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017 - Ghosts - A Dream · Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

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  Speaker 1: Section sixteen of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All libervox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteire, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Christine G. Fairy and
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  Speaker 1: Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, edited and selected by W. B. Yates.
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  Speaker 1: Section sixteen. Ghosts ghosts, or as they are called in
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  Speaker 1: Irish titcher or twice, live in a state intermediary between
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  Speaker 1: this life and the next. They are held there by
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  Speaker 1: some earthly longing or affection, or some duty unfulfilled or
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  Speaker 1: anger against a living I will haunt you is a
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  Speaker 1: common threat, and one has such phrases as she will
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  Speaker 1: haunt him if she has any good inner. If one
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  Speaker 1: is sorrowing greatly after a dead friend, a neighbor will say,
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  Speaker 1: be quiet, now you are keeping him from his rest or.
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  Speaker 1: In the Western Isles, adding to Lady Wild, they will
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  Speaker 1: tell you you are waking the dog that watches to
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  Speaker 1: devour the soul of the dead. Those who die suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: more commonly than others, are believed to become haunting ghosts.
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  Speaker 1: They go about moving the furniture and in every way
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  Speaker 1: trying to attract attention. When the soul has left the body,
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  Speaker 1: it is drawn away, sometimes by the fairies. I have
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  Speaker 1: a story of a peasant who once saw sitting in
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  Speaker 1: a fairy wrath all who had died for years in
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  Speaker 1: his village. Such souls are considered lost. If a soul
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  Speaker 1: eludes the fairies, it may be snapped up by the
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  Speaker 1: evil spirits. The weak souls of young children are in
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  Speaker 1: a special danger. When a very young child dies, the
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  Speaker 1: Western peasantry sprinkle the threshold with the blood of a chicken,
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  Speaker 1: that the spirits may be drawn away. To the blood,
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  Speaker 1: a ghost is compelled to obey the commands of the living.
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  Speaker 1: The stable boy up at missus gees there, said an
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  Speaker 1: old countryman met the master going round the yards after
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  Speaker 1: he had been two days is dead, and told him
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  Speaker 1: to be away with him to the lighthouse and haunt that.
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  Speaker 1: And there he is far out to sea still, Sir
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  Speaker 1: Missus jew was quite wild about it, and is mister
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  Speaker 1: boy a very desolate lighthouse, poor devil of a ghost.
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  Speaker 1: Lady Wilde considers it is only the spirits who are
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  Speaker 1: too bad for heaven and too good for hell, who
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  Speaker 1: are thus plagued, they are compelled to obey some one
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  Speaker 1: they have wronged. The souls of the dead sometimes take
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  Speaker 1: the shapes of animals. There is a garden at Sligo
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  Speaker 1: where the gardener sees a previous owner in the shape
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  Speaker 1: of a rabbit. They will sometimes take the forms of insects,
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  Speaker 1: especially of butterflies. If you see one fluttering near a corpse,
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  Speaker 1: that is the soul and is a sign of its
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  Speaker 1: having entered upon immortal happiness. The author of the Parochial
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  Speaker 1: Survey of Ireland eighteen fourteen heard a woman say to
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  Speaker 1: a child who was chasing a butterfly, how do you
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  Speaker 1: know it is not the soul of the old grandfather?
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  Speaker 1: On November Eve, the dead are abroad and dance with
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  Speaker 1: the fairies. As in Scotland, the fetch is commonly believed in.
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  Speaker 1: If you see the double or fetch of a friend
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  Speaker 1: in the morning, no ill follows if at night he
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  Speaker 1: is about to die. A dream by William Allingham. I
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  Speaker 1: heard a dog's howl in the moonlight night. I went
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  Speaker 1: to the window to see the sight all the dead
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  Speaker 1: that ever I knew, going one by one, and two
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  Speaker 1: by two, on they passed, and on they passed town's fellows,
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  Speaker 1: all from first to last, born in the moonlight of
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  Speaker 1: the lane, quenched in the heavy shadow again, schoolmates marching
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  Speaker 1: aswid played at soldiers once but now more state. Those
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  Speaker 1: were the strangest sight to me. Who were drowned I
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  Speaker 1: knew in the awful sea, straight and handsome folk bent
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  Speaker 1: and week two, some that I loved and gasped to
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  Speaker 1: speak to some better day in their churchyard bed. Some
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  Speaker 1: that I had not known were dead, A long, long
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  Speaker 1: crowd where each seemed lonely. Yet of them all there
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  Speaker 1: was one. One only raised ahead or looked my way.
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  Speaker 1: She lingered a moment she might not stay how long
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  Speaker 1: since I saw that fair, pale face, Ah, mother deare?
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  Speaker 1: Might I only place my head on thy breast a
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  Speaker 1: moment to rest, while thy hand on my tearful cheek
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  Speaker 1: were pressed on On a moving bridge they made across
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  Speaker 1: the moon stream, from shade to shade, young and old
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  Speaker 1: women and men, many long forgotten but remembered. Then at
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  Speaker 1: first there came a bitter laughter, a sound of tears
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  Speaker 1: a moment after, and then a music so lofty and
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  Speaker 1: gay that every morning, day by day, I strive to
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  Speaker 1: recall it. If I May end of Section sixteen