Apart, however, from this primitive babble, the dexterity and power
of the men are displayed to more advantage than in anything I have
seen hitherto. I noticed particularly the owner of a hooker from the
north island that was loaded this morning. He seemed able to hold up
a horse by his single weight when it was swinging from the masthead,
and preserved a humorous calm even in moments of the wildest
excitement. Sometimes a large mare would come down sideways on the
backs of the other horses, and kick there till the hold seemed to be
filled with a mass of struggling centaurs, for the men themselves
often leap down to try and save the foals from injury. The backs of
the horses put in first are often a good deal cut by the shoes of
the others that arrive on top of them, but otherwise they do not
seem to be much the worse, and as they are not on their way to a
fair, it is not of much consequence in what condition they come to
land.
There is only one bit and saddle in the island, which are used by
the priest, who rides from the chapel to the pier when he has held
the service on Sunday.
The islanders themselves ride with a simple halter and a stick, yet
sometimes travel, at least in the larger island, at a desperate
gallop. As the horses usually have panniers, the rider sits sideways
over the withers, and if the panniers are empty they go at full
speed in this position without anything to hold to.
More than once in Aranmor I met a party going out west with empty
panniers from Kilronan. Long before they came in sight I could hear
a clatter of hoofs, and then a whirl of horses would come round a
corner at full gallop with their heads out, utterly indifferent to
the slender halter that is their only check. They generally travel
in single file with a few yards between them, and as there is no
traffic there is little fear of an accident.
Sometimes a woman and a man ride together, but in this case the man
sits in the usual position, and the woman sits sideways behind him,
and holds him round the waist.
Old Pat Dirane continues to come up every day to talk to me, and at
times I turn the conversation to his experiences of the fairies.
He has seen a good many of them, he says, in different parts of the
island, especially in the sandy districts north of the slip.
