The White Woman of Fleming’s Folly – healer or witch?

Jonathan Smyth recalls a supernatural legend from the Ballinagh area in his Times Past column this week...

Have you ever found out something strange that you never knew? Just the other day, I discovered an odd story passed down from the pen of one Jones Macaw of Ballinagh. In December 1900, he informed readers of The Anglo-Celt about the legend of the White Woman of Fleming’s Folly.

I wondered if she was a white witch - like those we find in ancient fairy tales. The white witch appears in fiction, an example is the sorceress in the Narnia Chronicles, named Jadis, who acts as a counterforce to evil. In lore, the white witch was a practitioner of white magic, a benevolent grandmother-like character whose motivation was to heal and do good. The White Witch of Narnia has power to control the weather, and she causes the kingdom to become a frozen wasteland of snow trapped in a one hundred year cycle of winter. Elsa in Disney’s frozen is a similar character and yet she is not a witch, for she derived her powers from nature only.

In folktales, the black witch we associate with Halloween has a more malevolent mien when portrayed in fiction and folklore. Like all good legends, the woman at Fleming’s Folly may contain a sprinkling of fact buried within the fiction.

Setting the scene

In bygone days, said Jones Macaw, there lived a strange woman who made Fleming’s Folly her home. Many contrived to say that her ways were strange and indeed her appearance matched the community’s curiosity. To some, she was a pious lady seeking repentance of ‘her sins’ and to others, especially the ‘shanahies’ of the district, who assumed that this reclusive woman had abandoned civilisation to escape its ‘follies’.

But the ‘supernatural arts’ by which she went about her business had the tongues wagging and soon they called her the White Woman. For she dressed from head to toe in white and wore long white hair. They believed that she was a white witch with the ability to cure illnesses believed to be incurable. The gossipers called her a ‘she-devil’ and put around accusations that she was in league with the devil. In the dark of night, she ventured forth from Fleming’s Folly to stroll amongst the whin bushes as she mumbled to herself. This little, ‘wizened old hag’ had ‘eyes that would pierce one through,’ wrote Macaw.

Opinion changed somewhat amongst the tongue waggers when they heard of how she had healed the locals. These locals had maladies far beyond the usual medical ailments peculiar to a trip to the doctor’s. This is where the fun part of the story begins, for certain locals, whom we shall name, had in their despair attended Fleming’s Folly upon select evenings to request the previously mentioned witch’s aid.

On most occasions she obliged, and the parties returned to Ballinagh filled with renewed vigour. The first of whom we hear was limping Ned Doyle, known across the district for his lameness, a disability that necessitated his reliance on a crutch. He struggled up the hill to the old witch on three separate visits and, having complied with her instructions, Ned lost the limp and abandoned the crutch. The neighbours prattled over the change in dear Neddy’s gait as he ambled up Main Street.

Another sufferer named Corney Smith, but simply known as ‘Dumb Corney’ whose nickname by inference explained the unfortunate man’s malady - that was until he encountered the White Lady. He, like the others, had visited the healer on three occasions. His ability to speak shocked the unsuspecting.

Then there was ‘one-eyed Terry Reilly’ who lost the sight of an eye one evening while passing through Drumlion Fort in search of a ‘stray heifer’. A branch of a thorny hawthorn bush betimes done more damage than duelling swordsmen did. Terry reverted to being ‘two-eyed Terry’ to the locals’ amazement.

On Macaw’s list of supposedly incurable people there was another, a man named Tom Carr who, for seven years, had lost the ability to hear. The White Woman easily restored his hearing and soon the deafness that plagued him faded to a dim and distant memory. However, a greater challenge would soon bedevil the White Witch.

Two fighting hunchbacks caused much anguish to the contentment of life in Ballinagh, and a peaceful resolution was needed. For you see, Jack Brady, known as ‘humpy Jack,’ and the neighbour, Dick Muldoon, called ‘humpy Dick’ would take their verbal wranglings into the open road at least once a month. The inability to straighten meant that they would stand back to back and shove one another around the thoroughfare. The match always ended in a draw.

People were sick of them letting rip at each other and the ‘nuisance’ behaviour required a solution. The harsher inhabitants suggested they could be led to the river and drowned, or should they be buried alive? And a third idea might be to cage them to fight to the death like the ‘famous Kilkenny cats’.

They reached a humane and kinder compromise and asked the men to visit the White Woman. They climbed the hill to Fleming’s edifice with enormous difficulty until, on reaching the summit, the feared lady herself appeared. She offered them challenges to sing the ‘Ballinagh Rangers’ and to dance. Jack did both with a ‘heart and a half’.

However, Dick failed in the tasks. For his punishment, she had her fairies remove the hump from Jack and then placed it on Dick’s already arched back, with a further curse from the old lady that he should die within the year and a half.

James, who now stood tall, heard that he would one day captain the Ballinagh Rangers. The White Woman and her fairy-like helpers disappeared forever when the spell took effect. On his descent from the mountain, Jack took pity on his old rival and placed him on his back for the duration of the journey.

Was the White Lady with her bizarre incantations, really in league with the devil? or was she simply a sprite from the mists of a fairy world? Who knows what lives behind the realms of reality.

By the way, Captain James Fleming’s Folly is well worth visiting. The monument underwent careful restoration in 2013. The question is, would you dare go out after dark to walk around Fleming’s Folly? If you do go, beware of what might be lurking. Halloween and its witching hour is just around the corner!