PROMPT: The supernatural played a big part in the lives of the people.

Ghosts and
fairies were as real to them as their neighbours, and this belief governed many of their
actions. (Nolan, 1997, 95) . Explore whether and/or how the realm of the fairy or
Otherworld could be used as a metaphor to explain the inexplicable, the
incomprehensible and the unutterable in the vernacular traditions of Ireland.
Every country has various different cultures, traditions and vernaculars
that vary and develop over time. In America, we had and still have
vernacular traditions relating to the Native Americans. In Ireland, the
vernacular traditions were specifically related to the supernatural back in the
1800s and 1900s. In America, Native Americans signified a way of tradition
and explanations to the citizens for rituals, land and cultures that existed
during their time of rule. In Wisconsin, many of the counties and towns are
named after Native American tribes which indicated their territory and some
came with a specific story linking the city to the tribe that once existed
there. Irelands vernacular traditions were different in that of Americas
because they were used as metaphors to explain the inexplicable, the
incomprehensible and the unutterable with the use of the ghosts, fairies and
other supernatural occurrences. In this time period of supernatural control,
the people of Ireland believed in ghosts and fairies religiously. The world has
come along way since the early 1900s. Things like mental illnesses, physical
deformities, disabilities, and deliberate acts of malice were simply
unexplainable to the world. Now, we have doctors, therapists, holistic and
alternative approaches to all these natural occurrences in our world. We have
explanations, scientific descriptions, and classifications for these things that
were once incomprehensible. The caliber and technology of the world is
miraculous, however, back in the early 1900s, the people of Ireland needed
a way to cope with these unutterable actions, experiences, and people, and
they did so with the fairies and the supernatural.
Depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, cancer, downsyndrome, cerebral palsy, serial killers, rapists, murders, adulterers: all of
these are terms, names, diseases, and medical conditions, for things in life
that are of sensitive discussion. Many of these things were not discovered
until the mid 20th century. Because of this, people needed a way to deal with
these things. What did they do if a kid had deformities, or a person never left
their house, or a child was awkward? Now a day, we can explain why some
people are more emotional than others, or why some just have no emotions
at all. We have biological explanations. People have different chemicals in
their brain and we can understand why people act the way they do. We can
predict peoples behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles. We have people trained
specifically for reading people. But what if we did not know why people kill
or why people burst out crying randomly? The Irish did not know why and
they used the supernatural to explain this. They had supernatural legends to
explain and dictate how to deal with these inexplicable occurrences. Things
such as, fairies and fairy abductions, Changlings, and the Otherworld
were all used as the Irish ways for explaining or coping with the inexplicable,

the incomprehensible and the unutterable aspects of the world. Famous Irish
people, like W.B. Yeats, wrote stories and poems relating to the Supernatural
along with Angela Bourke and Patricia Lysaght, well-known Irish Folklore
professors.
Fairies were one of the main ways the Irish used the supernatural to
explain the inexplicable, the incomprehensible and the unutterable. As
stated in Susan Eberlys article entitled, Fairies and the Folklore of Disability:
Changelings, Hybrids and the Solitary Fairy, Fairy belief arose in answer to
some of the more puzzling of lifes mysteries. (page number) Angela Bourke
and Patricia Lysaght wrote an article entitled Legends of the Supernatural
which stated their [fairies] central plot is usually an extraordinary
encounter of some kind (Lysaght, Bourke 1284). When Lysaght and Bourke
say extraordinary encounter, they are referencing some horrifying event
that was unimaginable. These events could be a loss of a loved one, a severe
emotional disorder like depression, a murder, a sickness, an abduction, etc.
Anything that was emotionally challenging typically had some explanation
from the supernatural. Lysaght and Bourke described these unexplainable
events as vast areas of grey between societys accepted ideas of black and
white (Lysaght Bourke 1285). Society did not know how to discuss or label
these grey areas, so instead they were explained by fairies and fairy
abductions. No one could explain why the old man across the street drank all
day and night. No one knew why the short kid in class was extremely sad
and would not leave the houses for days. Society did not know how to handle
these unexplainable events that are now considered medical conditions,
alcoholism and depression, but instead they provided a supernatural
reasoning for them. For example, they would label these people as away
with the fairies. (Lysaght and Bourke 1284). This could mean many things to
people. Most took it as the fairies had done something to these people to
affect their behavior. They came up with many stories, anything that would
explain why these people were not normal. No one was able to understand
or fathom why people strayed from the status quo or committed malicious
acts, so they were deemed tainted by the fairies.
Fairies were considered unpredictable, powerful, amoral and invisible
beings (1284). They would, impinge on human life at those points where it is
least amenable to social control (1284). Fairies would offer a way of freedom
for people. They offered a way out of dealing with hard times and emotional
moments in life. They also created a way to deal with ambiguity and
unknown events (1284). In the NFC one story said that it was considered a
bad omen to see fairies. (NFC 1243 242-3). If you saw them, you could die.
(NFC). Fairies were typically encountered when a person was going through
some sort of transition (Lysaght, Bourke 1284). This transition could be a
woman transitioning into a widow, children growing up, single men and any
other sort of life transition people experience. Back then, they did not know
the medical reasonings for people changing and growing up or for why
people grieved so much or why people didnt. There was no such thing as
psychiatrists to discuss peoples mental health. So instead the fairies were

