4
The Child that Went with the Fairies
Anonymous in All the Year Round (1869-1870). Readers of
"Carmilla" in In a Glass Darkly will recognize the negro woman
in the coach.
Eastward of the old city of Limerick, about ten Irish miles under the range of mountains known as
the Slieveelim hills, famous as having afforded Sarsfield shelter among their rocks and hollows, when he crossed them in
his gallant descent upon the cannon and ammunition of King William, on its way to the
beleaguering army, there runs a very old narrow road. It connects the Limerick road to
Tipperary with the old road from Limerick to Dublin, and runs by bog and pasture, hill
and hollow, straw-thatched village, and roofless castle, not far from twenty miles.
Skirting the heathyIn this use, health means shrubby and evergreen plants that
grow on poor soil which is otherwise barren, usually acidic and poorly drained. These
plants are typically have needle-like leaves in whorls and clusters of small
flowers.
Source.
Definition of HEATH.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heath. Accessed 13 Apr. 2018.
mountains of which I have spoken, at one part it becomes singularly lonley. For more
than three Irish milesAn Irish mile, is longer than the standard mile. It was
defined as 6,720 feet where the standard mile, called the statute mile, is 5,280
miles. The Irish mile had already been established in 1592 when Queen Elizabeth I
passed a law defined the statute mile necessary for both commercial and legal
reasons. Specifically, it made it easier to tax land
accurately.
Source.
Irish Mile.
http://www.askaboutireland.ie/narrative-notes/irish-mile/. Accessed 1 May 2018.
it traverses a deserted country. A wide, black bog, level as a lake, skirted
with copseA grouping or thicket of small trees.
Source.
Definition of
COPSE. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copse. Accessed 2 May 2018.
spreads at the left, as you journey northward, and the long and irregular line of
mountain rises at the right, clothed in heathIn this usage, heath means shrubby
and evergreen plants that grow on poor soil which is otherwise barren, usually acidic
and poorly drained.
Source.
Definition of HEATH.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heath. Accessed 13 Apr. 2018. ,
broken with lines of grey rock that resemble the bold and irregular outlines of
fortifications, and riven with
74
The Child that went with the Fairies 75
many a gully, expanding here and there into rocky and wooded glens, which open as they
approach the road.
A scanty pasturage, on which browsed a few scattered sheep or kineKine is the old
archaic plural of cow.
Source.
Definition of KINE.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kine. Accessed 2 May 2018. , skirts
this solitary road for some miles, and under shelter of a hillock, and of two or three
great ash-trees, stood, not many years ago, the little thatched cabin of a widow named
Mary Ryan.
Poor was this widow in a land of poverty. The thatch had acquired the grey tint and
sunken outlines, that show how the alternations of rain and sun have told upon that
perishable shelter.
But whatever other dangers threatened, there was one well provided against by the care
of other times. Round the cabin stood half a dozen mountain ashes, as the rowans,
inimical to witches, are there called. On the worn planks of the door were nailed two
horse-shoes, and over the lintel and spreading along the thatch, grew, luxuriant,
patches of that ancient cure for many maladies, and prophylactic against the
machinations of the evil one, the house-leek. Descending into the doorway, in the chiaroscuroThis is a term for the representation of light and
shade in artwork, specifically pictoral arts. It also means being veiled or
shadowed.
Source
Chiaroscuro | Definition of Chiaroscuro by
Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chiaroscuro. Accessed
2 May 2018.
of the interior, when your eye grow sufficiently
accustomed to that dim light, you might discover, hanging at the head of the widow's
wooden-roofed bed, her beads and a phialAnother word for
vial.
Source
Definition of PHIAL.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phial. Accessed 2 May 2018. of
holy water.
Here certainly were defences and bulwarksA bulwark is something, either physical
or not, that protects a person against something dangerous or
uncomfortable.
Source
Bulwark Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/bulwark. Accessed 2 May 2018.
against the intrusion of the unearthly and evil power, of whose vicinity this
solitary family were constantly reminded by the outline of Lisnavoura, that lonely hill-haunt of the "Good people," as the fairies
were called euphemistically, whose strangely dome-like summit rose not half a mile away,
looking like an outwork of the long line of mountain that sweeps by it.
