DARBY O'GILL and The Good People
There are more than two dozen tales of Darby O'Gill.. These are the stories that the Disney movie 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People' was based upon!
Old as Ireland itself, these whimsical folktales bring you the jumble and tumble of men and magical creatures who walk the lanes of the Emerald Isle by day and wander its fields by night.
Henpecked husbands scheme to get rich; ghosts roam the land seeking rest. There are fortune-tellers and fairies, leprechauns and laggards, and priests — wise old Irish priests — straining their wits to contain the strange tumult of it all and to bring to their charmed land a measure of order and peace.
Haunted abbeys, mournful ghosts, enchanted gold, deadly brigands, and a host of fairies and leprechauns. Add to them Darby O’Gill and his wife Bridget, told by our professional Seanchai's, and you wind up with strange and exciting adventures that are sure to delight children and grown-ups alike!
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Darby O'Gill and the Good People
by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh
by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh
This history sets forth the only true account of the
adventures of a daring Tipperary man named Darby O'Gill among the Fairies of
Sleive-na-mon.
These adventures were first related to me by Mr. Jerry
Murtaugh, a reliable car-driver, who goes between Kilcuny and Ballinderg. He is
a first cousin of Darby O'Gill's own mother.
Although only one living man of his own free will ever went
among them there, still, any well-learned person in Ireland can tell you that
the abode of the Good People is in the hollow heart of the great mountain
Sleive-na-mon. That same one man was Darby Gill, a cousin of my own mother.
One night the Good People took the eldest of Darby's three
fine pigs. The next week a second pig went the same way. The third week not a
thing had Darby left for the Balinrobe fair. You may aisily think how sore and
sorry the poor man was, an' how Bridget his wife an' the childher carried on.
The rent was due, and all left was to sell his cow Rosie to pay it. Rosie was
the apple of his eye; he admired and rayspected the pigs, but he loved Rosie.
Worst luck of all was yet to come. On the morning when Darby
went for the cow to bring her into market, bad scrans to the hoof was there;
but in her place only a wisp of dirty straw to mock him. Millia murther! What a
howlin' and screechin' and cursin' did Darby bring back to the house!
Now Darby was a bould man, and a desperate man in his anger,
as you soon will see. He shoved his feet into a pair of brogues, clapped his
hat on his head, and gripped his stick in his hand.
"Fairy or no fairy, ghost or goblin, livin' or dead,
who took Rosie'll rue this day," he says. With those wild words he bolted
in the direction of Sleive-na-mon.
All day long he climbed like an ant over the hill, looking
for a hole or cave through which he could get at the prison of Rosie. At times
he struck the rocks with his blackthorn, cryin' out challenge.
"Come out, you that took her," he called. "If
ye have the courage of a mouse, ye murtherin' thieves, come out!"
No one made answer - at laste, not just then. But at night,
as he turned, hungry and footsore, toward home, who should he meet up with on
the crossroads but the ould fairy doctor, Sheela Maguire. Well known she was as
a spy for the Good People. She spoke up: "Oh, then, you're the foolish,
blundherin'-headed man to be saying what you've said, and doing what you've
done this day, Darby Gill," says she.
"What do I care!" says he fiercely. "I'd
fight the divil to-night for my beautiful cow."
"Then go into Mrs. Hagan's meadow beyant," says
Sheela, "and wait till the moon is up. By-an'-by ye'll see a herd of cows
come down from the mountain, and yer own'll be among them."
"What'll I do then?" asked Darby, his voice
thrembling with excitement.
"Sorra a hair I care what ye do! But there'll be lads
there, and hundreds you won't see, that'll stand no ill words, Darby
Gill."
"I thank you kindly," says Darby, "and I bid
you good-evening, ma'am." He turned away, leaving her standing there
alone, looking after him; but he was sure he heard voices talkin' to her, and
laughin' and tittherin' behind him.
It was dark night when Darby stretched himself on the ground
in Hagan's meadow; the yellow rim of the moon just tipped the edge of the
hills. The time passed mortal slow; and it was an hour later when a hundred
slow shadows, stirring up the mists, crept from the mountain way toward him.
