Rain and Boggarts

We are once again getting drenched with rain that pours straight down in sheets. It reminds me of those rain showerheads that are so popular these days. Everywhere is mud, and puddles and impromptu streams. We are not even letting the chickens out today since we don't have hipwaders for them.

I am comfortable as can be, however, thanks to the new roof we had put on a couple years ago. The gas fires are keeping the house warm, the lamps keep it cozy, and I have stacks of books I am working through as I develop my stories for the upcoming Celtic programs.

I am discovering such fun stuff in my research, too. Exploring the Irish fairies (the Sidhe, pronounced shee), and boggarts and bogles and black dogs and more. Here is one story I love, and plan to tell during the program. I won't even attempt dialect or accent, however; it's far too easy to mess those up, as we all know from bogus accents in Hollywood films.

THE BOGGART

IN the house of an honest farmer in Yorkshire, named George Gilbertson, a Boggart had taken up his abode. He here caused a good deal of annoyance, especially by tormenting the children in various ways. Sometimes their bread and butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and milk be capsized by an invisible hand; for the Boggart never let himself be seen; at other times, the curtains of their beds would be shaken backwards and forwards, or a heavy weight would press on and nearly suffocate them. The parents had often, on hearing their cries, to fly to their aid. There was a kind, of closet, formed by a wooden partition on the kitchen-stairs, and a large knot having been driven out of one of the deal-boards of which it was made, there remained a hole. [a] Into this one day the farmer's youngest boy stuck the shoe-horn with which he was amusing himself when immediately it was thrown out again, and struck the boy on the head. The agent was of course the Boggart, and it soon became their sport (which they called larking [b] with Boggart) to put the shoe-horn into the hole and have it shot back at them.

The Boggart at length proved such a torment that the farmer and his wife resolved to quit the house and let him have it all to himself. This was put into execution, and the farmer and his family were following the last loads of furniture, when a neighbour named John Marshall came up--"Well, Georgey," said he, "and soa you 're leaving t'ould hoose at last? "--" Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I 'm forced tull it; for that damned Boggart torments us soa, we can neither rest neet nor day for't. It seems loike to have such a malice again t'poor bairns, it ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on't, and soa, ye see, we're forced to flitt loike." He scarce had uttered the words when a voice from a deep upright churn cried out, "Aye, aye, Georgey, we're flitting ye see."--" Od damn thee," cried the poor farmer, "if I d known thou'd been there, I wadn't ha' stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it 's no use, Mally," turning to his wife, "we may as weel turn back again to t'ould hoose as be tormented in another that's not so convenient." From The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative  of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries by Thomas Keightley,1870.

What does a boggart look like? There seem to many ideas on that. Here's an illustration from a book of Lancashire tales, where the above story supposedly took place:




Off I go, back to the books and more fun and research.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.