This story was published in an old Irish pamphlet titled “Strange and Wondrous News,” so it is reasonable to simply take it as a fabrication. However, there are too many details in it for mere fiction.
In the annotation to the story, it is indicated that this “completely true story” happened in County Wicklow in Ireland with a certain Dr. Moore, who later worked as a teacher in London.
Once, Dr. Moore and two of his friends – Richard Uniac and Laughlin Moore (no relation) – gathered in the village of Dromgry to discuss pressing issues. And when they stopped at an inn for the night and sat at the table, having dinner, Moore told them a story about strange things that happened to him in childhood when he lived nearby.
Dr. Moore himself was too young at the time to remember anything, but he knows about the events from the stories of his mother and other relatives. And according to their words, in childhood, he would often suddenly disappear and could not be found anywhere.
Parents believed that fairies abducted the boy, and after each disappearance of the child, they went to an elderly neighbor who, apparently, was a witch or something similar. This old woman would recite some spells, after which the child would be found as unexpectedly as he disappeared, unharmed.
Dr. Moore’s friends greeted this story with great skepticism. Perhaps they, like the doctor, had a decent education and were not as superstitious as simple villagers.
Uniac even brought up several logical arguments against the story being true, which greatly upset Dr. Moore, who then began to assure his friends that he was not lying at all and that everything happened exactly as he said.
And then Dr. Moore suddenly jumped up and said he had to leave because he had just been “summoned.” He didn’t say who summoned him or where, but immediately an unknown force began to lift Dr. Moore into the air, and frightened Uniac and Laughlin grabbed him – one by the arm, the other by the leg.
But the invisible opponent was much stronger, and it began to lift Moore along with the two men hanging on him. Out of fear, Laughlin immediately let go of Moore’s leg, but Uniac continued to hold on. However, a few seconds later, he gave up too, and as soon as he released the doctor and fell to the floor, Dr. Moore disappeared. His friends didn’t even notice whether he was taken out through the window or through the inn’s door.
Uniac and Laughlin, both terrified, ran to the innkeeper and told him what had happened to their friend. The innkeeper listened to them as calmly as if he had heard about such things regularly.
And then he told them that about a quarter mile from here lives a woman who possesses “wisdom” and can find lost things or people. And he has no doubt that she can help find Dr. Moore.
The woman was immediately sent for, and soon she arrived. They told her that about an hour ago, some forces abducted their friend and asked her to find him. And the woman immediately said that their missing friend was currently about a mile from here in the woods, holding a piece of bread in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
At the same time, she also said that Dr. Moore was very hungry and thirsty, but he must not eat or drink anything in that forest under any circumstances, otherwise he would be struck by illness and would not recover until death.
After that, she began to recite ancient incantations, the essence of which was to ask Dr. Moore’s ancestors, who lived four generations ago, to help him. And then she told what would happen to Dr. Moore next.
She said that the creatures (fairies) who abducted him would first take him to a Danish fort, seven miles from here, where there would be great revelry and dancing, as well as plenty of food and drink, but the spells would protect Moore from temptation. And then they would drag him even further, twenty miles away, to another fort, where there would also be a great celebration.
After that, they would drag him to the fort of the Seven Churches, but since Moore would not touch the forbidden drinks and meat there either, by morning he would be returned to people alive and unharmed. After that, the woman said goodbye and left.
At six in the morning, someone knocked on the door of the inn. When the door was opened, there stood Dr. Moore, tormented by extreme thirst and hunger. When he was fed and given something to drink, he recounted that at the moment when he was abducted, he saw about twenty humanoid beings burst into the room. Some were on foot, others on horseback. And they grabbed him, tore him away from his friends’ hands, and dragged him into the forest.
There they put him on a horse, gave him bread in one hand, wine in the other, and offered him to eat and drink. And then they transported him all night from one celebration to another. But when he tried to eat or drink something, the food and drinks simply flew out of his hands on their own.
The beings he saw that night he described as many tall and slender men and women who loved to dance to music and held lavish feasts in the forts. When dawn came, somehow Dr. Moore found himself alone next to the inn from where he was abducted.
Later, Richard Uniac, tormented by great curiosity, went to the very Danish fort mentioned by the witch. And he found on the grass, among the ruins of the ancient fort, a huge circle trampled so heavily as if five hundred people had recently danced in it.
Returning, Uniac told his friends about this discovery, and later he affirmed his story in the presence of local Dr. Murphy and Mr. Ladlow, one of the six clerks of the High Chancery Court. This happened on November 18, 1678.
