This is a short First Nations ghost story taken from Franz Boas’ 1895 text, Indian Myths and Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, which was translated from German by Dietrich Bertz.
The city of Nanaimo – where I live – received its name from the Anglicized spelling of Snanaimuq (Snuneymuxw or Snuh-NAY-Moo), which is the name of the First Nations people whose traditional territory I live in.
The Origin of Fire
In the beginning, the ghosts (of the dead) owned fire.
Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland was published in 1887. In it, Lady Wilde lets us look into the minds of the Irish peasantry of the time. She did this by interviewing the elders of a dying faith now referred to as the “fairy religion,” or sometimes simply as witchcraft. Sections of the book have not always been considered authoritative according to some sources, such as Sacred-Texts.com.
This should be taken in context, however. In the preface, Lady Wilde separates herself from the individuals whose stories she’s about to share. She explains the historical and cultural importance of the tales themselves. Wilde then reminds the reader that this might have been the last chance for anyone to record the stories from the dying generation before they would be lost forever. She also offers other reasons for being interested in the pagan subject as well, including a love for anything Irish. Finally, she concludes her apologetic preface by reminding the reader that she’s a woman.
Detail from The Legend of St. Stephen. The Devil steals a baby and leaves a changeling in its place. Martino di Bartolomeo. 15th century
Changeling. The widespread belief that fairies or other malevolent spiritual forces might secretly substitute one infant for another is amply represented in Celtic oral tradition. Irish corpán sídhe, síodhbhradh, síofra; Scottish Gaelic tàcharan, ùmaidh; Manx lhiannoo shee; Welsh plentyn a newidiwyd am arall (Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology).
The Fairy Changeling
(Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland. Lady Wilde. 1887.)
ONE evening, a man was coming home late, and he passed a house where two women stood by a window, talking.
“I have left the dead child, in the cradle as you bid me,” said one woman, “and behold here is the other child, take it and let me go;” and she laid down an infant on a sheet by the window, who seemed in a secret sleep, and it was draped all in white.
“Wait,” said the other, “till you have had some food, and then take it to the fairy queen, as I promised, in place of the dead child that we have laid in the cradle by the nurse. ‘Wait also till the moon rises, and then you shall have the payment which I promised.”
They then both turned from the window. Now the man saw that there was some devil’s magic in it all. And when the women turned away he crept up close to the open window and put his hand in and seized the sleeping child and drew it out quietly without ever a sound. Then he made off as fast as he could to his own home, before the women could know anything about it, and handed the child to his mother’s care. Now the mother was angry at first, but when he told her the story, she believed him, and put the baby to sleep–a lovely, beautiful boy with a face like an angel.
Next morning there was a great commotion in the village, for the news spread that the first-born son of the great lord of the place, a lovely, healthy child, died suddenly in the night, without ever having had a sign of sickness. When they looked at him in the morning, there he laid dead in his cradle, and he was shrunk and wizened like a little old man, and no beauty was seen on him any more. So great lamentation was heard on all sides, and the whole country gathered to the wake. Amongst them came the young man who had carried off the child, and when he looked on the little wizened thing in the cradle he laughed. Now the parents were angry at his laughter, and wanted to turn him out.
But he said, “Wait put down a good fire,” and they did so.
Then he went over to the cradle and said to the hideous little creature, in a loud voice before all the people–
“If you don’t rise up this minute and leave the place, I will burn you on the fire; for I know might well who you are, and where you came from.”
At once the child sat up and began to grin at him; and made a rush to the door to get away; but the man caught hold of it and threw it on the fire. And the moment it felt the heat it turned into a black kitten, and flew up the chimney and was seen no more.
Then the man sent word to his mother to bring the other child, who was found to be the true heir, the lord’s own son. So there was great rejoicing, and the child grew up to be a great lord him-self, and when his time came, he ruled well over the estate; and his descendants are living to this day, for all things prospered with him after he was saved from the fairies.
In Nature
Parasitic cuckoo birds regularly practice brood parasitism, or non-reciprocal offspring-swapping. Rather than raising their young on their own, they will lay their egg in another’s nest, leaving the burden on the unsuspecting parents, which are of another species altogether. More often than not, the cuckoo chick hatches sooner than its “stepsiblings” and grows faster; eventually claiming most of the nourishment brought in and may actually “evict” the young of the host species by pushing them out of their own nest (Wikipedia).
Other
According to Katherine Briggs in Fairies in Tradition and Literature (1967), the changeling is more often male than female. This stolen child usually has blonde hair and a fair complexion. Briggs says it’s believed the dark fairies steal human babies in order to use them for breeding; thus introducing “fair” blood into their fairy gene pool. Most accounts of changelings in the fairy tales can be traced to Lady Wilde’s Ancient Legends. Several other sources are given in Brigg’s text, however. Either book can offer insight into how to retrieve a stolen child if need be, or how to protect one’s own child from being stolen in the first place.
I’ve written about the Bridget Cleary case previously in the Hawthorn Ogham post. To recap: In rural Ireland in 1895, Bridget Cleary’s husband, neighbours, and relatives, murdered her and burned her body. The motive? They were convinced Bridget was a fairy changeling. The active participants of the murder (9 initially charged) maintained their story throughout the entire court case.
The following is a short Nuu-Chah-Nulth legend from the 1895 German book ‘Indian Myths and Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America’ by Franz Boas ~ Dietrich Bertz translation. What fascinated me the most about the Girl and the Ghosts tale was the similarities to many of the Celtic spirit-abduction stories:
Once upon a time there was an ill-tempered girl. When she was given food, she complained that it wasn’t good enough, and no one was able to satisfy her. One evening someone gave food to her parents and her, but she cried and wanted to have something better. When her parents had finished their meal and wanted to go to bed, she was still crying and didn’t want to go to bed. Her mother said, “Come to bed, my child! I cannot give you what you ask for.” Since she sat there obstinately, her parents finally went to bed by themselves and went to sleep.