It was at the fall of the leaf, and an autumnal sunset threw the lengthening shadow of
haunted Lisnavoura,
76 Child that Went with the Fairies
close in front of the solitary little cabin, over the undulating slopes and sides of
Slieveelim. The birds were singing among the
branches in the thinning leaves of the melancholy ash-trees that grew at the roadside in
front of the door. The widow's three younger children were playing on the road, and
their voices mingled with the evening song of the birds. Their older sister, Nell, was
"within in the house," as their phrase is, seeing after the boiling of the potatoes for
supper.
Their mother had gone down to the bog, to carry up a hamper of turf on her back. Is is,
or was at least, a charitable custom - and if not disused, long may it continue - for
the wealthier people when cutting their turf and stacking it in the bog, to make a
smaller stack for the behoof of the poor who were welcome to take from it so long as it
lasted, and thus the potato pot was kept boiling, and the hearth warm that would have
been cold enough but for that good-natured bounty, through wintry months.
Moll Ryan trudged up the steep "bohereen"A
bohereen is a variant version of the word boreen which means a country lane that is
narrow in width.
Source.
Definition of BOREEN.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boreen. Accessed 2 May 2018. whose
banks were overgrown with thorn and brambles, and stooping under her burden, re-entered
the door, where her dark-haired daughter Nell met her with a welcome, and relieved her
of her hamper.
Moll Ryan looked round with a sigh of relief, and
drying her forehead, uttered the MunsterMunster is a province of Ireland named
after and almost in the exact location of the ancient kingdom named Munster which
existed between the 4th and 12th century.
Source
Maciamo. “Munster.” Eupedia,
https://ftp.vitamodularis.org/ireland/munster.shtml. Accessed 2 May 2018.
ejaculation:
"Eiah, wishaNo definition for what this means could be found; however, it is
assumed that it is an exclamation.! It's tired I am with it, God bless it. And
where's the
craythurs
children
, Nell?"
"Playin' out on the road, mother; didn't ye see them and you comin' up?"
"No; there was no one before me on the road," she said, uneasily; "not a soul, Nell; and
why didn't ye keep an eye on them?"
Well, they're in the haggard, playin' there, or round by the back o' the house. Will I
call them in?"
Child that Went with the Fairies 77
"Do so, good girl, in the name o' God. The hens is comin' home, see, and the sun was
just down over Knockdoulah, an' I comin'
up."
So out ran tall, dark-haired Nell, and standing on the road, looking up and down it; but
not a sign of her two little brothers, Con and Bill, or
her little sister, Peg, could she see. She called them; but no answer came from the
little haggard, fenced with straggling bushes. She listened, but the sound of their
voices was missing. Over the stileA stile is a set of steps, usually two, that are
used to cross a wall or fence. They are typically used between
fields.
Source
Stile Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/stile. Accessed 2 May 2018.
, and behind the house she ran - but there all was silent and deserted.
She looked down toward the bog, as far as she could see; but they did not appear. Again
she listened - but in vain. At first she felt angry, but now a different feeling
overcame her, and she grew pale. With an undefined boding she looked toward the heathy
boss of Lisnavoura, now darkening into the
deepest purple against the flaming sky of sunset.
Again she listened with a sinking heart, and heard nothing but the farewell twitter and
whistle of the birds in bushes around. How many stories had she listened to by the
winter hearth, of children stolen by the fairies, at nightfall, in lonely places! With
this fear she knew her mother was haunted.
No one in the country round gathered her little flock about her so early as this
frightened widow, and no door "in the seven parishes" was barred so early.
Sufficiently fearful, as all young people in that part of the world are of such dreaded
and subtle agents, Nell was even more than usually afraid of them, for her terrors were
infected and redoubled by her mother's. She was looking toward Lisnavoura in a trance of fear, and crossed herself
again and again, and whispered prayer after prayer. She was interrupted by her mother's
voice
78 Child that Went with thge Fairies
on the road calling her loudly. She answered and ran round to the front of the cabin,
where she found her standing.
"And where in the world's the
craythurs
children
-did ye see sight o' them anywhere?" cried Mrs. Ryan, and the girl came over
the stile.
"Arrah! mother, 'tis only what they're run down the road a bit. We'll see them this
minute coming back. It's like the goats they are, climbin' here and runnin' there; an'
if I had them here, in my hand, maybe I wouldn't give them a hiding all round."
"May the Lord forgive you, Nell! the
childhers
children
gone. They're took, and not a soul near us, and Father Tom three miles away!
