Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/256

 2 2 8 Collectanea.

1 8. Petticoat-loose and the Carters.

There was at one time at CoUigan a woman who was called Petticoat-loose/' though her real name was Mary Caine, while others say that she was called Wall. She led a very bad life, and used to be striking her father and mother, and after her death her ghost was going around killing everybody with a ton weight in the right hand with which she had been striking them.

There were two men coming up from Dungarton by the CoUigan road one night, and they had a horse and cart, when one of them looked round and saw Petticoat-loose coming after them. "(9//, Dia linn anaml [O, God help us!]," said -one of them. " Bheidh mid air bhthe ! [We'll be killed ! ] Here comes Petticoat- loose ! " and she sat on the back of the cart. The horse could not walk with her terrible weight, for every arm of her weighed five hundredweights, and the whole of her weighed a ton. The horse sweated like a pig, and perished there on the road, and only for the men had a good song to sing for her, she would have killed them too. They kept singing till after the hour of twelve o'clock, and she disappeared then, but the men did not get over the fright till they perished.

1 9. Hoiv Petticoat-loose was defeated by the Scafflers. A man was going one time to a well for a pail of water, and Petticoat-loose came down upon him. "Well," says Petti, "you won't have another minute to live in this world. Peel off all your clothes, and get into your skin." So he took off all his clothes excepting the scaffiers,^* and them is what saved him. " Well, by gar ! " says the man, " for all that the King and Queen are worth, I wouldn't take them off." "Ah, my demon," says Petti, "that's well for ye, or Pd have ye kilt altogether."- She finished then by giving him a blow, but it didn't hurt him, when he had the scafflers. Then she went off, and he went off.

20. The Fate of Petticoat-loose.

Petticoat-loose made her last appearance on the road to

'' So called from an incident at a dance, when her petticoat fell from her on the floor. ^' Scapula.