School: Leamh-choill
- Location:
- Drumsillagh, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Cáit Ní Ghadhra
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0232, Page 127
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- 66. This locality fosters numerous superstitions, but seldom people take notice of them.
People dislike meeting a red haired woman in the morning. The old people dreaded a "red-eyed man" more though. The story is told of a man who got a week in jain as a result of a fight at a fair and the first remark he made when he came home was "How could I expect anything else, when I met old red eyed man ___ first thing on the road."
It is considered unlucky for a rat, hare or weasel to cross the road in front of a person. People prefer to hear the corncrake and cuckoo with the right ear and after breakfast for the first time every year. If they are fasting, they fear hunger or famine and if facing a graveyard, they fear death in the near future. Unmarried people are told that their future 'fates' will hail from the direction in which they are looking when they first hear these birds and that if there are hairs under their feet that the 'best beloved' will be dark, fair, grey according to the colour of the hairs discovered.
People dislike to borrow, lend or spill salt. To spill salt means a quarrel and tears. The old people insist on a visitor leaving by the same door through which he or she entered, lest he should bring out the luck. It is said that it is no lucky to throw out dirty(continues on next page)