First he must find was Rosie among the herd. To creep quiet as a cat through
the hedge and reach the first cow was only a minute's work. Then his plan - to
wait till cock-crow - with all other sober, sensible thoughts, went clean out
of the lad's head before his rage; for, cropping eagerly the long sweet grass,
the first baste he met was Rosie.
With a leap Darby was behind her, his stick falling sharply
on her flanks. The ingratitude of that cow almost broke Darby's heart. Rosie
turned fiercely on him, with a vicious lunge, her two horns aimed at his
breast. There was no suppler boy in the parish than Darby, and well for him it
was so, for the mad rush the cow gave would have caught any man the laste
thrifle heavy on his legs, and ended his days right there. As it was, our hayro
sprang to one side. As Rosie passed, his left hand gripped her tail. When one
of the Gills takes hould of a thing, he hangs on like a bull terrier. Away he
went, rushing with her.
Now began a race the like of which was never heard of before
or since. Ten jumps to the second, and a hundred feet to the jump. Rosie's tail
standing straight up in the air, firm as an iron bar, and Darby floating
straight out behind; a thousand furious fairies flying a short distance after,
filling the air with wild commands and threatenings.
Suddenly the sky opened for a crash of lightning that
shivered the hills, and a roar of thunder that turned out of their beds every
man, woman, and child in four counties. Flash after flash came the lightning,
hitting on every side of Darby. If it wasn't for fear of hurting Rosie, the
fairies would sartenly have killed Darby. As it was, he was stiff with fear,
afraid to hould on and afraid to lave go, but flew, waving in the air at
Rosie's tail like a flag.
As the cow turned into the long, narrow valley which cuts
into the east side of the mountain, the Good People caught up with the pair,
and what they didn't do to Darby, in the line of sticking pins, pulling
whiskers, and pinching wouldn't take long to tell. In troth, he was just about
to let go his hould, and take the chances of a fall, when the hillside opened
and - whisk! The cow turned into the mountain. Darby found himself flying down
a wide, high passage which grew lighter as he went along. He heard the opening
behind shut like a trap, and his heart almost stopped beating, for this was the
fairies' home in the heart of Sleive-na-mon. He was captured by them!
When Rosie stopped, so stiff were all Darby's joints, that
he had great trouble loosening himself to come down. He landed among a lot of
angry-faced little people, each no higher than your hand, everyone wearing a
green velvet cloak and a red cap.
"We'll take him to the king," says a red-whiskered
wee chap. "What he'll do to the murtherin' spalpeen'll be good and
plenty!"
With that they marched our bould Darby, a prisoner, down the
long passage, which every second grew wider and lighter, and fuller of little
people.
Sometimes, though, he met with human beings like himself,
only the black charm was on them, they having been stolen at some time by the
Good People. He saw Lost People there from every parish in Ireland, both
commoners and gentry. Each was laughing, talking, and divarting himself with
another. Off to the sides he could see small cobblers making brogues, tinkers
mending pans, tailors sewing cloth, smiths hammering horseshoes, everyone
merrily to his trade, making a divarsion out of work. Down near the center of
the mountain, was a room twenty times higher and broader than the biggest
church in the world. As they drew near this room, there arose the sound of a
reel played on bagpipes. The music was so bewitching that Darby, who was the
gracefullest reel dancer in all Ireland, could hardly make his feet behave.
At the room's edge Darby stopped short and caught his
breath, the sight was so entrancing. Set over the broad floor were thousands
and thousands of the Good People, facing this way and that, and dancing to a
reel; while on a throne in the middle of the room sat ould Brian Conners, King
of the Fairies, blowing on the bagpipes. The little king, with a goold crown on
his head, wearing a beautiful green velvet coat and red knee breeches, sat with
his legs crossed, beating time with his foot to the music.
There were many from Darby's own parish; and what was his
surprise to see there Maureen McGibney, his own wife's sister, whom he had
supposed resting dacintly in her grave in holy ground these three years.
