School: Creenkill, Johnstown (roll number 2137)
- Location:
- Creenkill More, Co. Kilkenny
- Teacher: Nóra Ní Chathail
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0868, Page 174
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Creenkill, Johnstown
- XML Page 174
- XML “Old Story”
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
- There was a man long ago and he was very fond of nuts. He told his wife when he was dying to bury a big bag of nuts in his coffin. She did as he had ordered.
Two thieves were listening to their conversation, and some nights after, they went to the grave to get the bag. They got it and one of them sat on the tomb breaking some of them, while the companion set off to steal a sheep.
As he sat there, a man passing by saw him in the moonlight, and heard him breaking the nuts. He ran home to tell the news.
There was an old woman in the house who had lost the use of her footing and she asked her son to take her to the graveyard to see him. He put her on his back and went to the gate. When the fellow on the tomb saw them, he thought it was his friend with the sheep.
"Is she fat"? he cried. The fellow got such a shock, when he heard the ghost, as he thought, talking. He threw down the old hag and cried "fat or lean, here she is for you." He ran home, as fast as he could. The old hag with the height of terror got on her feet, and was home as soon, as he was.
When it is hard on a woman, she gets the use of her feet, and has to run.
- Collector
- Margaret Ryan
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 15
- Address
- Coolnacrutta, Co. Kilkenny
- Informant
- Dan Phelan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 60
- Address
- Oldtown, Co. Kilkenny
