the_stacker_muse

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The wind howled through the crooked trees of Dún Ailinne like a thing wounded. It was the night of Samhain, when the veil thins and the old ones stir beneath the barrows. My grandmother called it Oíche Shamhna—the night summer ended and the dead walked. She’d cross herself, then touch the earth, whispering in a tongue older than the Mass. “They’re not all bad,” she’d say. “But some remember. And some hold grudges.”
I was twelve when I first saw one.
We lived on the edge of County Wicklow, near a ringfort locals avoided after dusk. The stones were moss-eaten, lopsided, like rotten teeth in a giant’s jaw. My da called it “just a heap of rocks,” but Gran forbade us from going near, especially on Samhain. “The sídhe wake tonight,” she’d mutter, bolting the door with an iron bar. “And not all of them are fair.”
That year, I didn’t listen.
I crept out after midnight, barefoot on the frost-stiff grass, drawn by a sound—low, rhythmic, like a woman weeping into wool. The moon was a sliver, but the air shimmered, as if heat rose from the ground. At the ringfort, I saw them.
Figures. Tall, too tall, draped in grey shrouds that didn’t move with the wind. They stood between the stones, heads bowed, hands clasped. One turned. No face—just a hollow where eyes should be, and a mouth stitched shut with black thread. It pointed at me.
I ran.
But my feet slowed, as if wading through tar. The weeping grew louder, now behind me. I glanced back—the figure was close, so close I smelled damp earth and burnt hair. Then, a hand - cold as river stone - touched my shoulder.
I screamed.
Gran found me at dawn, curled in the henhouse, soaked in dew, babbling in Irish I didn’t know. She didn’t scold. Just burned rowan branches in the hearth and poured salt across the threshold. “You saw the caoineag,” she said. “The weeping woman. She mourns the children taken before their time. She thought you were one of hers.”
I didn’t go back. Not for years.
But last Samhain, I returned.
Not for courage. For my daughter.
She’d started sleepwalking, whispering in that old dialect, drawing symbols in the dust - circles within circles, spirals like the ones at Newgrange. And every night, she’d say, “The lady wants me to come home.”
So I went to the ringfort at midnight, a flashlight in one hand, a sprig of rowan in the other. The air hummed. The stones stood silent.
Then—weeping.
There she was. The same figure. But now, I saw others—small shapes, translucent, clinging to her tattered skirts. Children. Dozens of them. And among them, my daughter’s face, pale and distant.
“She’s not yours,” I shouted, voice cracking. “She’s alive!”
The figure turned. The stitches in her mouth twitched. One snapped. Then another. When she spoke, it wasn’t a voice—it was the wind through dead reeds.
“The veil is thin. The harvest is ripe. The living dream of us… but we remember the warmth.”
I raised the rowan. “By fire and iron, by salt and name, I bind you. She stays.”
The air cracked. The figures flickered. My daughter’s ghost-form reached for me—then vanished.
I woke in the hospital. They said I was found unconscious, clutching a dead branch. My daughter was fine—she hasn’t sleepwalked since.
But last night, I heard it again. Faint. From the garden.
Weeping.
And a small hand, tapping on the window.

*`Note: This story draws from Irish folklore, particularly the legend of the Caoineag (the weeping woman of the hills) and the Samhain tradition of the thinning veil between worlds. Inspired by oral tales collected in County Wicklow and the lore of the aos sí. `*

The Caoineag at Dún Ailinne

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The $${\color{green}man}$$ caught her gentle $${\color{green}glance}$$ across the crowded room. Something $${\color{green}silent}$$ passed between them — a recognition deeper than words. The $${\color{green}woman}$$ felt it too, that inexplicable connection pulling at her $${\color{green}soul}$$.

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