School: Killyfargy

On this page

1. Old Folk-Tales (continued)

   

   Share Share Post

   (continued from previous page)

   remembered that they had forgotten a very particular book. They told the next men and so on until the last man heard it and they were able to to get the book and take it away with them.

   (III)

   Coming on to Christmas the town (Clones) was in poverty. There was one man named Manus Mac Neill who lived beside the rath in a small thatched mud-wall cabin. He had a lovely little wife three daughters and six sons. On Christmas Eve he had not a morsel in the house. He went to the rath and threw himself down on his mouth and nose and he lay there in a bad state. When he was a wee while there, a wee man with a hand-mill came up to him and said to him "Go home, spread sheets on the floor, turn the hand-mill and it will give you lots of 'mail'; but you are to tell no one how you got this mill." Home Manus goes, spreads the sheets on the floor and sets the wee mill in the centre and turns away at the handle until he had all the bags in the house filled. His wife, however, was not content because she did not know where the mill came from. "You do not love me as much as you did" she said. One fine day the next Summer she dressed up in a 'shoot' of her best, put on her blue cloak and said that she was leaving. He let her out so far as the door but when he saw her auburn hair waving and her blue eyes it melted his heart and he told her where he had got it but after that the mill would work no more.
   By this time, nearly all the 'mail' had run out and so he got a spade and started digging up the rath. He was not long digging until he came at a bump of 'gould'. He fetched it away to a blacksmith to see what it was and he was stold that it was pure 'gould'. The blacksmith

   (continues on next page)

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. supernatural and legendary beings (~14,864)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Michael Moore

   Gender

   Male

   Informant

   John Mac Donald

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   c. 74

   Occupation

   Farmer

   Address

   Tullaghaloyst, Co. Monaghan