50 Fairy Stories Read online

  When Pat got in they were dancing round and round till his feet tingled to look at them, being a good dancer himself. As he sat on the side of the Rath, and snapped his fingers to mark the time, the dancing stopped, and a little man came up, in a black hat and a green coat, with white stockings, and red shoes on his feet.

  “Won’t you take a turn with us, Pat?” said he, bowing till he nearly touched the ground. And, indeed, he had not far to go, for he was barely two feet high.

  “Don’t say it twice, sir,” said Pat. “I will be proud to foot the floor with ye,” and before you could look round, there was Pat in the circle dancing away for bare life.

  At first his feet felt like feathers for lightness, and it seemed as if he could have gone on forever. But at last he grew tired, and would have liked to stop, but the fairies would not, and so they danced on and on. Pat tried to think of something good to say, that he might free himself from the spell, but all he could think of was:

  ‘A dozen hanks of grey yarn for Mistress Murphy. Three gross of bright buttons for the tailor. Half an ounce of throat drops for Father Andrew, and an ounce of snuff for his housekeeper,, and so on.

  And it seemed to Pat that the moon was on the one side of the Rath when they began to dance, and on the other side when they left off, but he could not be sure after all that going round. One thing was plain enough. He danced every bit of leather off the soles of his feet, and they were blistered so that he could hardly stand, but all the little folk did was to stand and hold their sides with laughing at him.

  At last the one who spoke before stepped up to him.

  “Don’t break your heart about it, Pat,” said he, “I’ll lend you my own shoes till the morning, for you seem to be a good natured boy.”

  Well, Pat looked at the fairy man’s shoes, which were the size of a baby’s, and he looked at his own feet, but not wishing to be uncivil, Thank ye kindly, sir,” said he. “And if your honour’ll be good enough to put them on for me, maybe you won’t spoil the shape.” For he thought to himself, ‘Small blame to me if the little gentleman can’t get them to fit.,

  With that he sat down on the side of the Rath, and the fairy man put on the shoes for him. As soon as they touched Pat’s feet they became altogether a convenient size, and fitted him like wax. And, more than that, when he stood up, he didn’t feel his blisters at all.

  “Bring ,em back to the Rath at sunrise, Pat, my boy,” said the little man. And as Pat was climbing over the ditch, “Look round, Pat,” said he. And when Pat looked round, there were jewels and pearls lying at the roots of the bushes on the ditch, as thick as peas.

  “Will you help yourself, or take what’s given ye, Pat?” said the fairy man.

  “Did I ever learn manners?” said Pat. “Would you have me help myself before company? I’ll take what your honour pleases to give me, and be thankful.”

  The fairy man picked a lot of yellow blossoms from the bushes, and filled Pat’s pockets.

  “Keep ,em for love, Pat, me darling” said he.

  Pat would have liked some of the jewels, but he put the blossoms by for love.

  “Good evening to your honour,” said he.

  “And where are you going, Pat, dear?” said the fairy man.

  “I’m going home,” said Pat. And if the fairy man didn’t know where that was, small blame to him.

  “Just let me dust them shoes for ye, Pat,” said the fairy man. And as Pat lifted up each foot he breathed on it, and dusted it with the tail of his green coat.

  “Home!” said he, and when he let go, Pat was at his own doorstep before he could look round, and his parcels safe and sound with him.

  Next morning he was up with the sun, and carried the fairy man’s shoes back to the Rath. As he came up, the little man looked over the ditch.

  “The top of the morning to your honour,” said Pat, “here’s your shoes.”

  “You,re an honest boy, Pat,” said the little gentleman. “It’s inconvenienced I am without them, for I have only the one pair. Have you looked at the yellow flowers this morning?” he said.

  “I have not, sir,” said Pat, “I’d be loth to deceive you. I came off as soon as I was up.”

  “Be sure to look when you get back, Pat,” said the fairy man, “and good luck to ye.”

