Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/283

 Rh they are firmly believed in, they show what a hold superstition still has on the popular mind; and, although modernised, have the general character of similar Irish superstition, especially the second in which hobgoblins guard hidden treasure and try to frighten the seekers away; cats and bulls are favourite guardians of such treasures. I have not, however, previously heard of a choice being given between midnight and high noon.

At Gartan Lake, co. Donegal, St, Columbkills of Donegal is said to have been born A.D. 521. His birthplace, as pointed out, is a rude beehive cell (claghaun), while in its vicinity are the ruins of a small church and abbey said to have been subsequently built by him.

Formerly, in the vicinity of these ecclesiastical structures, there was found a clay that had the virtue of bestowing on any one who carried a portion of it on their persons indemnification against drowning; or if it was in a house, that house could not be burned; also having other virtues of a similar sort. But these virtues belonged to the clay solely on the condition that it was dug up by a member of a family of the name of Freel. A good many years ago a stranger conceived the idea that he had as good a right to the clay as any Freel, and he went to dig for it, but could find none, nor could any Freel afterwards find it near the abbey. After a time, however, a Freel learned in a dream that it would show itself, and so it did, as a snake was seen in a valley about a mile to the northeast, which came up from the clay. Now all the Freels except one family has died out or left the country; and when the tenants of Derryveih about the year 1861 were evicted and had to emigrate to Australia this Freel had to raise the clay for them to carry to a far distant land.

In the townland of Famagh between Ramelton and Fort Stewart there is a hawthorn now called "The Fairy Bush," near which is said to be buried a crock of gold willed to the family or heir of John