Other than Tom Cruise, fairies are my greatest fear. Instilled in me from a young age by the seanchaí Eddie Lenihan, anything that happened in the world, good or bad, I knew that fairies were the cause of it. Most people know about the good fairies, the Walt Disney fairy godmothers for people who need to sugarcoat the truth and believe in happy-ever afters. Oh, you can have fairies on your side, absolutely. It's no secret they love to cobble a good shoe but they've been known to steal babies too. So when it comes to fairies, you have to be prepared to give up something in return for a favour.
There’s a nasty breed of fairy that is fond of a good piseog (and no, not because they love to rip the pish). Piseogs refer to curses or superstitions, and these are the fairies that you need to steer clear of. Don’t even humour them. As long as you never burn playing cards, never turn your back when you’re going to Mass, never visit a sick person on a Wednesday or a Friday and never give a hatching hen to anyone – unless you want your husband to die, you wicked woman – you will be be grand.
If you stick to the simple and totally reasonable guidelines, you avoid trouble, no matter what the situation is. Like, walking home through a field at night is never a good idea so the fairies are only saving you from yourself as long as you work on their terms.
One foolproof way to protect yourself from the fairies is to wear your jacket inside out, which explains the bedraggled state of some folk after a late one down the pub. They were only wearing their fairy armour.
It’s common knowledge that if you interfere with a fairy fort, great misfortune will befall your family. Never build a house using a stone found in or near a fort or you will die. Never burn wood from a tree found in, or near, a fort or you will die. Yes, there’s a lot of dying around fairy forts. I told you they were frightening.
Many moons ago, there was a man in Miltown- Malbay, Co Clare, who reportedly died because he cut out all of the shrubbery from a fort near his farm. He thought he was safe because he left the rings intact. Wrong. He died a week later. A shed fell on him. Death by shed, but we all know it was the fairies.
They say that fairy activity declined in the 1950s when electricity came into Irish homes. In some parts of Ireland, when ESB workers laid down electricity poles, the next day they'd be upended because they disturbed a fairy path.
Now, if there’s one night that could have used some fluorescent lighting, it was Oíche na Gaoithe Móire, the night of the big wind. On January 6th, 1839, Ireland was battered by a great wind, but this was no ordinary wind. This was a sí-gaoithe. A sí-gaoithe is a fairy wind, a wind that comes out of nowhere and bloody well wrecks the joint.
January 6th was calm and warm until – go tobann – the wind roared and took the country in its grasp. Houses were destroyed, trees were uprooted and the people and livestock were shook to their very core. So strong was this wind that in Slane, Co Meath, many miles from the sea, "an observer claimed that, while accidentally chewing on a piece of twig, he found it to be strongly impregnated with salt", so the Leinster Express reported at the time.
Floods ravaged the land and fishing boats were violently thrashed about at sea, never to return. It was claimed that more than 300 lives were taken by Oíche na Gaoithe Móire and the great screeches of the banshee were heard across the country, each one marking another death.
(Side note: It’s rumoured that the banshee can only be seen by people with old Gaelic surnames so, if you’re a Muirtheartaigh or a Ní Suilleabhian, bí curamach. Bí very, very curamach.)
Fairies are everywhere. They say if a horse sneezes three times, it’s a message from the other world to just stop yer messing.
Most fairy stories start with “Old Jackeen had had a few drinks…” so there is room to be cynical. However, these stories end in one of two ways; either Jackeen was lucky to escape or he dropped dead the next day. Whether drink is taken or not, if you’re out carousing late at night, take my word of caution and play by the rules. If you stumble upon a fairy on your way home tonight, do what they ask you. If they ask you to referee a fairy football match, do it but be sure to call it a draw and, most importantly, if they ask you to join a party on your way home, you daren’t say no.
Of course, if logic had any say in this – which it doesn’t – you’d say that these were the fears of a madwoman, but when it comes to bad luck and fears, I’d rather have the fairies to blame.
After all, I’d prefer their wrath than Tom Cruise’s any day.