Ireland knows of yet other spirits than the banshee and the bean-nighe. The cluricane or luricane, sometimes called the leprecaun, is a kind of supernatural cobbler of very diminutive proportions, who dwells in caves and nooks, where he makes tiny footgear. The name has a suspicious resemblance to the old English “lubberkin”, a word used of a goblin. The fir larrig (darrig), or “red man”, is a spirit garbed in a sugar-loaf hat, a scarlet coat, corduroy breeches and woollen stockings. He had a long, yellow face and streaming grey hair. He usually announced his presence to the families he was in the habit of visiting by thrusting his arm through the keyhole of the cabin door. If it were not opened to him, mischief would befall the cattle. (50)
Wales has also her own complement of spirits other than the Tylwyth Teg, or fairies. The bwbach, or biobach, closely resembles the brownie, and undertakes domestic work in exchange for provender. Like him, too, it had a tricksy side and was fond of practical jokes and horseplay of the rougher sort, puffing stools from under folk and jangling the fire-irons on the hearth – a species of poltergeist, indeed. (51)
Gwyn ap Nudd, the Lord of the Dead, and an ancient British god, remains in Welsh and English tradition as the Wild Huntsman who leads the Cwn Annwn, or the hounds of Hades, over the waste lands at night. They are thought of as bearing away the souls of the dying. In Devonshire, a predominantly Celtic province, they are known as “the Wisht Hounds”, who career through the midnight spaces of Dartmoor, and in Durham and Yorkshire, where a good deal of Celtic blood remains, they still flourish as “Gabriel Hounds”, a pack which foretells death Or disaster. The clamour they make is sometimes attributed to the “gaggles”, or flocks, of bean-geese, which fly southward from Scandinavia on the approach of winter. The superstition has many analogies in other countries, especially in Germany, where it is known as “the Hunt of Woden” or Odin. (52)
From what has been said of British Celtic spirits as a whole it must be obvious that a large proportion of them, judging from their wild and frequently superhideous appearance and traits, must have been the imaginative generation of a fancy greatly more barbarous than any which might have issued from the comparatively civilized Celtic mentality. That they were the product of the imagination of peoples relatively aboriginal to the Celts is scarcely to be questioned. At the same time a few of them at least appear to be found among the Celtic gods in a decayed and “broken-down” stage, the memory of whom has remained among the Celtic peoples and whose traits have been exaggerated into modem and sometimes grotesque forms by the fears or the superstitions of a peasantry prone to the fantastic.
A host of mythical or magical animals, birds and monsters were regarded as haunting the Celtic peoples. In England the memory of these has either perished or is remembered only in legends of local dragons or serpents. In Wales the chief representative of this class is the avanc, a monstrous creature which dwells at the bottom of a lake, and the capture of which appears to have been one of the outstanding duties or adventures of British deities and heroes. Nor can Ireland boast of many mythic beasts, save the phooka, which is as frequently a goat, or a horse, as one of the manifestations of a Puck-like spirit. Celtic Scotland, on the other hand, is a veritable mine of grisly monsters which possess a most complete occult zoology of their own, and until recently these bulked largely in the rural imagination.
The lavellan, says Sibbald, is an animal peculiar to Caithness, living in the waters or marshes of this northern shire. It has the head of a rat or mouse, and is of the same colour as those rodents. It was believed to have the power of inflicting injuries upon cattle from a distance of more than a hundred feet. When in Ausdale, in Caithness, Pennant made inquiries about the lavellan, and suspected it to be the water shrew-mouse, or water-vole. The country people, he added, believed it to be noxious to cattle. They preserved the skin, and, as a cure for their sick beasts, gave them the water in which it had been dipped – an instance of the supposed curative power of sympathetic magic. it is mentioned by Robb Donn, the famous Sutherland bard, in a satirical song, in which he warns the subject of his scorn not to leave the clachan or go to moss or wood, “lest the lavellan come and smite him”.
Dear Sir,
My grandmother, who was from Derry, Ireland saw the banshee just prior to her sister, Josephine’s, death many years ago. My grandmother lived in Florida and Josephine was living in Canada. My grandmother said she first heard the banshee wailing loudly and mournfully outside her door. Then she saw the old woman in white in a horse-driven carriage going by her house. She noted the date and time and later found out that her sister had died around the same time. My grandmother was a MacDonagh.
