On Hill of the Fairies

[If you would like a tune while you read this post, try this version of O'Carolan's "King of the Fairies."]

You can find "fairy hills" under various names all over Ireland. Sion Mills, a town near us just over the border means "Mill of the Fairy Mound." There's Sheean (Sián) in Mayo and Red Fairy Hill (Shru) in Westmeath.

Some of them are the sites of bronze age ring forts, like Knocknashee in Sligo.  (Knock, Cnoc = hill) (Sí, Shee = means the good people.)

A fairy hill in Leitrim is the inspiration of O'Carolan's tune. Though marred by an illuminated cross, according to Megalithomania there are three impressive passage tombs. It's also crowned by hawthorns, which are often called "fairy trees." 

In the Schools Collection of Irish Folklore you can read old tales of fairy hills all over the island. Sometimes they are topped with ring forts or tunnels. Many stories warn against sleeping on a fairy hill or disturbing the stones or paths. 

A farm in Leitrim contained a fairy hill, and Josie Murphy collected this description from her mother: 

We reside in a farm in Townaleck. It consists of thirty six acres of land meadow and grazing land. From the meadow we get hay which feeds the live stock we rear on the farm.

Part of the land is moss and the land nearby the lake is sandy which crops of potatoes can be raised on in abundance and it is land that is easily tilled. The animals we keep on the farm are four milk cows which supply us with milk, two heifers and a donkey. Most of the land is level especially the meadow land, but the pasture land is hilly and is overgrown with rushes and part of it with heather. The fields are built around with fences made by clay and stones. Then the fields are named in order that we may distinguish them.


One of them is known as the "fairy hill" a small green hill without rush or stone on it. It was supposed that this was the meeting place at night for the fairies. This field is of a very peculiar shape. It resembles in shape a bowl. Nothing ever grew on this hill only short blades of grass, and the old people used to say that foot prints and paths were to be seen in the morning, but the fairies were never seen only a few neighbouring men who one of them related to me this tale concerning the fairies who "played their pins on this little hillock many years ago."


One night when returning late from card playing, taking a rear-way home, as it being late in the night travelling nearby the little hillock, the gay laughter rang out. He stood stock still and with a prayer on his lips looked all around him in the direction from whence the cheery giggle sang and owing to an echo being in the hillock it seemed to him as if children were out playing.


After some time he looked at this ancient little spot and a tiny dancing party was visible. This was an exciting thing for the man and he spent the remainder of his night admiring the little objects in their green and gold uniforms. At last the man got tired of watching this picturesque sight and left his watching spot and decided to go up and catch a little fairy. The bright moon was shining and as the man softly stepped forward his shadow came to the place before him and at once the musician ceased playing and the dancing party vanished in a flash, and the man declares his tale is true. His name is Pat Mc Guire of Drungan, who lives in the next townland to us who told it.

There are two small fields known as "Pullan of the Shiodhs"[?]. There is the remains of an old forth in our farm, but many years ago my forefathers cut it away. It was superstition among the old people, that anyone who cut a tree in this fort something would happen to them. The fairies asserted a sort of claim over the place and one day a poor man being short of fire-wood went into this fort and cut a tree, and when cutting the tree he got a stab of a thorn in his finger, but thought this would not signify. After a few days the finger got worse and turned to poison and had to be cut off. The neighbours said on this occasion the fairies magic proved true. There are other field that tales are told about but at the present day I cannot relate. [link]

Here's a tale from Galway: 

In Errislannon once there was a hill called Fairy Hill. One night a lot of people were telling stories around a fire in a house. This old man listened very carefully. So he heard a story of a stone with gold under it on top of Fairy hill. The old man knew the stone very well and he went to get it the next day. As he went to lift the stone he got a cut on the hand, so a few days after he died. About a year after four men went up to the rock to get the gold so they heard a voice saying "Don't move me." Then one of the men said "I will get the gold," and as he went to lift the rock he fell dead. No one ever went near the rock, only a cow and the rock cut her on the leg and she died. It is said a big tree grew up over the rock and it was very big but no leaves ever grew on it. [link]

There's a Fairymont in Roscommon next to Lisacurkia, the townland from where my O'Callaghan great-grandparents emigrated.

There is a fort at the back of our garden in Fairymount and it consists of large white thorn and black thorn bushes. It is opposite another fort in Eden, it is a round shape and you can enter into it between the bushes. In olden times there were fairies in the fort and the old people used to see them kick football on bright nights in the field joined to it. There used to be an old woman with long teeth seen in the fort combing her hair. The middle of the fort is full with old rock. It is said it was the Danes that made the first fort. It is said that there was wolves in Ireland and the Danes used put their sheep into the fort for safety.

