Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/233

 Collectanea. 197

by " the stroke of a fairy," the poet recommends the holy man to get the aid of a local practitioner of renown, Peter the Fairy Killer.43

In recent years I have met only one sign of true respect for the •' Sheevra " race. A small patch of land was left untitled in the midst of a cornfield at the end of the steep descent from Carran old church to Eanty in the Burren, It was left for three years amidst the tillage, and then the field was allowed to return to grass. The owners obviously disHked to explain the matter, but the act was clearly understood in the neighbourhood as a con- cession to the spirits of the field when the grass land was broken up for the first time in human memory.^*

The appearances of the fairies also seem now very rare indeed. At Newmarket-on-Fergus, a centre of much folklore, we find that, besides the two forts named above and a low earth mound (per- haps sepulchral), only one spot has been honoured by an actual apparition in the last ten years. In this case a man walking on the Ennis road, not far from Lough Gaish, saw a very little man neatly dressed in green and walking on the path. Suspecting the green man to be a leprechaun, — and hence an owner of gold, — the Clare man tried to grasp him, but the sprite vanished out of his hands.^5

The " literary movement" will probably affect the folklore very soon, as it is already affecting historical tradition, — which is shown by the variations in certain legends collected at long intervals at the same sites. By some the Danann have been identified with the Danes as " fort builders." If this were so, why did Dane's fort become Caher Loghlanach, (Caher Loglin, 1652), and similar forms? The people once knew better, for forts were attributed to all sorts of times and races, not only to members of the Tuatha De Danann, but also to Firbolgs and mythical persons such as Aenghus, Eerish, Eir, Farvagh, and


 * ^lbid. 23. K. 10.

''■* It was certainly not the darker belief that in Scotland dedicated an offering to the one called euphemistically "The Goodman," nor like the sheaf some- times dedicated to Brigit and other saints in West Munster, or, indeed, in other parts of Ireland.

^^ Collected by Miss Katherine Neville. The sprite was, of course, proved not to be a leprechaun, as that being can be held by the eye alone.