Something Sherry said in a comment over at her post about Claddagh rings about having learned her family came from County Clare reminded me that in genealogical research Willard did for me in the past year (have I ever mentioned that Willard's a licensed genealogist?) we learned that Mom's family originally came from County Clare. The earliest ancestor we could find boasted the curious first name Malachy; he left Ireland circa 1680 and made his way to Scotland. It was from there that her family gradually made their way to the New World; there were already ancestors of ours in what is now East Tennessee by the time of the so-called Lost State of Franklin, an attempt to secede from the state of North Carolina and form a new state headed by John Sevier (1785-1790).

To get back to County Clare, though, it has some of Ireland's most dramatic coastline, most famously the Cliffs of Moher.



In Irish Gaelic, the cliffs are called Aillte an Mhothair, the Cliffs of the Ruin. The rock of which they are composed are, at their bottom levels, as much as three hundred million years old.

In the fog they loom up out of the sea like sentinels, stern frowning guards.

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Would love to go on, but the Princess is here--and she's not very interested in Ireland. Later--and fair thee well!!

Since Willard has to work on St. Patrick's Day, she and I got together a day or two early to celebrate our Irishness. We had no plans--other than checking in on our psychic friend, Madame Sadie. Neither of us had seen her since her return from her trip across the pond. We gathered, from some hints Aunt Ornery had let slip, that Madame's trip had not been a success; Auntie, unfortunately, would give us no particulars. She'd just shake her head and grumble about "that old bat" and something to do with watered-down cherry bark cough syrup.

We hopped into Willard's SUV and rode down the creek, bouncing plans for later off each other. We'd turned onto the lane to go up the holler when--eeeEEE-KKKKK!--Willard slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding making mud out of a short man, dressed head to foot in green, who leaped into the middle of the road, waving his arms wildly and shouting loud enough to wake the dead.



Willard shoved the SUV into park and we both flung ourselves out, ready to hang the little twerp up by his suspenders, when up behind him loomed the most terrifying apparition I ever hope to see in my life: Madame Sadie, wearing nothing but her possum skin bikini and a pair of bright green Chuck Taylors, flailing the air with a pink butterfly net. It was evident that she was chasing the leprechaun--as I now realized the little man was--and, if she hadn't been drunk as a skunk, would have caught him long before now.

The little man had sized Willard and me up and realized we're Irish hillbillies--her hair's flaming red (this week) and me--well. . .Willard dove forward just in time to keep Madame from dropping the butterfly net neatly over his head, and he shrieked at me, in an accent more Brooklynese than Dublinese, "Mistress Fairweather! Mistress Fairweather! Sanctuary! SANK-CHEW-AIRY!!!"

I didn't hesitate. I ran back to the SUV, dove across the armrest into the driver's seat, and, with the little man clinging desperately to the passenger's side rear-view mirror, reversed and made a turn that would have made a Hollywood stunt driver weep with pride. As I put it in drive and took off I roared over my shoulder at Willard, "Stall her! I'll be back in a few minutes to pick you up!"

The little man had managed to climb into the open window and flop into the passenger's seat. "Thankee, Mistress Fairweather," he panted. "The old bat about had me."

"So I saw," I said drily. "What was she after? Your pot of gold?"

"Worse," he said. "Worse."

"Surely not yer lucky charms?"

That insulted him. He didn't say another word till we were back at the house. I knew I had to hide him, but I didn't dare take him inside; God knows what kind of germs the little shrimp might have given Mom, just for spite over that "lucky charms" crack. I finally took him out to the corncrib. Blackadder followed us at a safe distance; when we stopped, just outside the corncrib, he gave Shorty--as I now thought of the little man--a good smellover. He didn't like what he smelled. He looked pleased when I shoved Shorty into the corncrib. "Don't try to get out till I come back," I told him through a crack in the wall. "I'll let you out when the coast is clear."

Blackadder promptly mounted guard duty, as only a cat can do. When I pulled out of the driveway and looked back he was marching back and forth in front of the corncrib door, tail in the air and a militant sneer on his face.

I took my time getting back to Madame's. To be frank, I wasn't sure what condition her condition would be in. Luckily, just as I pulled into Madame's drive, Willard came out onto the porch, shutting the door behind her. I climbed across into the passenger's seat; she got in on the driver's side and, for a moment, laid her head on the steering wheel. "Was it that bad?" I asked.

"Worse."

Where had I heard that before?

"What the hell was the old bat up to? Shorty told me the same thing when I asked if she was after his pot of gold."

"She wanted him for a lawn sculpture."

"WWWWhhhh---aaaaaatttt?"

"She saw him out that big front window and--well, she's been drinking Guiness the last couple of days and it's made her goofier than usual. She mistook him for a gnome and thought he'd look cute standing in her tulip bed." Willard shuddered. "I got her back in the house and gave her a hair of the dog. She's sleeping it off now."

By now we were back to the house. Blackadder was still on guard duty in front of the corncrib. I swear he tried to snap a salute when I said teasingly, "You're relieved of duty, Sergeant Blackadder." He stalked away, then broke into a slow trot as he headed toward the house--no doubt to tell Mom about his big adventure.

Shorty's clothes were covered in cornhusks, but otherwise he was fine. Willard told him, "She's asleep back at her place, but you'd better clear out. I can't guarantee she won't chase you if she sees you again."

"Thanks for savin' me, Mistress Willard and Mistress Fairweather," he piped.

