Lost in the mist

Lost in the mist

Wed, 22 Apr 2020

A story from William Harrison's notes in Manx Society, Vol.XI, A Description of the Isle of Man by G. Waldron (1865):

My informant stated that some fifty years ago very early one Spring morning being employed in household duties, there came floating on the air a low murmuring wailing noise. When going to the door to see what occasioned it, behold there were multitudes of the good people passing over the stepping stones in the river, and wending their way up the side of the hill until they were lost in the mist that then enveloped the top of Beary Mountain. They were dressed chiefly in loaghtan, with little pointed red caps, and most of them were employed in bearing on their shoulders various articles of domestic use, such as kettles, pots, pans, the spinning wheel, and such like, evidently seeking fresh and more quiet quarters, having been disturbed, as was supposed, by the noise of a fulling mill lately erected in their neighbourhood.

This story connects to an image in the project, Whispering in the trees: Images of Manx folklore by Mark Kinrade.

This folktale is also retold in verse by Cushag, read here by Constance Radcliffe RBV: