In case you missed the spooky Irish tales on October 18 in the top floor of the library at Reinhardt University, here’s a recap. The storyteller was Betsy Doty and she’s been telling Irish tales for about twenty years. When asked what her favorite story is, she replied “That would have to be Oscar Wilde’s Selfish Giant”. Although she did not share that particular favorite with the group, she did tell four very captivating stories set in perfect time for Halloween.
The first story Doty shared was the story of Mr. Fox. Although the origins of the story were unknown, she informed us the Irish “claim” the story as their own. It began with a young woman, Mary, falling in love with an older gentleman, Mr. Fox. After knowing each other for only two weeks, the two plan to wed immediately. Mr. Fox tells Mary about a castle they will move to once the wedding is over. When Mary ventures out to locate the castle, she sees written above the castle doors “Be Bold, Be Bold, But not too Bold”. Mary enters the castle and finds the same inscription over the staircase. She went up the staircase and through a gallery. When she came upon the door of a chamber she read the words, “Be Bold, Be Bold, but not too Bold, Lest that your heart’s blood should run cold”. When she opened the chamber door, she found a room full of skeletons and barrels of blood. She quickly ran, but saw Mr. Fox coming into the house dragging a woman behind him. Mary hid under the staircase and watched as Mr. Fox cut off the hand of the woman he was dragging into the house. The hand fell into Mary’s lap and she retreated back home as fast as she could. A few days later, at the couple’s wedding, Mary begins to tell the family about what she saw. Interrupting her story, Mr. Fox repeated the words, “It is not so, it was not so, and praise God it shall not be so”. When Mary gets to the end of her story, she pulls the hand from her lap to prove that her dream was in fact not a dream at all.
The second story Doty spoke of was The Witch’s Hare. Brian, a farmer, had cattle on his farm that were going dry and becoming lethargic. The pigs were also sick and his crops weren’t growing. He couldn’t understand what was happening to the animals, but decided it would be best to kill them and get all new animals and grow all new crops. When he killed the animals, he found their skin was black and full of maggots. Meanwhile, Brian’s wife saw an old hag walking down the road and invited her into their house. When the old hag saw what was happening to their farm, she asked for one silver sixpence to find the problem. Brian followed her instructions and took 2 pit-bulls and 2 greyhounds with him to hunt the witch that cast the spell on his farm. They search all night and as daylight was approaching, they located a jack rabbit sucking milk from his cows. They chased the jack rabbit through the woods and all the way into the neighbor’s, Rachel Higgins, yard. Just as the hare was diving into safety, one of the dogs took a giant bite out of its rear. When Brian walked into the house, he saw blood leading up to the bedroom and inside the bedroom door was Rachel Higgins resting in bed with a piece of her back missing.
The third story was a group story about Munachar and Manachar. Doty wanted to the crowd to get involved with speaking the lines with her and using the same hand gestures. One student in the front row immediately began imitating the story with Doty, and by the end everyone was following along. This story was meant more for group interaction that to be a scary one.
And last but not least was the story of the Banshee. The Banshee travels in the night searching for a lost soul to take with her to the underworld. She flew by a nursery and found a baby sleeping in a crib. She has to leave the child alone, and moves onto the next victim. She comes up on a blacksmith closing his shop down and is about to take his spirit when a cat wraps itself around the blacksmith’s leg. The Banshee is once again forced to leave. After traveling all night, the Banshee has to return to the underworld empty-handed as she has found no evil and the sun will soon rise.
Betsy Doty had four great stories to share with Reinhardt students. She had amazing passion and presence in front of the group and told the stories with characterization. She stood and walked around the room using hand gestures to show depth behind the tales. She had blood-curdling screams that echoed through the top floor of the library, and used different voices for the evil characters. If you missed her this time around, she will be back in the spring to share more of her Irish tales.
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