The Corpse Watchers
Become a Patron!Irish and Celtic myths and legends, Irish folklore and Irish fairy tales tales of Ireland
If the waked one wakes, the watcher had better watch out!
Once upon a time there was a poor woman with three daughters, and one day the eldest decided to seek her fortunes in the world.
“Mother,” she said, “bake me a cake and kill my chicken, for I am away to the wide world.”
And so her mother did just that, and when all was ready, her mother asked “which will you have – half of these with my blessing, or all of them with my curse?”
“Curse or no curse,” said the daughter, “the whole is little enough.” So away she went, and if her mother didn't give her a curse, neither did she give her a blessing.
She walked and she walked until she was tired and hungry, so she sat down by the side of the road to eat her dinner. While she was eating, a poor old beggar woman came up and asked her for a bite.
“Nothing is what you'll get from me,” said the daughter, “for there's almost nothing for myself as it is!” and the poor woman walked off in sorrow.
That night, the daughter stopped at a farmhouse and asked for a place to sleep, and the woman of the house told her that she'd get a spade full of silver and a shovel full of gold if she'd only stay awake and watch her son's corpse that was at wake in the next room.
Odd indeed she thought such a request, but agreed, and so when the family had gone to bed, she sat by their fire and kept half an eye on the corpse which lay under the table, thinking hardly that a whole eye let alone two were needed.
All at once the dead man sat up under his shroud, and stood before her as she shrank, horrified.
“All alone, fair maid!” he cried, but she had no answer. A second and a third time he said it, and when still she was dumbstruck, he struck her with a hazel switch, and she was turned into a grey rock on the spot!
About a week later the second daughter of the house decided to go the same road in seeking her fortune, not caring for her mother's blessing either, and didn't the very same thing happen to her, so that there were two grey rocks sitting side by side in the wake room.
At last the youngest went off to look for the other two, but she took care to carry her mother's blessing with her. When she met the poor old beggar woman on the road, she shared her dinner, little as it was, and at last came to the farmer's house.
She knocked and was let in, and like her sisters, agreed to watch the corpse in the next room. She sat warming herself by the fire along with the cat and dog, for it was a cold night, and amused herself with some nuts and apples the mistress gave her. She thought it a great pity that the man under the table was a corpse, for he was handsome.
But as the midnight bell tolled, up he leapt as sprightly as any schoolmaster and shouted out
“All alone, fair maid!” but she wasn't long answering him back!
“All alone I am not,
I've little dog Douse and Pangur the cat,
I've apples to roast and nuts to crack,
So all alone, I am not!”
Taken aback, he said “I can see you're a girl of courage, though it will take more than you have to follow me. I'm away now to cross the quaking bog and through the burning forest. After that I must enter the cave of unending terror and climb the hills of glass, and then drop from the top into the sea of the dead.”
“I'll follow you,” she said, “for I've been engaged to mind you!”
He thought to prevent her but she was as stiff as he was stout, so off he sprang through the window with a great bound, and after him she raced through the moon-silvered night. Coming to a great dark hill, he sang out:
“Open, open, great hill dark, and let the light
of the Green Hills through.”
And the girl sang after, “Aye and let the fair maid too!”
With a mighty groan and a gasp of musty air the hill itself opened wide, and they both passed through, coming to the edge of a bog.
Light he stepped over shaky bits of moss and sinking sod, and while the maid was thinking about how to cross, who should appear but the old beggar woman, now revealed as a fairy, a friendly bodb of the farmer's family!
The fairy touched her shoes with a hazel stick, and the soles of her shoes spread a foot to either side, letting her walk easily across the sucking marsh. As she came to the edge of the bog, the burning forest arose before her, boughs twisting and cracking forever in blazing brimstone fires!
But the good fairy was there to help, and cast a thick woollen cloak across her shoulders, drenched in icy ocean water from Manannan's fountains, and not so much as a hair on her head was singed.
