Irish Folk Tales of Coast and Sea (eBook)

PROVINCE OF CONNACHT

County Leitrim

THE EARL’S SON OF THE SEA

Beautiful, gently rugged and still difficult to get to, the County Leitrim coastline measures less than 3 miles long. Unsurprisingly, the county does not have a wealth of coastal folklore. However, in Bampton Hunt’s book, Folktales of Breffny (Macmillan, 1912) there is an unusual story entitled ‘The Earl’s Son of the Sea’.

The medieval Irish Kingdom of Bréifne corresponds, more or less, to what is now the counties of Leitrim and Cavan. In the absence of any recognisable geographical coastal feature (Hunt merely refers to the ‘west coast’), it may be tenuous to attribute this story to Leitrim’s short coastline. Nevertheless, this is the only place where Bréifne/County Leitrim meets the sea and therefore, risking error, I have allowed the connection.

I have largely kept faith with the essence of the version published but with significant revision of Hunt’s archaic language.

Long many years ago, the daughter of a local fisherman was wandering along the shore a good distance from her own dwelling. She heard the tinkling of beautiful music drifting on the wind and, her curiosity aroused, she followed the sound. On flat rocks jutting out into the sea, she saw someone playing a harp.

The stranger was a most handsome young man with a great mane of yellow hair. Wooed by his delicate touch on the harp and his half-naked body, the fisherman’s daughter watched him for a time. Knowing the lie of the coast well and the habits of the sea, she called to him.

‘Watch you don’t be caught by the tide. The waters rise fast here. Those rocks you’re on will be cut off before you know it.’

‘And who might you be?’ asked the young man, not pausing from his playing or even looking up at the fisherman’s daughter.

‘My name is Briege McLoughlin,’ she said. ‘I live along the shore here.’

‘And do you know who I am Briege?’

‘I do not,’ she said. ‘How could I, sure I never laid eyes on you before, but you’re a stranger for ye don’t know the danger you’re in. Come away out of that before you’re drowned.’

‘A stranger! Maybe I sat here on these rocks before you were born, Briege.’

‘I doubt that,’ said she with a laugh, ‘sure you’re not much older than me if at all, so quit your oul fool talk and come away out of that.’

‘You’re a charming and kind girl Briege. I am minded to please you. Go on away up yourself and I’ll play you a tune.’

Well, Briege climbed up above the shoreline thinking her strange young suitor was close behind, but when she reached the top and looked back wasn’t he still sitting on the rocks below.

‘You’ll be drowned now, please come away out of that.’

‘Ah Briege, don’t you fret for me.’

And with that the young man began to play his harp again. The music was so beautiful and haunting that tears suddenly sprung to Briege’s eyes, and she began to weep inconsolably. When she wiped the tears away and looked again, the young man was gone. A great swirling white wave surged up over the rocks and all disappeared from view.

All the way home Briege wept and lamented the loss of the young man. ‘Poor, poor soul,’ she said to herself over and over, ‘such a handsome young fella and now he has gone and taken his own life.’

Briege told her parents all she had seen but never a sign of a body or anything was washed up on the shore. The people began whispering about the Good People (The Faeries) who were banished from heaven, and how some fell into the sea and became the merfolk. They talked about how these spiteful creatures lured ships and sailors to their doom. And Briege began to wonder.

Not long after, Briege was walking along the same shore again. Her thoughts drifted to the young man and the day he had given himself over to the sea. Then she heard the strange harp music again and followed the sound. Sure enough, didn’t she come upon the young man once more.

‘I doubt,’ said Briege, ‘the people are right. You are not of this world.’

‘Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong,’ said he, without pausing or looking up. ‘The last day I made you weep with my playing. Today I will make your heart leap for joy.’

And with that the young man broke into the liveliest jig. It was so delightful Briege could not keep her feet still and she began to dance about and laugh. Round and round she went and when the tune had finished Briege was out of breath and she was in the best of good humour.

