School: Clochar na Toirbhirte, Caisleán an Chomair (roll number 10835)
- Location:
- Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
- Teacher: Na Mná Rialta
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0865, Page 028
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
- Once upon a time there lived a man in Ardra a mile from Castlecomer. He worked at a big house in Coolbawn about a mile and a half from Castlecomer where he had to start work at seven o'clock in the morning. He was a great big strong man but he was a firm believer in fairies and witches. He believed that on summer nights he could hear fairy music down about the Castle of Ardra, and often spent a good deal of his spare time trying to catch the Leipreacan in order to find his crock of gold. One morning as John was going to his work and was passing by a farmyard which was on the way. A guinea hen walked out through a gateway. Now John never had seen fowl of that sort before. He stopped and looked in wonder. At this same moment the guinea hen gave a cackle which sounds like "go back! go back! go back!" John became very frightened and said, "Begor, I will man," and rushed home and told his wife that he had met a witch at Coolbawn who told him to go back and that now he would be in a bad fix as he was afraid to go that way any more he would(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Kathleen Brennan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
- Informant
- Kieran Brennan
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Ardra, Co. Kilkenny
