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May Eve gathering told how 'little people' aided local family in hard times
FAIRIES helped a family to cope with the hardship and need of rural Limerick in the 1930s, auctioneer and folklore enthusiast Pat O'Donovan told a crowded Rambling House at Knockfierna last week.
He was speaking on fairy lore and piseogs on May Eve, the traditional night for such phenomena.
But it was an eye to opportunity rather than any other-worldly power that was behind the tale spun by Mr O'Donovan In 1938, he said, there was a man with a large family and a small shop in the vicinity of Knockfierna, traditionally the home of fairies and of Donn, the Celtic god of the underworld.
With business slow, the man came up with the notion of dressing some of the smaller, younger children as leprechauns and their job was to convince people they were truly "the Little People", now seen, now gone.
The ruse worked, and according to newspaper reports of August 1938, Mr O'Donovan said, "busloads" of sightseers made their way to Knockfierna to see the fairies "The shop, of course, did very good business," he remarked and, 70 years on, one of the leprechauns was still alive and well and "lepping about the place".
The story went down well with an audience that wanted nothing better than a tall tale to enjoy with their strong tea and currant cake. And in many ways, it proved a light-hearted contrast to the real anxieties and fears of men and women interviewed about piseogs in west Limerick and north Kerry for a Radharc documentary of 1969, a recording of which was watched with fascination by the Rambling House visitors.
For some visitors, the piseogs mentioned in the documentary, and others elaborated on by Mr O'Donovan, were all new. But others recognised them from childhood and younger days, and recalled the strategies that were dreamt up to ward them off. But as the evening lengthened into night, a lighter mood stole over the visitors flanking the open turf fire or crowded on to every step of the cottage's stairs.
Other stories were recalled, songs were sung, poems recited and tunes were played. And the second round of tea came out from the upper room. This was the Rambling House at its best – rambling, inclusive, friendly – and, last Thursday, celebrating its 22nd year of May Eve. Earlier, to put visitors in the mood, up to 50 people walked to the summit of Knockfierna Hill, the location for many centuries for the Celtic festival of Lughnasa, but also the scene for great hardship and a large number of deaths during the Famine.
In the evening sunshine, the great plain of Limerick, solid and substantial, stretched and shimmered to the horizons. But of other-worldly beings there were no sightings.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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