THE TAKING OF DR MOORE... AND HIS RETURN
As he embarks upon a comprehensive survey of historical claims for levitation and other forms of supernatural transportation, BOB RICKARD will be posting ting occasional oc bulletins in FT on some interesting cases, such as this fairy airy abduction from
As he embarks upon a comprehensive survey of historical claims for levitation and other forms of supernatural transportation, BOB RICKARD will be posting occasional bulletins on some interesting cases, such as this fascinating fairy abduction from 17th century Ireland.
This first instalment concerns a narrative, published towards the end of 1678, relating the abduction of Dr Moore by fairies in County Wicklow, Ireland. Today, garbled and abbreviated versions of this amazing story can be found on the Internet, and if a source is given at all it is usually inadequate. It certainly deserves a better treatment because it is a very special account indeed. Not only does it have intrinsic value as an historical document, 1 it contains many elements that are central to my current research, including:
• A levitation that develops into a teleportation witnessed by at least two other people and at close quarters.
• An Irish version of the ‘Wild Ride’ as Dr Moore is ‘taken’ by a ‘fairy host’ to remote places – including an ‘ancient ruin’ – where there is feasting, dancing and music. At the time of this story, the witch persecutions had been under way throughout Europe for several centuries, including in Ireland. The significance of the lack of association here with the Sabbat visits and feasts of witches elsewhere enhances this narrative’s purity.
• The abductee has a history of such ‘disappearances’ since childhood.
• A ‘Wise Woman’ who uses a form of ‘clairvoyance’ or ‘remote viewing’ to locate Dr Moore, a form of ‘telekinetic action’ to protect him, and predicts his ‘return’.
• An association of the fairies with disease as a punishment for offences against them.
• The abductee returns and verifies the Wise Woman’s account.
• Although other examples of these phenomena are to be found among Irish folktales, this narrative asserts that it happened to real people in a contemporary landscape.
THE BROADSHEET
My first encounter with Dr Moore’s fairy abduction was in 1976, when John Michell and I were researching our Phenomena: A Book of Wonders (1977). John, who was a Shakespearean scholar, had noted that this story had been mentioned by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820–1889), an antiquarian and collector of Shakespearean works and related documents, in his Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology (1845). 2 Unfortunately for us, Halliwell shed no helpful light on the original broadsheet, which he claimed to have read in the British Library (BL).
Initially, my search for the broadsheet in the BL was frustrated; nor could I find any evidence that Halliwell might have obtained his own copy. Sometime later, I found a copy in the Australian National Library. It is listed in the Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of the English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641-1700, compiled by the Yale librarian Donald Wing between 1945 and 1951 and now incorporated into the British Library’s huge English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC). Here is how this ‘short’ title appears in the ESTC:
Strange and Wonderful News from the County of Wicklow in Ireland, or a Full and True Relation of what Happened to one Dr Moore, (Late Schoolmaster in London.) How
he was taken Invisibly from his Friends, what happened to him in his Absence, and how, And by what means he was found, and brought back to the same place. With Allowance. 3
DOCTOR WHO?
The story begins sometime in mid-October 1678 4 with a small party of friends – Dr Moore, Richard Uniack, and Laughlin Moore – travelling along rough roads skirting the Wicklow Mountains. We are not told Dr Moore’s full name, only that he was returning from a stint as a schoolmaster in London and that his family home was in County Wicklow. It is also reasonable to presume, given the nature of the Doctor’s visit, that Laughlin Moore was a relative, but this is not stated either.
Dr Moore intended to visit a property he had recently purchased in the county, and, as evening approached, they decided to lodge in a small place called Dromgreagh, not far from Baltinglass. 5 The account is vague about these locations. Baltinglass is a sizeable town at the south-western corner of County Wicklow, but of Dromgreagh there is no trace, even on the earliest maps. 6 There is no hint that the party intended to travel beyond Baltinglass – either towards County Kildare half a mile to the east, or towards County Carlow two miles to the south – so we might suppose that Dromgreagh lay between Baltinglass and the Wicklow Hills, and might even have been their actual destination.
Regarding what happened that evening in the Dromgreagh inn, the description is as clear and as full as can be expected given the circumstances and period records. As the party was sitting together – perhaps in the inn’s parlour after a meal – Dr Moore began telling the others some of his family history and connection to this region of County Wicklow, including, it is recorded, “a discourse of several things that happened to him in his childhood near that place”. He had been away for “about 34 years” but he remembered his mother often telling him that, as a child, “Spirits which they called Fairies” used “frequently to carry him away, and continue him with them for some time, without doing him the least prejudice”.
These abductions were well known in his family and were confirmed to him by some of his other relations. His mother, Dr Moore tells his friends, was so frightened by his sudden disappearances and worried for his safety – presumably spiritual as well as physical – that “as often as he was missing” she would send for “a certain Old Woman” who lived close by enough to be called a neighbour, 7 who “by repeating some Spells or Exorcisms, would suddenly cause his return”. If Laughlin Moore was indeed a relative of the Doctor’s, he kept quiet, but for Richard Uniack these declarations about supernatural abductions, fairies and mediations by mysterious Wise Women went beyond what educated men could expect from each other. Uniack, it is recorded, “used several Arguments to dissuade the Doctor from the belief of so idle and improbable a Story”. Despite that, Dr Moore held his ground and “did positively affirm the truth thereof”.