There she was, gliding back and forth, ferninst a little
gray-whiskered, round-stomached fairy man, as though there was never a care nor
a sorrow in the world.
As I told you before, I tell you again, Darby was the finest
reel dancer in all Ireland; and he came from a family of dancers, though I say
it who shouldn't, as he was my mother's own cousin. Three things in the world
banish sorrow - love and whisky and music. So, when the surprise of it all
melted a little, Darby's feet led him in to the thick of the throng, right
under the throne of the king, where he flung care to the winds, and put his
heart and mind into his two nimble feet. Darby's dancing was such that purty
soon those around stood still to admire.
Backward and forward, sidestep and turn; cross over, then
forward; a hand on his hip and his stick twirling free; sidestep and forward;
cross over again; bow to his partner, and hammer the floor.
It wasn't long till half the dancers crowded around
admiring, clapping their hands, and shouting encouragement. The ould king grew
so excited that he laid down the pipes, took up his fiddle, came down from the
throne, and standing ferninst Darby began a finer tune than the first.
The dancing lasted a whole hour, no one speaking a word
except to cry out, "Foot it, ye divil!" "Aisy now, he's
threading on flowers!" "More power to you!" "Play faster,
king!" "Hooroo! Hooroo! Hooray!"
Then the king stopped and said:
"Well, that bates Banagher, and Banagher bates the
world! Who are you, and how came you here?" Then Darby up and tould the
whole story.
When he had finished, the king looked sayrious. "I'm
glad you came, an' I'm sorry you came," he says. "If we had put our
charm on you outside to bring you in, you'd never die till the end of the
world, when we here must all go to hell. But," he added quickly,
"there's no use in worrying about that now. That's nayther here nor there!
Those willing to come with us can't come at all, at all; and here you are of
your own free act and will. Howsomever, you're here, and we daren't let you go
outside to tell others of what you have seen, and so give us a bad name about -
about taking things, you know. We'll make you as comfortable as we can; and so
you won't worry about Bridget and the childher, I'll have a goold sovereign
left with them every day of their lives. But I wish we had the come-ither on
you," he says, with a sigh, "for it's aisy to see you're great
company. Now come up to my place an' have a noggin of punch for friendship's
sake," says he.
That's how Darby Gill began his six months' stay with the
Good People. Not a thing was left undone to make Darby contented and happy. A
civiler people than the Good People he never met. At first he couldn't get over
saying, "God keep all here," and "God save you kindly," and
things like that, which was like burning them with a hot iron.
If it weren't for Maureen McGibney, Darby would be in
Sleive-na-mon at this hour. Sure she was always the wise girl, ready with her
crafty plans and warnings. On a day when they two were sitting alone together,
she says to him:
"Darby, dear," says she, "it isn't right for
a dacint man of family to be spending his days cavortin', and idlin', and
fillin' the hours with sport and nonsense. We must get you out of here; for
what is a sovereign a day to compare with the care and protection of a
father?" she says.
"Thrue for ye!" moaned Darby, "and my heart
is just splittin' for a sight of Bridget an' the childher. Bad luck to the day
I set so much store on a dirty, ongrateful, threacherous cow!" "I
know well how you feel," says Maureen, "for I'd give the whole world
to say three words to Bob Broderick, that ye tell me that out of grief for me
has never kept company with any other girl till this day. But that'll never
be," she says, "because I must stop here till the Day of Judgment,
and then I must go to-" says she, beginning to cry, "but if you get
out, you'n bear a message to Bob for me, maybe?" she says.
"It's aisy to talk about going out, but how can it be
done?" asked Darby.
"There's a way," says Maureen, wiping her big gray
eyes, "but it may take years. First, you must know that the Good People
can never put their charm on any one who is willing to come with them. That's
why you came safe. Then, again, they can't work harm in the daylight, and after
cock-crow any mortal eye can see them plain; nor can they harm anyone who has a
sprig of holly, nor pass over a leaf or twig of holly, because that's Christmas
bloom. Well, there's a certain evil word for a charm that opens the side of the
mountain, and I will try to find it out for you. Without that word, the armies
of the world couldn't get out or in. But you must be patient and wise, and
wait."
