School: Clareen, Birr
- Location:
- Clareen, Co. Offaly
- Teacher: S. Ó Néill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0821, Page 317
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- The night the Tailor Shellew slept out.The tailor used to work in the houses of his customers.Once he was making a suit of clothes for Bill Ardill. He finished the suit one night and as he had a great dread of the fairies he was afraid to go home alone. Bill then offered to let the tailor sleep with him. He then showed him where to sleep and said he would be up by and by. He went downstairs himself saying he would get some fun out of the tailor's 'pisreógs'. He then got a ball of twine and unwound it and then tied one end of the twine to the wing of a goose. Then he went upstairs to bed, leaving the wing on the floor. He made the tailor sleep inside and remained outside himself with the other end of the twine in his hand. After a few minutes he began to snore and at the same time gave the twine a little pull that brought the wing up one step. The poor tailor was terrified and tried to waken Bill, but Bill snored on and gave the twine another chuck bringing the wing on to another step. The tailor was frantic with fright. He called again and Bill told him to go asleep. "I can hear nothing", said Bill giving the twine another(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Pat Guinan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- c. 47
- Address
- Grange, Co. Offaly