And what'll I do, or who's to help us this night? Oh, wirristhru, wirristhruThere
was no translation or definition for this word. It is assumed that it is some from of
exclamation.! The
craythurs
children
is gone!"
WhishtThis is an Irish word meaning hush that was often used to make others
silent.
Source
Definition of WHISHT.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whisht. Accessed 2 May 2018. ,
mother, be
aisy
easy
; don't ye see them comin' up."
And then she shouted in menacing accents, waving her arm, and beckoning the children,
who were seen approaching on the road, which some little way off made a slight dip,
which had concealed them. They were approaching from the westward, and from the
direction of the dreaded hill of Lisnavourna.
But there were only two of the children, and one of them, the little girl, was crying.
Their mother and sister hurried foward to meet them, more alarmed than ever.
"Where is Billy - where is he?" cried the mother,
nearly breathless, so soon as she was within hearing.
"He's gone - they look him away; but they said he'll come back again," answered little
Con, with the dark brown hair.
"He's gone away with the grand ladies," blubbered the little girl.
Child that Went with the Fairies 79
"What ladies - where? Oh Leum, asthoraThis is an
Irish word and a name typically given to girls which means someone who is dearly
loved
Source
Asthora Girl Meaning and Origin (UPDATED 2017).
http://www.joyofbaby.com/meaning/name/Asthora/girl. Accessed 2 May 2018.! My
darlin', are you gone away at last? Where is he? Who took him? What ladies are you
talkin' about? What way did he go?" she cried in distraction.
"I couldn't see where he went, mother; 'twas like as if he was going to Lisnavoura."
With a wild exclamation the distracted woman ran on towards the hill alone, clapping her
hands, and crying aloud the name of her lost child.
Scared and horrified, Nell, not daring to follow, gazed after her, and burst into tears;
and the other children raised high their lamentations in shrill rivalry.
Twilight was deepening. It was long past the time when they were usually barred securely
within their habitation. Nell led the younger children into the cabin, and made them sit
down by the turf fire, while she stood in the open doorm watching in great fear for the
return of her mother.
After a long while they did see their mother return. She came in and sat down by the
fire, and cried as if her heart would break.
"Will I bar the
doore
door
, mother?" asked Nell.
"Ay, do - didn't I lose enough, this night, without
lavin'
leaving
the
doore
door
open, for more o' yez to go; but first tale an' sprinkle a dust o' holy waters
over ye, acuishlaA slightly different spelling of the word acushla which its an
affectionate form of addressing someone.
Source
“Acushla | Definition of
Acushla in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English,
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/acushla. Accessed 5 Apr. 2018. ,
and bring it here till I throw a taste iv it over myself and the
craythurs
children
; an' I wondher, Nell, you'd forget to do the like yourself, lettin' the
craythurs
children
out so near nightfall. Come here and sit on my knees, asthoraThis is an
Irish word and a name typically given to girls which means someone who is dearly
loved
Source
Asthora Girl Meaning and Origin (UPDATED 2017).
http://www.joyofbaby.com/meaning/name/Asthora/girl. Accessed 2 May 2018., come
to me, mavourneenAn Irish word meaning my darling.
Source
Definition of
MAVOURNEEN. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mavourneen. Accessed 5 Apr.
2018. , and hould me fast, in the name o' God, and I'll hould you fast that
none can take yez from me, and tell me all about it, and what it was - the Lord between
us and harm - an' how it happened, and who in it."
And the door being barred, the two children, sometimes speaking together, often
interrupting one another, often
80 Child that Went with the Fairies
interrupted by their mother, managed to tell this strange story, which I had better
relate connectedly and in my own language.
The Widow Ryan's three children were playing, as I
have said, upon the narrow old road in front of her door. Little Bill or Leum, about five years old with golden hair and large blue eyes,
was a very pretty boy, with all the clear tints of healthy childhood, and that gaze of
earnest simplicity which belongs not to town children of the same age. His little sister
Peg, about a year elder, and his brother Con, a little more than a year elder than she,
made up the little group.
Under the great old ash-trees, whose last leaves were falling at their feet, in the
light of an October sunset, they were playing with the hilarity and eagerness of rustic
children, clamouring together, and their faces were turned toward the west and storied
Lisnavoura.