"I will so, with the help of God," says Darby.
At these words, Maureen gave a terrible screech.
"Cruel man!" she cried, "don't you know that
to say pious words to one of the Good People, or to one under their black
charm, is like cutting him with a knife?"
The next night she came to Darby again.
"Watch yerself now," she says, "for to-night
they're goin' to lave the door of the mountain open, to thry you; and if you
stir two steps outside they'll put the come-ither on you," she says.
Sure enough, when Darby took his walk down the passage,
after supper, as he did every night, there the side of the mountain lay wide
open and no one in sight. The temptation to make one rush was great; but he
only looked out a minute, and went whistling back down the passage, knowing
well that a hundred hidden eyes were on him the while. For a dozen nights after
it was the same.
At another time Maureen said:
"The king himself is going to thry you hard the day, so
beware!" She had no sooner said the words than Darby was called for, and
went up to the king.
"Darby, my sowl," says the king, in a sootherin'
way, "have this noggin of punch. A betther never was brewed; it's the last
we'll have for many a day. I'm going to set you free, Darby Gill, that's what I
am."
"Why, king," says Darby, putting on a mournful
face, "how have I offended ye?"
"No offense at all," says the king, "only
we're depriving you."
"No depravity in life!" says Darby.
"I have lashins and lavings to ate and to drink, and
nothing but fun an' divarsion all day long. Out in the world it was nothing but
work and throuble and sickness, disappointment and care."
"But Bridget and the childher?" says the king,
giving him a sharp look out of half-shut eyes. "Oh, as for that,
king," says Darby, "it's aisier for a widow to get a husband, or for
orphans to find a father, than it is for them to pick up a sovereign a
day."
The king looked mighty satisfied and smoked for a while
without a word.
"Would you mind going out an evenin' now and then,
helpin' the boys to mind the cows?" he asked at last.
Darby feared to thrust himself outside in their company.
"Well, I'll tell ye how it is," replied my brave
Darby. "Some of the neighbors might see me, and spread the report on me
that I'm with the fairies, and that'd disgrace Bridget and the childher,"
he says.
The king knocked the ashes from his pipe. "You're a
wise man besides being the hoight of good company," says he, "and
it's sorry I am you didn't take me at my word; for then we would have you
always, at laste till the Day of Judgment, when - but that's nayther here nor
there! Howsomever, we'll bother you about it no more."
From that day they thrated him as one of their own. It was
one day five months after that Maureen plucked Darby by the coat and led him
off to a lonely spot.
"I've got the word," she says.
"Have you, faith! What is it!" says Darby, all of
a thremble.
Then she whispered a word so blasphemous, so irreligious,
that Darby blessed himself. When Maureen saw him making the sign, she fell down
in a fit, the holy emblem hurt her so, poor child.
Three hours after this me bould Darby was sitting at his own
fireside talking to Bridget and the childher. The neighbors were hurrying to
him, down every road and through every field, carrying armfuls of holly bushes,
as he had sent word for them to do. He knew well he'd have fierce and savage
visitors before morning.
After they had come with the holly, he had them make a
circle of it so thick around the house that a fly couldn't walk through without
touching a twig or a leaf. But that was not all. You'll know what a wise girl
and what a crafty girl that Maureen was when you hear what the neighbors did
next. They made a second ring of holly outside the first, so that the house sat
in two great wreaths, one wreath around the other. The outside ring was much
the bigger, and left a good space between it and the first, with room for ever
so many people to stand there. It was like the inner ring, except for a little
gate, left open as though by accident, where the fairies could walk in.
But it wasn't an accident at all, only the wise plan of
Maureen's; for nearby this little gap, in the outside wreath, lay a sprig of
holly with a bit of twine tied to it. Then the twine ran along up to Darby's
house, and in through the window, where its end lay convaynient to his hand. A
little pull on the twine would drag the stray piece of holly into the gap, and
close tight the outside ring.
