Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/357

 Folk-Talcs froDi Western Ireland. 325

nothing whatever to do with the tale, he is introduced that it may be said he has a friend, and he passes at once from the story which then centres round the friend. In "The putting out of the Changehng," the two men (who each at a different time told me the story) give the same name to the godfather, and place the scene of the exorcising in the townland of Treenabauntrigh, in the parish of Bohola, Co. Mayo. Old Bridget Groak, in the short tale of " The Careful Mother," names the teacher Mullany, and places him in Treenkeel in the parish of Killeaden ; and the young married woman, Catherine Ivors, who told the story of " The Well that Moved," brings a " station " and a priest into it.

With personal experiences it was different ; there was then no vagueness : all was clear and simple, and the men and women who told me of these happenings did so with a certainty that what they related were absolutely true. One or two were young, and all were of the peasant class.

A Well that Moved.

There is a Iloly Well not far from the town of Kilti- magh, in County Mayo, called Tobar Caomnie.^ Votive rags used to be attached to the old hawthorn tree that stands near. This well, it is believed, moved to its present site from a little hill lying to the south-west. The story of its flight is familiar to everyone in the neighbourhood. A young woman, Catherine Ivors, gave it to me in detail. The well used to be on the small hill Cilleen, and some years ago, forty or fifty or perhaps longer, a priest named Father Ivors came to hold a station in the village, and the girl of the house, in a hurry to prepare food for him, ran to the well and filled her pot with water. Then she put in the meat, and hung the pot over the fire. The water refused to

' Pronounced Keeve-nee.