[Guleesh and the revels of the fairies at Hallowe’en.]

Sometimes valuable information may be obtained from the fairies on Hallowe’en.  There was a young man named Guleesh in the County of Mayo.  Near his house was a rath or old fort with a fine grass bank running round it.  One Hallowe’en, when the darkness was falling, Guleesh went to the rath and stood on a gray old flag.  The night was calm and still; there was not a breath of wind stirring, nor a sound to be heard except the hum of the insects flitting past, or the whistle of the plovers, or the hoarse scream of the wild geese as they winged their way far overhead.  Above the white fog the moon rose like a knob of fire in the east, and a thousand thousand stars were twinkling in the sky.  There was a little frost in the air, the grass was white and crisp and crackled under foot.  Guleesh expected to see the fairies, but they did not come.  Hour after hour wore away, and he was just bethinking him of going home to bed, when his ear caught a sound far off coming towards him, and he knew what it was in a moment.  The sound grew louder and louder; at first it was like the beating of waves on a stony shore, then it was like the roar of a waterfall, at last it was like a mighty rushing wind in the tops of the trees, then the storm burst upon the rath, and sure enough the fairies were in it.  The rout went by so suddenly that Guleesh lost his breath; but he came to himself and listened.  The fairies were now gathered within the grassy bank of the rath, and a fine uproar they made.  But Guleesh listened with all his ears, and he heard one fairy saying to another that a magic herb grew by Guleesh’s own door, and that Guleesh had nothing to do but pluck it and boil it and give it to his sweetheart, the daughter of the King of France, and she would be well, for just then she was lying very ill.  Guleesh took the hint, and everything went as the fairy had said.  And he married the daughter of the King of France; and they had never a cark nor a care, a sickness nor a sorrow, a mishap nor a misfortune to the day of their death.[582]

[Divination resorted to in Celtic countries at Hallowe’en.]

In all Celtic countries Hallowe’en seems to have been the great season of the year for prying into the future; all kinds of divination were put in practice that night.  We read that Dathi, a king of Ireland in the fifth century, happening to be at the Druids’ Hill (Cnoc-nan-druad) in the county of Sligo one Hallowe’en, ordered his druid to forecast for him the future from that day till the next Hallowe’en should come round.  The druid passed the night on the top of the hill, and next morning made a prediction to the king which came true.[583] In Wales Hallowe’en was the weirdest of all the Teir Nos Ysbrydion, or Three Spirit Nights, when the wind, “blowing over the feet of the corpses,” bore sighs to the houses of those who were to die within the year.  People thought that if on that night they went out