Farming superstitions

GRMA

Was talking to the grandfather, who is in his nineties, the other day and he was telling me about his childhood. He lived on a farm down the country until they sold up and moved to Dublin when he was a child.

He told me about a field they owned wherein his father or himself would sometimes get completely lost and wonder around for ages even though they knew it well. He talked about in matter of factly and said it was the fairys from the fort in field working their magic. He's quite a religious man so him talking about fairys was very unusual... I accused him of pulling my leg but he swears its true and said its an accepted fact in the farming community, or at least it was in the late 1920's, 30's.

He also said there was a field they never ploughed because it had patches of wild barley in it which signified that a 1798 rebel was buried/killed there because they carried handfuls of it to eat. Told me there were a good few farms with fields like that which were never ploughed.

So, is grandad pulling my leg or have people here heard of similar things?

bbam

I've no doubt he's completely sincere and believes the stories to be true.
But stories is all they are.

For example the "stray sod" he talks about where you would get lost if you stood on it. This was invented by men who stayed out too late drinking and visiting.

pakalasa

My father always said that a lot of those stories were made up during 'The War Of Independance' and 'The Civil War' to explain strange noises in the night. Like guys moving arms etc.

bbam

That's it exactly..
Stories made up to cover for something or protect kids..

I know one family who were all told there were crocodiles in their lake, obviously to keep the kids away from the lake..

Another were told that their neighbours farmyard was haunted and not to go near it.. Truth was their neighbour was a "kiddy fiddler" and everyone in the parish knew it..

Charlie Charolais

hi lads,

I've heard you never cut down a lone tree for bad luck.
or if you see a lone tree fall, the death of a person is nearby...

CC

Dunedin

Charlie Charolais wrote: »

hi lads,

I've heard you never cut down a lone tree for bad luck.
or if you see a lone tree fall, the death of a person is nearby...

CC

Well, when I was in college I cut down every tree nearly in the place for sale - single trees, double etc.

no one ever died (except the odd lamb maybe:D:D)

redzerologhlen

Charlie Charolais wrote: »

hi lads,

I've heard you never cut down a lone tree for bad luck.
or if you see a lone tree fall, the death of a person is nearby...

CC

I would be very slow to do it myself to be honest. I know of two cases where big lone whitethorns were knocked/cut, one man did away with himself within a month and the other mans son did the same within a few months. Regardless of superstition though I just like big lone trees dotted around a field so would be slow to touch them for that reason anyway.

rs8

often heard off people losing there way

jimmy G M

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Regardless of superstition though I just like big lone trees dotted around a field so would be slow to touch them for that reason anyway.

Yeah , I love trees, very slow to cut them down, only use fallen timber. Nicest part of then rural landscape. Not a fan of conifers or leylandii, native or semi native deciduous.

I recall a pic Muckit put up last summer of round bales being made. Fabulous line of mature trees along a ditch in the background.

Kovu

There's heaps of stories around these parts.

The usual with the lone trees or 'fairy trees' we still leave them there, bit of shade for the cattle too:D

We had the stray sod & the hunger sod too, although I agree with the above pub story!

Also if a calf died at birth in the byre, it was to be hung in a bag from the rafters in order to stave away the death of others
That one always baffled me.

GRMA

What about old forts etc... anyone have any on their land? Any stories about them?

reilig

GRMA wrote: »

He told me about a field they owned wherein his father or himself would sometimes get completely lost and wonder around for ages even though they knew it well. He talked about in matter of factly and said it was the fairys from the fort in field working their magic. He's quite a religious man so him talking about fairys was very unusual... I accused him of pulling my leg but he swears its true and said its an accepted fact in the farming community, or at least it was in the late 1920's, 30's.

Do you know what that was??? It was actually poteen

At certain times of the year in certain places there would be a big brew by the distillor and it would be sold off or traded to the neighbours. People used to drink beneath the hedges or "behind the hill" or in the well sheltered and hidden ring fort where they wouldn't be seen by their wives, neighbours or the law. They might not return for 24 hours.

They were in the field, they couldn't find their way out. It must have been the fairies - but they didn't want to tell the Mrs that they drank a couple of naggins of the rare ould stuff and were completely legless, unable to find the way out!!

There's a book about superstitions like this that I read which details this exact scenario. I'll see if I can come up with the title of it and pass it to you. Its well worth a read!!

st1979

My mothers aunt who owned the farm used to talk about a fairy mound in a field that was latter sold off and she said she used to find little fairy pipes (smoking type of pipes). The woman was very religous and firmly believe it to be true.