It was a trap, you see. When the fairies walked in through
the gap, the twine was to be pulled, and so they were to be made prisoners
between the two rings of holly. They couldn't get into Darby's house, because
the circle of holly nearest the house was so tight that a fly couldn't get
through without touching the blessed tree or its wood. Likewise, when the gap
in the outer wreath was closed, they couldn't get out again. Well, anyway,
these things were hardly finished and fixed, when the dusky brown of the hills
warned the neighbors of twilight, and they scurried like frightened rabbits to
their homes.
Only one amongst them all had courage to sit inside Darby's
house waiting the dreadful visitors, and that one was Bob Broderick. What
vengeance was in store couldn't be guessed at all, at all, only it was sure
that it was to be more terrible than any yet wreaked on mortal man.
Not in Darby's house alone was the terror, for in their
anger the Good People might lay waste the whole parish. The roads and fields
were empty and silent in the darkness. Not a window glimmered with light for
miles around. Many a blaggard who hadn't said a prayer for years was now down
on his marrow bones among the dacint members of his family, thumping his craw,
and roaring his Pather and Aves.
In Darby's quiet house, against which the cunning, the
power, and the fury of the Good People would first break, you can't think of
half the suffering of Bridget and the childher, as they lay huddled together on
the settle bed; nor of the sthrain on Bob and Darby, who sat smoking their
dudeens and whispering anxiously together.
For some rayson or other the Good People were long in
coming. Ten o'clock struck, then eleven, afther that twelve, and not a sound
from the outside. The silence and the no sign of any kind had them all just
about crazy, when suddenly there fell a sharp rap on the door.
"Millia murther," whispered Darby, "we're in
for it. They've crossed the two rings of holly, and are at the door
itself."
The childher begun to cry and Bridget said her prayers out
loud; but no one answered the knock.
"Rap, rap, rap," on the door, then a pause.
"God save all here!" cried a queer voice from the
outside.
Now no fairy would say, "God save all here," so
Darby took heart and opened the door. Who should be standing there but Sheelah
Maguire, a spy for the Good People. So angry were Darby and Bob that they
snatched her within the threshold, and before she knew it they had her tied
hand and foot, wound a cloth around her mouth, and rouled her under the bed.
Within the minute a thousand rustling voices sprung from outside. Through the
window, in the clear moonlight, Darby marked weeds and grass being trampled by
invisible feet, beyond the farthest ring of holly.
Suddenly broke a great cry. The gap in the first ring was
found. Signs were plainly seen of uncountable feet rushing through, and
spreading about the nearer wreath. Afther that a howl of.madness from the little
men and women. Darby had pulled his twine and the trap was closed, with five
thousand of the Good People entirely at his mercy.
Princes, princesses, dukes, dukesses, earls, earlesses, and
all the quality of Sleive-na-mon were prisoners. Not more than a dozen of the
last to come escaped, and they flew back to tell the king.
For an hour they raged. All the bad names ever called to
mortal man were given free, but Darby said never a word.
"Pick-pocket," "sheep stayler," "murtherin' thafe of a
blaggard," were the softest words trun at him.
By an' by, howsomever, as it begun to grow near to
cock-crow, their talk grew a great dale civiler. Then came beggin', pladin',
promisin', and enthratin', but the doors of the house still stayed shut an' its
windows down.
Purty soon Darby's old rooster, Terry, came down from his
perch, yawned, an' flapped his wings a few times. At that the terror and the
screechin' of the Good people would have melted the heart of a stone.
All of a sudden a fine, clear voice rose from beyant the
crowd. The king had come. The other fairies grew still, listening.
"Ye murtherin' thafe of the world," says he king
grandly, "what are ye doin' wid my people?" "Keep a civil tongue
in yer head, Brian Connor," says Darby, sticking his head out the window,
"for I'm as good a man as you, any day," says Darby.
At that minute Terry, the cock, flapped his wings and
crowed. In a flash there sprang into full view the crowd of Good people -
dukes, earls, princes, quality, and commoners, with their ladies, jammed thick
together about the house; every one of them with his head thrown back bawling
and crying, and tears as big as pigeons' eggs rouling down his cheeks.
