Take My (Fairy) Wife Please

If you think every I do ends in a happily ever after, bless your heart, then maybe you also believe that the Lucky Charms leprechaun is a reasonable representation of Irish fairy folklore. Well, I am Bagora, lads and lassies. Think again, because we are about to take a trip to the darker side of the Emerald Isle. No magically delicious marshmallow treats here. This is a story of marriage and murder and the mischievous wee folk of legend who just might have been behind it all.

True. Weird. Stuff. Hey, you know what's a dangerous, dirty, even deadly job? Being a woman. It's true. You might not know this little factoid, but every single day on planet Earth, 137 women are killed by a current partner, a former partner, or a family member. Here we are, literally giving birth to the first ever human on the planet, and y'all dickheads just out here murdering us. It's wretched and it's infuriating, but it's hardly news, because it's pretty much been happening since humans crept out of the trees and the caves and commenced to building civilization. Today's story, though, adds a particularly weird and crazy twist to the usual sordid tale of a husband offing his bride.

This story has fairies in it, and not the adorable Tinkerbell type fairies of kids' cartoons. Nope. These are fairies from an ancient, darker time. These are the original fairies of legend and lore. Cunning, wily, bloodthirsty little creatures, utterly indifferent to human wishes or desires. These fairies aren't here to serve you. There'll be no princess dresses or mice magicked into coachmen. These fairies could not care less if you make it to the ball or meet your prince or find your way home. These fairies are as clever as they are capricious.

They might offer you protection, or they might steal your baby, or worse. The great writer and theologian C.S. Lewis suggested that fairies are a whole species unto themselves, gifted some of the powers of the angels, powers denied to mere humans, but lacking an immortal soul. Fairies certainly have the capacity for goodness, but are missing what we might call a conscience. And you can see how that could be a recipe for mayhem and mischief and casual cruelty. Since today's tale takes us to Ireland in the late 1800s, we're going to focus on the Irish fairies. They're called the Well, technically, she means the hill or mound that the fairies live beneath. But over time, the meaning of the word is expanded to cover the mound and the creatures themselves. She, as in, you know, Banshee, that supernatural being of Celtic folklore with the blood-curdling scream you never, ever, ever wanted to hear since the scream of the Banshee foretold the imminent death of a loved one.

Yeah, good grief. Between this kind of stark terror and the horrors of the potato famine, it's no wonder so many Irish braved the Atlantic crossing and made their way to Ellis Island. And here is the very first and very most important thing to know about the she. All of the legends seem to agree that the she were a thin-skinned, touchy, vengeful race, dazzlingly beautiful to behold, or monstrously ugly if the occasion called for it. The she are fundamentally inhuman. Some stories claim that the sheer descendants of fallen angels, Lucifer's crew, basically. Some stories say no, the she belonged to an ancient pagan goddess and were forced by the early invaders of Ireland to flee into an alternate realm, a magical or supernatural other world. Whichever story you go with, know this, buddy, were they ever pissed to have to share their world with big, clumsy, gullible humans. Some of the she took up residence in earthen mounds, some in special trees or woods, some made their homes in fairy rings. Fairy rings are described as these naturally occurring circles or rings of mushrooms. But I promise you that when you see one, you're like, um, nope, sorry, that does not look natural at all. Now pretend it's 100 years ago, you have only a rudimentary education, if any, zero internet, and a head full of fears and superstitions about a race of tiny, wicked little geniuses hellbent on tormenting you.

