The Storyteller 21st July 2013.

 

21st July 2013.

 

 

Music play list.

You Keep Me Hanging On. The Supremes.

Love Makes You Cry. Billy D and the Hoo Doos.

The Voice. Celtic Women.

Love Me Tender. Elvis Presley.

The Rattlin Bog. The Wild Rovers.

Wonkey Donkey. Craig Smith.

The Cat Came Back. Fred Penner.

Also included are two videos:

Wonkey Donkey by Craig Smith. (The Old Donkey).

The Cat Came Back by Fred Penner. (The Black Cat).

The Storyteller.

 

The Storyteller.

There’s turf on the fire

There’s tea in the pot

Sunday’s here again

It’s been a good week

And now is the time

To hear the tale’s again

So pull up a chair and sit awhile

The clock is striking three

Tune in to WRFM

And join the Seanachái.

The Storyteller.

                                          
                                              Welcome to my blog.

If you have any comments or requests for stories please leave them on here and I'll see what I can do.
I really appreciate any feedback and will try to respond as quickly as possible.

On behalf of myself and WRFM 98-2 I would like to thank you for taking the time to listen to my show and hope you enjoy it.

Join me on Sunday at 3-00pm until 4-00pm, pull up a chair and sit awhile.  You are never too old for a story.

The Cat Came Back.

Here are the lyrics for The Cat Came Back by Fred Penner. Enjoy.

Wonkey Donkey.

 

This is the video that I chose for the story about The Old Donkey. See if you can sing along.

The Black Cat.

This story has been adapted from a tale by Edgar Allen Poe and is a little gruesome in places so you have been warned. It tells us of the dangers of alcoholism.

The Black Cat.

This is a story about a man who has always loved animals. He and his wife have several pets including a large black cat called Pluto (remember that name). The cat and the man love each other and are great friends. However, this all changes as the man takes to the drink, eventually becoming an alcoholic.

One night, he comes home from the pub drunk as a lord and tries to stroke the cat; the cat however avoids him like the plague and delivers a bite to his hand in its attempt to free itself. In a fit of anger he pulls a pen-knife out of his pocket, and gouges out one of the cats eyes.

Well you can imagine, from that moment onwards the cat wants nothing to do with your man and runs away in terror whenever he hears him approaching.  At first, the man is extremely remorseful, regrets his cruelty and tries in vain to make it up with the cat. The cat however, refuses to have anything to do with him, is it any wonder?

Over time this begins to annoy him and he begins to feel really irritated with the cat until eventually this feeling of irritation turns into hatred.  One morning he grabs the cat, takes it out into the garden and hangs it from a tree and there it slowly dies. That same night, his house mysteriously catches fire and he, his wife and their servant are forced to flee.  The next day, the man returns to the ruined house and he finds imprinted on the only wall that had survived the fire, the figure of a gigantic cat, hanging by its neck from a rope.

At first, the image terrifies the man but he gradually convinces himself that someone seeing the fire had thrown the dead cat through a bedroom window in order to wake them up and in doing so saved their lives (well you would think that wouldn’t you).

The man begins to miss Pluto and sometime later while drinking in the pub he sees a cat that is the image of Pluto. It is the same size and colour and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the cat’s chest.  The man decides to take the cat home with him but his feelings of friendship for the cat slowly begin to change to feelings of hatred and fear. He watches as over time the white patch of fur begins to change shape; it begins to take the shape of a gallows.

One day the man and his wife are visiting the cellar of their new home, don’t ask me why for I’ve no idea, the cat gets under the man’s feet and nearly succeeds in tripping him down the stairs. In a fit of rage, he grabs an axe that lies nearby and tries to kill the cat but is prevented from doing so by his wife. Enraged at her interference he turns on her, striking her with the axe he kills her.

