School: Tobar Pheadair (roll number 4789)

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   “One evening a man was coming home from a fair in Loughrea.”

   

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   William Burke, Skehana, Peterswell, Loughrea.
   One evening a man was coming home from a fair in Loughrea. As he was walking along the road he saw a loaf of bread and he picked it up. He picked it up and put it under his arm and he walked home. When he had about three miles travelled he felt the loaf slipping from his arm so he put back his hand to lift it up. He caught a head of a person instead of a loaf and the head said "Leave me where you got me". The man had to walk back again and leave the loaf where he got it. When he left it on the road it turned back into a loaf again. It was not long until another man came and he picked up the loaf. He brought it home and ate it and that day twelve months he died.

   One night a man was coming home from a wake. When he came to a cross-roads he saw a little white woman standing on the road-side. He left his hand on her shoulder and she disappeared from his sight. When he went home he got a pain in his head. He was that way for a month and at last some one told him to go to "Biddy Early". The day after he went to Biddy's house. He told her his story and she told him he had luck not to do any harm to the woman. She gave him a bottle and she told him to drink its contents when he went home. If he let the bottle fall it would be no good to him. He started on his journey home and when he was about a quarter of a mile from his house the bottle fell.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. supernatural and legendary beings (~14,864)
         1. soothsayers (~116)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   William Burke

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Skehanagh, Co. Galway