the reasoning for these. They provided an imaginative freedom from the
real world (1285).
Children, infants and childbirth were typically connected with the
supernatural. This is where fairy abduction played a strong role. Lysaght and
Bourke state that fairy abduction, offers both a fantasy of escape and, in
cases of sudden infant death, accident or the formerly prevalent
tuberculosis, a consolation for the bereaved (1285). Infant mortality rates
were high during the 1800s and 1900s. The medical abilities to save kids
who were born prematurely or with a sickness were not available. There was
no incubation unit for the babies to stay in after birth. Most of the time,
births took place in the home and because of this, infants often died.
Tuberculosis was also very prevalent during the supernatural time period. We
can now catch this early and treat it with medicine or antibiotics but the
people did not know that then. The mourning families needed a reason for
these sudden deaths and they would blame them on the fairies. Fairy
abduction also existed in the childbirth process. In a story published in the
National Folklore Collection titled Childbirth & The Fairies, detailed actions
women took to protect themselves from the fairies are described(...).
Sometimes women would be taken during childbirth. To my assumption, this
would be an explanation for women dying during childbirth. Because this was
a common occurrence back then, the Irish had superstitions and they would
have to have their husbands present during birth to prevent themselves from
being taking by the fairies (NFC). These are just a few of the superstitions
that took place with childbirth. There were many more superstitions about
ways to act and to protect yourself from fairies.
Fairy abduction with children had many different connotations. Sometimes
fairies could be used to frighten the children into behaving well. Lysaght and
Bourke say the fairies, institute disciplinewarn children and adults of
dangerous thing (1285). Fairy abduction could also have been used to
explain the unexplainable, or unutterable, such as child abduction, suicide or
child molestation. A different story published in the National Folklore
Collection titled, Missing Child in Leach Leabaidh Chuimin, tells a story of a
girl around the age of twelve years old who disappeared when she was
walking to the neighbors house. They sent a search party out and heard
noises and found footprints and concluded that she must have been taking
by the fairies (NFC). Any child that disappeared was typically attributed to
fairy abduction. But, was it just to cover up the unutterable experience of
child abduction by sick and mentally ill humans? In our generation, if a child
was walking to the neighbors and never returned, the police would be
immediately called and it would be decided that the child was abducted
typically by a child molester or some mentally ill person. It was not known
why people would do such things, and they were never addressed. They
were considered unutterable experiences that were covered up by the use of
the supernatural. Whether people did not want to admit to it and discuss the
issues at hand or they just did not know what was happening, is unknown.

