Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/368

 ;^;^6 P^olk-l\xles from Western Ireland.

him. At that point the mare stopped and refused to go on. The cry now seemed to come from the dyke. He deter- mined to find out what was there, and dismounted, putting the reins round his arm as the mare became restless. He then went close to the dyke, and felt the bottom with the ash plant he carried for a whip, but found no one. He sprang into the saddle, and cried out, ' If the devil from hell is before me, I'll go through.' At the same time he thought every vein in his body was like a rope. Not that he felt afraid, but just ready to fight anything. He struck the mare several times, and at last she made a spring as if jumping a high wall, and galloped on. Immediately after she had leaped the cry passed over the road behind him. And then he felt afraid — not very much, and rode away fast. The mare was in a terrible state, all white with foam when he got home."

Mr. MacC also told me this story. One night his

father and a servant were returning from Ballina with two carts. Each man led his horse ; and the servant's cart was first. There was a distance of three yards or so between the carts. They came to a part of the road where the country was open and bare on both sides. One wheel of the first cart

appeared to go over something, and Mr. MacC heard a

scream close to his feet like the cry of a peacock. He at once stopped, and held the lantern he carried over the spot, but saw only the road. He then called to his servant, but the latter went on as if he had not heard him. When he overtook the servant he asked him if he had not heard the scream, and why he did not come back. " I heard the cry well enough," the man said, " but if you had seen what I had seen you wouldn't have come back. There was a little man on the road, running before the horse, and by the side of the v/heel, and grinning up at me. He ran back by the wheel and then I heard the scream." This servant told that twice on going along that road at night, a woman had sprang into the cart and ridden in it for some distance, and