A west of Ireland legend, mentioned in "Bealoideas" (Vol. 58, 1990), the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society, refers to a folk-hero biting off the finger of a corpse to get at a ring. The story is found also in the folklore of other places around the world and, in some of them, there are references to the robbing of bodies washed ashore after ship-wrecks.
On the east coast of Co Wexford local people still recall the origins of a lurid epithet, the "Kill 'ems and Ate 'ems", which was often hurled at natives of a certain area and which apparently derived from allegations that some shipwrecked mariners had been murdered and their bodies plundered when they struggled ashore after their vessel went down. As with some legends, there were elements of truth in this tale. There was a shipwreck, and two empty boats were washed ashore; but evidence which emerged later showed that the early allegations of cannibalism, involving the gnawing of fingers off the bodies to get at their rings, were unfounded.
Fable reported
The event which gave rise to the fable is reported in the Dublin paper The Public Register or Freeman's Jour- nal, dated February 18th22nd 1766: "It is said," the paper reported, "there are letters in town from Wexford which give an account that the ship Welcome, Captain Crosted, of and for Whitehaven, from Virginia, laden with tobacco, iron, etc. was in the late storm wrecked at Blackwater, near Wexford; two boats belonging to the vessel were drove on land, but none of the hands were found".
In those days of poor communications, newspapers relied on dispatches carried by stagecoach to Dublin and it was well-nigh impossible to verify any reports from country areas. In the March 1st-4th edition of the same paper there was another account of the same shipwreck: "Extracts from a letter from Wexford, February 20th, 1766: We have had violent gales of wind here, so that there is .. . within 100 yards of the shore, a Virginian of 500 tons, laden with tobacco, bound for Whitehaven; every soul on board either perished or were murdered; four men are taken up on suspicion."
But almost two months were to elapse before the truth emerged, in another report in The Freeman's Journal of April 26th-29th: "Fourteen of the crew which belonged to the ship called the Welcome, lately wrecked on the coast. . .have been thrown in upon various parts of the shore, whereby it is generally thought that there was not any murder committed." But the report apparently came too late to prevent a grisly folktale being created and to this day in that part of Co Wexford there is a hesitancy about mentioning even the origin of the story.
Perched parrot
Down the years the tale has been embellished by the inclusion of the ubiquitous parrot - what sea-story is without one? It was said that when members of the coastguard reached the wrecked Welcome they found a parrot perched in the rigging. When a coastguard called out: "Anyone on board?", the parrot allegedly replied: "They killed 'em and ate 'em."
But an actual case of theft from the body of a shipwrecked mariner occurred much more recently, again on the coast of Co Wexford. In June 1941, at the height of the German blockade of Britain, the body of a seaman was washed ashore at Cullens town; it was later established that the dead man was Captain Hans Gullestad of the Norwegian motor-vessel Hildesfjord which had been bombed and sunk in St George's Channel. His body was taken to the unoccupied and derelict coastguard station at Bar o' Lough and laid out to await a postmortem examination.
Two inquisitive local schoolboys, then on holidays, managed to get a glimpse of what happened next, after eluding the lone garda on duty. An undertaker's assistant arrived to put the body in a coffin. Before he did so, he pulled off the dead man's gloves and wrenched at least one ring from the stiff fingers. Then, when he saw that he had been observed, he merely winked and carried on with his grisly task.
Inscription
Captain Gullestad was buried in the nearby Shemogues graveyard where a small headstone was later erected over his grave. The inscription reads: "Her Hviler Norsk Sjomann Kaptein Hans Gullestad 27-1-1892, 1-41941. For Norge 1939-1945". (Here rests a Norwegian sailor Captain Hans Gullestad 27-11892, 1-4-1941. For Norway 1939-1941.)
In 1959 Captain Gullestad's son and daughter, from Stavanger, visited his lonely grave after two local men contacted the Mayor of Stavanger asking to be put in touch with any members of the Gullestad family. The owner of the Hildefjord had been a Kornelius Olsen of Stavanger. In the Norwegian archives the names of all 28 members of the ship's crew, missing and presumed dead, are listed.
Captain Gullestad's son and daughter probably never knew about the theft of their father's ring/s - he had already been buried for many years before their visit to south Wexford. It is not known what became of the ring/s after the death of the undertaker's assistant. The two local lads who witnessed the incident were probably too scared to tell their story. After all, who would believe such a horrifying tale?