Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/404

364 know, and his mother used to have dealings with the "Good People" as well as himself.

They say that the last witch in Wexford used to live in Ferns Castle "about three hundred" years ago. Ferns Castle, by the way, is said to have been built in one night by evil spirits, with stones brought from Sliabh Buidh. The builders were interrupted in their work by cockcrow, and dropped the last load of stones upon the mountain, where it is to be seen at this day.

Some time ago a certain family were constantly having their butter taken while churning. They consulted a "fairy-man," who advised them to put, at the next churning, the coulter of a plough in the fire, fasten a rope from it to the latch of the door, and admit no one who came to the house. This was all done; save when, in the middle of the operation, a woman of the neighbourhood came to the door and knocked urgently, they admitted her. She made some excuse for coming, and went away again; and once more the butter failed. They went again to the "fairy-man," who flew in a great rage at their not having obeyed his instructions, and bade them plague him no more. They then applied to the priest, whose intervention proved more successful.

A fortune-teller once asked a man called Mogue for some money. "I have none," said he. "You have at this moment," said she, "a sixpence, a fourpenny piece, and two coppers in your pocket." This was true, and the alarmed Mogue, with a brief and forcible exorcism, fled.

There was a man who lived near R. some years ago, and could make rats follow him; and he would put them into the houses of those whom he disliked.

If two ends of a rainbow be seen in the same townland, it forebodes the death of one in that townland.

Hybernating animals are called "seven-sleepers." "I didn't know that efts were seven-sleepers" said B. to me one day, "until I was pulling down an old wall in winter, and found about a hundred of them," &c.

Hampden Club, Phoenix Street, London, N.W.