THE
LEGEND OF FINVARRA
As
the person is not always conscious of her state
while labouring under what is termed by
physicians "puerpural mania," it is
rather difficult to get any very accurate or
collected account of the fairy nursery in which
they pass their time; and when the cures and
charms prove ineffectual, and they "die all
out," the truth becomes more difficult to
attain; nevertheless it is not quite impossible.
In proof of this, we would refer our readers to a
very poetic and well-told legend in the Rev. Mr.
Neilson's "Introduction to the Irish
Language," where we have an account of one
Mary Rourke, who, having died in childbirth, in
the county of Galway, was washed, laid out,
waked, keened, and buried with all due form and
ceremonial. Mary, however, "was in
Knockmagha, three quarters of a year, nursing a
child, entertaining with mirth and sweet songs;
but notwithstanding, she was certainly in
affliction. At length the host of the castle told
her that her husband was now married to another
woman, and that she should indulge no longer in
sorrow and melancholy; that Fin Varra and all his
family were about to pay a visit to the province
of Ulster. They set out at cock-crowing, from
smooth Knockmaah forth, both Fin Varra and his
valiant host. And many a fairy castle, rath and
mount they shortly visited from dawn of day till
fall of night, on beautiful winged coursers:
'Around Knock Greine and Knock-na-Rae,
Ben Bulbin and Keis-Corainn,
To Ben Echlann and Loch Da ean,
From thence north-east to Slieve Guilin,
They travelled the lofty hills of Mourne,
Round high Slieve Donard and Ballachanery,
Down to Dundrim, Dundrum and Dunardalay,
Right forward to Knock-na-Feadala'"
These were all the celebrated
haunts of the fairy people in the west and north.
Now at the foot of Knock-na-Feadala there lived
with his mother, who was a widow woman, a boy
named Thady Hughes, an honest, pious,
hard-working bachelor. Well, Thady went out on
Hallow Eve night, and about the very time that
the court of Fin Varra were passing thrtough the
air, and as he stood in the gap of an old fort
looking up at the stars that were shining bright
through the clear frosty air, he observed a dark
cloud moving towards him from the south-west,
with a great whirlwind; and he heard the sound of
horses upon the wind, as a mighty troop of
cavalry came over the ford, and straight along
the valley, to the very rath on which he stood.
Thady was in a mighty flustrification, and
trembled all over; but he remembered that he had
often heard it said by knowledgeable people, that
if you cast the dust that is under your foot
against the whirlwind at the instant it passes
you, "them that's in it" (that is, if
they have any human being along with them) are
obliged to be released.
So,
being of a humane disposition, he lifted a
handful of gravel that was under his foot, and
threw it lustily, in the namy of the Trinity,
against the blast, when, lo and behold! down
falls a young woman, neither more or less than
Mary Rourke from Galway, all the way, but mighty
wake entirely. Thady took courage, having heard
her groan like a Christian, so he spoke softly to
her, and lifted her up, and brought her home to
his mother, who took care of her till she
recovered. In process of time the heart of Thady
was softened, and he took Mary to wife, and they
lived mighty happy and contented for a year and a
day, the lovingest couple in the whole county
Down, till a stocking merchant from Connemara,
passing that way, recognised her as the wife of
Michael Joyce, of Gort, who shortly after came
all the way to from Connaught to claim her: and
it took six clergy and a bishop to say whose wife
she was.
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