Irish Folk Tales (48 page)

So off they fled by the side farthest from the lake. And they left their spades behind them though they had sense till hold on be the lanterns. And the spades were never seen no more, though the marks of the digging be there till this very day. And nothing happened till any of them, maybe because they were young and foolish. For the destroying of a forth is a serious thing, but they all lived till die natural deaths except them that’s living still, and that’s the true way of it.

D
REAMS OF GOLD

There was a man in Gort, Anthony Hynes, he and two others dreamed of finding treasure within the church of Kilmacdaugh. But when they got there at night to dig, something kept them back, for there’s always something watching over where treasure is buried. I often heard that long ago in the nursery at Coole, at the cross, a man that was digging found a pot of gold. But just as he had the cover took off, he saw old Richard Gregory coming, and he covered it up, and was never able again to find the spot where it was.

But there’s dreams and dreams. I heard of a man from Mayo went to Limerick, and walked two or three times across the bridge there. And a cobbler that was sitting on the bridge took notice of him, and knew by the look of him and by the clothes he wore that he was from Mayo, and asked him what was he looking for. And he said he had a dream that under the bridge of Limerick he’d find treasure. “Well,” says the cobbler, “I had a dream myself about finding treasure, but in another sort of a place than this.” And he described the place where he dreamed it was, and where was that, but in the Mayo man’s own garden. So he went home again, and sure enough, there he found a pot of gold with no end of riches in it. But I never heard that the cobbler found anything under the bridge at Limerick.

T
HE CASTLE’S TREASURE

I dreamed one night that I was walking about in the bawn, when I looked into the old tower that’s in the left-hand corner, after you pass the gate, and there I saw, sure enough, a little crock, about the bigness of the bottom of a pitcher, and it full up of all kinds of money, gold, silver, and brass.

When I woke next morning, I said nothing about it, but in a few nights after I had the same dream over again, only I thought I was looking down from the top of the tower, and that all the floors were taken away. Peggy knew be me that I had a dream, for I wasn’t quite easy in myself. So I ups and tells her the whole of it, when the childer had gone out.

“Well, Paddy,” says she, “who knows but it would come true, and be the making of us yet. But you must wait till the dream comes afore you the third time, and then, sure, it can do no harm to try, anyways.”

It wasn’t long till I had the third dream, and as the moon was in the last quarter, and the nights mighty dark, Peggy put down the grisset, and made a lock of candles. And so, throwing the loy over my shoulder, and giving Michauleen the shovel, we set out about twelve o’clock, and when we got to the castle, it was as dark that you wouldn’t see your hand before you. And there wasn’t a stir in the old place, barring the owls that were snoring in the chimley.

To work we went just in the middle of the floor, and cleared away the stones and the rubbish, for nearly the course of an hour, with the candles stuck in potatoes, resting on some of the big stones on one side of us. Of course, sorra word we said all the while, but dug and shoveled away as hard as hatters, and a mighty tough job it was to lift the floor of the same building.

Well, at last the loy struck on a big flag, and my heart riz within me, for I often heard tell that the crock was always covered with a flag, and so I pulled away for the bare life, and at last I got it cleared, and was just lifting the edge of it, when—

Oh, what’s the use in telling you anything about it. Sure, I know by your eye you don’t believe a word I am saying. The dickens a goat was sitting on the flag. But when both of us were trying to lift the stone, my foot slipped, and the clay and rubbish began to give way under us. “Lord between us and harm,” says the gossoon. And then, in the clapping of your hand, there was a wonderful wind rushed in through the doorway, and quinched the lights, and pitched us both down into the hole. And of all the noises you ever heard, it was about us in a minute.
M’anum san Deowl!
But I thought it was all over with us, and sorra one of me ever thought of as much as crossing myself.
But I made out as fast as I could, and the gossoon after me, and we never stopped running till we stumbled over the wall of the big entrance, and it was well we didn’t go clean into the moat. Troth, you wouldn’t give three ha’pence for me when I was standing in the road—the bouchal itself was stouter—with the weakness that came over me.
Och, millia murdher!
I wasn’t the same man for many a long day. But that was nothing to the tormenting I got from everybody about finding the gold, for the shovel that we left after us was discovered, and there used to be dealers and gentlemen from Dublin—antiquarians, I think they call them—coming to the house continually, and asking Peggy for some of the coins we found in the old castle.

There now, you have the whole of it.

T
HE AIR IS FULL OF THEM

One night since I lived here I found late at night that a black jennet I had at that time had strayed away. So I took a lantern and went to look for him, and found him near Doherty’s house at the bay. And when I took him by the halter, I put the light out and led him home. But surely as I walked there was a footstep behind me all the way home.

I never rightly believed in them till I met a priest about two years ago coming out from the town that asked his way to Mrs. Canan’s, the time she was given over, and he told me that one time his horse stopped and wouldn’t pass the road, and the man that was driving said, “I can’t make him pass.”

And the priest said, “It will be the worse for you, if I have to come down into the road.” For he knew some bad thing was there. And he told me the air is full of them. But Father Dolan wouldn’t talk of such things, very proud he is, and he coming of no great stock.

One night I was driving outside Coole gate—close to where the Ballinamantane farm begins. And the mare stopped, and I got off the car to lead her, but she wouldn’t go on. Two or three times I made her start and she’d stop again. Something she must have seen that I didn’t see.

Beasts will sometimes see more than a man will. There were three young chaps I knew went up by the river to hunt coneens one evening, and they threw the dog over the wall. And when he was in the field he gave a yelp and drew back as if something frightened him.

Another time my father was going early to some place, and my mother had a noggin of turnips boiled for him that night before, to give him something to eat before he’d start. So they got up very early and she lighted the fire and put the oven hanging over it for to warm the turnips, and then she went back to bed again. And my father was in a hurry and he went out and brought in a sheaf of wheaten straw to put under the oven, the way it would make a quick blaze. And when he came in, the oven had been taken off the hook, and was put standing in the hearth, and no mortal had been there. So he was afraid to stop, and he went back to the bed, and till daybreak they could hear something that was knocking against the pot. And the servant girl that was in the house, she woke and heard quick steps walking to the stable, and the door of it giving a screech as if it was being opened. But in the morning there was no sign there or of any harm being done to the pot.