https://online2.tingclass.net/lesson/shi0529/0001/1313/125.mp3
https://image.tingclass.net/statics/js/2012
My mom's side of the family is Irish. So my grandma would tell me stories about my great-grandpa who was from Ireland. Just small stories, such as the fact that he had a musical ear and could play almost every instrument. (I wish it passed on through the family.) I've always been into paranormal things, so I would always ask her if he had encountered anything out of the ordinary throughout his life. Her memory was vague, so she asked her sister Mary, and Mary reminded her of his banshee incidents back in County Cork Ireland.
My grandma explained to me what Mary had remembered her father telling her as a kid. A banshee, before I go on, is an Irish myth. A ghost that protects an Irish family throughout eternity without showing itself, unless someone in the family dies. Since the banshee can predict the future, it knows who is going to die beforehand. So it mourns under the moonlight, with cries more like the wind and shows itself to someone in the family (preferably the one who isn't going to die). It gets so sad because it is a part of the family.
So anyway, when my great grandpa was a kid he would ride home on a horse, back in Ireland, through the fields from school dances. So once in a while his horse would stop dead in its tracks, because you know animals can sense things people can't. My great grandpa would tell it to trudge on, but it wouldn't budge
我母親娘家在愛爾蘭,因此姥姥總是給我講一些太姥爺在愛爾蘭的故事。那都是些很短的小故事,比如他非常喜歡音樂,幾乎能演奏任何樂器。(但愿這能一輩一輩地傳下去。)我總是對(duì)那些不同尋常的事情感興趣,因此我就問她是不是太姥爺遇到過那些奇異的事情。姥姥的記性已經(jīng)模糊了,于是就問她妹妹瑪麗還記不記得類似的事情,瑪麗姥姥就想起了太姥爺在科克郡與女妖的那次遭遇。
姥姥告訴我說瑪麗姥姥回憶起來的事情還是在她小時(shí)候聽太姥爺說的了。我馬上要講到的愛爾蘭女妖,是個(gè)愛爾蘭神話。她是個(gè)鬼魂,一生一世保護(hù)著一個(gè)愛爾蘭人家庭,除非家里有人去世否則人們是不會(huì)看見她的。由于女妖能預(yù)知未來,因此她也就知道誰馬上就要死去了。于是她就在月光下痛哭,聲音就像風(fēng)聲一樣,讓家里的一個(gè)人(不會(huì)是即將要去世的那個(gè)人)能夠看見她。她哭的是那么的悲傷,因?yàn)樗彩沁@個(gè)家庭的一部分。
那時(shí)太姥爺還是個(gè)孩子,每天放學(xué)后就騎著馬穿過農(nóng)田回家,一邊走一邊手舞足蹈。有一次,馬突然停下來,因?yàn)槲覀兌贾绖?dòng)物能感覺的我們?nèi)烁杏X不到的東西。太姥爺想趕它繼續(xù)走,但是那匹馬一動(dòng)也不動(dòng)。