After that they came to the cavern of horrors, where the shrieks and groans of dark things long imprisoned were fit to drive anyone to madness, and so they would have done to her, if the fairy hadn't stopped her ears with beeswax strained from the hives of Lir beforehand! Yet even with fairy help it wasn't an easy journey, and she saw many frightful things, wights and demons wreathed in blue flame, with sharp rocks and slimy frogs backs and snakes underfoot.
After what seemed like an endless walk, she escaped and came to the mountain of glass, where the fairy made her slippers sticky with a touch of her hazel wand, so she was able to follow the young man's corpse to the very top.
There was a deep and turbulent sea a quarter of a mile below them, with waves so huge and fierce they seemed almost like mountains themselves, but the corpse stopped and turned to her.
“Go home to my mother,” he said, “go home and tell her how far you came to do her bidding. Farewell.” He toppled over headfirst into the sea, and after him she plunged, without stopping a moment to think about it.
The fall stole the breath from her mouth and she was frozen with terror as she fell, but when she came closer to the heaving waters she came to her senses and dove like an arrow, sinking down to a great depth, where she saw at the bottom of the sea a green light glimmering.
Swimming with all her might, she entered the light and found herself in a gentle meadow beneath a green sky with flowers of many colours all around her. The young man sat beside her and she nestled into his side, falling asleep with her exertions.
She never knew how long she slept, but when she awoke, she was in bed at his house, with himself and his mother sitting beside her keeping watch.
They told her after she had a cup of tea, it had been a wicked witch who put the glamour on him, stealing half his life to put him between the living and the dead until a woman could be found with the strength and courage to restore him to our world again.
She found a hazel wand by her side under the blankets, and when she touched the two grey stones nearby, her sisters regained their earthly forms and were sent back to their mother, with a spade of gold and a shovel of silver each, for all the good it might do them.
As for the youngest daughter, well she got the young gentleman for her husband and lived happily ever after!
Some have it that the dark hill may lie near this spot:
We now have an amazing Patreon page as well, where you can listen to the many myths and legends on the Emerald Isle! Exclusive to our Patreon, you can now hear stories of ancient Ireland, folklore and fairy tales and more, all professionally narrated. It's at times like these that it's most important to support artists and creative people whose income might be reduced, so if you'd like to support the work that goes into Emerald Isle, the Patreon can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/emeraldisle
Further Folk and Faerie Tales of Ireland
May is a magical month in more ways than one! The beginning of May marked one of the cross quarters of the year, when the world grew thin in certain places, as the old folks used to say, and the Sidhe and other spirits could travel over and back between our world and theirs. The exact date wanders from year to year mind you, sometimes earlier, some ... [more]
The author of the Long Black Hand was a man called Richard Cronnolly, born in Ballinderreen County Galway in 1828. He spent his spare time in the record office where he studied old documents. Although he was not a wealthy man and had no help from anyone, he found a publisher just before he died at the very young age of thirty five. The Long Blac ... [more]
Not all that long ago there lived a decent family on the border of Tipperary, Michael Flannagan and Judy his wife were the two that were in it. Although they were not blessed with wealth, they were blessed with children, four sons to be exact. Three of these lads were as fine and stout a trio as you'd ever hope to see, and it was enough to m ... [more]
One of the many ancient Irish traditions whose origin has been lost to the ever-deepening mists of time is that of the wishing tree. They were also called rag trees, raggedy bushes, or clooty or cloughtie trees, and they can often be found growing next to or near holy wells and springs. When people gathered around the old turf fires in Ireland, ... [more]
The Sceach Geal is a tree that grows in Ireland and throughout the north of the world and its name means “bright thorn”. It was known in Brehon law as an Aithig fedo or a Commoner of the Wood, a quickthorn like its ferocious cousin the blackthorn, and it is also called hawthorn, the gentle bush, the lone thorn, the May tree, the hedgeth ... [more]
Throughout Ireland can be found many holy wells and blessed springs, most of which predate the arrival of Christianity on the island, but which were consecrated by the Church to the service of Christ. Within some of these wells and deepnesses, the old legends tell, swim sacred guardians and fish of strange repute! To this day the people of Irela ... [more]
