School: Eanach, Sráid na Cathrach (roll number 15221)

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1. The Giant and the Old Hag

   

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   I'll tell you as I heard, and I'll tell you no lie. It was about a giant that was travelling through a wood. He met a little wooden house with a gate as a door and no windows. He went in and there was a turkey boiling in a pot be-side the fire. He took up the turkey and began to eat, and as he was eating, a very feeble, old woman came outside the gate and asked him to let her in, and he said "Let all that is outside stay outside." "For God's sake" said she "let me in." When you ask me like that I'll let you in" and he let her in and she sat near the fire and she asked him for a bit of the turkey and he threw her a piece. She asked him for another piece and she was twice as big, and he got up and began to fight her before she would get any bigger. They fought around the house and she had a stone of steel on each finger and in a very short time she had the skin and flesh torn off his bones. He threw himself on the floor and managed to get out.
   It was dark and he was running around the trees and the old hag after him untill the break of day. He managed to go into a hole in the trunk of a tree and the old hag passed him out and he jumped out after her and caught her by the hair of the head

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Micheál Ó Loinghsigh

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   14

   Occupation

   Mac feirmeora

   Address

   Knockanalban, Co. Clare

   Informant

   Tadhg Mac Mathghamhna

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   76