School: Crummy (roll number 12691)
- Location:
- Crummy, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Pádhraic Ó Rodacháin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0211, Page 317
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- It was a common belief in the district that the fairies took children, mothers and other people away, and left some old aingireór in their place. Many tales were told of this theme, and of the various cures applied also of attempts to take them back. After they taste of the 'fairies' food, they cannot come back. The 'being' left is often a 'scald' to the people of the house and was usually done away with by some means or other usually by burning.A certain man known as a "blastman" was supposed to take back people or to drive away this "aingireór". To sprinkle the blood of a black hen on the person being taken would cure them. Instances are given where the blastmen told the person who went to him that the above cure had been made and the person was well again. There were often abuses and we hear where a poor innocent person was burned as something left by the fairies.
