Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/132

 1 20 Collectanea.

talking about t!ie well. So he told his steward to take a blind horse he had to the well. But the steward wouldn't take the horse, so he had to take him himself to the well. So the horse got his sight back there and then, and Mr. Healy, who had had the impudence to take a dumb animal to the well, was struck blind himself, and the well disappeared. So there was no trace of the well to be found where it was. But after some days the well was found where it is at present, up a boreen under the chapel of Modelligo.i*^'

14. The Abhacs.

An Abhac'^^ is a very small little man with a head bigger than any other man, though he be ten feet high, and he have short legs and little short shoes for them to be in, and he is a very strong little man and a great worker. And any family that would get hold of him wouldn't need to do any work, for the Abhac would do all the work and would never sleep, for he would work night and day. And when one of the Abhacs would get upon a horse to be riding of him, his legs would not come down to the stirrups or near them ; and the Abhacs would be cuter than any big men, and they have more brain than any ordinary men, and for their size they are awfully strong, — and wicked, because they think everybody is looking at them. And if there was a crowd of people coming against them, they'd go inside of the fence in order to escape them, and they'd be great for milking cows or driving donkeys.

There was once an Abhac as was a small little-een man with a big head, and he did have thirty women going about him, and all the thirty women were hunting him for his money. And they caught him, and, when they caught him, they took him down to the river and had a fighting battle for him. " Be japers ! I'll have him ! " says one. " Be gar ! " says another one, says she, " You're a liar !" says she, "Get out of my sight!" says she, — and had him. They all went away then, and no more about them. They wouldn't see him any more, and the woman as had the Abhac took and drownded him in the river because she wanted his money.

^"According to an older version of this legend the desecrator of the well was Cromwell. Cf. vol. xxii., p. 212 {Clare).

11 Pron. " ffivk" a dwarf of unnaturally small person.