I have always been very fond of folk and fairy tales, especially those with sheepish or spinning themes. I have been meaning to incorporate them in these pages for some time. Herewith, the first.
The Horned Women
RICH woman sat up
late one night carding and preparing wool, while all the family and servants
were asleep.Suddenly a knock was given
at the door, and a voice called, “Open! open!”
“Who is there?” said
the woman of the house.
"I am the Witch of
one Horn,” was answered. The mistress,
supposing that one of her neighbours had called and required assistance, opened
the door, and a woman entered, having in her hand a pair of wool-carders, and
bearing a horn on her forehead, as if growing there. She sat down by the fire in silence, and began
to card the wool with violent haste. Suddenly
she paused, and said aloud: “Where are
the women? They delay too long.”
Then a second knock
came to the door, and a voice called as before, “Open! open!”
The mistress felt
herself obliged to rise and open to the call, and immediately a second witch
entered, having two horns on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel for spinning
wool.
“Give me place,” she
said; “I am the Witch of the two Horns,” and she began to spin as quick as
lightning. *
And so the knocks went
on, and the call was heard, and the witches entered, until at last twelve women
sat round the fire--the first with one horn, the last with twelve horns.
And they carded the
thread, and turned their spinning-wheels, and wound and wove, all singing
together an ancient rhyme, but no word did they speak to the mistress of the house.
Strange to hear, and frightful to look
upon, were these twelve women, with their horns and their wheels; and the mistress
felt near to death, and she tried to rise that she might call for help, but she
could not move, nor could she utter a word or a cry, for the spell of the
witches was upon her.
Then one of them
called to her in Irish, and said, “Rise, woman, and make us a cake.”
Then the mistress
searched for a vessel to bring water from the well that she might mix the meal
and make the cake, but she could find none.
And they said to
her, “Take a sieve and bring water in it.”
And she took the
sieve and went to the well; but the water poured from it, and she could fetch
none for the cake, and she sat down by the well and wept.
Then a voice came by
her and said, “Take yellow clay and moss, and bind them together, and plaster
the sieve so that it will hold.”
This she did, and the sieve
held the water for the cake; and the voice said again:
“Return, and when thou comest
to the north angle of the house, cry aloud three times and say, 'The mountain
of the Fenian women and the sky over it is all on fire.’ ”
And she did so.
When the witches inside heard
the call, a great and terrible cry broke from their lips, and they rushed forth
with wild lamentations and shrieks, and fled away to Slievenamon, where was
their chief abode. But the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress of the house to
enter and prepare her home against the enchantments of the witches if they
returned again.
And first, to break their
spells, she sprinkled the water in which she had washed her child's feet, the
feet-water, outside the door on the threshold; secondly, she took the cake
which in her absence the witches had made of meal mixed with the blood drawn
from the sleeping family, and she broke the cake in bits, and placed a bit in
the mouth of each sleeper, and they were restored; and she took the cloth they
had woven, and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock;
and lastly, she secured the door with a great crossbeam fastened in the jambs,
so that the witches could not enter, and having done these things she waited.
Not long were the witches in
coming back, and they raged and called for vengeance.
“Open! open!” they screamed; “open,
feet-water!”
“I cannot,” said the feet-water;
“I am scattered on the ground, and my
path is down to the Lough.”
“Open, open, wood and trees
and beam!” they cried to the door.
“I cannot,” said the door, “for
the beam is fixed in the jambs and I have no power to move.”
“Open, open, cake that we
have made and mingled with blood!” they cried again.
“I cannot,” said the cake, “for
I am broken and bruised, and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children.”
Then the witches rushed
through the air with great cries, and fled back to Slievenamon, uttering
strange curses on the Spirit of the Well, who had wished their ruin; but the
woman and the house were left in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the
witches in her flight was kept hung up by the mistress in memory of that night;
and this mantle was kept by the same family from generation to generation for
five hundred years after.
