The Púca of Ballynure

The púca comes after harvest when the nights edge earlier and the moon looks large enough to pluck. It is not wicked, exactly, but it is unpredictable as a foal and twice as quick. In Ballynure, where lanes fold between hedges like tucked blankets, everyone has a púca story.

There was the miller, Seán Mór, who found a fine black horse outside his door one Michaelmas. It tossed its head, and Seán—who trusted horses more than men—swung up without asking. At once the horse became spring and shadow. It carried him over hedges as neatly as if the world were a book and the púca turned pages. They leapt the river in a single clean brush; they ran along the ridge of a stone wall without knocking one cap from its lichens. Seán laughed until tears washed the flour from his beard.

At dawn the horse stopped beside the mill. “You’ll be home for breakfast,” said a voice like leavesn’t sure whether to rustle or clap. Seán slid down, knees jelly, heart young. His wife said he looked ten years lighter, which is a cure worth paying for.

There was Máire Ní Fhloinn, who left a bowl of cream on her step each Samhain for anything with a taste for gratitude. She never missed, and the púca, who keeps accounts in its own fashion, once carried her basket all the way to market and back, unseen by anyone who would take advantage.

And there was little Tomás, who thought the púca a sort of fairy dog and tried to put a collar on it. The púca leaned down, took the collar in its beautiful teeth, and dropped it over the moon.

Not all rides are kind. A púca dislikes sourness in the mouth and stinginess in the hand. Those who curse at cows and kick at gates wake to find their hair braided to the bedposts in tricky sailor’s knots. But the púca’s mischief is medicine more often than malice; it points to the part that needs mending.

One year the rains came thick as rope, and the barley drooped like tired heads. The púca was seen standing on the hill above Ballynure in the shape of a hare, ears pricked to the storm. People brought what they had—lanterns, shawls, a fiddle—and kept one another warm under a hawthorn. The púca watched until the fiddle lifted laughter out of the rain and shook it like a dog shakes a mitten. Then it vanished, satisfied.

If you meet a fine black horse on a moonlit lane and it looks at you as if it has a joke it wants to share, ask yourself if your heart is tied too tight. If it is, go for the ride. If not, tip your hat and leave a bowl of cream on the step. Best to stay on the right side of laughter.