Ghosts across our landscape
Haunting Tales & Living Verse of Ulaid
by
Colin T Mercer
Published by Night Publishing, Smashwords edition
Copyright 2011, Colin T. Mercer
ISBN 978-1-4659-1684-6
Thank you for downloading this e-book. You are welcome to share it with people you know personally for non-commercial purposes but it may not be shared over the Internet other than via the network of e-book distributors supplied by Smashwords and according to Smashwords terms and conditions.
To discover other books by Colin T. Mercer, please go to http://www.nightpublishing.com/colin-mercer.html.
“If a man harbours any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality. Makes him Landlord to a Ghost.”
Lloyd C Douglas
Introduction
Ireland has a rich history of poetic literature, with Northern Ireland boasting host to many well known writers such as W.B. Yeats, C.S. Lewis, Jonathan Swift and Seamus Heaney, to name a few.
Over the past decade I have written a lot of poetry and more recently published my first full book of poetry.
My dream has always been to compile a book that is particular to Northern Ireland, which would allow me to express the natural beauty of the province along with people in my life that have inspired me to write.
I decided to put together this book with the inclusion of a few short stories.
Poetry is an acquired taste, but for me it is a passion. I felt the inclusion of some traditional Northern Irish tales would help make for a more enjoyable read. Most of the short stories are based on factual tales that I have heard, or been told by family members over the years, and they are all but one attributed to Ulster.
Having grown up during the Troubles, I have always felt uneasy with the use of the word ‘Ulster’ to describe this part of Ireland. So many negative connotations have been attached to the name locally and throughout the world.
So, after some research into a number of facts related to the topics in this book, I came across the ancient name for Ireland's Northern Province: “Ulaid”. "Ulster" derives from the Irish Ulaid and the Old Norse staðr ("place, and territory"), which seemed fit within the title.
I hope you will enjoy reading the short stories and many poems that are compiled in this book and that you will come to a better understanding of this beautiful land, its people and the events held in my mind.
The Solace of a Gull
Further upward rising in the northern sky
To edge of golden rain and then transformed into reflection
Light of blue to green refraction
Red becomes reformed to purple hue
Dipping down to almost skipping like a pebble on silver seas.
The tiny drops of vapour haze upon your brow
Crystallize then quick as they are formed demise
And brightened tingeing amber sunset
Searched out deep so piercing in the glinting perfection
Pearls of your eyes
Living Leaves of Mount Stewart
With their ridges upon every leaf
The words of love are strung
Like the emotions rolling
Between each line of thought
The knots of change and new birth
Occasionally curves every one
Only to resume their path upwards
Dividing through many branches
A living lineage unto itself
Filled with the colour of life
Changing from budding youth the leaves full
A harvest of greenness and life’s splendour
Each one equip to catch the rain with tiny veins
Supplying and providing separately connected
At home it seems aloft on dreams they dapple fields
Swaying green with envy for the love of each other
Until with age and tossed with winds of change
They fail, circum, become golden brown and brittle
Ready for the womb from which they came
Gradual yet inevitably falling down through scented air
To ferment on feeding root and grounded in contentment
Ready for need of seed
Never more adored, cast off, condemned to see no sun
Yet live again without the knowing that has once again begun
The Flapping Wings
Winter nights were specifically cold in Ferndale Place. The houses there were small aluminium cottage-type dwellings, supposedly temporarily made to accommodate workers for the new “Shaw’s Bridge” that was built nearby preceding WW2. Yet, like many domestic buildings of the time, they ended up permanent dwellings for many working class people of Belfast.
The night before the funeral was especially still and, for Joe, the memories of long stays with his grandmother, or ‘Ma’ as he liked to call her, were still fresh in his mind. Yet, now she had passed away he could not seem to remember her voice. It’s one of those strange things when someone close dies. We try so hard to cling to every piece of them that sometimes the closest things just are not retainable.