He now needs to hide her body; he decides to remove some bricks from a protruding wall and place her body within the wall and repairs the hole.  Eventually the wife is missed and the police arrive at the house to investigate her disappearance however they find nothing amiss and he is allowed to carry on with his life. He notices that the cat has gone missing but assumes it has just run off, well if I was the cat I’d have run off?

The police carry on with their investigation and as there are no other leads they return to the house, the last place the wife was seen. They carry out another search but still find nothing. Before they leave they decide to have one last look in the cellar, the husband goes with them, and still they find nothing. The husband now completely confident of his safety comments on how sturdy these old houses are and gives a rap on the wall with his walking stick, the wall behind which his wife’s body is interred. All of a sudden a wailing sound fills the room; it is the sound of a cat, coming from within the wall. The police begin to tear down the wall and discover the corpse of the missing wife, and on her head, to the absolute horror of the husband is the screeching black cat. He lets out a wail

“I wondered where you’d got to”.

He was to receive the same treatment he meted out to Pluto.

The hangman waits, rope in hand.

The Old Donkey.

The Old Donkey.

Once upon a time, not that long ago just outside of Westport in County Mayo there was an old farmer who owned an even older donkey.  One day the poor old donkey (who couldn’t see very well), fell into the farmer’s well.

The farmer heard the donkey braying and praying or whatever donkey’s do when they fall into a well.  He weighed up the situation, apologised to the donkey and informed him that as he was so old he wasn’t worth the bother of saving as it would cost too much to call out the fire brigade in order to winch him out.

Instead the farmer called his neighbours together and after deciding that he didn’t use the well anymore it would be far cheaper and easier just to fill in the well. So the farmer began to haul soil in his tractor and with the help of his neighbours they started to shovel the soil down the well.

“What about the donkey?” one of the neighbours shouted,

“Aah it’s kinder just to put him out of his misery” replied the farmer.

The old donkey was extremely annoyed when he heard this and began to get very worried, jumping up and down and saying things like

“Eee haw, eee haw, eee Haw”

This in donkey language meant,

“Aah come on now lads it’s not funny anymore, you’re going to get me all mucky if you don’t pack it in”

Unfortunately for the donkey no one understood donkey language and they just kept shovelling.

More and more soil came down upon the old donkey and he became increasingly agitated as no one seemed to be listening to his cries.

Suddenly an idea came to the donkey, every time he felt a load of soil land on his back he would just shake it off and stand onto it.  Every time he felt the load of soil on his back he shook it off and stepped up, shovel after shovel, load after load, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up.  He began to repeat those words in his head as a way of encouraging himself.

 No matter how tired he became or how painful it became, no matter how distressing it appeared the old donkey just kept fighting back the pain and the panic and just kept repeating to himself Shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up.

It wasn’t long before the old donkey appeared at the top of the well. Battered and tired, he looked at the old farmer, smiled, and stepped over the wall of the well onto firm ground.

What at first seemed to be the cause of the old donkey’s problem actually turned out to be of help to him. What threatened to bury him instead helped him all because he gave it a bit of thought and refused to be beaten.

We can all learn a lesson from that old donkey.  In life we will often come up against problems but if we approach them in a positive way and refuse to give in to panic, bitterness, hopelessness, or self-pity. There will be an answer

The Ballybogs or Peat Faeries.

The Ballybogs or Peat Faeries.

Although at one time you might have found Ballybogs living in Wales, Scotland England, and Ireland. However, there were greater numbers of them here in Ireland. As one of their names (Peat Faeries) suggests, the Ballybogs are fond of peat, something we are lucky enough to still have.

These small creatures have very strange looking bodies. Their heads seem to sit directly on the top of a little fat body without any neck at all. They have spindly legs that don’t even look as though they could stand on their own, let alone hold up such a round shape. Its gaping mouth is full of blunt, needle-like teeth and its nose hangs down over its top lip, matched by pair of dog-like ears that sit up on their own.

