But there is an exception. In several districts in Ireland, in Connaught especially, an idea is very prevalent that it is in the power of evil-disposed persons to deprive their neighbours of their milk or butter. This is said to be done in various ways, the most usual being the use of a corpse hand, which is kept shrivelled and dried to stir the milk and gather the butter. Another plan is to follow the cows on a May morning, and gather the soil which drops from between their cloots. Another, by collecting the froth which forms on a stream running through their pasture, and milking your own cow on it. Indeed, the means used are represented to be so simple, that the very absurdity of the matter is its own refutation. Yet it is believed in, and that firmly; and in order to prove that such is the case, and also expose the trickery and legerdemain by which some knaves succeed in throwing dust in the eyes of the natives, I will relate an occurrence in which I was concerned; and to open the matter fully in all its ramifications, windings, and train of circumstantials, I trust I will be pardoned if I enter into a rather minute detail, the rather as I confess I was for a short time myself almost inclined to credit its existence--in short, believed myself the dupe of a fairy man. Some time since I resided in the neighbourhood of the “plains of Boyle,” a celebrated pasture country, and was the possessor of a cow whose milk and butter were plentiful in quantity and excellent in quality, and materially contributed to the comforts of my family. She was a beautiful and a gentle creature; and I flattered myself that in her I possessed the foundress of a numerous herd, and the germ of a profitable and extensive dairy. As before observed, the idea was very prevalent there that it was in the power of evil-disposed persons to deprive you of your milk and butter, and I heard many complaints of the kind; the general voice fastened the imputation on a woman who lived in the vicinity, who was locally termed “the Hawk,” and certainly the fire of her eye and the sharpness of her beak justified the appellation: she was a comely middle-aged person, in rather easy circumstances, her husband being a small farmer; but he lay under the suspicion of being concerned in a murder some time before. She was a reputed witch, and the entire family were disliked and avoided.