About getting lost in a field. 40yrs ago their was a man and 2 children arrive in the yard from the bottom of the land which goes down to the sea. They had been out on a summers afternoon in a dingy about 5 miles down the coast when the current took them out eventually they got ashore at our land and made their way through fields to our house. But he was telling dad about how they couldn't find the way out of 1 particular field of ours and walked for ages around it in the dusk light. Dad reckoned it was the shape of the field and how large the ditches were at the time.
Dad dropped them back to the mobile home they were staying in when the wife walked out and slapped the husband as hard as she could across the face she was so upset thinking they were all drowned

pakalasa

st1979 wrote: »

..when the wife walked out and slapped the husband as hard as she could across the face she was so upset thinking they were all drowned

Someone was telling me recently, how they were at the beach last year and how a young fella nearly drowned. He had to be helped off a rock he managed to get to. Anyway, when he arrived back up on the beach, the first thing he got was a clip across the ear from his mother.

JohnBoy

it's the motherly equivilant of punching a girl in the arm in primary school

have2flushtwice

reilig wrote: »

Do you know what that was??? It was actually poteen

At certain times of the year in certain places there would be a big brew by the distillor and it would be sold off or traded to the neighbours. People used to drink beneath the hedges or "behind the hill" or in the well sheltered and hidden ring fort where they wouldn't be seen by their wives, neighbours or the law. They might not return for 24 hours.

They were in the field, they couldn't find their way out. It must have been the fairies - but they didn't want to tell the Mrs that they drank a couple of naggins of the rare ould stuff and were completely legless, unable to find the way out!!

There's a book about superstitions like this that I read which details this exact scenario. I'll see if I can come up with the title of it and pass it to you. Its well worth a read!!

I had the book before, its called meeting the other crowd, or the other crowd. great read, riveting stuff, well written, the only thing is if you have any interest in spirits or the fairies, you will read it cover to cover the first time you pick it up...kinda like that field with the big ditches!

When we were small, we were told not to go to a cetain field at night or late in the evening, as the fairies were playing there. they would be playing music and dancing. now this was in the early eighties, when you could ander freely and doors weren't locked.
Anyhow, dad and someone else went out at dusk one night...... heard some music, frightened the beejakers out of them, and they hunched down by the ditch. Then they thought they should investigate more. So they found a lad (a neighbour who used to work in our place around that time) walking up the other side of the ditch with a small radio in his hand quite happily. Next thing the neighbour dropped the pants to have a crap. Of course the two seized the oppourtinity and made a lot of "strange noises", and yer man rolled over in fright or fear, pulls up the pants and legged it leaving the radio behind him!

So I'm sure the neighbours description of events would be quite different. It was hinted around on many occasion after, but neighbour never once mentioned it to us!

Now that i think of it I must give him back the ould radio.....

Rovi

have2flushtwice wrote: »

I had the book before, its called meeting the other crowd, or the other crowd. great read, riveting stuff, well written, the only thing is if you have any interest in spirits or the fairies, you will read it cover to cover the first time you pick it up...kinda like that field with the big ditches!

Here you go, still time to get it for Christmas!
Meeting the Other Crowd
by Eddie Lenihan

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

Do you know what that was??? It was actually poteen

At certain times of the year in certain places there would be a big brew by the distillor and it would be sold off or traded to the neighbours. People used to drink beneath the hedges or "behind the hill" or in the well sheltered and hidden ring fort where they wouldn't be seen by their wives, neighbours or the law. They might not return for 24 hours.

They were in the field, they couldn't find their way out. It must have been the fairies - but they didn't want to tell the Mrs that they drank a couple of naggins of the rare ould stuff and were completely legless, unable to find the way out!!

.... and the big problem with poteen was the very basic 'homemade' nature of the distilling process. There is a very thin line between drinkable alcohol and methylated spirits if distillation is not done correctly!!

This is unfortunately what a lot of the poor creatours were drinking unknown to themselves causing hallucinations in the short term, but with long term continuous use, it caused poor mental health problems aswell. There was a name for this syndrome linked to connemara (I think) but I can't for the life of me recall it now :rolleyes:

pakalasa

I was told once that more than half the people in the 'mental home' in Mayo were there from the effects of poteen drinking.

razor8

I am told that’s why we hold a "wake" because of the use of poteen. Because of the after effects of poteen people didn’t know if they were dead or just unconscious so they used to wait up at night for them to "wake" up, hence where it gets its name

Years ago there were many stories of the priest pronouncing people dead only to find years later scratch marks on the coffins when burying someone beside them. The effects of the poteen had completely knocked people out

"Saved by the bell" is also from the same scenario. They used to bury people with a bell in the coffin. Someone was appointed to stay in the graveyard at night to listen out for the bell encase the corpse woke up

Bizzum

pakalasa wrote: »

I was told once that more than half the people in the 'mental home' in Mayo were there from the effects of poteen drinking.

Either that or the Mayo footballers losing the last 6 senior finals, (actually 7 with a replay) they were in:o.

