School: Kilduff
- Location:
- Kilduff Upper, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: S. Ó Floinn
![The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0962, Page 049](https://doras.gaois.ie/cbes/CBES_0962%2FCBES_0962_049.jpg?width=1600&quality=85)
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0962, Page 049
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Kilduff
- XML Page 049
- XML “Butter”
- XML “Butter”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- One day a woman named Mrs Blest, who lived in Aughrim, was churning in a little barn beside her house. A neighbour Mrs Judge came in for the loan of salt. "Now" she said to Mrs Blest, "I will churn while you go for the salt"
Mrs Blest got the salt and gave it to Mrs Judge, who then went home. The woman continued to churn but as no butter came on the milk she stopped churning and poured the milk into crocks from the churn. On the bottom of the churn she found a dead hen, which she believed to be a witch.
The next time she churned she had no butter either, and she resolved to go to the priest and tell him all about it. The priest got a basin of water and after he read over it, for some time, he said to the woman. "Would you like to see who has your butter"? Mrs Blest said she would. She looked into the basin and saw Mrs Judge looking up at her.
The old people say that to get back the butter they had to go to a place where three townlands met and churn the three mearing water. The butter was supposed to come back little by little - Once upon a time there lived a man in Slievenakilla who got no butter off his milk for nine years. At last he heard of a man who had that cure, and very soon(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Francis O. Mc Partland
- Gender
- Male
- Informant
- Tom Dempsey
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Annagh Upper, Co. Leitrim