Pooka!

I took part in an event called 'Breaking Bread' last December, as part of a festival called Make Belief: An evening of Winter Fictions, curated by the great Kate Strain. The festival took place in Kilkenny Castle on December 10th and featured live music, art and readings.

The Breaking Bread event was organised by Fiona Hallinan and Paddy Bresnihan. They gathered groups of people together and served them warm food at tables where two speakers would give a talk about superstition, which was the overarching theme of the festival. When Paddy asked me to give a talk about superstition in November, I froze, wondering how I would harness all my lunatic superstitions and half-cocked notions into one meaningful whole.

The Piper's Mother: Snuff connoisseur

For fear that I would have to spill my heart about the pattern-making I invent to try to understand the world, I chose instead to make an illustrated book for the event and so with a much relieved and gladdened heart, I began to research old Irish superstitions. My primary teaching head hummed happily, looking to knit together Irish heritage with storytelling. I was thrilled when I found a story about the pooka translated by Douglas Hyde from the Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta and so it took off!

Douglas Hyde

Translator of the story, Ireland's first President and moustache-grower extraordinaire!

The story is about a half-wit of a piper who is kidnapped by the Pooka and brought to the house of the Banshee (similar to a faery or witch). The pooka (or púca in Irish, meaning ghost) is a figure from Irish folklore. He is a shape-shifter who can appear as a horse, a rabbit, a dog or a goat, though he most commonly appears as a horse. The descriptions of his appearance are fairly terrifying. He is described in folktales as having a dark coat, a fiery flowing mane and glowing eyes.

Glowering Púca

The main thing to remember if you were to come upon the púca is that he goes wild when he sees a river or stream. You'd want to throw yourself off his back before he dives straight into the water or else you'd be drowned. Generally though, the pooka is a pleasant enough sort who won't do you any harm. The first of November is the Púca's day. The tradition in Ireland was for farmers to leave a corner of a field for the púca during harvesting time to try to placate him. This particular superstition continues to this day in rural Kilkenny, as an elderly man at my table told me.

I made a picture book to illustrate the story and read it to two groups at Breaking Bread. It started off lots of great conversations about old wives tales of not cutting down hawthorn trees which are known as fairy trees. There's a white hawthorn tree in Co. Offaly where the road was cut and diverges around the tree, so you come around a corner and there's an island right in the middle of the road, with rags tied onto the tree to bring good luck to the locals. Although it has the effect of looking like an upended trolley in a river bed threaded with plastic bag lacework. Gammy but still lovely.

White hawthorn

I meant to put up photos of the book a long time ago, but other projects have been nudging it out of the way, like a little runty piglet looking for milk it kept being pushed to one side. So here it is...finally! The book is enormous and is too big for the scanner so I'm afraid it's mostly photos. I've included the double page spreads first and then the story follows afterwards page by page.

The Pooka and The Piper

The Pooka and The Piper

In the old times, there was a half fool living in Dunmore, in the county Galway, and although he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to learn more than one tune, and that was the "Black Rogue." He used to get a good deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out of him.

One night the piper was coming home from a house where there had been a dance, and he half drunk. When he came to a little bridge that was up by his mother's house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing the "Black Rogue" (an rógaire dubh). The Púca came behind him, and flung him up on his own back.

There were long horns on the Púca, and the piper got a good grip of them, and then he said-- "Destruction on you, you nasty beast, let me home. I have a ten-penny piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff."

"Never mind your mother," said the Púca, "but keep your hold. If you fall, you will break your neck and your pipes." Then the Púca said to him, "Play up for me the 'Shan Van Vocht' (an t-seann-bhean bhocht)." "I don't know it," said the piper. "Never mind whether you do or you don't," said the Púca. "Play up, and I'll make you know."

The piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself wonder. "Upon my word, you're a fine music-master," says the piper then; "but tell me where you're for bringing me."

"There's a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh Patric tonight," says the Púca, "and I'm for bringing you there to play music, and, take my word, you'll get the price of your trouble." "By my word, you'll save me a journey, then," says the piper, "for Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me, because I stole the white gander from him last Martinmas."

The Púca rushed him across hills and bogs and rough places, till he brought him to the top of Croagh Patric. Then the Púca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened, and they passed in together, into a fine room. The piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of old women (cailleacha) sitting round about it.

The old woman rose up, and said, "A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you Púca of November. Who is this you have brought with you?" "The best piper in Ireland," says the Púca.

