Christmas Folklore

A few Christmas themed traditions dealing with christmas eve, Christmas day and St.Stephens night. Some have been taken from the schools collection of folklore (NFSC hereafter), collected from around the country during the school year of 1937-8. (This collection can be viewed online at Ducas.ie) The other source is from Kevin danaher’s book- The year in Ireland.

St.stephen’s day:

• people who don’t eat meat on the day will not be sick during the year (NFSC, Volume 0787, Page 56)

  

  Wren boys

• young boys go around with the wren.They hold the wren in a box and sing a song. The song is:”The wren, the wren the king of all birds.St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze. Up with the kettle and down with the pan, Give us something and honour the wren. On St. Stephen’s Day people go visiting (NFSC, vol.0104: 391).
• In The journals of the kildare archaeological society,v, 452 it mentions that if any of the wren boys were refused money when they visited houses, they would bury a wren (from their “wren bush”) opposite the hall door into which no good luck could enter for twelve months (Danaher,1972:247).

Christmas Day

 

• Every Christmas log fires used be light (sic) and all the family sat around and the old people told stories. On Christmas morning when they went to Mass they took a few wisps of straw from the crib, brought them home and put one under the rafters of each cabin and under the beds. This was supposed to bring good luck. The old people say it isn’t right to wear anything new on Christmas day but to keep it until New Year’s Day. It is right to leave the doors open and unlocked on Christmas night as the Blessed Virgin is supposed to visit each house on that night. The people say that on Christmas night the animals talk. There was a boy long ago who did not believe this. One Christmas night he stole into the stable and lay down beside the horse to see would he hear him talking. Just at midnight he heard one horse say to another ‘This day week i will be carrying this boy to the graveyard’. That boy died a few days afterwards and he was taken to the graveyard on the very day the horse had said. On Christmas night also all animals go down on their knees and they all get an extra sheaf of straw on that night (NFSC, vol.0096:653).
• Donegal: Christmas pies in the shape of cradles to represent the manger of Bethlemham (Danaher,1972:237).
• Hearing crickets chirp behind the hob on Christmas was considered to be a source of good fortune for the coming year (Danaher,1972:241).

Christmas Eve:

• The decorations usually fell to the kids who would collect holly, ivy bay and other evergreens and take them home. These were hung with string and thread or stitched onto fabric. Holly with berries was especially prized (Danaher,1972:233).
• Farmers  gave gifts of meat, often corned beef  from the animals that had been slaughtered at Martinmas (Danaher,1972:237).
• Lighting candle and placing in the window for the blessed vigin as she travels from

  

  Image credit: Sugargliding, Flickr

  house to house.  No one leaves their own house on the day. Games are played. A Decorated tree is taken into the kitchen at tea time and children dance around it and sing (NFSC, vol.0788:120). The lighting of the candle was often done by the youngest child (Danaher,1972:238).

• If the principle candle went out for no reason it was considered a bad omen and could foretell a death in the family (Danaher,1972:238).
• A new moon on Christmas Eve was considered a good omen (Danaher,1972:240).

The Darker Side of Folklore: The Story of Bridget Cleary

Ireland’s rich and vibrant oral tradition of storytelling captured the hearts and minds of generation upon generation of Irish people going back centuries, who passed the long cold nights by the fire absorbed in these tales. While it is easy for us to view them as just stories through a modern lens and dismiss them as simple superstition, they had a much more profound effect on the people of the past. Many of these stories would have originated as an explanation of events and phenomenon that people would not have had at the time such as inexplicable illnesses and features of the landscape such as ringforts. While even back then some would havedismissed them as make believe, many seen them as truth which sometimes ended in a disastrous outcome. This was ultimately the outcome with the case of Bridget Cleary in 1895 where the belief in fairy changelings culminated in the torture and death of the young woman at the hands of her husband Michael and a number of other people including a local herb/fairy doctor Dennis Ganey. The storytelling tradition was instrumental in the outcome of this tragedy and it is evident in the common motifs often found in changeling stories that pop up in this case such as; the attempts to banish the “fairy” (including the use of fire), the administering of herbs, the inclusion of the priest and also in the manner that Michael Cleary believed he could rescue his wife from the fairies. Jack Dunne’s presence and prestige as someone knowledgeable in fairy lore was also pivotal to the outcome of the incident. Another notable point was the proximity of the house to a Rath, often called fairy forts, and believed to be the abode of the “the good folk”. Changeling stories are very common and were described by Emily Lyle as “being among the most commonest of the tales of the Fairies” (Bourke, 1999: 37).

The use of fire in this case is very important as it is a common element in the stories concerning banishment of changelings. It is a method that pops up many times in the national folklore collection. Although in all the documented cases of changeling burning, Bridget Cleary is the only one that involves an adult victim (Bourke, 1999:

The Fireplace where Bridget was murdered

38). Many other reports can be found throughout the 19th century of children being placed on red hot shovels, drowned or mistreated and only 11 years before this event a case was reported less than 15 miles away from where the Cleary’s lived that involved a red hot shovel. One of the witness statements at the court case that followed stated that at one point Bridget had a burn mark on her forehead administered by her husband with a red-hot poker (Bourke, 1999: 79). He also used fire after he knocked her to the floor while trying to make her eat and also when he doused her in lamp oil to burn the body while saying “she’s an old deceiver left instead of my wife, you will see her go up the chimney”. This method can be seen time and time again for scaring away fairies such as a story where a man took a red hot tongs out of the fire saying “I’ll scald you first and burn you afterwards” upon which the child turned into an old person in front of them and left, only for the real child to be returned (Gafty, 1862). Another story features both a fairy man and also the use of fire where a changeling is banished when the “wise man” threatens to catch its nose with a tongs causing it to leave (Kennedy, 1886: 90-92). It also occurs in the story “Garret Barry and the changeling” where a fairy child talks to the piper after hearing him play the bagpipes. The outcome of this is the same whereby the fairy departs up the chimney after being threatened by a reddened shovel taken out of the fire (Lenihan, 2003: 296).

