School: Tobar Pádraig (roll number 4764)

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1. A Story Told by Jeremiah Hayes, Patrickswell

   

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   (This story is true.)

   This story is given in "Jerry's" own words:-

   My Father had a sister married back behind Ashford, and he often went to visit her. This day he went to see her, and 'twas very dark before he got to Ashford. Twas getting late, and the night was dark so he said to himself that he would try and get a lodging in some house for the night. He didn't see any house, so he walked on until he met a man walking against him. He asked the man if there was any house near him where he could get lodgings. The man pointed to a light a good bit away and he told my father he could get lodgings there.

   My father walked on until he came to the house. He knocked and a woman let him in. He wasn't long inside until he saw, in through the door of the room, a dead man on a bed and four candles lighting around him. My father was afraid after this and he thought it very quare that the man should be dead and no one there only the woman.

   After a while, at any rate, the woman asked him to go to the well for a bucket of water, but my father wouldn't go. He told her he didn't know where the well was and maybe this the way that he would be drowned if he went for it.

   After a while, another man came in, and he went for the water and they made tay and drank whisky and said the rosary for the dead man. My father went into the room where the corpse was then, and the woman of the house and the other man stayed outside and they talking to one another as hard as

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Folktales index

   AT1350: The Loving Wife

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Jeremiah Hayes

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Patrickswell, Co. Limerick