Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/366

 334 Foik-Tales fro7n Westci'ii I re /and.

When he got into the chapel he threw off his cota-mor, and threw it up on the shadow. And when he thought the shadow would hold it up the cota-mor fell down on the floor. He had committed a sin, for when he threw up the cota-mor on the shadow, he had looked round and about and seen everyone dressed but himself And he thought he ought to be dressed. And the Almighty God took him there on the altar.

He got no food from that out from heaven and died. He was taken to heaven, for the Almighty God did not like to leave him sinning. A son of pride is too bad."

The Woman who Hopped like a Magpie.

The two following stories were told me by an engineer in the employment of the Congested Districts Board, a Mayo man, and of Scotch Gaelic descent. I wrote them down as he told them.

" Some friends had been spending the day at our place, and my brother drove them home at night. He -brought a a sheep-dog with him. It was about twelve o'clock, when coming back he was between Foxford and Kiltebirn wood, at a place where an old white thorn tree grows by the side of the road. He saw a woman jump out from beneath this tree. It was about twenty yards in front of the car. He won- dered who the woman was, and said to himself, ' I wonder if she is one of the Clarke's ' (a family that lived in a cottage by the side of the road some way on). He spoke to the dog and told it to follow the woman. But instead of obeying it whined and ran under the car, and then tried to get up by my brother's side. He noticed that the woman ran in a peculiar way, hopping like a magpie instead of running like a human being. He determined to overtake her, and set the horse into a smart trot, but she kept in front. Being anxious to get up to her before she reached the house, he set the horse into a gallop, but she still kept ahead. When