When I wanted to turn back we saw a great flock of birds on
the water and they all black, without a white bird through them.
They had no fear of us at all, and the men with me wanted to go up
to them, so we went further. When we were quite close they got up,
so many that they blackened the sky, and they lit down again a
hundred or maybe a hundred and twenty yards off. We went after them
again, and one of the men wanted to kill one with a thole-pin, and
the other man wanted to kill one with his rowing stick. I was afraid
they would upset the curagh, but they would go after the birds.
'When we were quite close one man threw the pin and the other man
hit at them with his rowing stick, and the two of them fell over in
the curagh, and she turned on her side and only it was quite calm
the lot of us were drowned.
'I think those black gulls and the ship were the same sort, and
after that I never went out again as a pilot. It is often curaghs go
out to ships and find there is no ship.
'A while ago a curagh went out to a ship from the big island, and
there was no ship; and all the men in the curagh were drowned. A
fine song was made about them after that, though I never heard it
myself.
'Another day a curagh was out fishing from this island, and the men
saw a hooker not far from them, and they rowed up to it to get a
light for their pipes - at that time there were no matches - and when
they up to the big boat it was gone out of its place, and they were
in great fear.'
Then he told me a story he had got from the mainland about a man who
was driving one night through the country, and met a woman who came
up to him and asked him to take her into his cart. He thought
something was not right about her, and he went on. When he had gone
a little way he looked back, and it was a pig was on the road and
not a woman at all.
He thought he was a done man, but he went on. When he was going
through a wood further on, two men came out to him, one from each
side of the road, and they took hold of the bridle of the horse and
led it on between them.