‘Ye have a poor kind of life here on land,’ said the young man, ‘always toiling and never enough.’

‘True, it is a hard and be times an unhappy life for a fisherman, and far worse still for a fisherman’s wife,’ said Briege.

‘Why not come away with me then,’ said he, ‘for I have great wealth and power at my command. I will build you a fine castle on a rock in the sea. You shall have fine dresses of silk and satin, and all the pearls and jewellery you desire. Marry me now and quit this miserable life on land.’

‘And jump from the frying pan into the fire!’ Briege laughed. ‘It would be a lonely life at sea and nothing at all to look at but the waves over me, and maybe a passing bird or a ship.’

‘But I am the Earl’s Son of the Sea, I have the power to grant you all you wish for.’

‘Oh, you are not of this world,’ said Briege. ‘A handsome young man you may appear to me now, but a marriage to the sea would be no marriage at all. No sir, I will wed a poor fisherman and be content with my life.’

‘So be it you foolish girl,’ roared the Earl’s Son of the Sea and a terrible wind began to rise. ‘Be warned, let not your man ever sail upon the waves of the ocean for if he does, I will make a wreck of his ship and leave him dead on the shore.’

With that he leapt from the rocks into the sea and the waves churned and swirled about him. In an instant, the sky turned a heavy purple and grey and the heavens opened. As the waves and spray crashed up over the shore, Briege ran home to her parents.

Years passed and Briege never saw the Earl’s Son of the Sea again nor heard a single note of his enchanting harp music. After a while, she seldom thought about the strange episode at all. She never did marry a poor fisherman but instead was courted by a farmer’s son who lived well inland. In time they married and though it was hard work being a farmer’s wife Briege was content enough.

But not so her husband. He was always hungry for more and yearned for a better life. He had heard stories about the New World and how a man might prosper in the Land of the Free. He and Briege had many hot words about it, but at last he won her over. They sold what little they had to pay for their passage and set sail for America.

The coast of Ireland was not far behind them when their ship met a sudden great storm. The wind became a howling gale and a wave ten times higher than the main mast rose up and crashed down over the deck. The ship was smashed to smithereens and almost all on board perished in an instant. Only Briege survived. As she sank beneath the raging tempest, she looked up to see a great castle on a rock arise before her eyes. Then the Earl’s Son of the Sea came past as if riding on a breaking wave. He snatched Briege up by the hair of her head and dragged her off to the castle.

Every day Briege spent in that cold grey fortress was like 100 years. She took no pleasure in the fine dresses of silk and satin and the pearl jewellery the Earl’s Son of the Sea brought to her. Never another soul did she see but whales and fishes and gulls passing by and all the while she lamented her lonely existence.

Seven long years Briege looked out into the ocean longing for someone or something to come and save her. One day a ship came into view. Briege hoisted a white flag above the waves and prayed they might see her. The ship hove to and lowered a small boat. Slowly it came towards Briege and who should be in it but her own brother, Michael.

‘Is it really you Briege?’ said he, for he barely recognised his sister so old and haggard had she become. She threw her arms around her brother and wept bitterly.

‘It is Michael. My prayers have been answered. You have come to save me.’

‘We heard about your ship Briege,’ said he, ‘but never dreamed you or anyone might have survived. How have ye endured out here all these years?’

‘I have walked the halls of this castle built for me by the Earl’s Son of the Sea, but fine as it is I long for my own bed for this is a cold and lonely place.’

‘Castle? Your poor eyes have been deceived, Briege. All I see is a desolate cave in a rock covered in green weed.’

Well, Briege told Michael the whole story and in him grew a great fear that the Earl’s Son of the Sea might return and wreak revenge on his ship.

‘I must go Briege,’ said he, ‘but I will return with an image to leave in your stead that we might get away from this place before we are discovered.’

Michael returned to Ireland and there he had an image carved – the dead spit of his sister. As promised, he returned but this...