In the blistering heat of this summer, we were sitting outside a small restaurant in the French seaside town of Fouras-les Bains, enjoying a farewell glass of wine when I noticed the sky darkening. An extraordinary black cloud was approaching from the sea. It was not a usual black cloud, but a thick and dark, deep and opaque soot-black cloud.

As it menacingly advanced, the temperature dropped dramatically and the hitherto calm gentle breeze began to blow with unnatural, malicious ferocity.

At this point, the sun umbrellas took off and were blown 50m down the road. The chairs and tables tumbled over, with their drinks spilling and glasses crashing and smashing to the ground.

Café awnings began to rip, and I watched in disbelief as young and old, caught in the gusting gales of wind, were blown over, reduced to cries of pain and fear.

Half-naked

Hordes of half-naked sun-worshippers who a few sun-drenched minutes earlier had been lying on the sand were scurrying for cover. We had just managed to find the shelter of the Le Bel’M restaurant when the skies opened, unleashing a biblical cascade of golf ball-sized hailstones.

This was my first experience of a tornado, with winds of over 140km per hour, pulling trees from their roots, lifting roofs off houses and making quick work of my parked car when the heavy limb of an ancient pine tree fell and shattered the back window, while mangling the roof and bonnet.

It was all over within 20 minutes when the sun came out again leaving all who had experienced the cyclonical destruction, open-mouthed, bewildered and in visible shock.

While many of the accounts of the Sí Gaoithe relate to the time of saving hay, there is a body of lore that asserts that the wind was fairies en masse – the Slua Sídh or ‘fairy host’ – as they moved from their summer location to their winter quarters

Contemplating this calamitous meteorological spectacle had me thinking of the many various accounts back home in Ireland of the Sí Gaoithe, ‘the fairy wind’.

This wind, sometimes gentle, but often violent and destructive, is something that comes on all of a sudden, without any warning. It is specific and localised and has often been seen up to the present day when people are working in a field saving hay.

A whirlwind catches and shoots the hay wildly into the air in a swirling vortex at one end of a field, while the rest of the field remains calm and undisturbed.

In the past, people were terrified of this phenomenon and understood that the wind was the fairies as they travelled from one place to another. There was different advice as to what to do and the best instruction was simply to ''throw oneself down on the ground face down and let it pass''.

Others preferred to stand and face the wind and throw some grass or some clay or even their cap at the swirling Sí Gaoithe, saying ‘take this instead of me’.

Others while blessing themselves, offered a more placating blessing such as ‘God speed all travellers’ or ‘God and the road be with you’ and hoped the wind would pass.

While many of the accounts of the Sí Gaoithe relate to the time of saving hay, there is a body of lore that asserts that the wind was fairies en masse – the Slua Sídh or ‘fairy host’ – as they moved from their summer location to their winter quarters.

Their relocation from one fairy fort to another took place at the natural turning points of the year, Samhain or Halloween and in the summertime at Bealtaine or May Eve.

It was at these threshold times of the year when the otherworld was closest that people would be taken by the fairies.

A violent Sí Gaoithe that pulled the thatch and scraw off the roof and left a gaping hole meant that the fairies were trying to abduct a newborn child or nursing mother from within.

Fairy blast

The whirlwind or mini tornado of the fairies was also referred to as the fairy blast. An unexpected blast of wind, violent enough to blow off one’s cap or hat, specifically when it could not be found again, was a portent of illness or death.

In Ireland, when someone suffered a stroke, it was called ‘poc sídhe’, a ‘fairy blow’.

Equally there are stories of people being ‘swept’ by the fairy wind. They were taken up into the air and landed again miles away, none the worse for the experience and lived to tell the tale.

Similarly, full churns of milk, cocks of hay with pitchforks still stuck in them and farm animals, bulls, cows, sheep and collies have all been taken and set down at a great distance, also without harm.

It is a great pity that my fairy wind experience in France did not consider sparing my car!

Shane Lehane is a folklorist who works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. Contact: slehane@ucc.ie