Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/339

Rh burnt off the clearing, then when the paddy had been planted, and then when it should have been cut. When the paddy had been cut she asked to be allowed to go out, but was told to wait until the grain had been trodden out. This last disappointment was too much, and after her parents had left the house she took off her earrings and bracelets and put them down behind the door, and, having put her little sister in her swinging cot, she took the shape of a dove and flew to the clearing. She retained her necklace, and this accounts for the speckled ring which is on the neck of the te-kukur to this day. She found her parents busy plucking their paddy, and, alighting on a stump close by, she cooed to her mother. "Mother, mother, I have put the earrings and bracelets behind the door, and have left my sister asleep in the swing." This she repeated three times. The amazed mother running home found her daughter gone. Then she returned and with her husband made ineffectual attempts to catch the dove. In vain did they cut down the trees on which it successively alighted. It always flew away after repeating the same words, and does so to this day.

IRISH FOLK-LORE.

(Continued from ante, . ii. p. 213.)

Parish of Culdaff (Donegal).

An infant at its birth is generally forced by the midwife to swallow spirits, and is immediately afterwards suspended by the upper jaw with her forefinger: this last operation is performed for the purpose of preventing a disease called the head-fall.—(Vol. ii. p. 157.)