Sites along Antrim Coast Road - from 'Traveller in the Glens'

The ‘Sliding Village’

Straidkilly is supposed to have been the actual scene wherein was laid the first folk-tale about a human midwife for a fairy birth. Several anachronisms appear to have been introduced, but allowing for the fact that it has been passed down by oral tradition from the earliest times, and differs little in material particulars from the Scandinavian folk tale, the story should be interesting.

Here it is: A certain woman, living in Glenarm Glen, had a wide reputation as a most successful midwife. One night, just as she was preparing for bed, she heard an urgent knocking at her door. Such knocks usually portended a call for her services, so she made haste to open and saw in the dim illumination that came from her rushlight a small figure about three feet or so high, dressed in driving clothes, and bearing a large whip.

‘What is it?’ she asked, looking at what she thought was a dwarf.
‘Come, my good woman!’ said the wee man, ‘your services are needed and I have a coach waiting.’
‘Where have I to go?’ queried the midwife.
‘Don’t bother yourself about that!’ answered the man impatiently. ‘I tell you to hurry and you will be well paid.’

She did hurry, and when she was entering the vehicle she noticed that the doorway expanded to admit her, contracting after she had taken her seat, so that although she had plenty of room to sit comfortably, yet she felt she was imprisoned. Only after what seemed a short drive the horses stopped, the driver dismounted and produced a piece of cloth with which he asked permission to blindfold her. She was puzzled and even a bit alarmed by this request, but knowing that the midwife or the doctor were two people to whom violence was never offered, she submitted. Taking her hand, her guide then led her into what seemed to be a cavern, judging by the drops of water that could be heard falling on either hand. At last he stopped, removing the mask, and she found herself at the entrance to a lovely miniature castle whose many windows were blazing with light, though not a sound, except from one room, disturbed the stillness. To this room she was conducted. Several hours later, after the safe arrival of a little boy, when the midwife had time to look around, she found that she was in a building whose every item showed that its tenants were fairies! Her patient was only between two and three feet high, though beautifully proportioned, and the baby was the smallest wee morsel she had ever seen. She thought of going home again but when she went towards the outer door she found her way politely but firmly barred by two small doorkeepers who crossed the lances they carried as a stop sign.

One of them rang a bell and the driver of the previous night appeared and asked what was wrong. She explained that she wanted to have a run home, as she had chickens, a cow and a goat to see to.

‘They are all being looked after,’ he answered. ‘But you must stay here for a couple of weeks until the Queen is up and about again.’

She was afraid to object to this order but on one point she was firm. Food must be brought to her from outside, not fairy food! (Anyone who eats food offered by fairies can be detained indefinitely by them, but if this is refused and ordinary human diet demanded, the fairies must supply it.) To this the wee people agreed and she was served with the best of eatables and drinkables during her stay. A couple of days before the time set for her return home, she was bathing the baby, and anointing its head with some stuff supplied to her for the purpose, when her right eye started to itch. She put her hand up to rub it and in doing so a little of the ointment from her hand entered her eye. Immediately she found herself back at home! That it wasn’t only a dream was proved by the fact that her neighbours asked her where she had spent the past fortnight, and also whether the lovely dumb girl who had looked after the place in her absence was a relation. When she went to her bedroom, she found a large, golden-meshed purse lying on her pillow, full of golden coins and, when she went to the byre to milk, her surprise was great at seeing two cows instead of one and two goats tied to rings at the opposite wall! The unusually loud cackling from the henhouse led her there to investigate and she found that the number of her hens was exactly double what it used to be!

On her return to the house she happened to look at the dresser – and there was a row of bowls, each full of eggs. The fairies had certainly kept their promise to repay her for her services, but one thing that puzzled her greatly was the connection the rubbing of her eye could have with the sudden termination of her fairyland visit. Being of an easy-going nature she didn’t let these strange happenings worry her, and took advantage of her new prosperity to visit Glenarm on a shopping expedition. Walking into a shop where she intended to make some purchases, she was surprised to see a couple of wee people, with baskets over their arms, busy stuffing things from the counters into them, though the shopkeeper himself was in his kitchen and did not seem to know anything of the presence of his unorthodox customers.

‘You surely aren’t stealing those things?’ she asked them, and at once the nearest one dropped his basket and confronted her.
‘Can you see us?’ he asked.
‘Certainly,’ said she.
‘With both eyes?’ he queried.
She put her hand over each eye in turn.
‘No, only with the right eye,’ she replied.

‘Lucky for you!’ said the wee man and with that he swung at her such a blow that she was ever afterwards blind of that eye! To make matters worse, when she had the eye dressed and got home only one cow, one goat and the former number of hens were there, while on the table was a piece of paper with these words on it: “When a blind eye sees again, your gold shall be found again in Straidkilly”, and sure enough all the gold had disappeared except what was in her pocket – amounting to exactly what she usually received for her fee! Some day a person whose sight has been restored by some means or other will find the fairy gold in Straidkilly, if the story be true.