Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/195

Rh ordered the cook to kill it for dinner. The cook did so, and cooked it for the old Dane, and when he ate and drank plenty of the rabbit and broth, he says to the Irishman: "I promised to pay you well when you'd return with the white rabbit." "Well, you did," says the Irishman; "and I hope you'll keep your word."

"Come," he says, "and take this piece of rabbit you brought me." The Irishman took the leg of the rabbit; and when he ate it he was in great surprise; for he saw all his own country beyant in Ireland; it was as plain to him as if he was walking round every place he saw. He saw the rocks of Aghnahoo and all the pots and crocks of gold hid down at the butt of every bush that was in it.

"Are you well paid?" says the Dane.

"I am," says he, "and overpaid, and I am thankful to you, for I'll never be a poor man when I go home."

"Now," says the Dane, "take a sup of the soup and you'll see more."

The Irishman was so greedy to see more, he drank the spoonful of soup, and every hate ever he saw vanished from his eyes; and he never saw either money or bushes, and he could never find where the gold was hid.

The people still believe that if they can get a white rabbit, and kill and eat it, they will be able to see where the gold lies hid.

, Driney.

There is one side of the fairy character on which all the peasants are agreed; and that is their hatred of dirt and untidiness. Fairies have a particular aversion to the water in which feet are washed. This should therefore be carefully run out of the tub, and on no account thrown out of the door, for fear it might fall on any of them coming in. No dirty water may be thrown out after sundown; but if it is thrown cut it is necessary to call: "Huga leat, huga leat, uisge salach!" Similarly it is forbidden to throw ash out after dark.