FAIRIES AND OTHER SUPERSTITIONS

Most of the old people and some of the younger believed firmly in the fairies, and some even claimed to have seen some of the airy creatures. An intelligent farmer of about sixty years told me the following: 

"When I was a lad of sixteen or seventeen, one lovely morning in July, about five o'clock, I was going for my first cart of turf to Eshnadarra bog, a distance of five miles. I used to draw three load in the day, so I had to start early in order to get finished before night. When I came as far as Cordooly School I heard voices some distances away, I could not make out the words, though the sounds were quite distinct. It seemed an ordinary conversation, without any heat, such as any two ordinary well-disposed humans would be carrying on. When I got as far as Peter Smyth's gate, a distance of about a hundred and fifty yards from where I first heard the voices; I saw two little men about the height of my knee, standing in a gap of a fence not more than fifty yards from where I was on the road. I didn't stop, but drove on as if nothing unusual had happened and the little fellows, whether they saw me or not, went on with their chat, but I couldn't make out a word. It occurred to me afterwards that perhaps they were speaking in Irish or some other language.. They were wearing top hats. I could hear them until I reached the top of Dernawilt hill." 

The people generally had a great fear of the fairies. They wouldn't touch the fairy forts, or the lone bushes on any account, for they believed that dire consequences would be the result of such action. It is no uncommon sight in this district to see these fairy thorns or lone bushes growing in the middle of fields and if these fields are in tillage the farmers make sure to keep at a safe distance. They can give you instances in abundance of the bad luck that befell those who had the temerity to disregard such warnings. I know a contractor who was building a bridge quite near to one of these lone bushes, the branches of which interfered quite a bit with his work. He would not personally interfere with the tree, so he offered a reward of five pounds to anyone who would cut it down, but no volunteers came forward and so the tree still stands. It would be a good thing if the public in general had the same respect for other trees. 

The fairies generally are supposed to be gentle folk, but some were malevolent and enjoyed nothing better than giving trouble and annoyance to humans. They were supposed to have used those flint arrow heads that are found all over the country, to wound and maim cattle, but nowadays we know better. We know that those arrow heads were fashioned and used by our forefathers in war and the chase and thus the maligned fairies are vindicated.

Then there was the "evil eye" which some unfortunate individuals were supposed to possess. If such people looked at an animal at any time, that animal was doomed not to thrive henceforth and was said to be "overlooked". But there was a remedy for all these misfortunes. An old man — at least he was old when I first saw him — had the remedy for the evil eye, elf-shooting, overlooking, and possibly for many other visitations that I never heard of. He was known as "Jemdy", a colloquial form of James. For the cure, he required some bog water to be brought by a young man whose parents were living and I daresay this water was given to the affected beast to drink. He then went into the manger, in front of the beast, fell on his knees and said some prayers. Very likely he performed other rites as well; for instance, if the mischief was supposed to be caused by some ill-disposed person, a portion of that person's clothing was burnt under the beast's nostrils. Most of the animals thus treated were suffering from nothing worse than eating or drinking too much or some other trifling upset. 

A humorous character from this part of the country was employed on a ranch in Ohio, many years ago. He and the owner of the ranch were out one day inspecting the cattle when they came upon a beast that had something serious the matter. The owner and McAloon (for that was the Irishman's name) examined the animal carefully and then the rancher asked "what should we do?" To which McAloon replied, "I think we should send for Jemdy'. 

0 f course the whole thing was utterly silly and belief in such rubbish has long disappeared from the district, though belief in some of the traditional cures is still fairly common. There were cures for a great many accidents and afflictions such as sprains, bleeding, toothache, mumps, a stye in the eye, and many others that I cannot call to mind. There was a cure for what the people call "heart fever" though people that should know, tell us there is no such disease. The cure consists in taking stones from a river flowing southwards and boiling them for some time in a pot of water. The person making the cure knows from the sounds made by the boiling stones whether the patient has a bad attack or not. This cure, like all the others, is handed down from one person to another, but can be given only to one.

Then there is the cure of what the people call a fallen palete. Those who ought to know tell us that there is no such thing as a fallen palete, and that part of our anatomy always remains as it was first placed. One would think that we are afflicted with disease enough without: inventing new ones. The only thing that can be said in favour of these cures is that they may have a beneficial psychological effect on the sufferer. My only reason for referring to these so-called curses is to contribute a little to the social history of my native district. Most of them I would say, are quite harmless, but others may not be as innocent as they seem. It would require a theologian to determine. Meanwhile if you have any body ailment, the doctor is your man. 

