Never take mushrooms from a fairy ring.
One of the things that really annoys me about living in Ireland is all the feckin’ fairy folk. Anyone would think they owned the place the way they take over at times. I nearly ran over a gang of them tonight on my bike.
They are contrary little gits. If you cross them the wrong way they are liable to curse you something rotten. It may sound funny but it’s no picnic to find maggots in your sandwich and thorns in your bed. And those are the mild curses.
I knew a guy who fell asleep in the wrong ditch, and woke up ten years later. He felt like a right eejit. All his friends had grown up and left him behind.
I suppose they are good for the tourist trade, the Americans seem to like them. Europeans are more wary. They have bad experiences with Gnomes and such like over in France and Germany so they keep their distance.
The worst is around this time of year when they start gearing up for the St Patrick’s Festival. The shower of heathens don’t even belong to the Catholic Church, and they have turned St Patrick’s Day into a festival of debauchery and drunkenness. Still, they are some men for a party. They go straight from fox hunting in January to Trooping in February, preparing for the big day out at the parade. There was a five car collision on the M50 yesterday at dawn because some driver was rubbernecking at trooping Fairy Folk.
The Fairies ; by William Allingham
Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n’t go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather.
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n’t go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather.
