School: Cúl an Dasain (Cooladawson) (roll number 1620)
- Location:
- Cooladawson, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: Pádraig Mag Uidhir
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1100, Page 29
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“One Halloweve night after partaking of a festive supper and spending a pleasant hour conversing ...”
(continued from previous page)The prieset jocularly rejoined "Half to me" whereupon the old woman eyeing him with no friendly gaze hurried away and he passed smiling on to home. The priest's mother lived with him and kept house for him and was assisted by a serving maid for the priest owned a small farm. This particular morning the good man feeling both tired and sleepy retired to bed and the work of the little farm soon commenced. The priest's mother and the maid began to churn but soon they felt that something unusual had occurred to the churn of milk. So thick and abundant was the butter fat on it that they could but with difficulty pull the churn dash through it, and they were so mystified and alarmed that the mother knocked at the priest's bedroom door and informed him of the strange occurrence. He thought over the matter for a few moments and then the old hag's magic and his own jocular participation in the weird chant came to his mind and he told his mother to have the milk all poured on the manure heap.
The same story was told me by a little Presbyterian girl but with other variations: The child's grandfather had a servant girl who practised witchcraft. One May morning she went out crawling on hands and knees over the grass chanting "Come a' to me!" When the grandfather tried to churn his next churning of milk he could produce no butter so he took about half a pint of milk to a Catholic priest telling him of the incident. The priest enquired of him for the name of the girl and when the man went home he poured the contents of the bottle into his crock of milk. And he never had any trouble afterwards.
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- Gender
- Female