After a while the woman woke up. She called her daughter, but received no answer, so she got up and looked for the girl, yet was unable to find her. Then she woke up her husband and asked him whether he had seen their daughter. He also did not know what had become of her, and all their searching was in vain.
Suddenly they heard the girl’s voice calling deep under the ground. “Oh, give me good food, only a very small piece!” Thereupon the father called the whole tribe together and they considered what to do to get the girl back.
They decided to dig after her. They dug ten deep holes, but were unable to reach her, so they gave up. When they had assembled for a council again, one of the men said, “The ghosts (of the dead) must have got her. You know, when a village is abandoned, the ghosts always come back and look at the houses. Let’s all move away! Two men shall hide, and when the ghosts come with the girl, they shall take her away with them.”
The people resolved to follow his advice. They loaded their canoes and set out. Two men hid on the roof-beam of a house. When it got dark the ghosts appeared. They lit a fire and sang and danced. The girl sat among them and the ghosts sang magic incantations in order to change her too, into a ghost, but these didn’t bring the desired effect. Before the men could rush at the girl, they were scented by the ghosts, who vanished into the ground with the girl.
So the two men went down to the river and washed themselves for four days. Then they returned to the house and hid again on the roof-beam. When it got dark, the ghosts came again to sing and to dance. This time they didn’t scent the men, who rushed upon the girl and seized her before the ghosts were able to pull her down into the depths with them.
This is the tale of the girl and the ghosts. If you are interested in more Vancouver Island ghost stories, check out my new book The Haunting of Vancouver Island.
Illustration by J. Semeyn from A. Carmichael’s Indian Legends of Vancouver Island, 1922
illustration by John Dickson Batten from Joseph Jacobs’ Celtic Fairy Tales. 1892.
The Fear Dorcha is a mysterious, malignant, fairy being, found in Celtic myth and legend. Despite modern associations with the word, the term “fairy” was once used to refer to spirits such as the Fear Dorcha. Unlike modern fairies, however, these spirits – or ghosts – were not usually inclined towards acts of kindness, generosity, or mercy. In fact, Ireland’s Fear Dorcha is a classic example of the type of dark fairy found throughout the lands of the Celts:
Far dorocha, fear dorocha [Ir. Fear dorcha, dark man]. A malevolent fairy, the chief agent of mortal abduction. Usually portrayed as the butler-like servant of the fairy queen, he carries out her commands without emotion or waste of energy. With equal aplomb he may serve the queen her tea or retrieve on his black charger a desired mortal. Silently obedient to his queen, he is able to make all surrender their wills to his command. Although many have journeyed with the far doracha [sic] to the fairyland, few have returned with him. – James Mackillop (the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology)
Replace the word “fairy” with ghost and the term “fairyland” with Land of the Dead and you’ll start to get the picture! The Fear Dorcha was a terrifying shadow spirit of nightmares and darkness. He was feared because he served the Queen of the Dead herself.
The Far Dorcha, or dark-man, is not to be confused with the Far Darrig (the red man), Far Gorta (the man of hunger) or Far Liath (the grey man).
According to Mackillop, the red man is basically a “gruesome” practical joker who likes to scare the living hell out of his prey. The man of hunger, on the other hand, pretends to be a beggar. He rewards those who have given him charity, but with what we can only imagine. Finally, the grey man takes the form of a fog or mist. He does this to cause ships to smash onto rocky shores, or for people to stumble and fall to an untimely death. His motives for these heinous acts are entirely unclear.
Fear Doirche, or dark-man, is also the name sometimes given to ‘the Black Druid of the Shee.’ In James Stephens 1920 book, Irish Fairy Tales we find one such example:
“I beg your protection, royal captain.”
“I give that to all,” he answered. “Against whom do you desire protection?”
“I am in terror of the Fear Doirche.”
“The Dark Man of the Shi?”
“He is my enemy,” she said.
“He is mine now,” said Fionn. “Tell me your story.”
The Fear Dorcha, or Black Druid, is also known as ‘the Black Sorcerer’ in some versions of the tale. It’s this Black Druid who finally steals Fionn’s wife. Much to Fionn’s dismay and never-ending searching, she was never seen or heard from again. We can only assume that she was forced to be Fear Dorcha’s bride – and would still be to this day – in the Land of the Dead.
Interestingly, there actually was a man whose name was Fear Dorcha MacFhirbhisigh (1600?). Very little seems to be known about him. The MacFhirbhisigh family celebrated pagan roots, however, and employed themselves as bards, judges and historians. It’s likely that the MacFhirbhisigh family recognized and honored existing druidic traditions. While Fear Dorcha may be a generic term, MacFhirbhisigh’s name may also be more than a coincidence and is worth noting. As is well known, many legendary stories have roots in actual historical places, people, or events.
The Fear Dorcha from Celtic folklore was a predator of the weak and an enemy of the strong. He existed only to serve the whims of the Queen of the Dead, or himself. Ultimately, this would make him a powerful figure in that otherworldly realm, and in ours, as well.
Not much else is known about the Fear Dorcha. Some modern sources give him attributes never mentioned in the old tales. It would be fair to agree, however, that Samhain would have been Fear Dorcha’s greatest day of strength. It would have been a day of great power for all of them, though. For it was on this night – Samhain – that the veil between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead were at their very thinnest.
This is a short First Nations ghost story taken from Franz Boas’ 1895 text, Indian Myths and Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, which was translated from German by Dietrich Bertz.
