THE DEAD COACH AND GHOST FUNERALS.

THE main raison d'être of the Dead Coach, as it is called in Louth and Meath, with its headless driver and headless horses, seems to be to give notice of an approaching death in a certain district, or among the members of some particular family. For instance, there are Dead Coaches at Kilcurry1 and Ardee, in Louth, that appear when anyone in the parish is about to die; while at one place in Meath there is a Dead Coach that is never seen except the night before the decease of the local squire or one of his relations. There is a Limerick family which enjoys a similar privilege. In their case the Headless Coach drives up to the hall door, and on arrival there every seat save one is seen to be occupied by the ghost of an ancestor. There is, however, another function of the Dead Coach, as the following tale from Meath shows. Some years ago there died a large landowner who had made himself popular with the country people by giving land to enlarge an ancient graveyard that was situated on his property. According to them he was so fond of the place that he gave directions that he should be buried there, but when he died his relations said that no gentleman had ever been buried at T-, so they laid him to rest in the churchyard in a neighbouring town. The night after the funeral, as a labourer named Barney Boylan was on his way to the town, he heard the rumble of a carriage behind him on the road and stepped aside to let it pass. The sound passed him by, and he could hear it proceeding along the road in front of him, but he could see nothing. Presently the vehicle seemed to stop in front of a gate, but when he drew near it went on again. Boylan turned and made for home, where his wife asked him what the carriage was that had passed the cottage going towards the town. While they were talking the carriage passed by in the opposite direction, "tattering up the road for all it was worth." Another woman heard the same sounds that night. It was the Headless Coach bringing Mr. Y.'s body. to T-2 (H. T. R., from Boylan).

1 Described in Folk-Lore, vol. x. p. 119.

2 The Kilcurry Dead Coach is said to pass noiselessly, in which it resembles

The Dead Coach in this story seems to bear some relationship to the ghost funerals that one sometimes hears of. For example, last year at Ballyferriter I was told of a case in which a man was buried in a strange graveyard. The following night a funeral procession was seen making its way to the burial ground of the dead man's ancestors. A tale of some length narrates how during the famine a Kerry labourer migrated to a neighbouring county in search of work, taking with him his little girl. He found employment, but before long he fell ill of the famine fever and died. The farm hands laid out the body in the barn, and after nightfall they began the wake. They were a rough lot, and before long one of them, a red-headed man, put a pipe in the mouth of the corpse, and he and his companions began to amuse themselves by throwing sods of turf at it. Suddenly there came a knock at the door, and four men in black entered carrying a coffin. They placed the corpse in it, and laid the child, who was asleep, on the lid. Then they raised their burden from the ground and turned to go. As they left the barn one of the mysterious strangers struck the redhaired man in the face, so that his mouth was crooked all the rest of his life. Next day there was a new made grave in the dead man's family burial place at Waterville, sixty miles away, and the child was found lying on it still asleep (D. L.).

SLEEPING ARMIES.

There are many forts and hills about Ireland that conceal ancient heroes and their armies waiting in magic slumber for the day when the spell will be broken and they will be free to return once more to the world of men. The wizard Earl of Kildare, for instance, according to a well-known story, sleeps in the Rath of Mullaghmast, from which he sallies forth once in every seven years to ride round the Curragh on a steed with silver shoes,

ceptional cases. In Limerick the Headless Coach is said to make more noise than an ordinary carriage. An old woman once told Miss Ferguson, that the first time that a railway train passed through Adare she and several others, who were washing clothes at the fountain, fell on their knees and prayed, for they were sure by the sound that it was the coach come to fetch them away.

which must be worn as thin as a cat's ear before he can be freed.1 But there are other places which lay claim to Earl Gerald, and one of them is in my own county, and has traditions differing considerably from the Kildare ones. It is a fort standing on the southern banks of the river Dee, and a few hundred yards east of the village of Ardee, marked on the Ordnance Survey as Dawson's Mount, but locally known as Garret's Fort. The people say that Garret Early2 and his men were enchanted by a man named Ameris or Awmeris, who still frequents the neighbouring fairs for the purpose of buying horses for the sleeping army. They say that this personage behaves just like an ordinary dealer, except that he never pays for a purchase in the fair, but arranges to meet the seller in some solitary place. He pays in good money.