He lay in the large double bed. Its heavy mattress seemed to envelope him, holding him tight and cosy just as she did during many cold nights. He was warm and safe there and still felt comfort with the protective memories of those times snuggled up in the darkness listening to her many spooky tales.
Joe was only a young boy and had dreaded this time for as far back as he could remember. That night he was sharing the bed with his mother and Aunt Mamie, while his Uncle Joe, Mammie’s husband, slept in the back room off the hall. His grandmother was being waked in the parlour just off the same hallway that led to the bedrooms.
In the late 40s, street lights had not reached the outer suburbs of Belfast, and once the last light was turned out in the house, everything took on a heavy blackness.
Everyone was in bed and Joe was sandwiched between his mother and aunt like a sardine. The extreme blackness during the night seemed to elevate the hearing, bringing the house to life. A sort of tortured soul was alive in the darkness; the air in the house was musty and the cold dank wind whistling under uneven floor boards creating a rhythmic sound like laboured breathing.
Joe lay motionless in the bed with only his eyes daring to move as they followed reflections of the chestnut tree branches casting long dappled shadows in the moonlight, fingering their way from corner to corner on the wall above his head.
The old sash window in the bedroom was pulled down about an inch from the top, allowing a narrow horizontal opening for fresh air to circulate the room.
The old grandmother clock in the hall chimed the hour, breaking the silence.
It was 11pm.
Joe senior was asleep in the rear bedroom. He was well known to fall asleep at the slightest convenience and was often the butt of many a joke. Ma often quipped about him saying, “That man would sleep on the edge of a razorblade!”
The parlour was still and in total darkness, with its heavy roller window blinds drawn down to meet the narrow wooden sills. The thick pinewood coffin lay open on the table in the middle of the room. Nothing was alive in the parlour; everything was still and silent in the dead of night.
Young Joe lay on his side with his knees tucked up against the warmth of his mother. He was slowly drifting off when the silence was broken. Originating from the empty hall, the sound of what could only be described as flapping wings was approaching in the dark.
They sounded like a bird, yet they were not panicked as you would expect a bird to be which had found itself trapped indoors in a dark house. They were distinctly controlled, rhythmic flaps that were slowly crossing the room.
Joe gripped his mother’s arm. “Mummy, what’s that noise?”
His mother was also alert to the noise and lay in the bed, almost unable to move with a mixture of fear and astonishment.
She tried to reassure young Joe. “It’s ok, son. That’s your Ma away to heaven.”
The eerie sound crossed right over their heads and reached the narrow opening of the window then, just as sudden as it had started, it was gone, leaving a still silence. A sudden ‘bang’ caused everyone to yelp in fear as Joe senior burst into the room, slamming the door behind him.
In an instant, he had jumped into the large bed seemingly terrified.
This frightened everyone far more that the ghostly flapping wings. Joe Senior was not a man that was easily scared.
“What is it, Joe?” said Mamie.
“I don’t know but I am not sleeping in that room. I am not going back down that hall.”
“What did you see, Uncle Joe?”
“Nothing, son. I saw nothing. It’s what I heard!
“Quiet now!” said Mammie. “You're scaring the boy, and never you mind now, get to sleep.”
A silence seemed to weigh heavily on them as they lay in the large bed.
Something had made the noise of flapping wings, something that knew where it was going and from where it had come.
It has long been said, dating back to early Victorian times, that when a person passed away, their spirit will stay near the family for three days before leaving. That Saturday night in Ferndale Place was one that changed the lives of everyone in that little house.
It cemented their belief in the afterlife and, after all, it was the evening of the third day since the time of death!
The flapping wings and recount of that night has been told to me since I was a boy, each time unaltered and spoken of with the same conviction of belief.
Young Joe was my father and, for him, the events that night of Ferndale Place remained shaping his beliefs for the rest of his life.
Joe’s World
Like an empty shell
Tossed up and left
On a sandy beach
Stranded in its freedom
Among the broken
Your quest is over
Your heart is rendered
Barron and desolate
I used to watch you
As you glistened
Even on dull days
With constant rain
And storming troubles
Always there, durable