School: Béal Átha Conaill (2)

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1. Churning (continued)

   

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   Co. Fermanagh got up at 4 oclock in the morning to go to Enniskillen to sell his butter. It was in the month of May. He had not gone very far when he saw a hare in a field of cows. The hare was "saying the whole to me" "the whole to me". The man said in fun, "the half to me" and the next time he churned he had three times as much butter as he had any time previously.
   Long ago, when anybody wanted to take the butter off anyone else's milk, on the 1st May, he got up early and went to the field where the cows were, and cut off a piece of hair from each cow's tail and brought it home and made a rope of it and hung it in the corner.
   When a man in the district churned his milk he had no butter off it, so he went to a man who had a cure for it. He asked him if he accused anyone of taking it, and he said he accused a neighbouring woman. The man who had the cure told the other man he would have to go to that woman's house and take a piece off her clothes and burn it before his cows in the byre. One night this man went to the woman's house and he brought a pair of scissors in his pocket. There was no

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. agriculture (~2,659)
            1. butter and churns (~3,280)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Mrs Mc Mullen

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Mucklagh, Co. Cavan