In a letter[20] written in the year 1640, the Earl assumes a different appearance. We learn from it that as a countryman was on his way to the ancient and celebrated fair of Knockaney, situated a few miles from Lough Gur, he met "a gentleman standing in the waye, demanding if he would sell his horse. He answered, yea, for £5. The gentleman would give him but £4, 10_s._, saying he would not get so much at the ffaire. The fellow went to the ffaire, could not get so much money, and found the gentleman on his return in the same place, who proffered the same money. The fellow accepting of it, the other bid him come in and receive his money. He carried him into a fine spacious castle, payed him his money every penny, and showed him the fairest black horse that ever was seene, and told him that that horse was the Earl of Desmond, and that he had three shoes alreadye, when he hath the fourthe shoe, which should be very shortlie, then should the Earl be as he was before, thus guarded with many armed men conveying him out of the gates. The fellow came home, but never was any castle in that place either before or since." The local variant of the legend states that the seller of the horse was a Clare man, and that he went home after having been paid in gold the full amount of a satisfactory bargain, but on the following morning found to his great mortification, that instead of the gold coins he had only a pocketful of ivy leaves. Readers of Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame_ will recall the incident of the _écu_ that (apparently) was transformed by magic into a withered leaf. Similar tales of horse-dealing with mysterious strangers are told in Scotland in connection with the celebrated Thomas the Rhymer, of Erceldoune. CHAPTER IV A.D. 1606-1656 A CLERICAL WIZARD--WITCHCRAFT CURED BY A RELIC--RAISING THE DEVIL IN IRELAND--HOW HE WAS CHEATED BY A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY--STEWART AND THE FAIRIES--REV. ROBERT BLAIR AND THE MAN POSSESSED WITH A DEVIL--STRANGE OCCURRENCES NEAR LIMERICK--APPARITIONS OF MURDERED PEOPLE AT PORTADOWN--CHARMED LIVES--VISIONS AND PORTENTS--PETITION OF A BEWITCHED ANTRIM MAN IN ENGLAND--ARCHBISHOP USHER'S PROPHECIES--MR. BROWNE AND THE LOCKED CHEST