Our next witness, who lives about three miles from our last witness, is
Hugh Currid, the oldest man in Grange; and so old is he that now he does
little more than sit in the chimney-corner smoking, and, as he looks at
the red glow of the peat, dreaming of the olden times. Hugh knows
English very imperfectly, and so what he narrated was in the ancient
Gaelic which his fathers spoke. When Father Hines took me to Hugh's
cottage, Hugh was in his usual silent pose before the fire. At first he
rather resented having his thoughts disturbed, but in a few minutes he
was as talkative as could be, for there is nothing like the mention of
Ireland to get him started. The Father left us then; and with the help
of Hugh's sister as an interpreter I took down what he said:--
_The Flax-Seller's Return from Faerie._--'An old woman near Lough More,
where Father Patrick was drowned,[17] who used to make her living by
selling flax at the market, was _taken_ by the _gentry_, and often came
back afterwards to her three children to comb their hair. One time she
told a neighbour that the money she saved from her dealings in flax
would be found near a big rock on the lake-shore, which she indicated,
and that she wanted the three children to have it.'
_A Wife Recovered from the 'Gentry'._--'A man's young wife died in
confinement while he was absent on some business at Ballingshaun, and
one of the _gentry_ came to him and said she had been _taken._ The
husband hurried home, and that night he sat with the body of his wife
all alone. He left the door open a little, and it wasn't long before his
wife's spirit came in and went to the cradle where her child was
sleeping. As she did so, the husband threw at her a charm of hen's dung
which he had ready, and this held her until he could call the
neighbours. And while they were coming, she went back into her body, and
lived a long time afterwards. The body was stiff and cold when the
husband arrived home, though it hadn't been washed or dressed.'
A TAILOR'S TESTIMONY
Our next witness is Patrick Waters, by trade a tailor, living in
Cloontipruckilish, a cross-road hamlet less than two miles from Hugh
Currid's home. His first story is a parallel to one told about the
minister of Aberfoyle who was _taken_ by the 'good people' (pp. 89
ff.):--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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