School: Cluain Meacan (roll number 11451)

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   “Long ago there was a great lot of witchcraft in the people.”

   

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   Long ago there was a great lot of witchcraft in the people. Two neighbours lived near each other and were great friends as they thought. But the woman of one house had a great lot of witchcraft on her. The farmer of the other house had a number of cows on his farm and the woman of the poor house had only a few cows. They came in a conversation one day about the cows and their butter. The woman had twice as much butter out of a few cows as the farmer had out of all of his cows. The farmer told a neighbour of his about the amount of butter the woman had with a few cows. Then his neighbour told him to have an eye on that woman because she was full of witchcraft. Every morning when the farmer used bring in his cows they used not have half their milk. This morning the farmer got out of bed very early and went to the field where the cows were, to drive them in to milk them when a big black hare ran across the field after having a cow or two milked. He took no notice of it this morning but the same thing happened morning after morning. This day he was talking to a man about the hare that was milking his cow. The man said to him to get a red horse shoe and to throw it at the hare the next time that he would come. Next morning the farmer got up at four o'clock and made first to the field where the cows were kept to see if the hare was there. Then when he saw the hare he went home and put the horse shoe on the fire

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Thomas Halpin

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   38

   Address

   Dromin, Co. Kerry