Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/368

 340 Collectanea.

world." So the priest said that they would if there was the full of a writing pen of blood amongst the whole of them. So he went away and there was an awful noise after him like crying, and the chalice wasn't mended.

There is an anecdote in Kennedy's Legendary Fictions of a similar question being put to a priest, but the test that he imposed was a theological one. According to McKeever the fairies are one class of the fallen angels, the others being the air spirits, beings powerless alike for good or evil, and the devils. The last were in active rebellion, while the air spirits offended in word, and the fairies sinned in that they stood neutral in the contest. The fairies are often alluded to in English as " the Gentry." It is worth noting that this story implies that the fairy was able to enter a church during service !

The Crock of Gold.

There was a man, and he was very poor, and a very good workman, and never used to lose any time. And he couldn't make out how it was he couldn't be rich, and he such an honest working man— so industrious. He had a son and a daughter who was very handsome. He went out early one morning and saw a little man in a red jacket making shoes under a tree, so he caught hold of him and asked him what he was doing there so early. So he said, " I'm not any earlier out than what you are." So the man said yes, and that he couldn't make anything of that, he was always very poor and yet worked very hard. So he said, " Well, I'll tell ye where ye'll get a treasure, but as soon as ye take it out there must be a life lost afterwards, a dog or a cat will do." He told him then to lift up a flat stone that was on his own hearth, and under it he'd get a crock of gold, and that nobody was to know anything about it only his own family, and when he took out the crock to throw in a dog or a cat and let down the stone.

So they gathered around the stone, and they riz the stone and took the crock of gold out, and they were about to close the stone without putting anything in, when the daughter fell in and never was seen or heard after.

And the man had the money, but it never done him any good.