Suddenly a startling voice with a screech called to them from behind, ordering them to
get out of the way, and turning, they saw a sight, such as they never beheld before. It
was a carriage drawn by four horses that were pawing and snorting, in impatience, as if
just pulled up. The children were almost under their feet, and scrambled to the side of
the road next their own door.
This carriage and all its appointments were old-fashioned and gorgeous, and presented to
the children, who had never seen anything finer than a turf car, and once, an old chaise
that passed that way from Killaloe, a spectacle
perfectly dazzling.
Here was antique splendour. The harness and trappings were scarlet, and blazing with
gold. The horses were huge, and snow white, with great manes, that as they tossed and
shook them in the air, seemed to stream and float sometimes longer and sometimes
shorter, like so much smoke -
Child that Went with the Fairies 81
their tails were long, and tied up in bows of broad scarlet and gold ribbon. The coach
itself was glowing with colours, gilded and emblazoned. There were footmen in gay
liveriesLiveries are uniforms that are worn either by servants or
officials.
Source
Livery Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/livery. Accessed 2 May 2018.
, and three-cocked hats, like the coachman's; but he had a great wig, like a
judge's, and their hair was frizzed out powdered, and a long thick "pigtail," with a bow
to it, hung down the back of each.
All these servants were diminutive, and ludicrously out of proportion with enormous
horses of the equipage, and had sharp, sallow features, and small, restless fiery eyes,
and faces of cunning and malice that chilled the children. The little coachman was
scowling and showing his white fangs under his cocked hat, and his little blazing beads
of eyes were quivering with fury in their sockets as he whirled his whip round and round
over their heads, till the lash of it looked like a streak of fire in the evening sun,
and sounded like the cry of a legion of "fillapoueeks"No definition could be found
for the meaning of this word. in the air.
"Stop the princess on the highway!" cried the couchman, in a piercing treble.
"Stop the princess on the highway!" piped each footman in turn, scowling over his
shoulder down on the children, and grinding his keen teeth.
The children were so frightened they could only gape and turn white in their panic. But
a very sweet voice from the open window of the carriage reassured them, and arrested the
attack of the lackeys.
A beautiful and "very grand-looking" lady was smiling from it on them, and they felt
pleased in the strange light of that smile.
"The boy with the golden hair, I think," said the lady, bending her large wonderfully
clear eyes on the little Leum.
The upper sides of the carriage were chiefly of glass, so
L.F. F
82 Child that Went with the Fairies
that the children could see another woman inside, whom they did not like so well.
This was a black woman, with a wonderfully long neck, hung round with many strings of
large variously-coloured beads, and on her head was a sort of turban of silk striped
with all the colours of the rainbow, and fixed in it was a golden star.
This black woman had a face as thin almost as a death's-head, with high cheek-bones, and
great goggle eyes, the whites of which, as well as her wide range of teeth, showed in
brilliant contrast with her skin, as she looked over the beautiful lady's shoulder, and
whispered something in her ear.
"Yes; the boy with the golden hair, I think," repeated the lady.
And her voice sounded sweet as a silver bell in the chilren's ears, and her smile
beguiled them like the light of an enchanted lamp, as she leaned from the window with a
look of ineffable fondness on the golden-haired boy, with the large blue eyes; insomuch
that little Billy, looking up, smiled in return with a
wondering fondness, and when she stooped down, and stretched her jewelled arms towards
him, he stetched his little hands up, and how they touched the other children did not
know; but, saying, "Come and give me a kiss, my darling," she raised him, and he seemed
to ascend in her small fingers as lightly as a feather, and she held him in her lap and
covered him with kisses.
Nothing daunted, the other children would have been only too happy to change places with
their favoured little brother. There was only one thing that was unpleasant, and a
little frightened them, and that was the black woman, who stood and stretched forward,
in the carriage as before. She gathered a rich silk and gold handkerchief that was in
her fingers up to her lips, and seemed to thrust ever so
Child that Went with the Faires 83
much of it, fold after fold, into her capacious mouth, as they thought to smother her
laughter, with which she seemed convulsed, for she was shaking and quivering, as it
seemed, with suppressed merriment; but her eyes, which remained uncovered, looked
angrier than they had ever seen eyes look before.
