School: Rathvilly (C.)

Location:
Rathvilly, Co. Carlow
Teacher:
Mrs Treacy
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0910, Page 012

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0910, Page 012

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  1. XML School: Rathvilly (C.)
  2. XML Page 012
  3. XML “A Visitor to the Local Blacksmith”

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  1. About 60 years ago, a blacksmith (Doyle by name) and his family were in bed, when a knock came to the door. The blacksmith got up and opened the door, and he saw a man with a horse standing at the door. The man asked him to shoe his horse. It was about 2 o'clock at night or early morning but very dark. The blacksmith agreed to do it, so when he was going out to the forge he saw the horse had five feet so he got very shaky and nervous. However, he told the man he had no nails but that he would go down to the village (Rathvilly) and get the nails.
    The blacksmith came to the village and went to the Priest's house, and told the Priest, so the Priest told him to go back and shoe four feet, and not to touch the fifth, and to take no money. The blacksmith did as the Priest told him and he would take no money, neither would he shoe the fifth foot so the visitor said, you have been well advised and bad luck to you there.
    This man who had the horse was no other than the devil.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. economic activities
        1. trades and crafts (~4,680)
          1. smithing (~2,389)
    2. agents (~1)
      1. supernatural and legendary beings (~14,864)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Annie Tracey
    Gender
    Female
    Occupation
    Principal
    Informant
    Mrs Morgan
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Rathvilly, Co. Carlow