Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/122

 1 06 Collectanea.

probably later than the earliest accounts of its discovery in 1778.^^

Hence I hesitate even to name the Finn items in the tale of the sinking of Kilstapheen or Kilstuitheen as being of any great age, though the main tale is doubtless ancient. In 1839 men said at Lehinch that the golden key of the enchanted island of Kilsta- pheen lay under Conan's tomb.^^ The preserst-day tale narrates that in the battle of Bohercrochaun^^ Stapheen, attacking the spoilers of his cattle, lost the golden key, and his island and fort immediately sank under the waves. ^'

^To be continued.)

Thos. |. Westropp.

Welsh Folklore Items, J.

Hiring Fairs.

I ENCLOSE a list [of Hiring Fairs]. Of course the custom is dying out. " At the fairs the servants wishing to be hired stood with a straw in their mouths." " Llanover Estate hire their servants Oct. and Nov." Hay and Brecon fairs are very interestmg, and hiring is still done there. The letter I send is from the farmer's wife in this neighbourhood who supplies me with butter etc.^

" It was first published by John Lloyd in .-in Impartial Tour in Clare, 1778, but may be alluded to in 1750 by Comyn in his romance, unless the allusion is also interpolated.

" General Vallancey tells the same tale of the mirage land of Tir Hudi off the Donegal coast ; its key, too, lay hidden under a druidical monument.

'* Note the name Crochaun, as in the Loop Head story.

3' For further particulars of Kilstuitheen see vol. xxi., pp. 485-6. The whole subject of spectral islands and their legends is dealt with in The Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxx., part \.

1 " There is a Fair in Abergavenny on May I4lh, and one the first :\Ionday in .May in Monmouth. They are the hiring fairs, but there are very few girls go to them now. The custom seems to be dying out. There used to be one in Caerleon, May ist, but there are no servants go there for hire now. The farm servants about Jiere change very much the same as a town girl would. They don't mind when they leave, as they think they can always get a place."