School: Ballinalee (roll number 1174)
- Location:
- Ballinalee, Co. Longford
- Teacher: Ss. Ó Mainchín
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0766, Page 236
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- (continued from previous page)and they heard also the sound of horses hooves. By degrees the sound faded away through a valley called the Hollow of Molly. This happened in the townland of Aughakilmor where Pat Murtaghs people and himself dwelt at one time. Both are townlands in Columcille parish.
To the same child her father Pat Murtach told a story also told him by his mother.
There was a woman living beside a fort in Banlahy (Parish of Granard). Fairies were often seen in this fort and one day the woman went to the well for water leaving an infant in a cradle asleep by the fire. When she returned the child was crying very loudly and would not be pacified. The child cried non stop for three days. Then the woman guessed that the fairies had exchanged her child so she sent for the priest who came and read for some time over the child. He told the woman she would have her child back in the morning and she had.
(I heard a variation of this story often in the townland of Fearnacarriga Parish of Ballyinacourty Barony of Corkaguiney Kerry, near the village of Annascaul my native place. When the child kept on crying an old woman advised the mother to get a shovel, heat it red hot and when hot hold it close to the crying child's face. She did so and immediately the child who was old and withered looking ceased to cry and the real child was in the cradle laughing)
Jas Mannix
- Collector
- James Mannix
- Gender
- Male
