Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/204

 178 their neighbours' milk. I have obtained the following additional notes under this head from John Ford of Kilclare townland, Kiltubbrid parish:—

One day a woman came to a house where churning was going on, and asked for a drink of water. It was given her; and as she was leaving she took a handful of salt from a plate on the table, where it stood ready to salt the butter, and went away on her knees from the door, dropping a pinch of salt in each cow-track, and uttering a cry as she went. The people of the house lost their butter during that year. To get it back they asked a man of the place who had a charm, to come. He put a wooden trencher on a stone in the dairy, and began to churn. No butter came. He did this three times, and on the third time none came, but when he entered the dairy, there were three small rolls (jf butter about one inch long on the trencher. These he put in the churn, and went on churning; and from that out the butter was returned to the house.

It is usual to refuse a light, even for a pipe, or even to give away anything out of a house, where churning is going on.

Should a man wish to take away butter from a neighbour, let him borrow his churn on May Day, throw a silver piece into the bottom of the churn, and churn. Then, on returning the churn, its owner will get no butter from it that year; but his butter will go to him who borrowed the churn.

St. Martins Day, 11th November.

It is an almost universal custom in the district on St. Martin's Day to kill some animal in his honour.

The actual practice varies slightly. In one case, a hen is killed, and the blood allowed to drip in the four corners of the kitchen. In another, it is sprinkled round the room, while out Drumkeeran-way the blood is simply spilt