk, or only as a sportful ape to counterfeit all his actions. However, the stories of old witches prove beyond contradiction that all sorts of people, spirits which assume airy bodies, or crazed bodies concocted by foreign spirits, seem to have some pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking and capering like satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky birds) in their unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar to men; otherwise being in a different state and element, they neither can nor will easily converse with them. They avouch that a heluo, or great eater has a voracious elve to be his attender, called a joint-eater or just-halver, feeding on the pith and quintessence of what the man eats; and that, therefore, he continues lean like hawk or heron; notwithstanding his devouring appetite, yet it would seem they convey his substance elsewhere, for these subterraneans eat but little in their dwellings, their food being exactly clean, and are served by pleasant children, like enchanted puppets.

Their houses are called large and fair and (unless at some odd occasions) unperceivable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland and other enchanted islands [
Editor’s Note
: Rachland was believed to be a fairy island lying off the Northwest Coast of Scotland. It was allegedly inhabited either by fairies of by the descendants of Vikings and only appeared to mortal eyes once every seven years, but it could be seen by the pure-hearted almost at any time.] having fir lights, continual lamps and fires, often seen without fuel to sustain them. Women are yet alive who tell they were taken away when in child-bed to nurse fairy children, a lingering, voracious image of them being left in their place (like a reflection in a mirror) which (as if it were some insatiable spirit in an assumed body) made first semblance to devour the meats that it cunningly carried by, and then left the carcass as if it expired and departed thence by a natural and common death. The child and fire, with food and all other necessities, are set before the nurse how soon she enters, but she never perceives any passage out, nor sees what those people do in any other rooms of the lodging. When the child is weaned, the nurse dies, or is conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there. But if any superterraneans be so subtle as to practice sleights for procuring the privacy to any of their mysteries (such as making use of their ointments, which, as Gyges’ ring, make them invisible or nimble, or cast them in a trance, or alter their shape, or make things appear at a vast distance, etc.), they smite them without pain, as with a puff of wind, and bereave them of both the natural and acquired sights in the twinkling of an eye (both these sights, when once they come, being in the same organ and inseparable), or they strike them to death. [
Editor’s Note
: The reference to the Ring of Gyges evokes a tale mentioned in Plato’s
Republic
in which the Lydian shepherd Gyges enters a cave that had been revealed after an earthquake. Finding a ring upon the hand of an enthroned corpse there, he stole it and found that it had the power to make him invisible. Using the magical artifact, he murdered the ruler of Lydia to ascend the throne himself. King Croesus, the famous king with the golden touch, was reputedly descended from Gyges. Various and contradictory versions of this legend circulated throughout the ancient world—a vastly different story is told by Heroditas, for example.] The tramontanes to this day, place bread, the Bible, or a piece of iron, so save their women at such time from being stolen, and they commonly report that all uncouth, unknown weights (supernatural creatures) are terrified of nothing earthly as much as cold iron. [
Editor’s Note
: The use of the word
tramontanes
, thought to be of French derivation, is interesting here. It has been used to describe Catalans but is here probably used in a religious sense to describe indigenous Gaelic Scots—predominantly Catholic—who were deemed to be incredibly superstitious.] They deliver the reason to be that hell, lying between the chill tempests and firebrands of scalding metals, and iron of the north (hence the lodestone causes a tendency to that point) by antiquity thereto, these odious, far-scenting creatures shrug and fright at all that comes thence relating to an abhorred place, whence their torment is either begun, or feared to come hereafter.