There is situated in the village of Fairymount a place called the "Giant's Bed." It is said by the old people that a giant lived in that village long ago, and that the tracks of his enormous feet are still plainly visible in the cave where he lived.
It is told also that when the giant went out anywhere, he used to carry in his hands large stones. He was so tall and strong that when he threw the stones on the ground, they would sink many feet into the earth. This is the reason that when men are cutting turf, they find many large stones buried into the ground, placed there by the forgotten giant. [link]


The old people often tell stories of imaginary people who it is believed lived in the country over a thousand years ago. It is believed that long ago a giant lived in a cave on the hill of Fairymount. One day he got angry and he grabbed at a piece of soil, intending to fire it at his enemy. He pegged it with all his strength and when it fell to the ground it had travelled three miles. It dropped in a field in Cloonarrow, a village in the parish of Fairymount, Co. Roscommon. It is believed that the giant's handful of soil was so big that it made a large mound. Although this is only a story old people partly believe in it and they repeat it time and again to children as they sit round their homely turf fires on Wintry nights. [link]

The Schools collections includes tales of Donegal's fairy hills.  

Some people built a house in Glenburn near Cnockglass with stones quarried from a "gentle knoll" (fairy hill). Afterwards fairy lights were seen in the mounds around the house. Every child born in the house afterward had some defect mentally or physically. Hare lip was one peculiar affliction.
[link]

There is a woman who lives beside us, and whose name is Cassie Doherty. One day, she picked bluebells in a fairy hill, and she broke some of the stalks. She went to bed that night, but in the morning there was not an any hair on here head. Its grew again, but it was never the same colour afterwards. link

We have a Crockshee on Hornhead near us. I've not yet heard any tales about it. 

I have seen it from the Hornhead road; you can see its round top poking above the hills left of center. I've heard you can hike up it, without incident, but until last week when I took I "wrong" turn, I didn't know how to get to the trailhead. 

We had a visitor a few days ago, and I decided hiking up Crockshee would be a suitable adventure for us, despite the rain and wind. 



It was super windy, but not too wet. The slope of the hill is about 70 degrees, which means crawling up holding on to the heather. 



View from the top. Tory Island sort of visible. 


View to the west. Somewhere in that valley are the antiquities mentioned below in the Megalithomania article about this place. 

Sunday, 13th March 2005It was here that I met a very knowledgeable farmer who told me a lot about the surrounding valley and its antiquities. I'll mention the ones I didn't manage to find here before talking about this monument. In the valley below there is a good fullacht fia. Above that is a very prominent hill with an artificial flat top known as Cashel Mor, which has a hill fort on its top. To the west of the valley is a very round-topped hill that really does stand out amongst its neighbours called Crockshee - The Hill of the Fairies. The slopes around the tomb are covered in mini-cairns, prehistoric walls and enclosures. There is also an odd structure at the top of the hill that consists of an oval enclosure with a dividing wall two-thirds of the way along it. At the base of Crockshee there is a structure known locally as The Druids' Altar. This was described to me as being a flat stone set upon several others, so it maybe a cist or a collapsed tomb.[link]

I hoped I might see a path to the "Druid's Altar" from the top, but didn't. Maybe another day when the weather is better. 

The wind nearly flipped me off the hill, so I walked down the leeward side. While heather covers the slopes, the top of the hill is a fine green grass. I asked my visitor if he'd like to have some quiet time and I lay down in a grassy hollow... I imagined I was in a round house with a fire in the middle, the kind of house Irish people lived in long ago. An old woman sang me a song. I neither ate nor drank, nor did I enter into any bargains. Just a nice friendly visit. 


View to the south with a cloudy Muckish, New Lake, and Tramore. 

Then we were ready to leave. We walked back to the car via a different route, on an old road that we saw from the top of the hill. 

We passed this old wall, and this white lump of marble caught my eye. 




It was then we saw this tall stone structure on the horizon. 

Maybe this was what they described in the Megolithomania site? 

You can see it too, right? 

We walked up the slope, then suddenly we were at the top, in only ten steps. The tall stones we saw from the bottom of the slope were only wee, not even up to our knees. 

What just happened? A trick of perspective, or were we smaller at the bottom of the hill near the marble stone and grew to our full height as we left it? 


No way to know for certain. But it gave me a laugh.