For the most part, the body and head resemble that of a toad with mismatched ears and nose. Their arms mirror the legs in appearance, turning the Ballybog into a frightful looking thing. To top it all off, these little wrinkled creatures appear to have been dipped in mud so they look a bit like a chocolate covered cherry; only in this case, it’s a mud-covered Ballybog.

Ugly in both appearance and sound, the Ballybogs are creatures that prefer to keep to themselves. Obviously, as guardians of the bogs, they live in the bog and prefer the mud holes that are so numerous in that type of location.

Whether due to their solitary existence or some quirk of nature, the Ballybogs cannot speak and only grunt in place of verbal language. This adds to the common belief that the Ballybog is one of the dumbest faeries. Some might say their grunting and slobbering behaviour is reason enough to consider them somewhat less intelligent than humans and closer to the animal kingdom but be careful of what you say. Many people have lived to regret insulting the gentry.

Since their main purpose in life is to protect the bogs, they cause relatively little mischief or damage, certainly less than man as far as the bogs are concerned. However, whether they have a mischievous streak or simply get bored, the Ballybogs have been known to prey upon unsuspecting human travellers and lead them astray from the path. No real harm is ever done to these unwitting travellers other than a few hours of lost time and a bit of unexpected aggravation.

They have been known by many interesting names down through the ages, each with a clever little twist on their origin. They’ve been called Peat Faeries, Mudbogs, Bogles, Boggans, Bog-a-boos, and Boggies, However, don’t confuse them with the Boggie man, he’s a different kettle of fish altogether.

No matter what name they are called by, the Ballybogs have been the guardians of the bogs since the bogs were formed.

They are most typically encountered in Ireland, where people still use peat or turf as we call it as a source of fuel because Ireland lacks natural coal and oil deposits.

While the ballybog was merely unpleasant, it was said to possess a nasty temper. It focuses the majority of its ill will upon those who are lazy, incontinent, or guilty of crimes. Like many of the fairie folk it was widely believed that at one time, they were they guardian spirits of bogs. Some have suggested that the preserved human remains found in the peat bogs of northern Europe are evidence of ritual human sacrifices made to placate the fairies who dwelled within the bogs.

 

 

Lost and Found.

Lost and Found.

Walking down Bridge Street one day a young man found a wallet that someone must have dropped.  He picked it up and decided to look inside to see if there might be any identification in it.  The wallet contained a €5 note and a crumpled envelope that looked very old and battered.

The only bit of information the young man could find was a return address on the back of the envelope.  He opened the envelope and found it contained a letter dated October 1950, over sixty years ago.

The letter appeared to be written in a beautiful flowing hand and the young man assumed it had been written by a woman. As he read what was written he was to be proved right.  The letter was to a man called Michael and said that the writer of the letter could not see him anymore as her parents had forbidden it. It ended with the words, Dearest Michael, please forgive me. I will love you forever. It was signed Mary.

The young man thought it was a beautiful letter and for some reason he found difficult to understand he decided there and then that he should attempt to find Michael and return it to him.  How was he even going to start? All the young man had to go on was the name Michael and a return address on the back of the old envelope. He decided to call in to the Post Office and ask for help,

“I’ve an unusual request to make” he said to the person behind the counter, “I’m trying to locate the owner of a wallet that I found. Is there any way you can tell me if there is a phone number for an address that is on a letter in the wallet?”

The person behind the counter said that they would have to ask the manager.  The manager emerged from the back of the Post Office and asked why the young man had not handed the wallet into the Gardaí.  The young man explained what had happened and why he was trying to locate the owner.

“Well, this is extremely unusual, wait here for a few minutes and I’ll see what I can do” the manager replied.

A few minutes later the manager came back out and spoke to the young man,

“There is a phone listing for that address, however I can’t just give you the number. What I can do is call the number for you and ask if they will speak to you”

The young man waited and soon the manager called him over to the end of the counter and told him that there was a person on the phone who wished to speak to him. He asked the woman on the other end of the phone if she knew anyone by the name of Mary who lived at her address.

