Bob Curran

It is not, of course, an exhaustive guide, and deliberately so, because I am reminded of a warning given to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats by the Queen of Fairies, through a Dublin medium. [...] "Be careful, and do not seek to know too much about us!"

Fairies can be willful and capricious creatures, easily offended and quick to anger. They are often spiteful and jealous of mankind, which enjoys a special relationship with God which they cannot. Nevertheless, they can also be good-hearted and merry and many accounts assert the beauty of their music and their love of sport and revelry.

One of the best known supernatural figures in Ireland is the banshee, the restless spirit which follows those Irish families with pure Celtic blood in their veins and warns them of death with her wailing keen.

Il ya un endroit dans la paroisse de Errigal à Derry, appelé Slaghtaverty, mais il aurait dû être appelé Laghtaverty, le monument funéraire de laght ou l'abhartach [avartagh] ou nain . Ce nain était un magicien, et un tyran terrible, et après avoir commis de grandes cruautés sur les gens , il est enfin vaincu et tué par un chef voisin; certains disent par Fionn Mac Cumhail. Il a été enterré dans une posture debout, mais le lendemain il est apparu dans ses vieux repaires, plus cruel et plus vigoureux que jamais. Et le chef lui tua une deuxième fois et l'a enterré comme avant, mais encore une fois il s'est échappé de la tombe, et répandit la terreur dans tout le pays. Le chef a alors consulté un druide, et selon ses instructions, il tua le nain une troisième fois, et l'enterrèrent dans le même lieu, avec la tête en bas; cela subjugua son pouvoir magique, de sorte qu'il ne reparut plus sur la terre.

«Abhartach n'est pas vraiment vivant», dit-on a CATHAN chargé de le tuer «Grâce à ses arts diaboliques, il est devenu l'un des neamh-mhairbh [morts-vivants]. En outre, il est un dearg-dililat, un buveur de sang humain. Il ne peut pas réellement être tué, mais il peut être retenue. " on a ensuite procédé à donner des instructions à CATHAN sur la façon de «suspendre» la créature vampirique. Abhartach doit être tué par l'épée fabriqués à partir de bois d'if et doit être enterré à l'envers dans la terre, des épines et des brindilles de cendres doit être saupoudré autour de lui et une lourde pierre doit être placée directement au-dessus de lui. Si la pierre levée, cependant, le vampire serait libre de marcher sur la terre une fois de plus.

She [the banshee] has also appeared in a variety of other forms, such as that of a hooded crow, stoat, hare and weasel. All these animals are associated with witchcraft and give the banshee a sinister magical aspect.

Being a creature of mist and fog, the Grey Man sustains himself on the smoke from the chimneys of houses. For this reason, he is one of the few fairies that will venture close to large towns or cities, where he can be just as troublesome as in the country or the scattered communities along the seashore. […]
The Grey Man delights in the loss of human life and may use his misty cloak to deadly effect.

In some counties [the Sheerie] are considered to be infallible harbingers of ill omen, their very presence portending ill luck and even death to anyone who sees them. Their source of amusement is, by sorcery, to lead astray those who venture out after dark and cause them to wander aimlessly all over the countryside until the sheerie choose to release them from the spell.

The sheerie is one of the most unusual and potentially the most dangerous of all Irish fairies. Sheerie [...] are strange, phosphorescent creatures who combine elements of both human and fairy nature. [...]
They are believed to be the souls of unbaptised children (probably those who died at birth) trying to return to the mortal world.

Many coastal dwellers have taken merrows as lovers and a number of famous Irish families claim their descent from such unions, notably the O'Flaherty and O'Sullivan families of Kerry and the MacNamaras of Clare. The Irish poet W.B.Yeats reported a further case in his "Irish Fairy and Folk Tales" : "Near Bantry in the last century, there is said to have been a woman, covered in scales like a fish, who was descended from such a marriage."