  With which he disappeared, and Pat went home. He looked for the blossoms, as the fairy man told him, and there’s not a word of truth in this tale if they weren’t all pure gold pieces.

  Well, now Pat was so rich, he went to the shoemaker to order another pair of brogues, and being a kindly, gossiping boy, the shoemaker soon learnt the whole story of the fairy man and the Rath. And this so stirred up the shoemaker’s greed that he resolved to go the very next night himself, to see if he could not dance with the fairies, and have like luck.

  He found his way to the Rath, and sure enough the fairies were dancing, and asked him to join. He danced the soles off his brogues, as Pat did, and the fairy man lent him his shoes, and sent him home in a twinkling.

  As he was going over the ditch, he looked round, and saw the roots of the bushes glowing with precious stones as if they had been glow worms.

  “Will you help yourself, or take what’s given ye?” said the fairy man.

  “I’ll help myself, if you please,” said the cobbler, for he thought, ‘If I can’t get more than Pat brought home, my fingers must all be thumbs.,

  So he drove his hand into the bushes, and if he didn’t get plenty, it wasn’t for want of grasping.

  When he got up in the morning, he went straight to the jewels. But not a stone of the lot was more precious than roadside pebbles. “I ought not to look till I come from the Rath,” said he. “It’s best to do like Pat.”

  But he made up his mind not to return the fairy man’s shoes. “Who knows the virtue that’s in them?” he said. So he made a small pair of red leather shoes, as like them as could be, and he blacked the others upon his feet, that the fairies might not know them, and at sunrise he went to the Rath.

  The fairy man was looking over the ditch as before.

  “Good morning to you,” said he.

  “The top of the morning to you, sir,” said the cobbler. “Here’s your shoes.” And he handed him the pair that he had made, with a face as grave as a judge.

  The fairy man looked at them, but he said nothing, though he did not put them on. “Have you looked at the things you got last night?” said he.

  “I’ll not deceive you, sir,” said the cobbler. “I came off as soon as I was up. Not a peep I took at them.”

  “Be sure to look when you get back,” said the fairy

  man. And just as the cobbler was getting over the ditch to go home, he said, “If my eyes don’t deceive me,” said he, “there’s a little dirt on your left shoe. Let me dust it with the tail of my coat.”

  ‘That means home in a twinkling,, thought the cobbler, and he held up his foot.

  The fairy man dusted it, and muttered something the cobbler did not hear. “It’s the dirty pastures that you’ve come through,” said he, “for the other shoe’s as bad.”

  So the cobbler held up his right foot, and the fairy man rubbed that with the tail of his green coat.

  When all was done the cobbler’s feet seemed to tingle, and then to itch, and then to smart, and then to burn. And at last he began to dance, and he danced all round the Rath (the fairy man laughing and holding his sides), and then round and round again. And he danced till he cried out with weariness, and tried to shake the shoes off. But they stuck fast, and the fairies drove him over the ditch, and through the bushes, and he danced away. Where he danced to, I cannot tell you. Whether he ever got rid of the fairy shoes, I do not know. The jewels never were more than wayside pebbles, and they were swept out when his cabin was cleaned, which was not too soon, you may be sure.

  All this happened long ago, but there are those who say that the covetous cobbler dances still, between sunset and sunrise, round Murdoch’s Rath.

  B
illy Beg, Tom Beg, and the Fairies

  By Sophia Morrison

  READING TIME: 6 MINUTES

  Not far from Dalby, Billy Beg and Tom Beg, two humpback cobblers, lived together on a lonely croft. Billy Beg was sharper and cleverer than Tom Beg, who was always at his command. One day Billy Beg gave Tom a staff, and said, “Tom Beg, go to the mountain and fetch home the white sheep.”

