School: Cloonmorris (roll number 12496)

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1. Churning (continued)

   

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   was mostly due to dirty vessels and habits. The people who lived then had not many vessels for holding milk. Those which they had were made from wood and were difficult to keep clean. Very often those were allowed to become dirty, so that a germ got into the wood. This germ cause the milk to turn into froth when it was churned.

   Long ago, some people could turn themselves into witches and take the butter when a person was churning. Women turned themselves into white hares and milked cows so that they would have milk and butter for themselves. The people who owned the cows often pursued the hares with hounds. Sometimes the hare got wounded and they would be able to trace it to where it lived. It generally went into a little hut and when they went in after it they found an old witch lying in bed wounded.

   Some time, ago butter used to be packed in firkins very tightly and smoothed and covered with a piece of muslin and an air-tight lid put on it. There were butter-buyers who used to come to market or town and buy the butter. They had a "pierce" with which they tested the butter. This was an iron bar with a space

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. agriculture (~2,659)
            1. butter and churns (~3,280)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Teresa Beirne

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Edercloon, Co. Longford

   Informant

   Mrs Coote Geelan

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   60

   Occupation

   Farmer's wife

   Address

   Cloonageeher, Co. Longford