Lough Gur is a place of great antiquity and the source of many strange rumours and legends, surrounded by misty forests and low rolling hills, not all of which are natural in origin! Once there was an island in the middle of the lake, but now it is a peninsula, and it is joined to the eastern shore by a causeway, not far from the village of Aney ... [more]
There was a farmer in County Kerry who had a nice little cottage for himself and his wife, but the thatched roof was in a terrible state of disrepair and unlikely to last another winter. Unlike the stone houses and cottages in the west, Kerry cottages were less sturdy, and so he knew he had to build himself another place to live. He searched thr ... [more]
Long ago in Ireland, at the dawn of the Christian age, Irish monasteries and schools were famed throughout Europe and the world for the depth of their knowledge and the quality of the education they gave to princes, lords and nobles who travelled from all parts to attend them. One of the most famous early Christian theologians who taught in thes ... [more]
The people of Ireland before the time of Saint Patrick had many strange customs, and some of these survive even to this very day, often mixed and combined with Christian rites and beliefs! One of those traditions was the sunwise walk. What this meant was, in order for good luck to attend an event, you had to walk around it sunwise or deiseal, pr ... [more]
We have a saying in Ireland, that it's the only place in the world where you can get all four seasons in the one day – well there's truth in that, but Irish weather can be even stranger than most people realise! So it is with the Gaoth Sidhe, which means “the fairy wind,” and is pronounced “gwee sheeha”. Oft ... [more]
One upon a time in Ireland, in the farthest west of County Clare, there lived a brave young chieftain whose name was O'Quinn. A kindly enough man was he, and fair to behold, of ruddy locks and clean limbs, and he made his Dún on a flat plain near to a clearwater spring, the purest in all of Ireland and perhaps all the world. He was co ... [more]
Cursing of various sorts has a history as long and rich as Ireland's own, stretching from the very earliest tales of the first settlers in Ireland all the way to the modern day. Whether a quick muttered malediction on someone who had crossed you or an elaborate, lengthy poem intended to satirise and ruin the legacy of a king, the mallacht, or c ... [more]
Much has been said but little written of the old Irish piseóg, the word of the curse. Now the same term is often used to refer to general traditions and superstitions in Ireland, things like if you're ever lost, turn your socks inside out to find your way home, or opening the back door if you hear a knock at the front door, to let the fa ... [more]
Dotted around Ireland in many places can be found bullán stones, meaning “bowls”, which are stones, large and small, with a depression or bowl in them, often filled with water. These are usually of great antiquity, stretching back before the time of St Patrick and before the time of Cú Chulainn and Fionn Mac Cumhaill, and ... [more]
There's a common misconception some might have about fairies, which is the idea that fairies are nice friendly little spirits, trailing pixie dust and turning pumpkins into luxury vehicles. As any of the old folk of Ireland could tell you, nothing could be further from the truth, for a fairy in wrath is more dangerous than a hive of wasps or a ... [more]
Sometimes when out and about travelling the lesser known byways of Ireland, you might come across a little stone arrowhead or piece of flint shaped by hands long gone, and people would tell you not to touch it for fear it might carry the tinneas sióg, the sickness of the fairy mounds! For it was that fairies, the sidhe, were known to hurl ... [more]
The sinister crone of the woods, the wishing thorn, there are as many tales told of the blackthorn trees of Ireland as there are spiky thorns on its branches. The people who came before, whose blood still runs in some, planted them around their tombs and sacred places and bound the lunantisidhe, or moon fairies to protect them, save only on the ful ... [more]
Once upon a time there was a poor woman with three daughters, and one day the eldest decided to seek her fortunes in the world. “Mother,” she said, “bake me a cake and kill my chicken, for I am away to the wide world.” And so her mother did just that, and when all was ready, her mother asked “which will you have ... [more]
A fair witch crept to a young man's side, And he kissed her and took her for his bride. But a shape came in at the dead of night, And filled the room with snowy light. And he saw how in his arms there lay A thing more frightful than words may say. And he rose in haste, and followed the Shape Till morning crowned an eastern cape. ... [more]