She gave a little gasp and said, “We bought our house from a family who had a young daughter called Mary, but that was over thirty years ago”

“Do you know where they moved to?” asked the young man,

“Mary’s mother moved into a nursing home years ago, maybe they have an address for Mary” said the woman on the other end of the phone.

She gave the young man the name and number of the home and he made a call.  They told him that the old lady had passed away some years ago but they did have a phone number for Mary and if he wished to phone it he might be able to reach her there.  He thanked them and phoned the number.  A person answered the phone and after explaining his reason for calling he was told that Mary was now living in a nearby nursing home.

The young man began to think that maybe this journey he was on was a little foolish, what on earth was he thinking. It was only an old wallet containing €5 and a crumpled up letter from sixty years ago.  However, as he had come so far he would go the rest of the way.

He phoned the nursing home and explained his quest and was told that Mary was still living there. He was given permission to visit her and he drove over to the home.  A nurse took him up to see Mary; she was on the third floor, sat in the day room watching TV.  He introduced himself and showed her the letter from within the wallet.  The second she saw it, she recognised it as the letter she had written all those years ago.

“Young man, where did you get this? This is a letter that I wrote many years ago to someone that I was deeply in love with” she said,

She stared off into the distance with a faraway look in her eyes,

“Michael Duffy was a wonderful, kind man. I think of him often during the lonely days I sit here.  You know, I still love him and wonder what might have been.” She continued,

“Did you ever marry” asked the young man.

“No” she said, “I could never meet someone that matched up to Michael”.

The young man said goodbye and he left her sitting there looking into that faraway place where memories dwell, smiling to herself.  As he stood waiting by the elevator, the nurse who had introduced him to Mary asked him,

“Was Mary able to help you?”

He told her that she had mentioned Michael’s last name but he was going to leave it for a while as he had already spent a great deal both in phone calls and time trying to find the owner of the wallet. He took the old wallet out of his pocket and showed it to her.  The nurse gave a little gasp and said,

“You are never going to believe this but I’m sure that looks just like Mick Duffy’s wallet. I’d know it anywhere; he’s always losing that thing.  I must have found it myself at least half a dozen times” she said,

“Who’s Mick Duffy?” the young man said and his hand began to shake,

“He’s one of our oldest resident’s, he lives on the fourth floor. He must have lost it when he went on one of his visits into town”.

The young man thanked the nurse and quickly went to the manager’s office. He told her what the nurse had said and they went up to the fourth floor.  They found Michael Duffy sat in his room reading a book.  The manager asked him if he had lost his wallet again. Michael looked at them with a questioning look and reaching into his jacket pocket he said,

“Oh dear, It seems to be missing again” he said

“This young man found a wallet in town and he wonders if it could be yours” replied the manager,

The young man handed the wallet to Michael and the minute he saw it he smiled and said,

“Yes that’s mine. It must have fallen out of my pocket, I’m always losing it” he smiled. “Can I give you a little something for being so honest?”

“No thank you” said the young man, “But I must tell you something. I read the letter that was in the wallet because I was looking for an address to help me find out who owned it. Please forgive me”

“You read my letter?” said Michael,

“Yes I did and I’m sorry for intruding into your life but I also think I know where Mary is”

Michael grew pale and began to shake. “You know where she is?” he said. “Where, how is she, is she still as beautiful as she was? Please you must tell me” said Michael.

“She is fine and yes, she is still as beautiful as you remember her” the young man said softly.

Michael smiled and said “Can you tell me where she is so I can phone her” he reached over and held the young man’s hand, “You know, I was so in love with Mary but when that letter arrived it broke my heart. My life ended that day and I never married. I loved her then and I love her now. In fact I never stopped loving her”.

“Mr Duffy, will you please come with me, I have something to show you” said the young man,

They took the elevator down to the third floor. Going into the day room the manager softly said,

“Mary, do you know this man”

“Mary, do you remember me, It’s me It’s Michael”

She looked over and suddenly she gave a little start,

“Michael, Oh my god, Michael is that you?” she began to cry.

