NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 1 June 1922, Page 26

NOTES

"Good People" An anonymous correspondent invites us to give him . some information about what he in his Philistine manner calls "spooks." With a preliminary and grave protest on behalf of the Duine Maithe, or "Good People," we charitably accede to his request. First of all let us make it plain that there are no "Good People" in this country, the atmosphere being most unfavorable to them and there being no reverence for either the living and the dead or for anything else except the Union Jack on top of a pole. To find the Duine Maithe one must go to old lands where there is poetry and humility and the vision of things unseen even at this material and unromantic epoch of the world's history. Ireland, especially, is the home of the fairy ■-folk, and there you will be able to see them and talk to £hem —if you are good enough for their company, which very doubtful if you go from New Zealand. Who areTihey.? There was a tradition according to which they were wandering spirits, not good enough for Heaven nor bad enough for Hell— those beings that Dante passed by in scorn with that mordant remark : Non ragioniamo di loro ! But the Booh of Armagh says they were.the gods of the earth; and Irish antiquarians think they were the Tuatha De Dannan, the gods of pagan Erin who, deserted and starved, dwindled away until in popular imagination they became very small in stature. No matter who they were, one thing is important: you must speak little about them, and at all times with great respect. To call them "spooks," as our correspondent did, is a terrible offence entirely, and we would not be in that man's shoes for the price of the best cow in Taranaki to-night. Either refer to them as the Duine Maithe, or "Good People," or shut up and say nothing.

Their Ways The only working fairy is the leprachaun who makes shoes for .the rest of them. They are fond of feasting and fighting and making love. They play beautiful music and they spend most of their time dancing. A woman from a place called Carnew (near Ashburton) went away with them and stayed for seven years. When she came home again her toes were all gone, worn away from dancing. Their great festivals are May Eve, Midsummer Eve, and November Eve. An old man once saw them fighting on May Eve. They tore the thatch off a house in the row, but if you saw it you would think it was only a whirling wind that was in it: the old man knew better. On Midsummer Eve (oidhchee Badltaine) when bonfires are still lighted in accordance with a very ancient custom, as may be gathered from the derivation of the Gaelic word which means "Bail .fire," the fairies are in their- element, and the beautiful girls are in danger of being stolen away to be made their brides. Oidhchee Shamhain, or November Eve, is the gloomiest time for them. The night is thick with them then, and even when the writer was a child there were common almost everywhere in Ireland observances of customs which even Conan Doyle might deem superstitious. Perhaps they were, but they did us no harm, and even if sometimes we felt a wee bit afraid when the stories told round the fireside were particularly creepy, we knew it was all poetry from first to last. After November Eve we were very careful not to eat blackberries, but you may find out the reason for yourself if you are curious. One more warning: don't sing An Cailin Deas Cruidthe na Mbo near a rath, for the Duine Maithe are jealous and that is .their song. They can sing: beautiful, enchanting music that would coax the heart out of your breast. Carolan got his wonderful airs from hearing them one night that he fell asleep in a rath And the reason that so many of the real old melodies make you want to rWeey, or to laugh, or to fight, or to love, is that they -are the laments or the jollifications or the war-songs or the love-songs of the "Good People."

Who's Who Now that we have ventured to —with all respect, be it observed, — the Duine Maithe, we may as well finish the topic. It would not be right surely to bring merely mundane subjects into the same page with them, and we have to make up another column somehow or other. Hence a brief Fairies' Who's Who, The Leprachaun, whom we mentioned already, is usually seen working away for dear life at one shoe. ' Hence his name, from hath bragan (a single shoe). He is said to be very rich. At any rate he ought to be, as he has been at his trade for ages and ages, and he has crocks of gold buried all over the country. The Glauricaun is another fairy, like the leprachaun in appearance but very unlike him in his habits. If you have a good cellar it is there you will find him if you go down at night time to get a dram of uisgebheathafor the toothache. The rascal gets merry and noisy whenever he finds his way into a wine-cellar. He is a sort of ne'er-do-well lepracaun. The Fear-dearg resembles the other two in being old and withered and little. He wears a red coat and hence is called the Red Man. If you will Jturn back your file of the Tablet a few weeks you will find a poem about him by Pat Mac Gill on page twenty-four. He is a joker, and a mischievous one at that. The Fear-gorta is another of the wee people, but there is no joking with him, poor fellow. He goes through the country in times of famine and whoever gives him an alms'will surely have the best of good luck. Therefore be slow to refuse .even when there is no famine, for you may be throwing away your luck if you do. The Leanean-sidhe is a lonely fairy lady who wants to be loved by mortals. She gives inspiration to the Gaelic poets whom she loves, but she lives on their life and they all die young through her love. 'She comes to them and woos them but she is restless and will not let them remain on earth. She is not a kindly fairy, no more than the piasta and the eadhuisge, which are the dragon and the water-horse. The Dallahan is a headless phantom and not pleasant to meet out late at night. He haunts ships and we are told that there used to be one on the Sligo quay , night after night. The sailors knew he was about when they heard a noise as if all the empty petrol tins in .the world were being flung down the hold of the ship. The Puca has left his name on many places in Ireland to this day. He is an animal spirit, or takes the form of animals for choice. He may come as a horse, an ass, a goat, an eagle, or as the water-horse which we mentioned just now. On November Eve he is particularly . active. Some derive his name from the word for a he-goat, and there is probably a kinship between him and Shakspere's Puck. All know who the Bean-sidhe is, or if not all ought to know. The name is made of two Gaelic words which mean "fairy woman." She follows the real old Irish families and will have nothing to do with your Cockney upstarts, even if they have been made British earls and have bought the home of some decent Irish family that was ruined by the English laws. Sometimes more than one bean-sidhe comes to announce the coming death of an Irishman. But that is a very rare honor, not accorded to ordinary mortals. She is heard lamenting m night, in a weird, mournful tone which is imitated in the caoine or funeral.cry of the Irish people in the west and north. Another omen of death is the toiste-bodhar, or headless coach, a huge black hearse, bearing a coffin, and driven by a headless driver. It passes noiselessly up the avenue and goes to the door of the house to which death is coming. But of course it is not to every house it goes, for, as we said before, such warnings are not for the 'Sassenach, or for mean Gaels either. Time is up now, but another time we ma tell you something about, the taibhse and the witches and about Tir-na-n'Og and several other matters of equal importance.- ~; . .... .

I am ready to bear patiently whatsoever my Lord shall be pleased to do to me.—St. Francis of Assisi,