There were others, because of some accident of birth, who were supposed to possess healing powers. For example, the seventh son had the cure for king's evil and a child who was born after its father's death had the cure of the dirty mouth in babies. No doubt there are many other beliefs and practices that I have not heard of and have not referred to; but from what I have written you will appreciate how tough a job it was for doctors who had to face such opposition – something like the witch doctors in the jungles of Africa. Old beliefs die hard and it may take another generation or two before we are rid of them all. I can understand sick people being willing to try any and every remedy they hear of, to try to get some relief in their misery, and most of us would do likewise, so let tolerance prevail and all will be well in the end.

THE ROUND OF TOIL

I intend in this section to give a brief account of the day-to-day work on the farms in the mountain section of the parish of Roslea. The land is wet and of poor quality, the subsoil being a yellow clay which holds the water. Drainage would help a great deal, and where carried out, has shown improved results. It is a pity that more is not done; but with the scarcity and dearness of labour at present there is no hope of extensive drainage schemes being undertaken. 

Until recently spade-labour was almost universal, only a very few used the plough. The spade did the work more efficiently and the ground was spared the trampling of the horses. But much worse than this trampling is the pressure exerted by the modern tractor, which in my opinion is totally unsuited to mountain land and may even prove injurious on good land. But with the advance of progress we have got to accept it or go without tillage. 

Working with a spade day after day wasn't child's play. It required a strong, tough man to do it; there was no shirking, you had your allotted share of the work to do and that was that. There were three kinds of spade in use in the district, (1) the "full" spade, which was the largest and was quite a heavy implement, (2) a smaller, lighter spade, known as a "between" and (3) a still smaller spade, the name of which I cannot call to mind and which was used mainly for digging potatoes.

The spades were made in McMahon's foundry near Clones and were on sale in the shops in all the towns and villages around. But many of the people went directly to the foundry, the reason being that they preferred "sally" shafts for their spades instead of the ash ones provided by the foundry, thinking sally more kindly to handle than ash. They got the sally around home, had it dressed and smoothed, and foundry workers fitted it to the spade as a matter of course. The spade, when taken home, was usually sharpened on a grindstone and was then "cleaned" by doing some light work, such as clearing furrows of a potato field, to brighten the surface of the spade, so that it can be driven into the soil more easily. 

In early Spring the work began in earnest. The ground had to be prepared for the crops, usually potatoes and oats. Most of the workers did the work tastefully, but there were some not so good, and their performance left much to be desired. If there were four or five workers together, competition very often ensued, which did not make for excellent work. They called this "camping", which may perhaps have reference to the putting up of tents — I cannot say. The fields generally were small, about an acre in extent, sometimes more, sometimes less, the length from "head" to "foot", anything from a hundred to a hundred and forty yards. From "foot" to "head" of the field was called a "sett", and when a sett was completed, the workers sat down on the ditch at the head of the field for a rest of five or ten minutes. Small wonder so many of them suffered from rheumatism later on. When "camping" at this particular work — or indeed at any other work — there was little or no concern for the old or the weak. Potatoes were always planted in ridges and usually good crops were obtained.  

Some of the oat crop was trenched, especially in peaty or moory ground. This was done by digging a furrow the breadth of the spade and throwing the soil to each side thus forming a ridge. But the second and third crop of oats was also trenched, while oats planted where a crop of potatoes was grown the previous year was harrowed and rolled, no use of the spade being required. In normal sessions the planting of potatoes and oats was completed by the end of April; but sometimes owing to unfavourable weather, farmers did not finish planting potatoes until the end of May or beginning of June. 

But most seasons, potatoes were moulded in May and farmers went to the bog for the cutting of the turf. Not anyone or everyone, could cut turf; there was a knack in it which some could never master. It was a tough job, but when the conditions were favourable, one never heard any complaint. It was surprising the amount of turf a good cutter could cut in a day, sometimes ten cartloads. You could see the turf flying from the turfspade with clocklike regularity from morning till almost night; if the bog were deep, the turf from the lower "floors" had to be pitched eight or ten feet to the catcher on the bank, but if there was "hollow" accommodation available, the catcher and wheeler, descended from the bank, thus making the work easier for the cutter. 

When the turf was partially dry, in a week or ten days, according to the weather, they were spread and later clamped. When dry they were drawn home. If the bog were far from the road, and could not be reached by horse and cart the turf had to be drawn to the road by asses and creels, and stacked temporarily, until taken home by horse and cart. Farmers were of opinion that there was more trouble with turf than with any other crop.

The food taken by bog workers wasn't very satisfactory.. Dinner was about one o'clock and consisted of tea and bread, with eggs sometimes added. The tea was made in a small tin can and usually had a smoky taste, as it was virtually impossible to boil water on a fire in the open without getting it smoked. Then the evening tea was about four o'clock, and when this was consumed, you didn't mind if you never saw tea again, well at least you had more than enough for one day. When this continued for a week or ten days you would be thoroughly fed up.