School: Brúgh Ríogh (B.) (roll number 8572)
- Location:
- Bruree, Co. Limerick
- Teacher: Donncha Ó Haragáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0498, Page 227
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: Brúgh Ríogh (B.)
- XML Page 227
- XML “The Butter Stealer”
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
- Long ago the people were being frightened by a ghost called "Maureen Vawn form the Devils' Tree". She was supposed to be seen scattering fire from her and was said to be dressed in white. She stole all the butter she could get and the people were afraid to stop her. One night a farmer and his wife were wakened up at midnight by a noise in the dairy. The wife asked her husband to go out and see what was making the noise, but he was afraid. She got up herself and stole out to the dairy as quickly as possible and peeped in. She saw Maureen Vawn inside with a sheet covering her and another one spread out on the ground. She was carving the butter out of the firkins and putting it into the sheet on the ground. Every now and then she shook a canteen of red turf inside the sheet and it looked as if he were on fire. The farmers wife did nothing but banged the door and locked(continues on next page)
- Informant
- P. Walsh
- Gender
- Unknown
- Address
- Tankardstown, Co. Limerick
