#trad witch
So, not that it’s a big deal or anything, but it looks like my ggggrandad/ggggreat uncle MET A FUCKING MERMAID.
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
“There was a mermaid seen in Ringabella about one hundred years ago. She came very near the shore. She was dressed in all colours. She was comping her hair. She had lovely long white hair. The man that saw her is dead now. His name was John Desmond. He is living in Ringabella. She did not speak to him. She wore six gold rings around her hair. Another day he saw her sitting on the rocks and she was singing songs. She was half a fish and a half a woman. She had a face as white as a sheet. When she would be coming of the rocks she crept on her hands. My name is Alice Wood. I live in the townland of Ballindeasig. my uncle told me this story. His name is William Foley, Ballindeasig.”
I’ve been exploring the Irish Folklore Collection, which has only recently been digitised (see my post on Unearthing Ireland’s deepest fairy secrets), and found this - an actual Mermaid siting in my family’s home village of Ringabella, Co. Cork. And as if that’s not amazing enough, my maternal family line was called Desmond. How fucking cool is that?
This archive is a gift in so many ways. Whether you’re a folklorist, catholic, historian, archaeologist or witch, you’re going to find gold. These incredible recollections serve to remind us that we live, and have always lived, one small step from the edge of the veil.
I can feel my Auntie Máire (bless her soul) reaching for her rosary…
A fairy fort, with corn stooks of four sheaves each, in Loughinisland, Co Down, in 1962. Photograph: Michael J Murphy/duchas.ie
“A worldwide crowdsourcing movement is currently unearthing Ireland’s deepest fairy secrets and darkest myths. A voluntary collective online is working its way through transcribing 700,000 pages of folklore that were collected throughout Ireland between 1937 and 1939. This mass of previously inaccessible material was gathered by more than 100,000 children who were sent to seek out the oldest person in their community just before second World War to root out the darkest, oddest and weirdest traditional beliefs, secrets and customs, which were then logged into 1,128 volumes, titled the Schools’ Manuscripts Collection.
Half a million pages have been digitised by the National Folklore Collection, of which more than 100,000 pages have now been transcribed by volunteers, revealing the fairy situation in every townland, the types of leprechaun and butter churn common to each area, the names of people who tried to steal gold and what happened to them, or who had relationships with mermaids. There is material on local cures, holy wells, strange animals, travelling folk and spirits.”
OMG. THIS IS AMAZING.
