6 Chapter Six: The Sidhe/Fairies
The Mythological Cycle (The Book of Invasions, compiled in 9th and 12th centuries by monks)
a. The coming of Cessair
b. The coming of Partholan into Ireland (and the defeat of the evil Fomorians)
c. The coming of Nemed into Ireland
d. The coming of the Firbolgs into Ireland
e. The invasion of the Tuatha De Danaan (People of Dana)
f. The invasion of the Milesians (Sons of Miled) from Spain and their conquest of the People of Dana
g. The Christianization of Ireland begins in the 5th century.
“These taller, otherworldly beings [the Tuatha de Danaan] eventually develop into ‘the little people,’ the fairies and leprechauns of later Irish legend, whose spirits haunt the tombs and fairy mounds they once built. ‘The little people’ is a euphemism—rather like the prehistoric phrase le bon dieu—meant to disguise the speaker’s fear of something unfamiliar and much larger than himself. It is possible that this flickering phenomenon of the little people represents the afterglow of Irish guilt over their exploitation of more artful aborigines” (Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization 76-77).
“Soon after I reached Gougane, an old friend of mine, Tim Leahy, and I started off in his car, east through Ballingeary. . . , across the saddle of the mountain, with the Paps of Dana, far to the north, dominating a nearer range of hills.
These twin mountains take their name from Dana mother of the Irish gods who in pagan times were worshipped in Munster as the goddess of plenty. According to bardic chroniclers, the Tuatha De Danaan, the People of the Goddess Dana, on being conquested by the Milesians centuries before the Christian era, held council among themselves and decided henceforth to live underground in the hills. There they built palaces for themselves, resplendent with gold and precious stones, and there according to some people they still live, being known today as shee or fairies” (Gibbons, Sweet Cork of Thee 12).
“In spite of twenty centuries of Christianity, the old pagan practices at healing wells have survived. St. Patrick found the pagans of his day worshipping a well called Slán,‘health-giving,’ and offering sacrifices to it, and the Irish peasant today has no doubt that there is something divine about his holy wells. The Celts brought the belief in the divinity of springs and wells with them. Afterwards the Church placed the old pagan wells under the protection of saints, but part of the ritual often remained unchanged:
1) The patient perambulated the well three times deiseil or sun-wise, taking care not to utter a word.
2) Then he [sic] knelt at the well and prayed to the divinity for his healing.
3) Then he drank of the waters, bathed in them, or laved his limbs or sores, probably attended by the priestess of the well.
4) Having paid his dues, he made an offering to the divinity of the well, and affixed the bandage or part of his clothing to the well or a tree nearby” (MacCulloch 193-4).
The Otherworld
“We need to understand that the Otherworld was more than an imaginary realm where the ancient gods and heroes dwelt and feasted; it was an elusive and indefinable space that was as much connected to the subconscious or inner psyche of the individual and the group consciousness of the community as it was to magical gods, or the spirit of past ancestors, or the energetic resonances of the natural world. All these things come together in the Otherworld, just as they might in a dream” (Magan 158).
The times of year when the separation between this world and the otherworld is thinnest: Imbolc, Beltane, Samhain (/Saw-ahn/), and Lughnasadh.
THE SIDHE /SHEE/
“When they use the term ailse for ‘cancer,’ they are unlikely to know that it is also a disparaging term for a particularly mischievous form of fairy. . . [B]raon ailse could mean both a chemotherapy drip treatment and magical fairy droplets that fall on the tombs of certain tyrants, causing rot” (Magan 110).
“The word iamhar–the empty husk of someone when the fairies have taken their essence” (Magan 111).
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, edited and selected by W.B. Yeats: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33887/33887-h/33887-h.htm#Page_105
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- “The Trooping Fairies,” pp. 2-3
- William Allingham’s “The Fairies,” pp. 4-5
- “The Brewery of Egg-Shells,” pp. 48-49
Leipreachán/Leprechauns
The earliest known reference to the leprechaun appears in the medieval tale known as the Echtra Fergus mac Léti (Adventure of Fergus son of Léti). The text contains an episode in which Fergus mac Léti, King of Ulster, falls asleep on the beach and wakes to find himself being dragged into the sea by three lúchorpáin. He captures his abductors, who grant him three wishes in exchange for release.
They tend to avoid humans and live near fairy rings or in hills, where they mend shoes and are associated with pots of gold. If you meet one, you will find he is a tricky and mischievous character who can easily outwit you. They do follow rules that dictate their behaviour; for example, they cannot tell a lie. He will grant you three wishes or great wealth on the condition you let him go. Leprechauns, much like other fairy folk, are also known to kidnap children and replace them with their own sickly offspring, and they have a deep fear of iron.
They may also live in the depths of clumps of thorn-bushes or amid the roots of isolated trees, recalling the notion of tree-worship in the pre-Christian era. This is why such growths are better left undisturbed by farmers or land-developers.
Púca
Puca/Pooka “A púca is an energetic manifestation that engenders fear in the dark or an apparition arising from the uncertainty sparked by the absence of light. The most specific description I’ve found in a dictionary is an indefinitely shaped evil spirit that goes about on all fours and carries victims off on its back” (Magan 37-8).
Fun Fact: College students who wear predominantly black are often referred to as pookies (a reference to pookas).
BADB | Bean-Sidhe | Banshee
“A banshee (/ˈbænʃiː/ BAN-shee; Modern Irish bean sí [bʲanˠ ˈʃiː], from Old Irish: ben síde [bʲen ˈʃiːðʲe], “woman of the fairy mound” or “fairy woman”) is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening. Her name is connected to the mythologically important tumuli or “mounds” that dot the Irish countryside, which are known as síde (singular síd) in Old Irish.” (Wikipedia)
In The Tain, Nemain and the Badb call out to the men of Ireland and a hundred warriors die of fright” (228).
Gay Byrne interviews scholar re: banshees. Start at 4.00.
Start video at 10:30:
THE TAILOR AND ANSTY & FAIRIES
5. “’The devil alone knows,’ said his companion. ‘[the bedpans] could be the tea-cups of Finn MacCool?” (62).
6. “’All my life I have heard that a white hazel stick drives away snakes. They are afraid of it. It has some power over them, and they won’t come near to it, and you won’t see them. But I have never been able to test it, for St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of this country’” (84)
7. “‘As soon as the corpse was lifted from the table, one party would be on the watch to turn it over, and the other party would be watching not to leave them do it. The belief was that the party who would turn it down would keep the death away from their side of the family and put it on the others’” (92).
8. “It is going to be made in bronze—the hardest metal that ever was. It was the metal that the Tuath de Danaans brought to Ireland with them’” (135).
9. Ansty “removed her cream pans from the Room to a cupboard under the stairs. Whatever curse may fall upon the place as the result of this latest prank of ‘himself,’ the cream must be preserved from harm at all costs” (135-36).
10. “’I was talking to Tady Joe today, and he tells me that he has a notion to dig up that big “gallaun” (monolith) that’s on his land, and see what’s under it. . . Mwirra, but I warned him not to have anything to do with it’” (182). “’Tcha! That’s all old superstition. What harm could there be in an old stone?’” (182).
11. “You’ll have to sit by the grave tonight, and when she tries to rise out of it you will have to beat her back. . . . You’d have to take a good strong ash-stick with you” (187).
12. “Whatever it was it was greater than the last occasion, when he had borne the tidings that the Garda barracks was ‘infested’ with fairies” (190).
13. “some sort of witchappery of talk” (205).