But the lady was so beautiful they looked in her instead, and she continued to caress
and kiss the little boy on her knee; and smiling at the other children she held up a
large russet apple in her fingers, and the carriage began to move slowly on, and with a
nod inviting them to take the fruit, she dropped it on the road from the window; it
rolled some way beside the wheels, they followed, and then she dropped another, and then
another, and so on. And the same thing happened to all; for just as either of the
children who ran beside had caught the rolling apple, somehow it slipt into a hole or
ran into a ditch, and looking up they saw the lady drop another from the window, and so
the chase was taken up and continued till they got, hardly knowing how far they had
gone, to the old crossroad that leads to Owney. It seemed that there the horses' hoofs
and carriage wheels rolled up a wonderful dust, which being caught in one of those
eddies that whirl the dust up into a column, one the calmest day, enveloped the children
for a moment, and passed whirling on towards Lisnavoura, the carriage, as they fancied, driving in the centre of it;
but suddenly it subsided, the straws and leaves floated to the ground, the dust
dissipated itself, but the white horses and the lackeys, the gilded carriage, the lady
and their little golden-haired brother were gone.
At the same moment suddenly the upper rim of the clear setting sun disappeared behind
the hill of Knockdoula, and it was twilight.
Each child felt the transition
84 Child that Went with the Fairies
like a shock - and the sight of the rounded summit of Lisnavoura, now closely overhanging them, struck them with a new
fear.
They screamed their brother's name after him, but their cries were lost in the vacant
air. At the same time they thought they heard a hollow voice say, close to them, "Go
home."
Looking round and seeing no one, they were scared, and hand in hand - the little girl
crying wildly, and the boy white as ashes, from fear, they trotted homeward, at their
best speed, to tell, as we have seen, their strange story.
Molly Ryan never more saw her darling. But
something of the lost little boy was seen by this former playmates.
Sometimes when their mother was away earning a trifle at hay-making, and Nelly washing
the potatoes for their dinner, or "beatling" clothes in the little stream that flows in
the hollow close by, they saw the pretty face of little Billy peeping in archly at the door, and smiling silently at thm, and as
they ran to embrace him, with cries of delight, he drew back, still smiling archly, and
when they got out into the open day, he was gone, and they could see no trace of him
anywhere.
This happened often, with slight variations in the circumstances of the visit. Sometimes
he would peep for a longer time, sometimes for a shorter time, sometimes his little hand
would come in, and, with bended finger, beckon them to follow; but always he was smiling
with the same arch look and wary silence - and always he was gone when they reached the
door. Gradually these visits grew less and less frequent, and in about eight months they
ceased altogether, and little Billy, irretrievably
lost, took rank in their memories with the dead.
Child that Went with the Fairies 85
One wintry morning, nearly a year and a half after his disappearance, their mother
having set out for Limerick soon after cock-crow,
to sell some fowls at the market, the little girl, lying by the side of her elder
sister, who was fast asleep, just at the grey of the morning heard the latch lifted
softly, and saw little Billy enter and close the door
gently after him. There was a light enough to see that he was barefoot and ragged, and
looked pale and famished. He went straight to the fire, and cowered over the turf
embers, and rubbed his hands slowly, and seemed to shiver as he gathered the smouldering
turf together.
The little girl clutched her sister in terror and whispered,
"Waken Nelly, waken; here's Billy come back!"
Nelly slept soundly on, but the little boy, whose hands were extended close over the
coals, turned and looked toward the bed, it seemed to her, in fear, and she saw the
glare of the embers reflected on his thin cheek as he turned toward her. He rose and
went, on tiptoe, quickly to the door, in silence, and let himself out as softly as he
had come in.
After that, the little boy was never seen any more by any one of his kindred.
"Fairy doctors," as the dealers in the preternatural, who in such cases were called in,
are termed, did all that in them lay - but in vain. Father Tom came down, and tried what
holier rites could do, but equally without result. So little Billy was dead to mother, brother, and sisters; but no grave received
him. Others whom affection cherished, lay in holy ground, in the old church-yard of
Abington, with headstone to mark the spot over which the survivor might kneel and say a
kind prayer for the peace of the departed soul. But there was no landmark to show where
little Billy was hidden from their loving eyes, unless
it was in the old hill of Lisnavoura, that cast
its
86 Child that Went with the Fairies
long shadow at sunset before the cabin-door; or that, white and filmy in the moonlight,
in later years, would occupy his brother's gaze as he returned from fair or market, and
draw from him a sigh and a prayer for the little brother he had lost so long ago, and
was never to see again.