However, fairy abductions were definitely used to cover up the unutterable

or inexplicable.
Along with Folklore stories, there have been various poems published
about the fairies and the supernatural. W.B. Yeats wrote a poem entitled The
Stolen Child, and in the refrain shown below, the nature of enticing children
to go to the fairy world is explained:
Come away, O human child!
the waters, and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the worlds more full of weeping than you
can understand
The entire poem is luring a child to leave the mortal world and go to the fairy
world. It discuses different aspects of the world, but the main metaphor
involved in the poem is that children live in innocence but the world is not as
wonderful as it appears to children. Yeats is telling the child to escape the
pain and suffering that exists in the real world and go away to the fairy
world. This takes a slightly different approach to the reasoning for the
supernatural. Instead of having it as an excuse or a way of coping with the
unexplainable, it provides an escape from the toughness of the world. It
develops the notion that the Irish used the fairy world as an escape from the
real world and an escape from the unbearable struggles of life.
Sometimes, people were able to return from being taken by the fairies.
If they returned, this could mean various different things. Bourke and Lysaght
state that, the fact that a person taken by the fairies may sometimes be
rescued or redeemed means too that episodes of depression, alcoholism or
mental illness can later be relegated to a place outside the individuals
responsibility (1285). This could suggest that there are ways to solve these
illnesses. It could be a hint at the fact that there are medical ways to help
people who suffer from illnesses. If the fairies returned the person as a
changed human, they could have potentially been fixed. The people needed
a way or a reason to continue their beliefs of the supernatural and bringing
people back from the fairies added to their story. Maybe, it was just to
explain the inexplicable reasoning of why people disappeared for weeks or
months and then all of sudden come back. The Irish said it was the fairies.
Changelings also played a significant role in folklore. Changelings
were described as a withered child that replaced an original child (Eberly
and Schoon). Children who formed deformities or were born with disabilities
were considered monsters or cretins (Eberly and Schoon). Cretins were
described as people who were born without a physical defect but would
develop mental retardation or become physically deformed due to the
thyroid deficiency disease (Eberly and Schoon). Because of this mothers or
families would not accept their childs deformities and believed that the
fairies had switched their child out with a Changeling. The characteristics of
a Changeling would vary from story to story because they would fit the
Changeling into their childs disability or deformity. In the story entitled,
Marked out for Themselves, published in the National Folklore Collection, a

story is told about a young boy who became sick, irritable, fretful and
different. The story says, Finally it was decided by the parents in
consultation with a local wizard that the child was merely a changeling
This is an excellent example of how families had no understanding of why
their child was changing. They blamed it on the fairies. This could have been
a case where the child developed autism or some other illness that affected
the way he acted. However, back then, they had no scientific reason to
explain this. It was something that was unutterable, not correct in the world,
and it was seen as the fairies who altered this little boy. Because of the
uncertainty, the Irish women had superstitions and would avoid doing certain
things to avoid birthing a child with a disability. Eberly and Schoon said that
the way the mother thought during childbirth would influence the way the
child turned out. They also said that if the mother refused to feed a needy
neighbor, then her baby would come out with a defective mouth. Child
deformities were also associated with parents having sinned in the time of
pregnancy.
The fairies were considered to live in an Otherworld. This Otherworld
could have been used to explain the unexplainable, like heaven and hell.
Many people in Irish folklore believed in heaven and hell: the rural society
which has produced most of the oral verbal art recorded in Ireland is
overwhelmingly Catholic, with most of its members subscribing to belief in
an afterlife of heaven or hell, and deriving their morality from the Christian
God. (1284) Although, most of the world was Catholic, there were some
things that religion just could not explain. So the Irish used the fairy world or
the Otherworld to explain these incomprehensible events. When the fairies
would abduct someone, where would they go? They would go to the
Otherworld. There were many different legends and stories associated with
the Otherworld. The article entitled, The Cave of Cruchin and the
Otherworld by John Waddell explains different aspects of the Cave which is
considered to be an entrance to the Otherworld (77). There were many
different ways to access the fairy world. Typically, caves, ring forts, burial
mounds, lakes and wells were used to access the Otherworld (Cave article
87). Sometimes people would even dig a ditch or a pit to try and reach it
(87). Why did all this occur? It could be that they needed to further the
legends of the supernatural and beliefs of the fairies so their reasoning could
be justified. If the fairies abducted children, they must have another world to
go to. If the children were being replaced with Changelings, they must have
taken their real children somewhere. Or, they could have used the
Otherworld as an explanation for why caves, ring forts or lakes, existed.
They had no scientific or geological reasoning for why the caves formed, so
there must have been a supernatural reasoning for it instead.