AS A CHILD, FAIRIES USED FREQUENTLYTO CARRY HIM AWAY
THE DOCTOR VANISHES
Perhaps the dispute with a friend unsettled the Doctor. Perhaps being back in the landscape of his childhood and reminiscing about being ‘taken’ put into him some kind of reverie; after all, traditional tales of those taken by fairies often say that an experience of the Otherworld (whatever it may be) never really leaves a person. A noticeable change came over the Doctor; he stood up and announced to the others that “he must leave their Company, for he was called away.” 8 Richard Uniack noticed that Dr Moore was actually rising upwards off the ground. Reaching forwards, Uniack “catches fast hold of his arm with one hand, and intwined his arm within the Doctor’s arm, and with his other hand grasped the Doctor’s shoulder.” On the other side of the Doctor, Laughlin Moore quickly held onto the figure in the air; but, says the broadsheet, “the Doctor maugre [despite] their strength was lifted off the ground”. Laughlin’s fear got the better of him, causing him to let go; but “Uniack continued his hold, and was carried above a yard from the ground.” Then, “by some extraordinary unperceived force”, he too was compelled to let go.
In this narrative we find the account of the witnesses and, later, what Dr Moore himself experienced. All the two witnesses could understand was that “the Doctor was hurried immediately out of the Room, but whether conveyed through the window, or out at the door, they being so affrighted none of them could declare.” As quickly as it began, the phenomenon was over.
Viewed dispassionately, the testimony is too circumstantial to serve as evidence that the Doctor actually levitated and was teleported to distant spots; only that so it was believed and attributed to the fairies. It seems understandable that, given the sudden onset of an event that defies our normal expectations of everyday reality, what happened next could not be adequately described or accounted for. Would any of us have reacted any differently?
ENTER THE WISE WOMAN
Finding themselves suddenly alone, Uniack and Loughlin Moore, are stunned by what has just happened. The narrative describes them (almost in modern phrasing) as “Being greatly surprised at the strangeness of the accident”. They don’t know what else to do except call for the innkeeper and explain as best they can the strange fate of their companion.
To their additional astonishment, the innkeeper “seems not to be much terrified thereat, as if such disasters were common thereabouts”. He tells them that “within a quarter of a mile” lives a woman “who by the Neighbourhood was called a Wise-woman” who “did usually give Intelligence of things that had been lost, and of Cattle that were gone astray” (see the ‘Fairy Doctor’ panel over the page), adding that he had no doubt that “if the Woman were sent for, she could resolve them where their Friend was, and by what means conveyed away”. Concerned for the safety of Dr Moore, they immediately sent someone to bring her.
On the Wise Woman’s arrival, Uniack seeks an assurance from her whether, indeed, she can “give them any account” of the gentleman “that had been Spirited out of their Company about an hour before”. Without fuss, recourse to ritual or preamble, the Old Woman reassures them. Dr Moore, she says, is at this moment “in a Wood about a mile distant, preparing to take Horse; that in one hand he had a Glass of Wine, in the other a piece of Bread; that he was very much courted to eat and drink”. If he succumbed to temptation, she warns, the Doctor would never be “free from a Consumption”, 9 and will “pine away to death”. Richard Uniack gives the Old Woman “a Cobb” 10 and urges her to protect him somehow.
She answers that she will see to it that Dr Moore neither eats nor drinks with his abductors. 11 With that, she “struck down her hand,” as if snatching at something. Next, she begins a chant in Irish, which the company takes to be “a Spell or Charm”. 12 We are told the substance of this pishogue: “First she runs his Pedigree back four generations, and calls his Ancestors by their several Names; 13 then summons him from the East, the West, the North, and the South, from Troops and Regiments, especially from the Govenour mounted on the Sorrel Horse, etc.” 14
After repeating ‘the Charm’ several times, the Old Woman proceeded to predict that the Doctor would be carried to several other places that night. From the Wood (a mile distant from the Inn), he would be taken about seven miles to “a Danes Fort” 15 where he would be surrounded by “great Revelling and Dancing, together with variety of Meats and Liquors”. That said, the Old Woman repeated her promise to protect him.
Next, the Doctor was to be transported “twenty miles farther”, where again the Host would stop for “great Merriment”. The final destination of his ‘Wild Ride’ was to be Seven Churches, some 16 miles east-northeast of Baltinglass, a religious community in the heart of the Wicklow Hills, also known as Glendalough. 16 Finally, the Old Woman said that “towards Day-break” the Doctor would be reunited with his friends, returned safely without any harm done to him. With that she said no more and departed from the Inn.
It is important to remember that the Old Woman is relaying all this at a time between one and two hours after the Doctor’s disappearance. Dawn is a long way off, and therefore she is giving a prediction. As we, at this remove, have no idea where the old ‘Fort’ and other places mentioned are in relation to Baltinglass, we can only deduce that, if it was a linear procession with no double-backing, the round trip to Glendalough and back would be in the region of 30 miles. 17