The young man and the manager left the room  as the old couple embraced. Both the manager and the young man were both trying to hold back their own tears.

“God works in mysterious ways” said the manager.

About a month later the young man was sat at home when he received a phone call from the nursing home.

“Can you leave a date free next Saturday to attend a wedding?” he was asked, “Mary and Michael are getting married and they would like you to be the best man”,

It was a beautiful wedding all the staff and residents from the home attended the celebrations. Mary wore a lovely lilac dress and Michael wore a dark blue suit. They looked like two eighty year old teenagers, nervous yet smiling happily.

It was a perfect ending to a love affair that had spanned the years and made all his searching worthwhile.

So who knows where a journey may take you when you begin to search for that lost wallet?

Moll Anthony: The witch of the red hills.

Moll Anthony:  The witch of the red hills.

Celtic society had a very strong impression of female power, indeed, many Celtic deities were female and women played a central role in Celtic society.  Amongst the early Celtic religious leaders were a number of female druids who were direct conduits to the gods /goddesses and custodians to a secret knowledge that lay beyond normal mortals.

 Most of this knowledge was about herbs and the elements and a great number of these women acted as healers and midwifes.  In later years such women often remained central figures within their community.  People still looked to them for their healing powers and powers of divination.

Every locality has its wise woman, herb lady or fairie doctor, people who seemed to have supernatural skills but where had these powers come from? For some such as the Church there was only one explanation-the devil.  Others believed that they came from the fairies.  The people believed that these wise women and fairie doctors drew their powers from the dark elements, from the older powers that dwelt in the trees and stone or in the rivers and hills.

One of the most famous of these women was Moll Anthony of Kildare.  Like Biddy Early, accounts of her life are fragmentary and contradictory but there is no doubt that she was held in awe and even a little terror by those who knew her.  Her story is difficult to piece together due to the fact that nobody really knows exactly who she was.

One evening a man and a woman were having their evening meal in their small cottage near Punchesgrange, County Kildare, when they were interrupted.  The door opened and in walked four men, all dressed in black. They were tall, pale and not one said a word.  The woman placed her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream for her and her husband knew that these were the fairie folk and no good could come from this visit. The tallest of the men was carrying a box shaped like a small coffin within which something was stirring.  He placed it upon the table and all four men turned and left the cottage.  The whole encounter lasted a couple of minutes.

Opening the box, the couple found a small baby girl wrapped in a red shawl.  The child was human and as the couple were childless they decided to bring the child up as their own.  She grew up to become a legendary wise woman and throughout her long life, she kept in touch with the fairies that had carried her to the house.  The people who knew her say it was because of this contact with the gentry, she had such great powers, the power of healing, the power of curing sick animals, and the power of foretelling the future, the power of finding lost or stolen objects.  Her fame spread and everyone knew her name. She was Moll Anthony.

It is said that from a very early age, Moll displayed super-natural powers.  Whether this came about through a contact with the fairies when an infant or whether, as the Kildare clergy suggested. It was through her worship of the evil one, is a matter of debate.  However, it branded her as a ‘special person’.  She also had a physical attribute that set her apart, halfway up her right arm, it was said she had an oddly shaped strawberry coloured birthmark, which never seemed to fade as she grew older.  Many people said this was a ‘fairy mark’ given to her by the little people, in fact, some said that it had been given to her by the most powerful fairy of all-the Fool of the Forth.

 The Fool was said to be a being that could bestow great power or take away a person’s wits simply by a stroke of a rod which he carried.  It has been suggested that this may be the origin of the description for the medical condition of a ‘stroke’.

Like many other ‘wise women, Moll Anthony, the Kildare witch, remains a hazy and mysterious figure.  Nevertheless, this enigmatic woman was undoubtedly part of a tradition that stretched back into the mists of antiquity.

An Act of Kindness.

 

An Act of Kindness.