One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in the side of the wall, and what should the piper see coming out but the white gander which he had stolen from Father William. "By my conscience, then," says the piper, "myself and my mother ate every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Moy-rua (Red Mary), and it's she told the priest I stole his gander."

The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Púca said, "Play up music for these ladies." The piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Púca said to pay the piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece, and gave it to him. "By the tooth of Patrick," said he, "I'm as rich as the son of a lord."

"Come with me," says the Púca, "and I'll bring you home." They went out then, and just as he was going to ride on the Púca, the gander came up to him, and gave him a new set of pipes. The Púca was not long until he brought him to Dunmore, and he threw the piper off at the little bridge, and then he told him to go home, and says to him, "You have two things now that you never had before--you have sense and music.

The piper went home, and he knocked at his mother's door, saying, "Let me in, I'm as rich as a lord, and I'm the best piper in Ireland."

"You're drunk," said the mother. "No, indeed," says the piper, "I haven't drunk a drop." The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, "Wait now," says he, "till you hear the music, I'll play."

He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music, there came a sound as if all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He awakened the neighbours and they all were mocking him, until he put on the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after that he told them all he had gone through that night.

The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there was nothing there but the leaves of a plant.

The piper went to the priest, and told him his story, but the priest would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and then the screeching of the ganders and geese began. "Leave my sight, you thief," said the priest. But nothing would do the piper till he would put the old pipes on him to show the priest that his story was true.

He buckled on the old pipes, and he played melodious music, and from that day till the ay of his death, there was never a piper in all of Ireland.

Lemon-frosted doors

It's the most refreshing thing in the world to gallop away from the city when all you want is to run like a pack of wolves in the wilderness. My dear friends Fink and Alice and I had one such giant hooley just as January was giving up the ghost and coming to a close.

The whipping wind dance

We raced down to The Burren in County Clare for some of the most beautiful holidaying I've had in a long time. We drove like lunatics, cruising around corners to see pearly moss mountains open up before us, up so high that we landed right in the hearts of clouds, ears popping, cows lowing, gasping at trees knotted and twisted by the same cranky old prevailing wind.

Burren hound

We drove on. Lines of laundry billowing and snapping in the Atlantic winds were propped even higher with yard sticks. "Must be great drying out", we said. Daft pillar posts raced past, thrilled dogs barked at the heels of our car and then the great hillock of a lovely old badger loomed up by the side of the road, not a mark on him, soft and plump and still. Although protesting from the back seat meant we couldn't add him as a fourth passenger.

Poor badger

Maps were spreadeagled around the car and when not even they could help us we nipped into friendly looking houses and pubs to gobble up local knowledge about secret high roads and by roads. On one such occasion, we hesitated about darkening the doors of a pretty rough looking pub but the thoughts of driving around til midnight trying to hit upon the elusive Doonbeg propelled us through the lemon-frosted door.

Jig-saw-show-down

There were giants of old men inside. Huge farming men leaning at a great tilt to the counter, slouching on bar stools and generally having a cosy evening. They turned out to be very friendly and enormously helpful and while Fiona, our savvy navigator, memorised directions about roads that ran parallel to G.A.A. pitches and through fairy forts, Alice and I marvelled at an absolutely ENORMOUS jigsaw over the fireplace of a ship caught in a storm.

Lenten Jigsaw 2007

I asked one of the men at the bar about the jigsaw and he told us that during one particularly ferocious Lent, where all the men had given up drink, they would gather together in the evenings and make the jigsaw in the pub. Then when the great monstrosity was finished they got it specially framed and hung it with pride of place over the fire.

This drawing is about when Lenten jigsaw camaraderie turns stern and violent.

Each piece of the jigsaw being played out like a poker game.

skull tassles

I'll admit I went a bit bananas doing this drawing. I got stuck on patterns that day. I couldn't help myself. First the jigsaw patterns, then his daft cardigan and if you weren't feeling seasick enough...wallpaper patterns. Sorry chaps.

Lent 2005

Lent 2008

Lent 2003

Flourish

I want to tell you about a remarkable act of kindness. My friends and family have hot ears from hearing the tale told with my cheeks peach and flushed, my midlands throat trying its best to rise to a pitch that would convey the wonder of the story. To them, I send an apology and an appeal to let me tell it again. (Though let's be honest, not for the last time. Give me half a pint and any chat about cards and you'll hear it again.)

The story came up again after a visit to my aunt's house yesterday. My cousin Elaine spotted my "I love Bridge" sticker on the dash of my car (yes, on the inside. I love the sticker so much that for fear it would be stolen, I stuck it on the inside.) And so we got talking about my foray into the world of bridge.

