Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/269

 Rh put it carefully in a hole in the field wall, or ditch, or in a tree, where it will not bo easily found, otherwise something will happen to you. Aranmore is a great place for soigheds, and they are greatly venerated, although many of them apparently are of recent make. Seals, when they were plentiful along the west coast, were an article of food, as we learn from the Book of Lismore, and other authorities. The Aranites and inhabitants of some of the other Galway islands wear pampooters, which are slippers, now made of the raw hides of the ass, calf, and cow, but formerly of the seal skin; and the celts made on Aran, of a black silicious shale, were used for skinning them — even at the present day I have seen them used while skinning a calf. The Aranites very often carry a soighed with them when they are going to a patron on the mainland, and leave it behind them at the holy well as a votive offering. Pampootie, as a name for the slipper, is said to have been introduced some two or more hundred years ago by an East Indian ship-captain, who settled on the island—the old Irish name is brog-lē-har—Anglice, coarse shoe of fresh or untanned leather.

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In Errisflanning are the ruins of St. Flanning church and a graveyard—"This church admits of no burial within its walls"; that is, if any one is interred therein his body is found above ground next morning. This is also a common belief elsewhere. In the graveyard of Ballytober abbey, co. Mayo, there is a space no one would bury in, as "their body would be cast up."

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The lizard is a vicious animal, always trying to get down people's throats; it will even try to steal into houses where children are that it may get down their throats. A cricket ought not to be disturbed or killed. If either is done, its fellows will come and eat the clothes, especially of the person who injured the cricket.

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On the south side of Gorumna Lough, Connemara, there is a large moat or barrow, said to be inhabited by the "good people." In the