Oíche Shamhna

Oíche Shamhna
John Joseph Sheehy

The night of the dead, halloween, the banshee cries. A Scottish piper, known as the great Archie, was hired to play at a wedding in Ambleside. The house, a great dark king’s mansion, at the foot of the The Great Gable mountain, He had crossed the border, through storm and shale, the day before.

On the eve of halloween, oíche samhain, he played and played and he drank. Leaving the wedding, as halloween’s night was nearing its end, drunk and happy, he wandered into a fairy ring fort. They opened their mouths with wild screams, threw out their arms, welcomed him in. Archie was one of them. The Fairies  were celebrating Halloween, tricking and treating. This was their night, a night of carousing, trickery and song.

The piper, Archie, knew numerous tunes and was king piper of Scotland, the King of the fairies was known as chief of England on the violin.  He challenged Archie to play, to do battle with the sounds of their sweet instruments.

On this night as these two kings eyed each other, a long gone fiddler appeared, a sudden apparition. Here was Púca.  

Púca, knew the highland piper, Fionn, before he departed and he whispered to him, raising his open hand to cover Fionn’s. He told him that the Scottish piper didn't know  to play the tune Highland Laddie. A broad grin crept across Fionn’s face.

Fionn challenged the piper to play Highland Laddie. Archie trembled, he couldn't do it. The king and Púca smirked, the piper was beaten. The piper, the great Archie, he put the cork of the bottle in his pocket. A lethal move. No living person is allowed to take any thing out of a Fairy Fort.

He left with the cork in his pocket,  a deadly curse, unknown to him.

It wasn’t long that this piper began to tire, sleep taking his tired, drunk limbs.

Archie fell asleep in a ditch.

When he woke up, he felt a chill on his head. He raised a hand to his hair and found it wasn’t there. He was bald. All of his hair, his golden red locks were there before him, spread over pipes. Pipes that had shrivelled to a dry shrunken lump. He was cursed, doomed by the fairy king Fionn.  Some say that he was swallowed by a rock in the ditch on Holloween night. The Banshee appeared, wailing, agus an bhean sí ig gol crying and weeping.


 © John Joseph Sheehy