He has seen two women who were 'away' with them, one a young married
woman, the other a girl. The woman was standing by a wall, at a spot
he described to me with great care, looking out towards the north
Another night he heard a voice crying out in Irish, 'mhathair ta me
marbh' ('O mother, I'm killed'), and in the morning there was blood
on the wall of his house, and a child in a house not far off was
dead.
Yesterday he took me aside, and said he would tell me a secret he
had never yet told to any person in the world.
'Take a sharp needle,' he said, 'and stick it in under the collar of
your coat, and not one of them will be able to have power on you.'
Iron is a common talisman with barbarians, but in this case the idea
of exquisite sharpness was probably present also, and, perhaps, some
feeling for the sanctity of the instrument of toil, a folk-belief
that is common in Brittany.
The fairies are more numerous in Mayo than in any other county,
though they are fond of certain districts in Galway, where the
following story is said to have taken place.