 

As mentioned, Jack Dunne had a very important part to play in the events that unfolded and was no doubt the impetus for the gross mistreatment of the young woman from the moment he uttered the words “That is not Bridgie Boland”. (Bourke, 1999: 62) This could be alluding to her change in appearance due to sickness and in many of the stories we find that the physical appearance of people who had spent time ‘away with the fairies’ would be somehow different (NFC 437:104-105,Wexford, 1945) . He also mentioned that one of her legs was shorter than the other. This was also a feature of a story shared by Eamonn á Búrc. Dunne’s knowledge of herbs and his insistence of Michael seeing the herb doctor, Dennis Ganey, was what caused Michael Cleary to abandon the idea of using real medicine in favour of using what they later called in court “fairy quackery”. A herb often associated with fairies foxglove (often called fairy thimbles), are the most attested and heavily documented herb in relation to fairies and a witness was even asked if lús mór (foxglove) was used. The fact that the herbs were boiled in new milk or beestings (Bourke, 1999: 78) as it is known is also important as new milk is often seen as being attractive to the fairies. In a quickly modernising world where people like Dunne, with his esoteric knowledge, were quickly losing the prestige and respect that they would have once had, then it is no doubt that he would have taken every opportunity to exert his dominance in the situation. Michael Cleary himself had said in court that were it not for the insistence of Jack Dunne he would not have done it.

The proximity of the fort and also the way in which Michael thought he could still

Michael Cleary

“rescue” his wife following her death is also a conventional motif in fairy abduction stories. These forts were commonly referred to in the locality as places where fairies lived (Bourke, 1999: 11) and oral tradition marked the particular fort near their house as not being linked to normal human behaviour. (Bourke, 1999: 17). The association with the forts and the fairies is well attested and widespread and even Lady Gregory on her travels while collecting stories mentioned that they are always fairy haunted and are identifiable to the locals as such (Bourke, 1999: 47) Roads quite often avoid them and calamities often befall those who tamper with them or are in any way disrespectful to them. In regards to the rescue of Bridget, a witness Johanna testified in court that she had heard Michael talking specifically about the fairies and that his wife was up at Kylenegranagh fort and that they would go up Sunday night to rescue her. There he expected to find her on a horse and that if he cut the cords she was tied with that she would stay with them (Bourke, 1999: 16). He was later seen with a crowd of people with a knife to retrieve her. Two stories collected in the book “Meeting the Other Crowd” echo this. The first features Corbally fort where a man spotted a woman on a white horse being led by a group of fairies. The man was able to rescue her by pulling her off the horse. This story also mentions something left in her stead (Lenihan, 2003: 278). The second is the story of a brother that dreamt of his sister who had being “carried”. She could also be rescued if her feet touched the ground (Lenihan, 2003: 276). Another interesting story concerning a wife being stolen can be found in the national folklore collection. This specific story is interesting because it contains a few elements that are found in the Bridget Cleary case. The appearance of the wife had changed (“An ugly auld yoke instead of her”, as the husband put it) and the man visited a fairy doctor. He had administered herbs although in this case it was to enable the man to see the fairies. He was to go to a specific place at a certain time and he could pull his wife off the horse. As soon as he had retrieved her the thing in the house disappeared (Carroll, 1945: 105).

Many might look at Michael Cleary’s explanation as simply an excuse to cover up the mistreatment and murder of his wife but I think we have seen there are many elements that show how a clearly superstitious man under severe psychological stress got caught up in the events that unfolded. Even though they lived in a quickly modernising world, the stories still told at the fireside would have greatly influenced their world view. The interference of a man who would have commanded some respect due to his esoteric knowledge of the supernatural world (however waning this respect now was in the new world that was emerging) was central to the outcome of the case. Charlotte Dease says that the best place to find a mixture of ancient traditions mixed with modern is to look to the more rural areas of Ireland (Dease,1918:46). I think this was ultimately the case for Bridget Cleary.

The Cleary’s House

Bibliography
Bourke,A (1999). The Burning of Bridget Cleary, London, Pimlico, pp.1-111.
Dease.C, Religious Traditions Of Gaelic Ireland, Irish monthly, Vol.47, No.567 (Jan 1918),pp.45-50.
Gafty,A.(1862), A holiday in Ireland in 1861, Dublin, Bealoideas 3, pp.368.
Hedderman, B.N. (1917), Glimpses of my life in Aran, Bristol, John Wright and sons Ltd.
Kennedy,P. (1866), Fictions of the Irish Celts, London, MacMillan and Co. pp.90-92.
Lenihan,E. and Green,C.(2003), Meeting the other crowd, Dublin, Gill and macmillan.
National Folklore Collection, Iml 437,Page 104, Mrs.John O’Carrol, Wexford, Thomas O’ Ciarda, 1945.
National Folklore Collection, Iml 48, pp16-22, Micíl Uí Fionnagáin,65, Priónseas ó Ceallaigh, Cork.