A few feet away, on a straw pile in the barnyard, stood the
king, his goold crown tilted on the side of his head, his long green cloak
about him, and his rod in his hand, but thremblin' allover.
In the middle of the crowd, but towering high above them
all, stood Maureen McGibney in her cloak of green an' goold, her purty brown
hair fallin' down on her shoulders, an' she - the crafty villain - cryin, an'
bawlin', an' abusin' Darby, with the best of them.
"What'll you have an' let them go?" says the king.
"First an' foremost," says Darby, "take yer
spell off that slip of a girl there, an' send her into the house."
In a second Maureen was standing inside the door, her both
arms about Bob's neck, and her head on his collarbone.
What they said to aich other, and what they done in the way
of embracin' an' kissin' an' cryin' I won't take time in telling you.
"Next," says Darby, "send back Rosie and the
pigs."
"I expected that," says the king. And at those
words they saw a black bunch coming through the air; in a few seconds Rosie and
the three pigs walked into the stable.
"Now," says Darby, "promise in the name of
Ould Nick" ('tis by him the Good People swear) "never to moil nor
meddle again with anyone or anything from this parish."
The king was fair put out by this. Howsomever, he said at
last, "You ongrateful scoundhrel, in the name of Ould Nick, I
promise."
"So far, so good," says Darby, "but the worst
is yet to come. Now you must ralayse from your spell every soul you've stole
from this parish; and besides, you must send me ten thousand pounds in
goold."
Well, the king gave a roar of anger that was heard in the
next barony.
"Ye high-handed, hard-hearted robber," he says,
"I'll never consent!" he says.
"Plase yerself," says Darby. "I see Father
Cassidy comin' down the hedge," he says, "an' he has a prayer for ye
all in his book that'll burn ye up like wisps of sthraw ef he ever catches ye
here," says Darby.
With that the roaring and bawling was pitiful to hear, and
in a few minutes a bag with ten thousand goold sovereigns in it was trun at
Darby's threshold; and fifty people, young an' some of them ould, flew over an'
stood beside the king. Some of them had spent years with the fairies. Their
relatives thought them dead an' buried. They were the Lost Ones from that
parish.
With that Darby pulled the bit of twine again, opening the
trap, and it wasn't long until every fairy was gone.
The green coat of the last one was hardly out of sight when,
sure enough, who should come up but Father Cassidy, his book in his hand. He
looked at the fifty people who had been with the fairies standin' there - the
poor crathures - thremblin' an' wondherin', an' afeared to go to their homes.
Darby tould him what had happened. "Ye foolish
man," says the priest, "you could have got out every poor prisoner
that's locked in Sleive-na-mon, let alone those from this parish."
"Would yer Reverence have me let out the Corkoniens,
the Connaught men, and the Fardowns, I ask ye?" he says hotly.
"When Mrs. Malowney there goes home and finds that
Tiril has married the Widow Hogan, ye'll say I let out too many, even of this
parish, I'm thinkin'."
"But," says the priest, "ye might have got
ten thousand pounds for aich of us."
"If aich had ten thousand pounds, what comfort would I
have in being rich?" asked Darby again. "To enjoy well being rich,
there should be plenty of poor," says Darby.
"God forgive ye, ye selfish man!" says Father
Cassidy.
"There's another rayson besides," says Darby.
"I never got betther nor friendlier thratement than I had from the Good
People. An' the divil a hair of their heads I'd hurt more than need be,"
he says.
Some way or other the king heard of this saying, an' was so
mightily pleased that next night a jug of the finest poteen was left at Darby's
door.
After that, indade, many's the winter night, when the snow
lay so heavy that no neighbor was stirrin', and when Bridget and the childher
were in bed, Darby sat by the fire, a noggin of hot punch in his hand, argying
an' getting news of the whole world. A little man, with a goold crown on his
head, a green cloak on his back, and one foot thrown over the other, sat
ferninst him by the hearth.
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