Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/240

 2o8 Collectanea.

Folk-Tales from County Limerick collected BY Miss D. Knox.

The CJianie Man.

Well, there is an ould castle called Carrigorely (?) and near it there was a fort. Well, God rest his soul, for he is dead now, a man the name of Tom Harrigan, and he was quarrying stones near the fort, when he found among the stones a little chanie man. Being of a quarc turn of mind he insisted on the chanie man to speak. Well, he brought it home, and put it on the dresser, with the remark, " Til make you speak before mornin'." He went to bed, and when he got up in the mornin', the little man was gone, but the quare part of it was,— God between us and harm, — he had three children, after, and all three were deaf and dumb, and I knew him as well as I know you. From that day to this they quarried no more stones there. — Told by Richard Walsh, Caherconlish, Co. Limerick.

The Runaicay Road, and hoxu it got the Name.

I'm seventy years or over id [it] now, well, I don't remember id [it], but I often heard my father — God rest his sowl — talking about id [it].

That was a good strait [straight] road at the time from you lave Shra, till you come to within a mile of Doonbeg [Dunbeg]. Well, sir, 'twas about Christmas time, and the night was very stormy, but thank God there was no harm done to anybody. But when me father got up in the mornin', and opened the door, and looked out, " The Lord save us," says he, " where is the road gone to .^ " There was the house, that was on the road side, in the middle of a field, and all the other cabins the same way. " The Lord betune us and harm," says he to me mother, " the road is gone away." And sure, there was the road, about two fields away and twishted like a live eel, and facing twords [towards] Kilrush. Well, to get to the road agin they had to put a wooden bridge across that river below, and there it stopped from that day to this, and that's why 'tis called the Runaway