Volume: CBÉ 0407 (Part 1)
- Date
- 1937
- Collector
- Locations
Archival Reference
The Main Manuscript Collection, Volume 0407, Page 0062
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
Download
On this page
(no title) (continued)
“I spent most of summer holidays 1910 & 1911 in company with Willie Doyle. Fine steady young man of most exemplory who had devoted all his sprae time to the study of antiquities and folklore.”
(continued from previous page)width of the Slaney at this particular point and the nature of the sloping banks gave every indication of an ancient ford in the days of long ago when bridges were unknown. Our old informant could further tell us that armed men were smuggled across in baskets. Whether this piece of information was genuine tradition or handed down from the time of O Donovan's visit, I cannot say but perhaps O Donovan's Letters may throw some light on this very interesting point. In any case we had located Bun Eife or Aife by wh. the Leinster troops crossed and returned to, and from, the siege of Dún Bolg.
( ) Sir John Wolsey of Mt Aaran had a Scotch steward named --------. His constant imprecation was "May the devil twist me!" Willie's father being a next door neighbour was called upon to coffin the remains. . Just as they were about to lift the body from the bed some mysterious hands twisted it longitudinally - "made a corkscrew out of it". My father, who worked for the same mi-lord often told me the same story. Everyone was then convinced and their descendants still are that the devil actually came and twisted him as he had so often requested him to do. Moral: -------- ( ) Willie and Paddy Gahan (my brother in law) unearthed for me story of Father Murphy's Hand (FIRST BOOK)(continues on next page)