The Red Man (Far Darrig)
The far darrig (or fear dearg) is a near relation to the leprechaun, with similar features and a short stocky body. His face is splotched yellow. He dresses in red from his hat to his tail-trailing cape to the woolen stockings which cling to his calves. This is the reason he is called the far darrig or red man. He is known not only for his color (sometimes he travels invisibly) but for his delight in mischief and mockery. He can be a gruesome practical joker. He manipulates his voice, emitting sounds like the thudding waves on the rocks or the cooing of pigeons. His favorite is the dull, hollow laugh of a dead man; which he makes sound as if it's coming from the grave. He has also been know to give evil dreams.
Mortal terror amuses the far darrig. Occasionally, he invites a mortal to enter a lonely bog hut, then he orders him to make dinner out of a hag skewered on a spit. The man usually faints. When he recovers, he finds himself alone with the sound of laughter filling the air, but coming from no distinguishable source. It is advisable to say 'Na dean maggadh fum'-- do not mock me', when you encounter a far darrig, that way you cannot be used in one of his macabre games. Unfortunately, he plans his tricks so well that a mortal is snared long before he realizes the need to protest.
With all his pranks, the far darrig desires not to do harm but to show favor. He actually is good natured and will bring luck to those whom he approves; but he cannot resist a preliminary teasing.
Cluricauns
There is much debate over whether cluricauns are actually leprechauns or their close cousins. Except for a pink tinge about the nose, they perfectly resemble leprechauns in all their physical characteristics. But they never wear an apron or carry a hammer, nor do they have any desire to work. They have silver buckles on their shoes, gold laces their caps and pale blue stockings up to the calves. They like to enter rich men's wine cellars, as if they were their own, and drain the casks dry.
To amuse themselves they harness sheep and goats and shepherds' dogs, jump from bogs and race them over the fields through the night.
Leprechauns sternly declare that cluricauns are none of their own. But some suspect they are really leprechauns on a spree, who, in the sobering morning, deny this double nature.
Selkies
The selkies are gentle creatures who are seals by day but men and women by night. They are also called water kelpies, seal people or selchies. In their mortal form the selkies are described as posessing an unearthly beauty with dark hair and eyes. Silently they emerge from the sea to shed their skins and frolic on the sand. Like the merrows they have webs between their fingers and toes (or at least wide palms that hint of their watery origin) and must obey anyone who secures their oily skins. Selkies, also, make excellent wives. But they are solitary and quiet by nature. They will frequently wander from their mortal homes to the sea cliffs to meditate and sing their melancholy songs. When their fishermen-husbands are lost upon the sea, they sing from the cliffs to guide them home.
If they ever find their seal skins again, they, too, will return to the sea. But unlike the merrow, the selkie will not forget her husband and children and can be seen
The lianhan shee is a fairy mistress of dreadful power, for she seeks the love and dominion of mortal men--if they refuse her, she is their slave and if they consent they are hers. Most men find that they cannot refuse her. Only one lianhan shee exists and she is more a force than a woman. Each fairy woman who loves ('Lianhan Shee' means the love fairy) becomes one with her; and for the mortal man who longs for her she is the one and only. She does not play with emotions; all who love her, live for her and their desire for her frequently destroys them. The more suffering she inflicts the dearer she becomes to them. The more they desire her the more she eludes them. Her absence is like a chain pulling them towards her. An impatient mistress, the lianhan shee creates such desire in her lovers that they will overcome all obstacles to embrace her. She never yields to them in mortal lands, but insists on their meeting in Tir-na-n-Og, so that men must pass through death to enjoy her. All the great poets and musicians loved her; almost all died young. The more they sang the more their bodies withered; until they sang for her forever.
No one has ever described the lianhan shee. Perhaps each stricken man jealously guards his love and fears the worlds knowledge of her. But more likely no mortal can describe her; for she is desire itself and she wishes to elude all attempts to limit her glory. She may select her lovers from our realm, but she never allows her story to remain long on their mortal lips
The Red-Haired Man In the fairy realm lives a red-haired man who, for no clear reason, has a liking for the mortal race. He warns a young woman to refuse the fairy wine or leads the spell-drugged young man out of the fairy fort. Whenever someone sneezes at a party, he says the necessary 'God bless you' to prevent abduction. More mortals would have been taken to, and fewer returned from, fairyland without the intervention of this kind, red-haired fairy man.
The Dark Man
The Dark Man or Far Dorocha is the chief agent in mortal abduction. He exclusively serves the fairy queen. At her command he brings in the tea tray or rides on his black horse to our realm to escort back mortals she desires. A perfect servant, he never betrays emotion nor wastes a movement. Direct from fairyland, back straight, face set and with never a glance about him, he rides until he finds the desired mortal. Although, he never speaks, all understand his request and, unable to disobey, surrender their wills to his and mount up behind him. Many have ridden with the dark man to fairyland; fewer have joined him on a homeward journey.
Mortals who return and, despite warnings, disclose fairy secrets or boast of newly acquired powers will again encounter the dark. silent man. A fairy queen requires discretion from her former guests who, if they violate the terms of her hospitality, must suffer a reminder by her faithful servant. Quite efficiently he will remove the offender's eye (and thus his fairy sight) or with a touch withers the muscles of an arm or leg. The job completed, the dark man silently removes himself from his victim's presence.
