The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-11-13
IRISH FOLK LORE.

ed forts, or reaths are scattered over Ire
land. They are simply small plateaus of
about fifty feet square surrounding some
slight eminence. An earthern breast
work fronts the plateau. Outside this
there is ditch some six feet deep which
is banked up OF its farther side.
These forts are attributed by the peo-
pie to the Danes. Why is inexplicable,
as the historic mind of the uneducated
Celt goes no farther back than the inva-
sion of the ''Sassenagh" or Saxon, which
is still the Irish for EDglishman. No
one will, as it is expressed, "look crook
ed" at fort. A rabbit burrow in it may
not be dug. A house must not be built
near it. Woe to the unwary To stick a
spade in it's limits, to straighten bound
airy or continue plough reach gives him
death as his portion.
The "Tabu" that hangs over the fort,
is as old as the belief in Faerie land. The
Roman Catholic religion professed by
majority of the people, and that OF the
English church by the remainder, the
national schools, the railroads, the tele-
graph and the penny newspapers have
swept away the vestiges of many super
stition, but all have recoiled, beaten from
assaults upon the fort and it's good peo-
pie.
Not long since there was fort some
twenty miles from the eeRboard, and hard
by was prosperous hamlet. The fort
was on a hill top, and the hill was kept
in pasture by the villagers. The prices
of cattle went down. The villagers con-
tinued to till the hill. One was dis
sentient He wandered moodily one
evening in the cleaning around the hill.
He saw the "fetch" of his only child fee
ing away before him, and sound of
faint music was in his ears; he called but
vainly,
For like blast
Away she past,
And no man saw her more.
He returned home to find that in his
absence she died. The villagers titled the
hill. Ill seasons came and sore sickness.
Cattle died. OF the village one sees not a
stone remaining, and many OF the chill
dren of those who we're born in Gurteen
and are now in the States, still speak in
half-hushed tones of the awful vengeance
wreaked by the good people" OF the bill.
I am neither the apologist, says the
writer, correspondent of the Courier
Journal, nor Devils Advocate" of these
superstitions. merely relate them and
recount some extraordinary and infelic-
itous condolences which befell synchro-
nously with the invasion OF their credited
domain, and which, of course, have in
tensified popular faith in faerie power.
For instance, some years ago, when,
after the famine, the simeon of the iniqui-
tous Encountered Estates Court" swept
off the greater part of the irish gentry,
and plaeed "King Stork" instead of king
Log" over the peasantry, one purchaser,
a Yorkshire farmer, kindly man Gan ex-
ception to that class OF purchasers),
bought small estate in the Dunmore
district of Galway county. He lived
there on the best OF terms with the peo-
pie. A Mr.. Roper had fort on his land.
He desired to cultivate where it lay. He
directed his laborers to work at it. They
refused and left his employment. He, as
they were about leaving, and as they were
demonstrating with him, began to dig up
the "tabooed" ground. 1t was in the
spring of 1858. He was a strong man, in
the prime Of life, accustomed to farmers
toll. He went to bed and passed away
in sleep that night. What more would
you have? That night lights had danced
around the fort, and the music of the
irate "good people" was heard as il from
caverns beneath their outraged territory.
The Banshee's influence is fading.
That weird washerwoman of snow-white
garb, who with resonant clapping OF
hands and wailing, remained nightly by
the old dwelling when the death hour of
one of its household was approaching,
was affected not at the sorrow to fall
upon either the "nouveau richie" or the
peasant. Her eerie notes of anguish were
reserved for those old houses whose own
ers came, it was deemed, from a nobler
stock, and in whose veins ran a gentler
blood. She chung to them, mindless Of
changes of fortune and regardless of diff
ferences Of their religious faith.
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