Willard said, "How about leading us to that pot of gold?" and grinned. She knew as well as I did that the pot of gold was strictly for the tourist trade.

"Turn your backs and I'll leave a little somethin' for yer troubles."

We raised an eyebrow at each other but turned our backs. We heard a thump and a few tinkling sounds, and then jumped as we both felt PINCHES ON OUR BUTTS!

We turned in a hurry, but the little man was gone. But he had indeed left something--a cast-iron pot full of--GOLD WRAPPED GODIVA CHOCOLATES!!

I said through a mouthful, a few minutes later, "Been a long time since I got pinched on the ass."

"Me too, and I better not tell my man," said Willard. She thought for a moment, then added pensively, "Thank God I wasn't wearing my Daisy Dukes."

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Any resemblance to persons, living or legendary, is purely intentional.

Happy St. Pat's, everybody--and until next time, fair thee well.

Welcome rain this morning, damp and chilly but we need it (it'll take half of forever to catch up from last year's drought). I woke early and went to let the cat in to eat, just as the rain began. He was in such a rush that I was at a loss--was he really that hungry?

No. He's a big wuss, afraid of birds--and this AM he was being hassled by bluebirds. Two of them were sitting on my car! As he bolted into the house they flew away, bright flashes against gray skies and brown grass.

Specifically they are Eastern Bluebirds (Silias sialis). They have those brilliant blue feathers on their backs and a faint blush on their chests that ranges from a softish pink almost to orange. And of course, as is the way of things in nature, the males are more vividly colored than the females. Their song is characterized by the National Audubon Society's publication THE SIBLEY GUIDE TO BIRDS (2000) as "a pleasing soft phrase of mellow whistles chiti WEEW wewidoo and variations." They also, says Sibley, make a "call of similar pleasant musical quality" and "a short dry chatter."

Don't know so much about that. Do know that their songs are celebrated in two classic country songs: Marvin Rainwater's "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" (1957) with its chorus "Gonna find me a bluebird/Let him sing me a song/Cause you know I've been lonely/For too long. . ." This song was also recorded by Hank Snow.

The other song is "I Heard the Bluebirds Sing" recorded by The Browns in 1956. The Browns were a family act: Jim Ed and his sisters Bonnie and Maxine. Jim Ed and Maxine performed as a duet in the early days of their career, expanding to a trio in 1955 when Bonnie graduated from high school. It's always seemed to me that the real key to their success was that Jim Ed and Bonnie could sing but Maxine was--uh, less gifted. She sang just a tiny bit flat. This one I've blogged about before; it was a song about childhood sweethearts growing old together that I often sang with Dad. Bonnie and Maxine Brown retired to raise families in the mid 1960s, and Jim Ed went on to a successful solo career, scoring big with such songs as "Pop a Top" (my alltime favorite drinking song), "Southern Lovin'," "Morning," and "It's That Time of the Night." In the 1970s he had several hits as a duet with Helen Cornelius.

"I Heard the Bluebirds Sing" has some very sweet lyrics about the joys of love: such as "And when I looked into her eyes/I thought of bluest summer skies/And when I held her hands in mine/I heard the bluebirds sing." If I shut my eyes and listen close, I can still hear Dad singing with me.

A welcome splash of spring this rainy AM. And until next time, fair thee well.

The above photo is of a mill in West Virginia; the one I'm speaking of is quite similar in appearance.

Over toward Highway 72, in the northern part of Monroe County, there's a mill dam and grist mill that are maintained as a sort of living history museum. The area in which it stands has had a reputation for being haunted for well over a century. One of the stories involves a Cherokee woman who threw herself off a nearby cliff into the creek that was dammed up to run the grist mill; it's said that at certain times of the year, she can still be seen standing at the top of the cliff, staring down into the waters that took her life.

Others have told tales of seeing Cherokee warriors in the mists of early morning along the creek.

One story about the area was reinforced in the last twenty years by a sighting of a lost little girl.

One night in the early fall, a couple or three young men were on their way home when, in the area of the grist mill, a girl who looked no more than five or six years old ran across the road in front of the car. The driver slammed on the brakes, afraid he would hit her; when the car stopped they sat looking around, and spotted her again. This second time she looked in their direction, and they noticed that, around her eyes, her skin glowed a soft blue.

And she was gone.

When they could move again, they drove to the nearest house, and asked the man who answered their frantic knocking if the strange little girl they had just seen was his, and why she was out at this time of night.

The man told them that they were not the first to see this little girl. Her story was a terribly sad one. Many years before, a little girl in the community had vanished without a trace. She had been gone for some time before the first reported sighting of her. Everyone who saw her mentioned the odd blue light around her eyes. After several people had seen her--always at night, always crossing the road--someone followed her into a nearby patch of woods. She vanished at the foot of a tree. It's said that the man who followed her returned the next day with friends and a shovel, and they dug down and found what remained of a little girl. She had apparently died by some sort of violence.

No one knows to this day the little girl's name, the circumstances of her death, or the name of her killer. She was given a Christian burial in an unmarked grave in a nearby cemetery. In spite of the kindness of the strangers who found her, she does not rest in peace.

The man said that it was considered bad luck in the community to see her. Nothing happened to the three young men who spotted her on that chilly autumn night, other than having the fear of the Lord put into them--but they heard a couple of weeks later that the man who told them her story, at the house where they stopped, lost a family member within days of the sighting.



And on that disquieting note, fair thee well.