No one else in our family has seen the banshee.
i was wondering where you got the name chapel of st. malvey i can trace my family name back to 1734 in ireland county cork
It’s not me that got that name, this article is The Celtic Spirit World
by Lewis Spence
from ‘The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain’
(chapter VII)
i dont want to be a pest but do you have any idea about the origin of the chapel of st malvey?
You’re not being a pest. And, no, I don’t know the origin of the chapel of St. Malvey. Sounds like a good topic for you to research, though (considering your last name).
Dear Sir,
my grandparents lived in Croatia. They have been born in a little village by the name Seona.
It´s an unusually name for a croatic village.
I can remember that ma granny teach me then I was a child a lot of fairys.
She believed in them and the other older pupil in the village , too.
I have heard stories about fairies in this village.
My granny says they always lived there with the people helped them or punished them.
She tells me, if I don´t lost the faith in them, one day I would see the fairies, too.
In the wood of this village is a spring and there was an old man living. The people called him brother John.
He lives like an eremit allone and he was praying for the ill people. He was healing the humans.
My grandmother shaws me the place there the fairies were dancing in the ring.
She gives me so lot my granny and I beginn to understand now.
Three months ago I became the idea to search about the name Seona in Slavonia (Croatia).
This is a name from scotish gaellic and comes from the name Seonaid (God is great).
I´m sure that in Seona the celts build one of them first villages, then they come to Croatia.
All this I tell a Dr. of archeollogy in Zagreb and he writes me back, that he has found some celtic graves and this story from me can be a way to find something more about our history.
Today,if you ask me if I believe in fairiey, yes do.
Why?
So I am catholic, but my grandmother tells me that god is great, he lives everythere and I can talk with him also in the nature.
I grove up with the belive in god and the fairies.
I loved them and talked to them, too. I see them as my sisters in soul.
Sometimes I can here them singing in the wood or crying on places there bads thing happening.
They are real the fairies. My granny says if the humans lost the faith they can´T never see the fairies again.
One day I was so tired, I hear voices from the door like children laughing. I think my children are coming home with my husband, but it was a litle green ghost.
He was small ,like a child from 6 years.
I can´t see a face only circle on his head with symbols like celtic art. He talks somthing to me, but I don´t understand. It was a language warm and deep. The louds sounds like drrhh, krch, shhr, chaarhh,,, somthing like this.
On the top of the wall from my room something litle flyes. They looked like small white princes and they laughed all time. The voice of them sounds like children laughing.
I have open my ices and I was thinking I´m dreaming, but in the next second I feel how thr little green ghost take my plaid from the bed and takes it over me. I was falling in a deep sleep.
Then I awaked I have feel so good. I never sleeped better.
It was a good feeling. This I will never forgett.
Bye, from Germany, yours Mirela
It’s been quite a while but I found out some info about St. Malvey the real name of the church is St Moluag’s church (locally known by its gaidhlig name of Teampull Mholuaidh) is a 13th Century temple in the village of Eoropie in Ness in the Isle of Lewis
Ed I located documentation including a reference from Charles Dickens. The church is still there and active. St Malvey was born in 590 AD and went with St Columba to bring Christianity to Scotland. Are you Molly’s son, brother Jimmy now Father Seamus , my cousin – email for me nihildat@yahoo.com Slainte
I have documentation on the church from a journal written by Charles Dickens in 1887. He calls it the church of St Malvey. I traced him back to 590 AD. He and St Columba et al were called the disciples of Ireland. I think you might be Molly’s son, brother Jimmy now Father Seamus, and my cousin.
i am indeed mollies son please reply cous
Ed
Hiya. Donald Trump’s mother was born on Lewis Island. It’s the largest island in the Outer Hebrides.
Does you know the Gaelic equivalent of the surname “Malvey”?
I had a dream about a year ago that seems to fit with your description of the ‘banshee.’ The dream showed an old woman in a white cloak who was sitting on this throne in a grove of trees. I entered and there was a large hewn stump with three “tree branch fairies” sticking out of it. They started singing a whimsical and melodious song. I didn’t get the feeling that the song was for me. since then there have been several deaths that may have been suggested by the banshee and other dream indicators. I’ve had numerous encounters with spirits, mostly in dreams, over the years who have taken the form of mythical figures. Please share any insights. Is there something I can do to intercede? I get the message that these dreams are to prepare, initiate or to avoid pitfalls. Thanks!