School: Cúl an Dasain (Cooladawson) (roll number 1620)
- Location:
- Cooladawson, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: Pádraig Mag Uidhir
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1100, Page 21
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“In almost every townland a fairy rendez-vous, a fairy hill or a fairy fort is pointed out.”
In almost every townland a fairy rendez vous, a fairy dell or a fairy fort is pointed out, and the old people held these places in a sort of reverence or awe, or in some instances dread. They believed in "fairy shooting" which is a light stomach founder in cattle often produced by permitting the cows to graze on luscious pastures, and fill themselves to repletion. This would be likely to occur in an early summer eve and the farmer's wife would notice that the beast was out of sorts; she had not been chewing the cud, and there was a decrease in the quality of milk, and perhaps it was unusually frothy, and she had a slight moan, and her horns and ears were cold.
The famer would be apprised of the fact, and the wise man of the neighbourhood would be sent for.
The writer remembers one case where this man came to see a beast affected as described above. He was very solemn and appeared to be communing with beings of an invisible world. He straightened out the cow's tail, and "he measured in cubits", units from the tip of his elbow to the tip of his middle finger, an almost straight line from the end of the cow's tail to the extreme tip of the nose then back in a reverse direction, and if there would happen to be the slightest discrepancy between the two measures, you would hear something like "God save us Micky the cow's shot". Then the strangest cure was prepared:- nine iron articles that had(continues on next page)