In Galway, one day, a poor young man who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through college, found he had only one euro coin in his pocket, and he was hungry.

He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when the woman who lived there opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water.

She thought he looked hungry so she gave him a large glass of milk.

He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” she replied “I was reared to never to accept payment for a kindness.”

The young man’s name was Séan Kelly, he thanked her for her kindness, and as he left that house, he not only felt; stronger physically, but his faith in God and man/woman was renewed. You see Séan had been ready to give up and quit.

A few years later the woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin where they called in specialists to study her rare disease.

 Dr. Séan Kelly was called in for the consultation.

When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her.

He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case. After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval.

He looked at it, and then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She was scared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all as she did not have a medical card

 Finally, she looked, and something caught her attention. On the side of the bill she read these words…… ” Paid in full with one glass of milk.” (Signed) Dr. Séan Kelly.

Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: “Thank You, GOD.

Sometimes a little kindness can be repaid in ways you never expect.

Lady Betty: 1750-1807. Public executioner.

Lady Betty:  1750-1807.  Public executioner.

 Lady Betty was famous as a cruel hang woman who worked in Roscommon Jail in the eighteenth century. According to Sir William Wilde, she drew a sketch of each of her victims on the walls of her dwelling with a burnt stick.

Born into a tenant farmer’s family in County Kerry, the woman who came to be known as Lady Betty married another poor farmer, named Surgue, and they had a family.  On his death, Betty and her three children were left destitute.

She set out with her children on the long walk to Roscommon town to look for a better life.  En route her two younger children died of starvation and exposure, leaving only her elder son.  On reaching Roscommon, Betty and her son moved into an abandoned hovel and begged, borrowed and stole to eke out a sparse living. She was known to have a violent, cruel temper and whether it was because of this or the grinding poverty (or a combination of both) her son decided to leave and go to America to seek his fortune.  He promised to return one day a rich man.

Years passed, and Betty supplemented her meagre income by taking in desperate lodgers and travellers for a few pennies a night.  One stormy night a traveller arrived at the door looking for a room.  Betty took him in but she noticed how well dressed he was and he had a purse full of gold, not like her normal guests.  The temptation proved too much, she waited until he was asleep, then stabbed him to death and robbed him. Tragically for her, as she was going through his belongings she found papers that identified him as her son, unrecognisable after years apart. It has been suggested the reason why he had not identified himself to her was that he wanted to find out if she had changed from the violent bad tempered person he had known, unfortunately for him she had not. Betty was arrested and tried for murder and sentenced to hang.

The day of her execution arrived and she was led to the scaffold together with others due to be hung.  Amongst the various thieves, sheep stealers and murderers were some Irish rebels and Whiteboys.  However, because of local loyalty to the rebels, no hangman could be found so the authorities did not know what to do.  This was when Betty made her mark on history.  She said to the Sheriff “Set me free and I’ll hang the lot of them”.  She killed twenty five that day and with the full support of the authorities she continued her gruesome work right across Connacht.

She lived rent free in a third floor chamber at the prison, and although she was paid no salary she loved her work and never had to worry about food. She had a very public method of hanging too; a scaffold was erected right outside her window, and the unfortunate person had to crawl out, ready- noosed, and stand there as she pulled a lever, swinging him to kingdom come. She had a nasty habit of leaving the bodies placidly "do the pendulum thing" while she sketched them in charcoal. When she eventually died, in the first decade of the 19th century, her room was decorated with the images of the hundreds of people she had happily sent to their deaths.

Lady Betty’s cold-hearted actions meant that she was universally feared, loathed, hated and shunned.  Eventually she was given lodgings inside the prison grounds for her own safety.  In 1802 she received a pardon for her own horrific crime.  By the time of her death in 1807 a powerful myth had built up around her, but it would be many years before mothers stopped threatening their children to watch out, if you don’t behave Lady Betty will get you.  She is buried inside the walls of Roscommon Jail, the scene of her hideous handiwork.