Stumble across one of these so-called natural fairy rings in the forest and try not to wet yourself from panic. So here we are in a land and a time when people firmly believe they're sharing their reality with the she, the we fairy folk, and in what surely had to be a near desperate attempt to offending the she, which was no small task given how easily offended they were, people tried to never call them by name. In a groveling attempt to just get along, weary humans dubbed them the good neighbors or the we folk or the fair folk. And not only were the folk super quick to take offense, but they were also insanely territorial. Trespass on the folk and you for sure risk being kidnapped. You'd never again return home. Instead, an identical likeness of you would stroll through your own door. Or maybe instead of kidnapping your worn out old peasant self, the folk would snatch your child, leaving a soulless she-baby in its place. They called these swapped out doppelgangers changelings. And this is where our story today takes off. Are you a witch? Are you a fairy? Are you the wife of Michael Cleary? It all began when the beautiful and spirited 18 year old Bridget Boland met a handsome charmer nine years her senior named Michael Cleary. He made a good living as a cooper. That's the old fashioned word for a barrel maker. Barrels then were kind of like plastic and cardboard today, an essential ingredient in the storage and shipping of goods, which meant being a cooper was a well paid stable occupation. Now, young Bridget, she was a girl ahead of her time in so many ways. She came from a family of very, very little means, but she managed to land herself an apprenticeship to a dressmaker. She was also skilled at hat making and had a thriving side hustle selling eggs. She was a real go getter and very nearly self-supporting. And that was something that dramatically set Bridget apart from her peers. Bridget and Michael married in the Catholic Church in 1887. It was a year, though, before they set up house together as husband and wife. It's believed that Bridget remained in her childhood home to help look after her mother who was unwell. Michael, meanwhile, set up house in the village of Clonmel and awaited his new bride. And this is the first of many facts that made the Clareys an unusual couple in the subject of gossip. Bridget, so beautiful and so beautifully dressed, was described as polite and kind. But there was something about her that raised eyebrows. She and Michael were both literate, and that was not exactly typical for their rural Irish village. Bridget was independent and strong willed. And most worryingly, the couple had no children.

Even after eight years of marriage, their tidy stone cottage with real glass windows, a truly rare and special luxury for the times, well, it was quiet. None of the pitter patter of little feet was to be expected of a young, healthy, staunchly Catholic couple. Now, today, we either mind our own damn business, thank you very much, or perhaps we'd wonder if the couple struggled with the heartbreak of infertility. For Bridget and Michael's neighbors, though, the gossip leaned more in the direction of celestial punishment. Why had God denied the Clareys the blessings of children? And you know, there were some in the village who looked at Bridget Clarey, at her beauty, at her willfulness, and they whispered ugly things about foul magic and the casting of spells. And those gossips clung tightly to a key piece of evidence that illustrated Bridget's unwifely insistence on independence, her egg business. Even after marrying Michael and moving to her marital home in Clenmel, Bridget continued to sell eggs, making most of the deliveries herself. History suggests that Michael was like, no wife of mine is going to be traipsing about the village with a basket of eggs, blah, blah, blah.

But obviously Bridget was like, you're not the boss of me, Michael Clarey, and I shall do as I please with these eggs, so step off old man. Or you know, something like that. Which brings us to the 4th of March, 1895. Bridget filled her egg basket and set out on what was a now very familiar three mile walk to the home of Jack Dunne, a cousin. Her journey took her past Kylenagranagh Hill, a medieval fort constructed in the shape of an earthen ring. And it was believed by the locals to be, you guessed it, a fairy fort. Uh-oh, this is where the trouble truly began. Bridget's neighbors firmly believed that one had to exercise extreme caution near a fairy ring or a fairy fort for all kinds of reasons. Remember, the fairy folk were super quick to take offense at any little thing, and they had no souls to be worried about, so they pretty much wreaked havoc on humans for And in an extra weird twist, it was also thought that the fairies had some challenges in producing children of their own. This meant that the folk occasionally snatched a particularly attractive young human male or female to expand their own reproductive options, and to help them get away with it, they always made sure to leave a changeling in the place of the stolen person.

But those changelings suffered from some limitations. Despite the folk having mad magical skills and some pretty impressive powers, their changelings had a way of being not quite right. Sometimes they behaved strangely, perhaps because the folk themselves were so completely and utterly unhuman that they struggled to nail all of the weird little idiosyncrasies of human behavior. Sometimes the changelings looked almost like the person they were meant to replace, but not exactly, and the differences were just enough to alarm family and friends. And sometimes the changelings were sickly. They simply could not thrive in the world of humans. When Bridget Cleary returned home from her egg delivery on the evening of March 4th, she didn't feel well, not at all. She had a headache that she described as a raging pain.

