Ghosts and Monsters!
The Thevshi (Irish: taidhbhse), or Tash (Irish: tais), live in a
state between this life and the next. They are held there by some earthly
longing or affection, or some dusty unfulfilled, or an anger against the
living. Those who die suddenly are believed to become haunting ghosts. They
move the furniture, and try in every way to attract attention.
When the soul leaves the body, it's sometimes drawn away by the fairies. Such
should are considered lost. If it eludes the fairies, it might be snatched away
by the evil spirits. The weak souls of young children are in especial danger.
When a very young child dies, a sprinkling of chicken blood on the threshold is
believed to draw the spirits away.
A ghost is compelled to obey the commands of the living, but only someone they
have wronged. Sometimes the souls take the shape of animals. On November Eve,
the dead are aboard, dancing with the fairies.
If you see the fetch, or double, of a friend in the morning, no ill will follow
that person. But if it's at night, s/he is about to die.
The ships at the Sligo Guays are haunted sometimes by a spirit that announces his
presence by a sound like the flinging of all "the tin porringers in the world"
down into the hold, and even follows the ships to sea.
Some monsters include the Augh-iska ("Water-horse"), and Payshtla (Irish:
Piast-bestia), the lake-dragon. These are not known to be animals,
fairies, or spirits.
The Demon Bride!
The churchyard of Truagh, in County Morghan, is haunted by an evil spirit, whose
appearance generally forebodes death.
At funerals, the spirit watches for the last person to remain in the graveyard,
if it is a young man, it takes on the form of a beautiful young girl, who
inspires him with passion and exacts a promise the he will meet her on that day
and month in the churchyard. She seals the promise with a kiss that sends a
fatal fire through his veins, so that he is unable to resist her caresses, and
agrees to the promise. She then disappears, and the young man turns home. But
as soon as he leaves the boundary wall of the churchyard, the whole story of the
evil spirit rushes into his mind, and he knows that he has sold himself his body
and soul, for a demon's kiss. Terror and dismay take ahold of him, 'til despair
becomes insanity, and on the very day and month that has been fixed for his
meeting with the demon bride, he dies the death of a raving lunatic, and is laid
in the fatal graveyard of Truagh.
The evil spirit doesn't limit itself to just the graveyard; sometimes the
beautiful demon form appears at weddings or festivals, and never fails to secure
her victims by dancing them into the fever that maddens their brains, and too
surely ends in their death.
