Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/123

Rh very old-looking and had a red cap on his head, and she was scared, and chased him out of the house. Many a time after she regretted the loss of her chances, for she never after met with another.

In the same townland (LemacuUa), James Dudgeon, a sturdy Orangeman, and one on whose word I should have complete reliance (he was in my service from 1863 till his death), told me that about the year 1850 he was returning home early one summer's evening, and coming to the ditch of a plantation he saw one of these little fellows with the red cap sitting beneath him in the "shough." He tried to catch him, but the loughrey-man jumped behind a tree, and peeped round it. Dudgeon chased him about from tree to tree for fully half-an-hour, he said, till tired out; so he wished him good-night, and left him grinning behind a tree.

Robert Loughy, when he was a small boy, lived with his parents on his father's farm, not far from Dungarvan, and remembers that leprechauns had been frequently seen near the cottage. His mother one morning went out of the door and found two beautiful little shirts of very fine and strong material, and admirably made, hanging on the hedge hard by. The family had never seen garments of such good quality, and Robert and his little brother wore them long enough. Wondering at the discovery she showed them to a neighbour woman, who advised her not to tell of her luck to the neighbours, for probably other valuable gifts would be left by the friendly donors. But she was so elated that she could not keep the secret, and every one about heard of her good fortune, and, of course, no more presents were left. He well remembered the beautiful shirts, he said.

The leprechauns appear to be about two feet high.

Not far from Fenagh, whose ancient ecclesiastical and other remains are well known, there is a little hollow among the low hilly eminences, not far from the townland of Longstones, where the Druids were all turned into monoliths, and a small bog fills the bottom. In the middle of this patch of bog is a huge boulder.