Skippy Dies: A Novel

Very last class before mid-term. Until recently, the Irish teacher, Ms Ni Riain, in spite of her advanced years, strangely conical breasts, and appearance, thanks to whatever brand of foundation she uses, of being made out of toffee, was widely considered Seabrook’s number one babe, and the object of more than a few fixations – which no doubt says something about the nature of desire and its surprising willingness to work with the materials at hand. Since the arrival of Miss McIntyre, however, that particular illusion has been shattered, and Irish is now just another dull class to be struggled through.

There are ways of easing that struggle, though. In the middle of a boring sequence of interchanges on the Modh Coinníollach, Gaelic’s infamously difficult conditional mood, Casey Ellington raises his hand. ‘Miss?’

‘Yes, Casey?’

‘Someone told me that Hallowe’en actually started in Ireland,’ Casey says with a furrowed brow. ‘That can’t be true… can it?’

The name of the boy who first discovered Ms Ni Riain’s undergraduate degree in Irish folklore is lost to time, but the proud work he began lives on to this day. Angle it in the right way and a single well-placed question can sometimes burn up an entire class.

Hallowe’en, Casey Ellington learns, is a direct descendant of the Celtic rite of Samhain. In days of Yore, Samhain – also known as Feile Moingf hinne, or the Feast of the White Goddess – was one of the most important festivals. Held at the end of October, it marked the end of one pastoral year and the beginning of the next: an enchanted time, when the gates between this world and the Otherworld were opened, and ancient forces were let loose on the land.

‘Otherworld?’ Mitchell Gogan raising his hand this time.

‘Irish folklore is dominated by tales of a mysterious supernatural race called the Sidhe,’ Ms Ni Riain says. ‘The Sidhe inhabited another world which shared the same space as ours but could not be seen by humans. Sidhe is usually translated as fairies’ – any giggling here is vigorously stifled in the interests of keeping the digression in the air – ‘but these fairies didn’t have pretty wings or little pink frocks or hang around flower petals. They were taller than humans, and famous for their cruelty. They’d turn men blind, steal newborn babies, cast spells on whole herds of cattle so that they wouldn’t eat and pined away, just for fun. It was considered bad luck even to speak their name. On the night of Samhain, all fires were extinguished, and the entrances to the burial mounds where they were believed to live left open until cockcrow next morning.’

‘They lived in burial mounds?’ says Neville Nelligan, no longer sure whether he’s time-wasting or actually interested.

‘They lived in earthworks, beside rivers, beneath particular trees, in underwater caves. They also lived in burial mounds that dotted the countryside. Originally, the word sidhe referred to these mounds, which were built by an older civilization, thousands of years before. Later on, people came to think of them as palaces that belonged to the fairies and connected their world to ours. There were folk-tales about men who fell asleep near one of these mounds and woke up with the gift of poetry or storytelling, or who discovered a door in the hillside and found their way into a feast underground – always with lovely harp music, sumptuous food, beautiful maidens – only to wake up next morning on the hillside, with no sign of the doorway, and go into the village to find that hundreds of years had passed and everyone they knew was dead.’

Perhaps it’s the sombre weather, the gaunt wind and skeletal rattling of the fallen leaves outside, or maybe it’s heightened sensibilities from the incipient Hop, but these stories take on a weird palpability – you can feel them, a shivery, mournful fog that weaves its way through the air. ‘So if they lived in burial mounds –’ Geoff barely daring to believe it ‘– does that mean the fairies were… undead?’

‘Gods, fairies, ghosts, these were all mixed together as inhabitants of the Otherworld,’ the teacher says. ‘Initially the fairy legends may have started off as stories of the dead living on, feasting in their chambers. Or as a way of explaining what happened to this previous, pre-Celtic civilization that had now disappeared. But the point is that at Samhain, all of these strange beings, who lived side by side with us but who for the most part we didn’t see, became visible and went roaming the land.’

‘And where did they go, then?’ Vince Bailey asks.

‘Where did who go?’

‘The gods, or the fairies, or whoever they were?’

‘Well, I don’t know…’ Ms Ni Riain hasn’t considered this.

‘Maybe they were hit by a meteor,’ Niall Henaghan interjects eagerly. ‘Like the dinosaurs?’

‘Maybe they’re still there…’ a zombified voice suggests.

‘Geoff, I’ve told you a hundred times about that voice.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Anyway, none of this is getting us any closer to understanding the Modh Coinníollach. Where were we?’ Ms Ni Riain settles her attention on the textbook – but at that moment the bell goes. School’s out! The boys leap out of their seats; she smiles ruefully, realizing she’s been had. ‘All right. Have a good holiday, boys. Enjoy the dance tonight.’

‘Happy Hallowe’en, Miss!’

‘Happy Hallowe’en!

‘Happy Hallowe’en…’

‘Oh, Geoff, for the last time…’ She trails off; Geoff has already left the room…