Hopefully that stat will change for their sanity soon!

razor8

some old sayings and superstitions ye might enjoy


http://www.goodwords.com/sayings/

http://www.thinknice.com/1500s-fun-facts-popular-sayings/

bbam

Rovi wrote: »

Here you go, still time to get it for Christmas!
Meeting the Other Crowd
by Eddie Lenihan

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Meeting-Other-Crowd-Eddie-Lenihan/9780717136599

Save yourself a fiver and no delivery either !! :eek:

Manoffeeling

Anyone from Tipp and Waterford will be aware of the burning of Bridget Cleary. A terrible, barbaric episode of our history.

GRMA

Manoffeeling wrote: »

Anyone from Tipp and Waterford will be aware of the burning of Bridget Cleary. A terrible, barbaric episode of our history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Cleary

Wow.

I wonder why her father and husband thought that she was a changling, sometimes you get an ulterior motive behind these things but there doesn't seem to have been.

Manoffeeling

Read the Angela Bourke book, The burning of Bridget Cleary. It's very interesting.

Dairynewbie

I can only walk clockwise around a field...
Don't feel right going anti. In any field.. A bit of madness maybe.

Odelay

Dairynewbie wrote: »

I can only walk clockwise around a field...
Don't feel right going anti. In any field.. A bit of madness maybe.

Hmmmm does anyone else do this? looking at that post, yes i do, didn't realise it before but there is one field that i walk anticlockwise.....

Manoffeeling

Odelay wrote: »

Hmmmm does anyone else do this? looking at that post, yes i do, didn't realise it before but there is one field that i walk anticlockwise.....

Force of habit and not a conscious decision.

royalmeath

Dairynewbie wrote: »

I can only walk clockwise around a field...
Don't feel right going anti. In any field.. A bit of madness maybe.

Obsessive compulsive disorder.

Dairynewbie

royalmeath wrote: »

Obsessive compulsive disorder.

Yes maybe.
Anyone else killing turkeys tonight.... ?

Qualitymark

Donagh MacDonagh's poem The Hungry Grass is about this - Famine fields and the hungry grass. I've always heard that if you find yourself wandering in a field you should turn around three times, then turn your waistcoat inside out and take a thraneen from before you and one from behind you, and holding them you'll find your way to the exit.

THE HUNGRY GRASS

Crossing the shallow holdings high above sea
Where few birds nest, the luckless foot may pass
From the bright safety of experience
Into the terror of the hungry grass.

Here in a year when poison from the air
First withered in despair the growth of spring
Some skull-faced wretch whom nettle could not save
Crept on four bones to his last scattering,

Crept, and the shrivelled heart which drove his thought
Towards platters brought in hospitality
Burst as the wizened eyes measured the miles
Like dizzy walls forbidding him the city.

Little the earth reclaimed from that poor body
And yet remembering him the place has grown
Bewitched and the thin grass he nourishes
Racks with his famine, sucks marrow from the bone.

iverjohnston

Dairynewbie wrote: »

I can only walk clockwise around a field...
Don't feel right going anti. In any field.. A bit of madness maybe.

As a matter of interest, are you left handed or right handed?
Mack in Cavan

Qualitymark

I was teaching in a prison years ago and was gazing out the window, and remarked to the class about how seagulls always seem to fly anti-clockwise. They all laughed and said prisoners always walk anti-clockwise around the exercise yard; they thought it might be because the right side of the body is stronger.

GRMA

Qualitymark wrote: »

I was teaching in a prison years ago and was gazing out the window, and remarked to the class about how seagulls always seem to fly anti-clockwise. They all laughed and said prisoners always walk anti-clockwise around the exercise yard; they thought it might be because the right side of the body is stronger.

In Kilmainham the women were made walk clockwise while the men anti clockwise for some reason

Qualitymark

GRMA wrote: »

In Kilmainham the women were made walk clockwise while the men anti clockwise for some reason

Really? That's fascinating!

I don't think the prisoners were required to walk in one direction where I was teaching; it was just customary for them to go anti-clockwise; at least, that's the impression they gave me.

Markcheese

Dairynewbie wrote: »

I can only walk clockwise around a field...
Don't feel right going anti. In any field.. A bit of madness maybe.

So do you have to go the whole way round the field to get to a point just right of the gate ??

GRMA

Qualitymark wrote: »

Really? That's fascinating!

I don't think the prisoners were required to walk in one direction where I was teaching; it was just customary for them to go anti-clockwise; at least, that's the impression they gave me.

So the tourguide says.

He has no idea why, said it was just policy.

Qualitymark

GRMA wrote: »

So the tourguide says.

He has no idea why, said it was just policy.

Probably an added revenge of the imperialists: "We'll make the swines unlucky, on top of making them serve hard labour!"