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MAGUS

21 more” 5 days after was the time appointed. His neighbours were so sunk in superstition that they believed he has been paid the price of his house in good British currency by the fairies! It is remarkable that the versions of this story, circulated by his neighbours of the same townland, contradict the above. He contradicted himself, also, in his own story. Now from these circumstances is not this conclusion justifiable, that even as in the parish of Banagher Finn McCool’s fingers were carved on the rock at Feeny on purpose, to produce superstition, also in this parish has Denis O’Haran acted as an agent to others for the purpose of strengthening the decaying superstition of the people. See Memoir of Banagher, in which that opinion is also advanced about the print of the man’s knee at the door of the old church. It would appear that no other explanation can satisfactorily be given for his own inconsistency in the relation which he gave.’ O/S Memoirs, Parishes of County Antrim VI, vol. 19, Parish of Drummond, James Boyle, June 1838. (p. 60) ‘An implicit belief exists in ghosts, fairies and banshees, in enchantments and in the power which the fairies so wantonly exercise in depriving cows of their milk, nor are these notions confined to any particular sect or denomination.’ J.B. Doyle, Tours in Ulster: A Handbook to the Antiquities and Scenery of the North of Ireland (Dublin 1854). (pp. 276-7) ‘The northern peasantry, like their neighbours the Scotch, are much given to superstition. They are confident believers in the existence of the “wee-folk” or fairies, of whom they are greatly in awe. The supposed resorts of these tiny sprites are the old raths and doons so very common throughout the north; the almost universal preservation of which may be attributed to the influence of this superstitious dread. An amusing instance of this occurred a few years since, at the residence of the late Captain Millar, to the south of Ballymena. The Captain, being desirous of planting a very fine conical doon or rath in his demesne, sent a man to prepare holes for putting in trees; several of his labourers refused. However, one was induced to make the trial. In the progress of his work, he happened to be interrupted by a stony mass which he attempted to remove with the aid of a crowbar; in driving the instrument down with considerable force it slipped from his hands and disappeared altogether into the mound. Astonished at the unforeseen event, he immediately ascribed it as the work of the “wee-folk” who thus resented the invasion upon their manor. He now considered himself a lost man, that ill-luck and wasting were to be his portion; tottering with fear , he sought his

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