Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/228

 192 Collectanea.

III. The Death Coach?^

The " headless Coach " or " coach a bower" seems of far later date than the banshee. Ghostly chariots such as that of Cuchu- lain figure in very early tales, but neither their appearance nor their sound foretold death. ^^ In Clare, at sight or sound of the coach, all gates should be thrown open, and then it will not stop at the house to call for a membi^r of the family, but only foretell the death of some relative at a distance.^^

I collected five stories, three of well-defined character, and give them in order of time as the dates can be fixed. The first appear- ance, on the night before June i8th, 1806, was related to my three informants'^ most solemnly by their fathers and uncles. Two told it in a general and confused way, but varied from the story of the third, which I give, only by omissions. Ralph Westropp, of Attyflin and Lismehane, — the latter place is in Clare, but I never could learn where he died, — lay sick unto death. His sons in the late dusk waited on the steps for the arrival of the doctor. Suddenly they saw and heard a large coach drive into the paved court before the house. One of them stepped down to open the door, but the dark object rumbled past and drove down the long, straight avenue, which was fenced on both sides. Two of the watchers ran after it, hearing it ahead of them. The noise stopped, and they expected to find the coach at the gate. They ran full tilt against the bars, the gate being closed and locked. They called up the lodgekeeper, and he was found to have been asleep with the keys still beside him. The sick man died the next morning.

Lismehane, under its later name of Maryfort, afterwards became the residence of the O'Callaghan family, its present occupants. On the night of April 29th, 182 1, two servants, — one of whom was " Matty Halloran " who died not long ago at an advanced

^^Cf. " Irish Folklore from Cavan, Meath, Kerry, and Limerick," vol. xix., pp. 320-1 ; vol. X., p. 119.

^^Is not the death coach, and not the Hellequin, the "hell waine " of Reginald Scot's list of spirits in The disconerie of witchcraft, Bk. vii., cap. xv. ?

^^ Cf. Herefordshire belief about corpse candles.

^^ The late Capt. Ralph Westropp of Coolreagh (in 1879), and the late Mrs. Wilme and Mrs. Pitcairn, whose fathers were present.