Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/266

 258 Any stranger coming into the house while churning is going on should say, "Bless the work!" and take a few turns at the dash. If the butter will not come you should put a hot ploughshare or a hot tongs or a coal of fire under the churn. There seems sense in this, as the heat will help to make the butter come. Some people are able to take away your butter by churning water while you are churning your milk; also by carrying away fire out of the house or by certain charms. Difi*erent people are said to have charms for taking it away; but no one allows they know what they are; that they have charms is proved by their always having more butter than their neighbours, although they have fewer cows.

When going out of a morning, if a hare is coming to meet you, turn back at once, as you will fail in what you were going to do. If he crosses your path from the right, you will have luck; if from the left, you will be neither lucky nor unlucky. If a hare scares an enceinte woman the child will have a hare-lip. Hares are often witches, and milk the cows and such like. A hare that is always about a house is sure to be a witch, and ought to be destroyed if possible. A dog cannot catch a witch hare, which is often a white one.

It is unlucky to kill a magpie or rob its nest: because if either are done they will kill all your chickens and geese. Magpies are useful in a wild country, as they give you warning when the fox is afoot after the lambs, kids, or fowl. I have seen people abused, and even pelted, for shooting a magpie at a village. The cuckoo is also a sacred bird, it is very unlucky to shoot one.

"Ireland was thrice beneath the ploughshare; thrice it was wood, and thrice it was bare" (O'Flaherty, Yar Connaught). Evidently it was twice under wood, as we have records in the bog of two distinct forests; while in history we read of later woods that were cut down after the time of James I. by the English adventurers.