School: Tulach an Iarainn (roll number 1289)

Location:
Tallow, Co. Waterford
Teacher:
Eibhlín Ní Dhubhshláinge
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0638, Page 294

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0638, Page 294

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  1. XML School: Tulach an Iarainn
  2. XML Page 294
  3. XML “An Old Story”

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  1. An old witch who lived in Tallow about 400 years ago told the people why she was so bent and grey.
    One morning she got a letter telling her that her friend was dead and she would have to go to the funeral. She went, and going into the house found hat the corpse was in the coffin.
    Shortly after four men came in to the lift the bier, but were unable to do so. Then four others came in and they also failed to lift the bier. The witch then asked what the man worked at while living. She was told that it was at herding. She told four herds to lift the coffin. They lifted it as one would lift chaff and went out of the house. They went so quickly and so far that only the witch was able to keep up to them.
    On that night the ground opened and she found herself, in an old room under the earth
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Language
    English