Fairy Folk of Kintraw

Just outside Kilmartin Glen, the Kintraw Standing Stone marks a group of 4000-year-old burial cairns. Before their true age was discovered, mounds like this were often believed to have been built by Viking invaders or even supernatural beings.

While the largest cairn became locally known as the Danish King’s Grave, the whole area around Kintraw was said to be the haunt of fairies.

One day, a woman from the area sadly passed away, leaving behind her husband and two young children. Stricken with grief, the man went off to church alone, leaving the children behind to look after themselves.

When he returned, the children enthusiastically told him that their mother had come to see them. The grieving widower got angry with the pair, shouting that they needed to stop the silly games. Their mother was gone and they needed to accept that she wasn’t coming back.

Regardless, every Sunday the children would say the same thing and the father would get upset. Eventually he told them that the next time they saw their mother, they should ask how her visit from the afterlife was possible.

The children asked their mother the question and she revealed that she wasn't dead. She had been taken by the fairies under the hill and a copy of her body left to fade away in her bed. The mother was now bound to that realm, but able to escape for a short while every Sunday. If her coffin was opened, they would only find a withered leaf inside.

They told their father who immediately went to the minister to ask his advice about checking his wife's coffin. The man of God scoffed at the idea of digging somebody up from his churchyard. He declared that fairies weren’t real, and his next sermon was a scathing attack on his parishioner’s superstitions.

It wasn't long before the minister was found dead on the road that ran right past the standing stone of Kintraw. He should have realised that it’s never wise to mock the fairies.