No matter how many blankets were piled onto her bed, no matter how hot they made the fire in the little cottage, Bridget could not stop shivering. Now look at you with your modern post-industrial revolution brain going, oh my god, it's the flu. Changelings, what a bunch of superstitious crap. All she needs is rest and fluids. Yeah, well, you're all cozy in 2023, and poor Bridget Cleary is burning up with fever in 1895 in a village that shares its reality with a species of magical beings that live just down the road. Your WebMD knowledge is useless here. This is an age of signs and omens, an age where illness is as likely to be a problem of immorality as of a besieged immune system. And the winter of 1895 was particularly brutal, and it hadn't yet released its miserable grip on the countryside. That evening when Bridget fell ill on March 4th, her husband and father called for a doctor to come to the cottage, but it took more than a week for that request to be answered. And when the doctor finally arrived, he diagnosed Bridget with mild bronchitis and nervous excitement. Let's have a little true weird sidebar now.

Nervous excitement is something that women back in the day were forever being diagnosed with. Sometimes they called it hysteria, and in the 18th and 19th centuries, women were tagged with this nonsense right and left. Symptoms of nervous excitement could include, are you ready? A penchant for independence, a fondness for writing, infertility. Sounds a lot like our Bridget now, doesn't it? Female hysteria was such a giant medical problem back then that a Victorian era physician went so far as to invent a device to treat women who had this stubborn, intractable malady. Today we call that device a vibrator, and it's very much in use. Although thankfully, no copay is required, and I think you can even buy one at some gas stations. You know, if you're ever overtaken by a fit of nervous excitement and need a quick cure.

Now back to the cottage in Clenmel. After days of unrelenting illness, Michael Cleary was frantic with worry for his wife, so much so that he could no longer wait for help and reached out to a fairy doctor in the village. That gentleman was named Denis Ganey, and he prescribed an herbal remedy, not one meant to treat bronchitis or even nervous excitement.

Ganey's cure was meant to drive the fairy changeling out of Bridget Cleary. By this point, Bridget was so desperately ill that a priest was summoned to perform last rites. Frightened and worried, her aunt and uncle journeyed to the cottage in Clenmel to see their dear niece, and when they arrived, it was chaos. The small dwelling was packed with people, neighbors, villagers, all seemingly desperate to force a confession of fairy treachery out of Bridget. To their horror, they witnessed Bridget's own brother, her husband, Michael, and a handful of other men unknown to them, forcing a bowl of hot milk mixed with bitter herbs down the ailing woman's throat. Witnesses reported that Michael Cleary himself held the bowl to her lips, roaring, take it, you witch, or I'll kill you. When that remedy failed to cure Bridget of her ailment, they tried another. They threw urine on her. Wait, urine? What? How? Why? The how is easier to explain than the why. In those days before widespread indoor plumbing, one could always lay hands on a full chamber pot or two. That's the how. The why has everything to do with the ancient superstitions of how the folk were to be dealt with, and when even that impromptu golden shower failed to rouse Bridget Cleary from her fevered state, her husband snatched a red-hot poker from the fire and prodded her with it, all the while demanding to know if she was a fairy.

Such were the time-tested methods in those days. A cousin of Bridget's named Johanna Burke was present that night in the cottage and confirmed that Bridget did seem deranged, but eventually settled down, which seemed to indicate to those present that the rituals and remedies had successfully resolved the whole fairy possession situation. And sure enough, Bridget woke the next though weakened by her two-week bout of sickness, dressed in her usual stylish manner, and attempted to resume her former life. The story should end here, and the Claries, Bridget and Michael, should have faded into obscurity, except for one minor detail, the detail that led to murder. Because that very afternoon, Bridget asked if she might have a glass of milk. Back then, everyone knew how much fairies loved and craved fresh milk. That simple request from his wife sent Michael Cleary over the edge, and Bridget had by God had enough of his endless paranoid rantings about her being a changeling, so she went all your mama on him, as in accusing Michael Cleary's mother of gallivanting with the folk herself. Oh, no, you didn't, Bridget Cleary.

You accused your husband's mother of cavorting with dark magic. Now you're asking for it. Now you're asking for it. Michael Cleary went ballistic. First, he tried to shove bread down her throat. Listen, if carbs can cure fairy possession, I'm set for life. How about you? Next, Michael threw Bridget to the ground, tearing at her clothing, and grabbing a piece of wood from the nearby fireplace, set the ripped fabric alight. Then he doused her with lamp oil, and as witnesses fought to restrain him, Michael Cleary burned Bridget alive.