The Grey Man The Grey Man or Far Liath appears as a fog and covers land and sea with his mantle. He obscures the rocks so that ships crash upon them and darkens the road so that travelers unwittingly stumble over steep cliffs to their deaths. Because of him many a galleon was wrecked and many a mortal never returned home for dinner.
The Man of Hunger
In times of famine, the Man of Hunger or Far Gorta travels the roads, begging alms. Hardly a layer of flesh clings to his cheeks; and his arms, thin as striped sticks, barely have strength to hold the alms cup. Even in winter, his rags scarcely cover his modesty. Some turn from him in disgust; some, in their selfishness, avoid him; but all those who, despite the desperate times, freely give alms will be blessed forever with prosperous good luck
The Will-O'-The-Wisps The Will-O'-The-Wisps, or fairy lights, are quiet and helpful. They appear in the misty Irish mountains to help searchers to locate someone lost in a ravine or drowned in a rocky pool. It's said that those who can see the lights have the gift of knowing when their closet of kin are in danger
The Blarney Stone A block of limestone known as the Blarney Stone is Ireland's lucky charm. Set in a tower of Blarney Castle in County Cork in 1446, the stone is reputed to have magical powers. Legend has it that an old woman cast a spell on a king as a reward for saving her life. Under this spell, if he kissed the stone he'd gain great powers of eloquence. Today people travel from all over the world to kiss the stone and gain the gift of gab.
The Burren The Burren, Irish for "gray rocky place," is 50 square miles of great irregular slabs of limestone with deep cracks. Located in County Clare, this humid, eerie moonscape is a natural rock garden, where plants native to the Arctic thrive next to subtropical flora. Beneath the scarred surface are spectacular caves and streams.
There are a number of dolmens (prehistoric gravesites) in the area. The most famous being Poulnebrone Dolmen.
Folk legends associated with the Burren say its holy wells can cure bad vision and its caves are home to ghostly horsemen. It is also reputed that mysterious lakes appear and disappear there, taking with them maidens who have been turned into swans.
The Demon Bride
The ancient churchyard of Truagh, County Monaghan, is said to be haunted by an evil spirit, whose appearance generally forebodes death. According to legend, at funerals the spirit watches for the person who remains last in the graveyard. If it be a young man who is there alone, the spirit takes the form of a beautiful young girl, inspires him with ardent passion, and exacts a promise that he will meet her on that day and month in the churchyard. The promise is then sealed with a kiss, which sends a fatal fire through his veins, so that he is unable to resist her caresses, and makes the promise required. Then she disappears, and the young man proceeds homewards; but no sooner has he passed the boundary wall of the churchyard, than the whole story of the evil spirit rushes on his mind, and he knows that he has sold himself, soul and body, for a demon's kiss. The terror and dismay take hold of him, till despair becomes insanity, and on the very day and month fixed for the meeting with the demon bride, the victim dies the death of a raving lunatic, and is laid in the fatal graveyard of Truagh.
But the evil spirit does not limit its operations to the graveyard; for sometimes the beautiful demon form appears at weddings or festivities, and never fails to secure its victims, by dancing them into the fever that maddens the brain, and too surely ends in death.
Fairy Animals
Many animals roam the fairy underlands and water ways, and frequently they stray into mortal realms. Great horses have charged nobly out of the sea, only to be entangled, panting and helpless, in a fisherman's net. Cows often rise up from the sea in search of sun-greened grass to feed their calves. On May Day especially, fairy cows appear to and bring good luck to the farmer whose fields they cross. Rarely is a mortal ever honored, except on this day, by the Glas Gaivlen, the sacred milk-white cow studded with bright green spots. Wherever she treads the grass grows greener, the potato bigger and the hay more abundant. Black cats and lake serpents guard the fairy treasure well. Cats, as legends have it, were once serpents and that is why they are so hard to kill and so dangerous to meddle with.
The most predominant characteristic of fairy animals is their ability to defy natural laws. Cows breathe under water; pigs appear and disappear at will. Trout and salmon converse with mortals in fluent Irish. Fairy hares have been caught, washed, skinned and boiled, but never add a flavor to the soup; nor can a mortal sink his teeth in their flesh. A fairy trout when thrown in a pan will not brown, and has been known to leap from the fire and out the door in the form of a glimmering girl.
This leads to the question whether fairy animals are actually animals at all. The answer is complex. Some are known to be glamored objects, such as the wisps of straw which become for a night great black steeds which cross a mountain at a single leap. A log looks and moans like a dying cow or woman. The fairies have even made an old nag so to resemble a cow that its mortal owners, once they slew and prepare it, were convinced they were eating fresh beef.
Some are suspected to be fairies themselves who take on elusive animal forms to tease mortals; such as the appearing and disappearing hares which men may chase until doomsday but will never catch. Some animals, like the seal, are of ambiguous nature, being part animal and part fairy man or woman. All seals are intimate with the fairies, but one is never sure if all, or only a few, are actually selkies.
Of course, mortal cows and sheep graze in fairyland, having been stolen from mortal realms to nourish the good people. Guarding cats and serpents are animals in their own fairy right. So, are fairy animals fairies? Or are they animals?
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