  Tom Beg took the staff and went to the mountain, but he could not find the white sheep. At last, when he was far from home, and dusk was coming on, he began to think that he had best go back. The night was fine, and stars and a small crescent moon were in the sky. Tom was hastening home, and had almost reached Glen Rushen, when a grey mist gathered, and he lost his way. But it was not long before the mist cleared, and Tom Beg found himself in a green glen such as he had never seen before, though he thought he knew every glen within five miles of him. He was marvelling and wondering where he could be, when he heard a faraway sound drawing nearer to him.

  “Aw,” said he to himself, “there’s more than myself afoot on the mountains tonight, I’ll have company.”

  The sound grew louder. First, it was like the humming of bees, then like the rushing of Glen Meay waterfall, and last it was like the marching and the murmur of a crowd. It was the fairies. All of a sudden the glen was full of fine horses and of little people riding on them, with the lights on their red caps shining like the stars above and making the night as bright as day. There was the blowing of horns, the waving of flags, the playing of music, and the barking of many little dogs. Tom Beg thought that he had never seen anything so splendid as all he saw there. In the midst of the drilling and dancing and singing one of them spied Tom, and then Tom saw coming towards him the grandest little man he had ever set eyes upon, dressed in gold and silver silk, shining like a raven’s wing.

  “It is a bad time you have chosen to come this way,” said the little man, who was the king.

  “But it is not here that I’m wishing to be,” said Tom.

  Then said the king, “Are you one of us tonight, Tom?”

  “I am surely,” said Tom.

  “Then,” said the king, “it will be your duty to take the password. You must stand at the foot of the glen, and as each regiment goes by, you must take the password – it is: ‘Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday’.”

  “I’ll do that with a heart and a half,” said Tom.

  At daybreak the fiddlers took up their fiddles, the fairy army set itself in order, the fiddlers played before them out of the glen, and sweet that music was. Each regiment gave the password to Tom as it went by, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”

  Last of all came the king, and he, too, gave it, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”

  Then he called to one of his men, “Take the hump from this fellow’s back,” and before the words were out of his mouth the hump was whisked off Tom Beg’s back and thrown into the hedge.

  How proud now was Tom, who so found himself the straightest man in the Isle of Man! He went down the mountain and came home early in the morning with light heart and eager step. Billy Beg wondered greatly when he saw Tom Beg so straight and strong, and when Tom Beg had rested and refreshed himself he told his story about how he had met the fairies who came every night to Glen Rushen to drill.

  The next night Billy Beg set off along the mountain road and came at last to the green glen. About midnight he heard the trampling of horses, the lashing of whips, the barking of dogs, and a great hullabaloo, and, behold, the fairies and their king, their dogs and their horses, all at drill in the glen as Tom Beg had said.

  When they saw the humpback they all stopped, and one came forward and very crossly asked his business.

  “I am one of yourselves for the night, and should be glad to do you some service,” said Billy Beg.

  So he was set to take the password, ‘Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.’ And at daybreak the King said, “It’s time for us to be off,” and up came regiment after regiment giving Billy Beg the password, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”

  Last of all came the king with his men. and gave the password also, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”

  “And Sunday,” said Billy Beg, thinking himself clever. Then there was a great outcry.

  “Get the hump that was taken off that fellow’s back last night and put it on this man’s back,” said the king, with flashing eyes, pointing to the hump that lay under the hedge.

  Before the words were well out of his mouth the hump was clapped onto Billy Beg’s back.

  “Now,” said the king, “be off, and if ever I find you here again, I will clap another hump on to your front!”

  And they all marched away with one great shout, and left poor Billy Beg standing where they had found him, with a hump growing on each shoulder. And he came home next day dragging one foot after another, with a wizened face as cross as two sticks, with his two humps on his back, and if they are not off they are there still.

  The Fairy Cow

  By Jeremiah Curtin

  READING TIME: 7 MINUTES

  In the parish of Drummor lived a farmer, whose name was Tom Connors. He had a nice bit of land and four cows. He was a fine, strong, honest man, and had a wife and five children.