The even crazier part of this story is what happened next. After scraping his wife's freshly roasted remains off of the cottage floor, Michael buried her in a shallow grave nearby, and went to sit a three-day vigil on the fairy mound at Kylenagranagh Hill. Why? Because, as he told friends, family, and soon enough, the police, Michael knew for a fact that the woman he burned was not his wife at all. His wife, the real Bridget, would emerge any minute now from the fairy ring, astride a galloping white stallion. Try telling that one to Keith Morrison, why don't you?

Hello, I'm Keith Morrison. What did they say? There's no such thing as the perfect guy? Is the suspense killing you? Well, I have sad news. The real Bridget Cleary never emerged from the fairy fort. Nothing and no one emerged from the fairy fort at Kylenagranagh Hill. On March 20th, just 16 days after poor Bridget set out to deliver eggs to her cousin Jack Dunne, police arrested Michael Cleary for her death. They arrested nine other people as well, including Bridget's brother Patrick, her cousin Jack Dunne himself, that miserable egg-eating ingrate, and four other cousins to boot. The charge was manslaughter, and it took only two days for the One neighbor in particular, John Dunne, was convicted for the part he played in the tragedy by spreading the fairy lore that whipped the participants into a frenzy of superstitious fear and paranoia. There's always that one guy in the neighborhood, isn't there?

And once those fears were stoked in the mob, good luck getting the situation calmed back down. That night, John Dunne whispered the devil into his neighbor's ears, and Bridget Cleary paid the price for it with her life. Michael Cleary was sentenced to 20 years for the killing of his wife Bridget. This whole story is documented in court records and archives in Ireland in incredible detail. Because all of this talk of fairies and changelings and magical cures sounds like something from an impossibly long ago time, you might be surprised to learn that these records contain photographs of the crime scene. Yep, all of this went down at a time when cameras were already invented. How does this kind of primitive superstition exist, coexist with such modern technology? Well, if you think about it, plenty of superstitions coexist with our own modern technology. You can find witch doctors online right now. You can buy magic spells on Etsy. You can call a toll-free number and get the advice of a psychic. We're not so very different from the villagers who helped Michael Cleary commit murder, not if we're honest about it. We have our own superstitions and fears, our own rush to judgment in the cases of people who act differently or think differently. And the simple fact is, today people are still accused of witchcraft and magic and killed for it. In London in 2012, a couple first tortured and then murdered a 15-year-old boy they believed was possessed by evil spirits. That's not but 11 years ago, right? And who are we to judge Ireland in the late 1800s when we're all bracing for the trial of Lori Vallow, a mother of two from Idaho who's accused of murdering her own children in 2021 after becoming convinced that they were zombies? Are you a witch? Are you a fairy? Are you the wife of Michael Cleary?

Bridget Cleary's murder helped change the laws in Ireland. It created questions that people are still asking today. Questions about motive, questions about what Michael Cleary really believed was happening to his lovely young wife. The couple was literate. They had financial means and remember what Michael's first move was? He summoned a medical doctor to come treat Bridget.

There isn't anything in the historical record to suggest that either of the Cleary's were given to superstition. Though to be fair, the record also doesn't prove that they weren't. Everything we know about the couple turns out to be not very much. But even the meager facts don't bode well for Bridget. Remember how her independence was resented by both the village and her husband?

How their prosperity caused envy, the way Bridget's beauty and her willful ways caused envy. The Cleary's were childless and that too had a whiff of the uncanny about it. Had Michael Cleary tired of his headstrong wife? Was he disappointed by her failure to give him a son? And listen, it would be thought her failure, not his own. And who in 1895 knew much of anything about human fertility. In short, was Michael Cleary done with being married to Bridget? And did her sudden illness offer him a way out, however terrible? This is something that historians have wrestled with. Did Michael Cleary fall under a real spell, a very human spell, cast by a very human mob, not by any magical being? There were no court ordered psychiatric evaluations of Michael Cleary.