A story of the usual type is told of a man who found his way into the fort, and almost broke the spell by drawing a sword which he found there. On another occasion a girl standing on a hill above the fort looked down and saw it wide open and the fields round covered with soldiers, all busily engaged in grooming horses and cleaning arms. Before she had time to do anything someone tapped her on the shoulder, and a voice said in her ear, "Never mind, you've seen enough." She turned round, but there was nobody there, and when she looked at the fort again it looked just the same as usual.

When the destined day does dawn Garret will rise with ten thousand men and slay all before him from the fort to the bridge of Ardee. The road between these two points will be piled high with corpses, and the river will run red with blood. But when Garret and his men reach the bridge a red-haired woman, who will be living near it in those times, will tell them that they have slain enough, and the slaughter will cease. During the fight, a miller, with two heels on one foot and six fingers on each hand, will hold Garret's horse.

In Meath, about fifteen miles from Ardee, there is a troop of cavalry enchanted in the Mote of Kilbeg. The spell can only be broken by firing a loaded gun which is in the cave. A man

1 There is a good version in Kennedy's Legendary Fictions, pp. 153-5.

got in once and saw the troopers asleep in the saddle, with their faces on their horses' necks. He half-cocked the gun, and the soldiers at once sat half up, but he was afraid to do more and went away, leaving the gun on half-cock and the men sitting half up (H. T. R.).

WHY THE PIGEON CANNOT BUILD A PROPER NEST.

ONCE upon a time the pigeon went to the crow, who was a master builder, to learn how to build a nest.

"Now," says the crow, "ye take a stick and lay it like this." "I know," says the pigeon.

"Then ye take another, and lay it like that," says the crow. "I know," says the pigeon.

"Then ye put a stick across so," says the crow.

"I know, I know," says the pigeon.

'Well, if ye know all about it," says the crow, getting angry, "ye can go and build a nest for yourself."

And from that day to this the pigeon has never learnt to build a nest (H. T. R.).

VARIOUS BELIEFS.

IF you hide a blade bone of mutton under a man's pillow, and send him to bed in a bad temper, he will dream of his future wife (Limerick).

If you eat your supper by a bonfire on Bonfire Night (Midsummer Eve) you will not want for food during the following year (E. McK., Cavan). In Kerry a lighted sod from a bonfire is thrown into a field to keep the crop from blight (D. L.).

If you put a pod with nine peas in it up over the door, the first person who enters will have the same name as your "future" (E. McK.).

BRYAN H. JONES.

BILLY BEG, TOM BEG, AND THE FAIRIES.

(Translation.)

NOT far from Dalby, Billy beg and Tom beg, two hunchback cobblers, lived together on a lonely croft. Billy beg was sharper and cleverer than Tom beg, who was always at his command. One day Billy beg gave Tom beg a staff, and quoth he:

"Tom beg, go to the mountain and fetch home the white sheep."

Tom beg took the staff and went to the mountain, but he could not find the white sheep. At last, when he was far from home and dusk was coming on, he began to think that he had best go back. The night was fine, and stars and a small crescent moon were in the sky. No sound was to be heard but the curlew's sharp whistle. Tom was hastening home, and had almost reached Glen Rushen when a grey mist gathered, and he lost his way. But it was not long before the mist cleared and Tom beg found himself in a green glen, such as he had never seen before, though he thought he knew every glen within five miles of him, for he was born and reared in the neighbourhood. He was marvelling and wondering where he could be when he heard a far-away sound drawing near to him. "Aw," said he to himself, "there are more than myself afoot on the mountains to-night; I'll have company."

The sound grew louder. First it was like the humming of bees, then like the rushing of Glen Meay waterfall, and last it was like the marching and the murmur of a crowd. It was the fairy host. Of a sudden the glen was full of fine horses and of little people riding on them, with the lights on their red caps shining like the stars above, and making the night as bright as day. There was the blowing of horns, the waving of flags, the playing of music, and the barking of many little dogs. Tom beg thought that he had never seen anything so splendid as all he saw there. In the midst of the drilling and dancing and singing one of them spied Tom, and then Tom saw