School: Gortnacart (roll number 15554)

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1. The Woman and the Fairy

   

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   There was a woman living in the townland of Carrickacleave long ago and one day as she was sitting by the fire knitting an old woman came in to her and asked her for some meal. She gave it to her and the woman went away.
   About a week or so after that the woman with some others went out to Glendowan to a christening. As they were going out they all went astray and they were no sooner out of one hole than they were into another. At last they reached the house and the woman found to her great surprise that her clothes and shoes were as clean as when she left home while the others were all covered with dirt.
   A few days after that the woman was alone in the house again and the old woman to whom she had given the meal to came in. When she was a little while sitting she took a bag with some meal in it out from under her shawl and gave it to the woman. When she gave her the meal she said here is your meal back and now put it some place let no one but yourself go near it and never take the whole of it away and while you have it in the house you will never want meal. Then she told her that she was a neighbour of hers and she asked her if she remembered the night that she was going to the christening that only she was a good help to her that night she would have been dirty like the other women.
   Then the old woman went out and the other

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Mary Breslin

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   75

   Occupation

   Farmer

   Address

   Monargan Glebe, Co. Donegal