So we have no real glimpse into his state of mind. Did he genuinely believe that his spouse had been replaced by a changeling? If he did, his defense was almost 30 years too early to claim he suffered from Capgras Syndrome. That's a real disorder named after the French psychiatrist who first defined it. A person with Capgras Syndrome suffers from the delusion that someone significant in their lives, a loved one, has been replaced with an identical imposter. It could be an alien or a cyborg or a fairy changeling. Today we know that Capgras Syndrome is the result of damage to very specific portions of the brain. And what's super interesting about that is that this damage occurs in the parts of the brain that are connected to facial recognition and the processing of emotional information. Could Michael Cleary have been the victim of a tragic brain disorder that wouldn't even be named for a few more decades? Or was Michael Cleary a man dissatisfied in his marriage? A man who under other circumstances may have lived his entire life in that quiet despair, slowly growing more distant from his wife, more resentful with each passing year?

Don't we all know a couple or two that fit this description? And what if this version of Michael Cleary, unhappy husband, found himself caught up in a frenzy of fear, egged on to an act of almost unimaginable savagery by his very vocal and superstitious neighbors? Could that Michael Cleary be capable of the unthinkable? Could that Michael Cleary watch as his wife burned to death on the floor of their home, utterly unmoved by her terror, deaf to her agonized screams? Michael Cleary did mostly. He served 15 years of his 20-year sentence. And upon release, he didn't return to Clonmel. He never went back to the village. He first went to Liverpool and then shortly afterward emigrated to Canada. And there he disappears from the watchful gaze of history and takes with him the truth of those horrifying hours in a cottage at Clonmel. Perhaps there is someone alive today who knows what Michael Cleary really believed about Bridget. Perhaps he truly thought his young wife would be returned to him, that the fairies would grudgingly surrender their human prize after her husband obeyed all of the ancient and necessary rights meant to destroy a changeling.

We can't know now what was in his head or his heart, but we do know that Bridget Cleary was the woman in Ireland to be burned for the crime of witchcraft. Because that's really what all the talk of fairies and enchanted rings and magical changelings was about. It was about policing the behavior of a woman who refused to be bound by the expectations of her time. How's that for a very familiar and tired old story? Bridget's life and death played out during the early turbulent fight for what was called home rule in Ireland. Let's go back to New Year's Day, 1801, when the kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain merged. The fury of so many Irish people that was born of that union never lessened. It never lost momentum. And Bridget Cleary's shocking death was almost world picked up the story. People were outraged and sickened. But there were plenty who seized on this tale of fairies and magic and changelings and murder to bolster their case. But the Irish were far too primitive and ignorant to ever govern themselves. And this is where we leave young Bridget Cleary, the dressmaker's apprentice, who was born a woman but became a symbol. Bridget shows us the price to be paid when the old ways collide with the modern world. The once flesh and blood woman, Bridget Cleary, is only an enigma now, a mystery that we're unlikely to ever, ever solve.

But in a way, in a very weird twist, Bridget's fate did prove the old legends to be at least a little bit true. Because on that fateful day in March, 1895, when Bridget passed by the fairy mound of Kylenagranagh Hill, Bridget Cleary did tumble into a magical eternal world, the world of myth and legends and nursery rhymes and nursery rhymes.

Next time on True Weird Stuff. Today, Dewey Vaughn is retired from the Air Force where he held a top secret security clearance. He owns his own business. But when he was a little boy, 12 years old, the neighboring farm was the site of one of America's most shocking and controversial Bigfoot sightings. Today, Dewey's a Bigfoot tracker, and he joins us with proof.

Special thanks to Miss Emma Grace Smith, making her voice performer debut in this episode. And if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, hit the plus button in the top right corner, and now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered. And we really appreciate it if you subscribe, rate, and review True Weird Stuff. Hit our website trueweirdstuff.com for show notes and photos and videos when we have it, and bonus content. Everything true weird is waiting for you at trueweirdstuff.com. And follow True Weird Stuff on Instagram and Twitter.

True Weird Stuff is a Now! Media production. Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia. The show is written and hosted by me, Sheri Lynch, along with my deeply weird director, Max Sweeten. Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser. Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call. Our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr.

Original graphics by Kevin Nash. Original artworks by Olivia Axland. True weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and St. Nash. Copyright 2023, Now! Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs remembered.