  Connors had one cow which was better than the other three, and she went by the name of Cooby. On one corner of Connors’ farm there was a fairy fort, and the cow Cooby used to go into the fort, but Connors always drove her out, and told his wife and boys to keep her away from the fort, “For,” said he, “there isn’t much luck for any cow or calf that is fond of going into these fairy forts.”

  One morning when Connors went to drive his cows home to be milked he found Cooby in the field with her legs broken. He ran home that minute for a knife and killed and skinned the cow for the family to eat.

  What of the meat himself and family didn’t eat fresh he salted, and now and then of a Sunday evening or a holiday they had a meal of it with cabbage, and it lasted a long time.

  One morning after Tom was gone to the bog to cut turf his wife went out to milk their remaining cows, and what should she see but a cow walking into the fort, and she the living image of Cooby. Soon the cow came out, and with her a girl with a pail and stool.

  “Oh, then,” said Mrs Connors, “I’d swear that is Cooby, only that we are after eating the most of her. She has the white spots on her back and the horns growing into her eyes.”

  The girl milked the cow, and then cow and girl disappeared. The following day Tom went again to cut turf, his wife went to milk, and again she saw the cow go into the fort, and the girl come out with a pail and a stool and begin to milk it.

  ‘God knows ’tis the very cow, and sure why shouldn’t I know Cooby with the three white spots and the bent horns,’ thought Mrs Connors, and she watched the cow and girl till the milking was over and thought, ‘I’ll tell Tom tonight, and he may do what he likes, but I’ll have nothing to do with fort or fairies myself.’

  When Connors came home in the evening, the first words his wife said were:

  “Wisha then, Tom, I have the news for you tonight.”

  “And what news is it?” asked Tom.

  “You remember Cooby?”

  “Why shouldn’t I remember Cooby, after eating most of her?”

  “Indeed then, Tom, I saw Cooby today, inside in the fort with a girl milking her.”

  “But what is the use in telling me the like of that,” said Tom, “when we haven’t but two or three bits of her left inside the tub?”

  “But it was Cooby I saw today.”

  “Well, I’ll go in the morning, and if it’s our Cooby I’ll bring her home with me,” said Tom, “Even if all the devils in the fort are before me.”

  Early in the morning Tom started across his land, and never stopped till he came to the fort, and there, sure enough, he saw the cow walking in t
hrough the gap to the fort, and he knew her that minute.

  “’Tis my cow Cooby,” said Connors, “and I’ll have her. I’d like to see the man who would keep her from me.”

  That minute the girl came out with her pail and stool and was going up to Cooby.

  “Stop where you are – don’t milk that cow!” cried Connors, and springing toward the cow he caught her by the horn.

  “Let the cow go,” said Tom, “this is my cow. It’s a year that she’s from me now. Go to your master and tell him to come out to me.”

  The girl went inside the fort and disappeared, but soon a fine-looking young man came and spoke to Connors. “What are you doing here, my man,” asked he, “and why did you stop my servant from milking the cow?”

  “She is my cow,” said Tom, “and by that same token I’ll keep her, and that’s why I stopped the girl from milking her.”

  “How could she be your cow? Haven’t I this cow a long time, and aren’t you after eating your own cow?”

  “I don’t care what cow I’m after eating,” said Tom. “I’ll have this cow, for she is my Cooby.”

  They argued and argued. Tom declared that he’d take the cow home. “And if you try to prevent me,” said he to the man, “I’ll tear the fort to pieces or take her with me.”

  “Indeed, then, you’ll not tear the fort.”

  Tom got so vexed that he made as though to fight the man. The man ran and Tom after him into the fort. When Tom was inside he forgot all about fighting. He saw many people dancing and enjoying themselves, and he thought, ‘Why shouldn’t I do the like myself ?, With that he made up to a fine-looking girl, and, taking her out to dance, told the piper to strike up a hornpipe.