Stumbled upon in Copenhagen by the good soul Fiona Hallinan

in a shop purely devoted to all things bridge!

In the dying days of last summer I met with my friend Michelle in a beautiful old park in Dublin to learn how to play bridge. Michelle went to an all girls school where they were taught how to play bridge in first year and then played it throughout their time at school. On Valentine's Day the boys from the boys school would come over for a bridge tournament and before the big bridge rumble the girls would go around and offer them heart shaped chocolates on little plates! Anyway, I digress. Michelle taught me the bare bones of bridge on that gloriously sunny day in the park and so we became bridge partners.

If only we could all find the time to lay aside

our guns and play cards

On my way home on the very busy train I found myself sitting beside an elderly gentleman. I'd just got off the phone to my sister, wheezing laughing at the lovely old etiquette and archaic rules of bridge, when I happened to glance at the notes he was reading. Written at the top was 'Introduction to Bridge' followed by a hundred and one different bits of Morse code to let your partner know you've got a terrible hand, are panicking and need help.

I struck up conversation and we talked bridge the whole train journey home! We poured through his notes and talked about how he would catch up on his wife, an avid bridge player, in no time at all. I told him all about my day. And when I complimented his notes, he hesitated out of politeness, and then offered to post them to me. I wrote out my address, we shook hands and exchanged names. He folded that piece of paper into the most sublime set of rectangles and then carefully put it in his pocket. We shook hands again and I stood for a brief moment waving on the platform.

Every morning I expected to see a letter but nothing came. I'd resigned myself to my address having been lost, the rectangles too small, the wind too strong or the will too faltering. Until....about a month later a package arrived in the post! I'd long forgotten the promise of post from the man on the train. Puzzled, I opened the package and out tumbled a beginner's bridge book and inside, the most beautifully written letter!

It was coming up to Christmas time so I made him this Christmas jumper card and sent it back to him. No word since. For a little while I thought we were going to be pen pals. Eventually sending each other bridge conundrums, musings on the weather and funny articles cut out from the newspaper. That would have been lovely...though with the way the price of stamps are soaring, it would have worked out to be quite a pricey friendship. I joke. I joke. The exchange was lovely. Unexpected flourishes of kindness. There's no beating them!

What's left behind

Christian Boltanski's installation in The Grand Palais, Paris

I read a really great article last Sunday about an artist called Christian Boltanski. This is a photo of his installation which is running in Paris. Yes, that is a mountain of clothes. He has made up 69 quadrants of clothes as well as the gluttonous jumble of clothes at the top of the room. As well as it being every hoarder's dream, the article gave me pause for thought about the house I'm living in at the moment. Have a look at the article here if you have the time.






Two Summers ago my two sisters and I moved into a house that belonged to our grand aunts. Our grand aunts were also three sisters who had lived together all their lives. So there was an element of a Grimm fairytale about the three of us moving in. Like a sickening game of Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush. But we were immeasurably grateful, all being broke to the ropes and giddy to have the chance to live with each other again.



We swept out the cobwebs, cut the grass, put a new lick of paint on the face of the house and a fresh load of washing out on the line.






And then..we had to address the remnants left behind. The ladies' clothes and hairbrushes, perfume bottles and letters, diaries and photographs and all the in between treasured items which were held on to preciously, wrapped up in layers and layers of old newspapers, made into wallpaper parcels.

Stacks of their silent treasure made into mountains over so many years.

It was so like our Granny's house, their sister. Their crockery, the formica table, the layout of the house, even the back garden and the carpet protector in the corridor. But particularly, the same impulse to hoard everything, even the elastic band from around a chicken's waist.

A dusty cardboard box, softened with age, would let out a sigh and an all too memorable smell when opened. Letters inside from their brother on the Missions or beautiful John Hinde postcards sent to their mother (our Great grandmother), who had also lived in the house with them.

Laura Cumming, who wrote the article about Boltanski, writes beautifully about the effect such objects can have:


...these objects and images, no matter their provenance, were inevitably powerful for the sympathetic mind can hardly help but reconstruct a life from the smallest and most trivial of relics. Pawned brooches, lost umbrellas, dogeared telephone books with their intensely intimate yet resolutely impersonal listings: your mind would rush in, imagining all these other people in other places. It did not matter that the evidence was meagre, partial, perhaps entirely specious, because the objects themselves were real, had once belonged to real livings beings. That their owners were unknown equated very precisely with the universality of the evidence – a watch, a coat – and the poignant truth that one could only mourn the unknown through an act of the imagination.